Games - the ethics issue

I spotted a mistake in the artical:

-You means the iincredibly buggy and frowned upon fake Championship Manager produced by EA.....


I'm sure what you ment to say was:

-Which is clearly considered better by the vast majority of users and is produced by SI who used to produce CM when it was actually good..

 

Great article. A very enjoyable read. I agree with pretty much everything said. Except that US football doesn't have quite the football riots you guys have across the pond (though maybe it would make it better to watch).


For some reason, I can see world Governments trying to force Excercise at some point. Just seems like something that will happen. Oh well, back to playing BF2

 

But our football isn't their football (soccer), and we're focused equally on our sports for the most part, we don't really have one that dominates the sports world. However there have been a number of riots around Super Bowl time.

Definately an intresting read though. Not sure that I quite agree with everything, but I'd give it a +1 Insightful if we had a /.-esque rating system

 

Its a good idea but it works in the Uk due to the sensible ratings guide. Games follow along the film idea with 18, 15 12 and pg type ratings in the uk, and we also have the adults only rating for sex films which can only be sold on licenced premises but from what I understand the USA lumps anything overly sexualy or violent as an Nc-17. and these have to be displayed out of view of minors. This would mean that although you can go into any shop in the uk and buy GTA so long as you are 18 it can be displayed on the shelves next to other games. In the US you would have to enter the adults only department of a shop to browse the 18 rated titles branding you a naughty Perv . and hence people will avoid the embaressment and avoid the games. Hope Im right with that.

 

You know, I really liked this article. It was well written, in-depth, and it didn't make any assumptions. It was clearly fair and balanced. Sigh, if only the mainstream media were like this.

 

the mainstream media have an interest in discrediting games as people arn't reading newspapers/watching tv if there surfing the internet or gaming.

 

Very good article.
When some people say that there has been research that video games can make the player more violent after playing, then I believe that is true. But it is the same with any game or sport. You lose at football, you get angry. You lose at poker, you get more angry than usual. This anger is no different than that which apparently happens after playing video games. People need to realise one thing There is a difference between getting angry, and blowing somebodys head off

 

Great article and some good points, but i didn't realise the BBFC only applied to England?

 

BBFC=British Board of Film Classification
Well, actually, it applies to the whole of Britain

 

Yup thats what i thought i just wondered if any one else would acctualy get that

 

I play gta, but I dont go around stealing cars. Its because I can see the difference between the virtual and real world. If anything I get out any agression I have in a game, I guess thats because I am a very passive person who instead of solving problems violently can do so in a more civil way. I can see that as graphics and the realisim improve there will be more problems with this sort of thing. And since there is no real way to tell if someone will be able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality the age rating system is probably the best way to determine who has enough presence of mind to make the distinction.

I thought this was a good read and was amazed at how much Germany banned and or censored. Green blood, come on.

 

Hmm, I play online games because they offer entertainment and enjoyment, nothing to do with being lazy.
I also play(ed) football for the same reasons (need to start playing again).

Life is no more dangerous now than it was 60 odd years ago, but media saturation would lead you believe otherwise.
We have 24 hour news, with umpteen channels fighting for the latest breaking news. You are force fed horrific accounts from all over the globe straight into your living room, whereas years ago news was what happened locally, this leads to the appearance of a more dangerous world.

As you say the problem lies with the individual, if it wasn't a video game it would be something else, some people will spend hours with their head in a book, other will watch countless hours of TV, some are gym fanatics, some will sit in the pub all day.

Much like television and movies, they are presented in higher resolution, better sound and greater special effects, all making for a more realistic experience, maybe we should be careful and advocate a return to old black and white pictures just in case someone unstable enough is effected.

Again much like movies and television there are age ratings, these need to be respected, harsher penalties for shops that break the rules by selling to minors would be one step, but I fear the greatest barrier is parents - many simply take no interest in their children’s development, it's easier to plonk them in front of a TV or plug them into a video game than to do the work themselves.

Well said, it is not the game that is responsible but the person.



When we hear stories of a shooting and that the killer was addicted to such and such a game, inevitably the media will come to the conclusion that the game was to blame.
How about the person was psychologically unstable?



Games are just another hobby, much like any other, some people will become completely absorbed in games whilst others will use them as a time filler.
Games are no more dangerous than movies, television or reading for that mater.
The question is, do you consider those to be dangerous?

 

i use to use games to de-stress, i used to play UT and chage the names to the names of teachers that were making me mad and also their faces and put them in godlike and go and frag them to oblivium. none of them are dead. And i would be calm enough to study.

i play games, violent sick twisted games since i was a small kid, i am now the most responsible and most calm of all the people around, i am the calmest person of my family and in most opinions the smartest, the others (that dont play games) skiped school, and my parents are realy dumb.

 

Yeah, people do also game to de-stress. It takes your mind off things.

 

It helps to let off nervous energy, I played call of duty 2 for 4 hrs straight yesterday and it only felt like 20 mins, and I felt calmer afterwards. I could also argue that it made me too lazy to want to be viloent.

 

'...whilst wondering round cities looking for people to string up...'

Shouldn't that be 'wandering'

 

hah, good article

 

about the whole rating system, it doesnt work because no one cards, i havnt been carded for a game since i was 14 except when i went to alaska

 

Wow, I've never even thought about that being, even... a possibility... I mean, are cats very soft inside? Does this even work in real life? Wouldn't the bullet bounce off, a bone, or something? I also think it would be so very messy.

Excellent article. Bit tech writers seem to have a knack for writing articles that are pretty unbiased, while not being longwinded.

Reading an article about this problem makes me look at and into myself a lot more... if I were in a jam, would I use a cat as a silencer? After playing so many games in my life so far, have I been transformed into a killer?I'm pretty sure the answer is no. I don't think games can create a violent, malicious streak in people... but it wouldn't be too implausible to think that they mght "itch" an already prominent undertone of violence in someone's personality.

 

One can't blame the creators of the more violent games. They're just responding to the blatant demand for it. Look at Black for the X-Box: almost all the reviews I've read so far have been saying it's a great game, except "WHY DON'T THEY HAVE BLOOD IN IT?!".

As such, I don't expect game makers to stop shipping bloody or gory games, but I wish more of them added options to disable the gore, since my idea of a good-looking game is not one where severed limbs and mangled bodies lie in pools of blood wherever you look.