Videogame Violence And The Media, EVERYONE! Options

[fatseff1234]

Just trying to gather some quick thoughts from a nice broad range of people on the topic of Videogames and The Media... you know the typical Alan Titchmarsh/Addiction/Violence topics.

Essentially your thoughts on the way the media portrays videogames and the way they seem to be taking the flakk for all recent psychotic outbursts .

Just speak your mind don't worry about names or dates or anything it should all be anonymous feelings.

Anyway cheers guys.

[NiteFall]

Honestly, it's bullshit. Poor tabloid media hype trying to create a new boogeyman to scare parents so that they can pass off responsibility for teaching a moral code to their children on the grounds that "the evil games done brainwashed them!" I mean, look at the Breivik case in Norway, where the media claims that he "practiced killing police and civilians playing Call Of Duty", never mind that you can't actually do that in that game, it makes for a fantastic soundbite though, doesn't it? And look! He spent hours playing World OfWarcraft while unemployed, so clearlky he's some kind of social maladjust, incapable of interacting with people in the real world! The simple fact is that violence in society is not a new problem, by any stretch. In fact you could go so far as to say that violence is probably society's OLDEST problem. In fact, there have been studies (actual proper ones, by scientists with legitimate criteria and tests and everything) that have shown that playing violent games actually has the effect of reducing violent impulses in people, as it allows a healthier outlet than going out, getting shitfaced and smashing someone in the head with a bottle.
As for people using games as "training tools" for killing sprees and the like, that is utter, utter shit. Controlling a game with a nice comfy pad or keyboard and mouse is a world away from handling a real weapon in an effective manner. Most gamers, if forced to use a real firearm, would probably first fumble about for the safety for 5 minutes, then either accidentally shoot themselves because they underestimated the amount of force needed to pull a trigger, or let off one wild round, panic at the sound and recoil and drop the thing.
30 years ago it was "video nasties" that were going to make the youth into amoral sociopaths, 30 years before that it was Rock n' Roll. Video games are simply the latest in a long line of new forms of media and expression that have been leapt on as being inherently evil.

This post has been edited by NiteFall: May 5 2012, 05:27 PM

[Silky]

What he said.^

Also, the last panel of this comic pretty much sums up how I feel about it.




What really pisses me off about the whole thing is that often people kick up a storm about kids acting out after playing 15 and 18 rated games and no one seems to care that it's the parents that let them play something aimed at adults.
Sadly a lot of the people making these accusations don't bother to look into it and assuming that due to the name all 'games' are designed for children and they then ignore the big red circle with an 18 in it.

[logger]

Look up Marshall McLuhan.

[sweetbutinsane]

I've been wondering where I got the idea of going on a killing spree from... Damn those video games!

[fatseff1234]

All awesomeness.

Pretty much my feelings exactly, and I'm looking into that particular case for this uni module. I honestly can't belive they're attempting to blame MW3 and more W.O.W... I mean... W.O.W isn't exactly all murder! Death! Kill! is it?

Anyway cheers for the feed back, oh and also if anyone wants a good old laugh Give this a read.

If you're not laughing by the endo f the first paragraph, you are 'one of them'.

EDIT: Also, don't mention Smart Mobs to me again... ever!

This post has been edited by fatseff1234: May 6 2012, 01:28 PM

[sweetbutinsane]

Anyway cheers for the feed back, oh and also if anyone wants a good old laugh Give this a read.

If you're not laughing by the endo f the first paragraph, you are 'one of them'.

Pff, I couldn't make it to the end of the first sentence.

[melzilla]

Anyway cheers for the feed back, oh and also if anyone wants a good old laugh Give this a read.

Astounding. I love the line

He found that people who played video games regularly had less frontal lobe beta brainwave activity compared to ordinary people in an active cognitive state.

[Silky]

Well that explains it.
I'm extra ordinary.

[Serafina_Pekkala]

They use video games as part of the assessment to become a pilot in the RAF. You have to play two at the same time. So clearly not all a waste of time even though I am not into gaming at all. Mainly because I have no money to play things.

As Nitefall says, people need a bogeyman and because gaming is a relatively new medium, it has a generational divide. As Astrid's nephew said when he was about 6 - 'it is just drawings on a disk'. Which it is.

[fatseff1234]

'it is just drawings on a disk'.

Oddly beautiful...

[sweetbutinsane]

Just goes to show, you can get more common sense from a six year old than you can from most adults.

[Outatime]

As Silky mentioned one of the biggest issues to me seems to be parents refusing to take responsibility for what their child is playing. Head over to notalwaysright.com and you'll see a vast array of stories about parents demanding their eight year old is sold GTA. Games have ratings and if you're too lazy to investigate what those ratings mean then your child playing video games is probably the least of your problems. Having said that, did they change the ratings labels recently because they look less clear to me than they used to?

[Llama]

Yep, what everyone else said.

Having said that, did they change the ratings labels recently because they look less clear to me than they used to?

I don't think so, all Xbox games (at least) are labelled with the standard PEGI or BBFC classifications pretty prominently on the box art. The size of the ratings logo is even bigger on games than it is on DVDs, so there's not even that as an excuse for parents buying kids these games.

[Outatime]

Yep, what everyone else said.


I don't think so, all Xbox games (at least) are labelled with the standard PEGI or BBFC classifications pretty prominently on the box art. The size of the ratings logo is even bigger on games than it is on DVDs, so there's not even that as an excuse for parents buying kids these games.

Sorry, I didn't mean in size I meant in terms of it being obvious that it's an age rating at all. Wikipedia says they changed in 2009, it looks like they took the "+" away and added colour.