Now I know there are probably dozens of these topics among these forums, but now, the German government is on about getting rid of violent games altogether, because some disturbed person going on a killing spree Link to the article I know this sounds like more of a rant, but I fail to see how stopping game distribution will change any of this, they'll end up blaming the music, then the films, then the computer games again, and probably end up blaming "the youth of today" on Loose Women all over again, does anyone else feel the same about this? Unless of course it's just politics and they're putting on a front because there's recently been a spree of murders... but looking at the way they're (for want of a better word) persecuting german based developers like CryTek it seems like they might actually go through with a total ban... EDIT: and one thing I never thought of... Far Cry 2 is an 18+ game, wasn't the lad who murdered everyone 17?
Well, it's not the first time politicians (and more importantly, the public) oversimplified complex human behaviour. Nobody is asking the psychologists, that's for sure. It is always the new thing --the one that adults feel rather uncomfortable with, and hence is regarded by them with weary suspicion because their children seem to take to it so much more easily. In the 30's to 50's, comic strips were a bad influence. Then it was Rock & Roll music. Then it was television. Now it is video games. It is never alcohol though, and never guns. Nor religion, nor socio-economic deprivation that forces both parents to join the workforce and dump their kids in care, nor being raised (or not, as the case may be) by out-of-control parents who cannot regulate their own temper, let alone that of their kids. Neither is a capitalist culture based on competitive self-interest that leaks right back into school, or a government that glorifies violence as a way of resolving conflict with those who have different ideologies.
Of course not, something that has been established for hundreds of years could not possibly be responsible for the continuing decline in social behavior.. No.. it must be this crazy new fad . I know! If we imply that this fad is harmful to society, impose laws and restrict it's availability, then we have a quick, cheap method of avoiding the real problem.
This is getting stupid. Once again it's violent video games that cause kids to go out and commit violence, or it's the song lyrics that tell them to go commit violence. I was listening to an American comedy show on the radio the other day and I think that the comedian summed it up nicely when he said during his generation Julie Andrews sang 'Climb every mountain' and it didn't make half of his generation go climb Mt. Everest. Kids, teenagers and psychos will always exist and will always commit violence, not because of what they see or hear, but purely and simply because they like being little b"$%^%ds and they think they can get away with it.
well let's ban everything that is violent, starting with the news channels and papers, the Films, Tv shows, Games etc. It's damn right stupidty.
I strongly agree with this; why should violent games be banned when the rest of the media of entertainment, be it film, television or even books, aren't? Films are often more violent/graphic/gory/explicit and they look damn nearly real than the most realisitic video game. I know that the argument is that in films you are passive while in games you are active (i.e. controlling the character), but most games are as linear as films with the story the same every time. It seems that this seems another un-thought out, knee-jerk reaction to what, superficially, appears to be a 'bad' influence. As Nexxo said, it is much more complex than what the politicians see, with huge background influences on how people react to violent games. I am 16 and I do not have any murderous urges from playing a multitude of violent games. Anyway those are just my thoughts...
Ill freely admit that i know nothing about the processes behind human behaviour, but i think that if somebody is going to go out and murder someone because of what they've played/seen, then banning violent games isnt going to stop it, unless maybe ALL forms of violent media were banned. Im personally sick of hearing people blame games for violent behaviour, surely theres something wrong with the minds of the people that are affected in the first place?
The problem is that the people in power are so detached from the world. They have no idea what a video game is nowadays, they probably think that Pong is the ingame.
"If bullets were $5,000 a piece there wouldn't be any bystanders. Why? Because if someone had $50,000 worth of bullets in his ass, he probably pissed someone off". Yeah, bad example, but Chris Rock does bring humor into an uncontrollable spiral of 1 gun owner tarnishing the rest... At any rate, people will always blame the new thing, good or bad, oddly enough, it's perfectly fine to hate muslims, but by god, if there's one drop of blood in a video game, It's like saying "jehovah" in the fanatical group in the Life of Brian.
This relates to a newsletter I received recently from Equality Now, an organization I had always supported. In it, they announced a new legal campaign that, sadly, made me cancel my membership. In addition to their admirable quest to detain and prosecute all who abduct, enslave and force women into prostitution, EN's activities now include a massive campaign against Japanese hentai and rape fantasy games. Like Catherine MacKinnon before them, EN made real strides for human rights until they forsook the mistreatment of actual women for that of the fictional kind. I would argue that literal violence and fictional violence are two different things. Literal violence damages actual objects, creatures and persons. Fictional violence damages nothing -- it isn't even the blueprint for such acts unless explicitly stated as such (in which case, it is not fiction but a checklist). Very often, as in David Lynch films, fictional violence is a metaphor for some psychological crisis. To interpret fictional violence as the gateway drug to murder is to deny the particularity of context and, therefore, the validity of art. For parallels between reactions to fictionalized racism and that of violence, see the many attempts to ban Huckleberry Finn in American high schools.
You know what, I read a book when I was younger, a few people were talking about it liek it was the "in thing" (and i use this term loosly). In the book it had: Violence, Sex, Rape, Incest, Blood & Gore, Betrayal, Adultery, Genicide, because you dont know what the name of the book is, do you think that this should be banned? Baring in mind it is translated in over 50 different languages all over the world, and you find it in hotels all the time.........Anyone know what I'm talking about?
One good quote deserves another: This was taken from the introduction to one of J. Reid Meloy's many books on the subject, The Psychopathic Mind. In it, Meloy puts forth something far more unsettling than the usual cause-and-effect argument against violent content: The socio-cultural factors that create psychopaths have grown so common that the condition is becoming too widespread to be considered abnormal. Meloy is saying that the conditions of society and parenting cause sociopathology, not violent imagery seen in a game or on the web. The sheer amount of time a child's left alone with multimedia is what's apt to create lower levels of empathy, not the kinds of games played or images explored. This means that people who are sincerely interested in preventing violence should first ensure that parents are able to spend adequate time with their children, and that society itself becomes more linear and attentive. Quite a tall order, that -- so much so that I wonder how our self-appointed watchfolk have enough headroom to be sidetracked by video games at all. Bad news, parents: If you've failed to raise a caring child, you can no longer use lurid games as an excuse. Your mistake was in choosing to spend family time in absentia while leaving your kid to commune with the multimedia babysitter. In other words, the problem wasn't fictional violence. It was the lack of human contact.
ive played video games since i got my first console/PC the amazing Commodore 64. now ive played many violent games since this day including using a gun to shoot ducks using a bazooka to shoot aliens driving a motorbike and hitting people with chains and pipes fighting people and ripping there heads off with special finishing moves. "GET OVER HERE" running over hundreds of people with my death car during a city race now these were back in the day when i was young yet i have grown up with no need to kill anyone, drive over people in my car and buying a gun to see what i can shoot and see if points appear over their heads
Should we just show them (the government) what happens when games actually MAKE us violent? Actually playing games with shooting aliens etc. relaxes me.
I'm with Jozo on this. If I've had a particularly stressful day in work, being able to go into a fictional setting and blow the living daylights out of something not real relaxes me. Take away my stress release and I would put forward that you could in fact see real violence eventually. All forms of media have been blamed for violence at some point, music, movies, tv etc etc. Gaming is no more to blame then the other forms have been. The underlying cause of violence is society. Humanity is a violent species.
It's an undisputable fact that criminal activity in Japan has increased dramatically in the past few days because of this. Studies have also shown that my nephew's uncle's nephew was driven to pulverize a miniature nudist colony by this comp from Ricki-Oh set to music by Venetian Snares. (I'd have linked to an actual Ricki-Oh clip but for the NSFW aspect, since I am, in fact, at work.)
In fact, RoboGeisha is a real film slated for release in 2010 (or sooner, since there's a trailer). For more of the same, see Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police. The director of all three flicks, Noboru Iguchi, is a master of ludicrous bloodshed. I once read about a Japanese game that was played entirely from the point of view of a blood-spurting severed head. I've never been able to find the game, but it sounded like the equivalent of a flick by Iguchi.
