It's official: Violent games are mostly harmless

Violent video games harmless to most kids

This is huge. For the first time ever, an independent study, endorsed by the American Psychological Assocation, has verified that video games are like any other entertainment medium; dangerous only to those who already have problems, and safe for everyone else.

It only took them nearly 30 years, but someone (Villanova University in Pennsylvania, to be precise) has finally done a real scientific study on this. And proved what we gamers already knew... if we're violent and dangerous to our surroundings, it's not because we play video games. It's because we're crazy.

 

You said that, not us.

(running out the door.)

 

And I take pride in it! :-D

I actually own this shirt:

http://nerdshirts.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/c573_Violent_Before_Games-338x440.jpg

It's a great conversation starter.

 

Could hand stencil underneath that.
"and getting worse"
Really make people wonder.

 

Not from video games, I guarantee.

If anything, it's from my job. Computer Tech Support... the smart and knowledgeable ones never call in for help. :banghead

 

I've called in tech support before. Vmware, EMC, Datadomain, to name a few. Yes, enterprise level stuff.

err, I guess I'm not smart and knowledgeable.

 

I've always thought that the person has to have "issues" to carry out something from a game or movie etc. The entertainment isn't the cause but sometimes the trigger, or it gives the person an idea how to carry it out. I think the reason that games have always been blamed is because they do get in your head much more than movies or TV etc, in a movie you simply watch someone else carry acts out, in games you do so yourself.
I'm sure all of us have connected real life with games at some point, whether it be seeing a good sniper spot in town or being stuck behind a slow car and just wanting to hit the turbo.... but none of us actually carry them out, you have to have it in you to do it in the first place... a game may give you an idea of HOW to do it but cannot be blamed directly. This study wont change anything, games will still be blamed, next time a car full of kids speeds through the city and causes a major pile up with a copy of Need For Speed sitting on the back seat the argument will just refresh.
Pathetic really isn't it.

 

love that shirt. I am so glad to see some steps taken in clearing the dark cloud associated with video games and violence in them. Been an ongoing battle for years where misinformation was being fed to already paranoid parents regarding violence in games. All the facts and statistics associated with it were always unfounded and bs.

 

Bah! Next thing you know, they'll be trying to say the devil doesn't talk to me through my AC/DC albums and my dungeons and dragons!

 

HBT kinda but I would be curious and open to here from others who support bans and restrictions on violent games.

 

Hahaha that shirt is hilarious. I tend to agree that violence is not caused by playing video games - it's more inherent in the individual.

 

I initially planned to post this in the lounge, then decided not to post it at all, and then after much thinking and hesitation decided to post it here instead, since the article is about games and gamers. I also fully admit that I was hoping that by posting in the games forum, the thread would be less noticed by anyone on the other side of the argument, and maybe that would reduce the risk for the topic going nasty.

Thanks for not deleting, I appreciate that.

My research paper in English 102 was about violence in games and how people handle it, and when I was researching it, I found tons and tons of similarities between the rhetoric against games, and the one that was used against hip-hop, metal, and rock music. It makes sense that as the first generation to encounter it begins to join the adult world, the adult world's attitude towards games changes.

Obviously, I think as Halo, that certain groups use violent games as a scapegoat for whatever else causes an individual t turn violent. Ultimately, our moral compasses can only tell us which direction to go, but we have to actively start walking. Some people just have a broken compass, I think.

 

How much "hands-on" research went on while preparing that English 102 paper?
:confusedrolleyesrolleyesrolleyes


:-D:-D:-D:wave

 

Depressingly little. :cry

Four years of college is the main reason I have an 80+ games backlog. I bought them, put them on the shelf, went back to my home work assignments. The games will still be there after Finals Week, and college does not refund me if I fail the class. They make me pay to take it again... absolutely not worth it.

 

Have to play "catch-up" after finals.

 

I tried, but this thing called "full time job" got in the way...

 

Bummer.

 

Amen to that - great link, Mimsy!

I get so tired of the "blame everything else but the person" school of thought that has infected so many psychological "professionals" throughout the years - starting mainly in the 1970's.

. . . and I want one of those shirts! :-D

 

Of course I do, they're on the other computer somewhere. They made us write three different ones, one formal (of course), one argumentative/persuasive, and one casual "this is what I researched and this is what I think"-type essay. Got a preference?

That makes perfect sense. Videogames are often a puzzled of some kind, if not directly then indirectly ("how do I beat the end boss?") meaning they teach problem-solving skills as they entertain the person playing. Lots of gamers play for the challenge and the thrill of over-coming the next obstacle... more unorthodox games also force "outside the box"-thinking, which requires some creativity.

I'm a firm believer in the argument that video games can help a person develop creativity and problem-solving skills. Multiplayer co-op can teach teamwork and help develop communication skills... MMOs can help the players figure out how to socialize in groups and with strangers very different form them.

So basically gaming is just like any other form of entertainment, and social gaming is like any other social activity? That looks like a very controversial notion.

 

And you have an email.

 

I completely agree with what you said there Halo, I think and always have thought games greatly help logical thinking, even straight up online shooters like COD etc, they require you to think quickly and act instictively as well as thinking logically about which route or enemy to take etc etc, a game doesn't have to actually have puzzles, almost every single game requires some amount of planning and tactics using logical thinking.
I also think that if we actually got numbers (this is, of course, impossible) of those who were "Influenced" by a game to commit an illegal act and weighed it against the number of those who have learnt logical thinking and first class reflexes and hand-eye coordination faster, earlier and more efficiently than non-gamers, not to mention the "Keep your brain ticking when you're old" theory, you would find games do more good than bad.

The other thing these moronic media people seemed to either not realise or didn't care about is the fact that some of the biggest game franchises owe much of the popularity due to "Bad Press" , tell a kid he must not cross the road enevitably makes the kid want to cross it more. Tell the public that a game is overly violent etc etc.... everyone runs out and buys it. GTA anyone?

As I and you guys have said, if you're born to kill then you will, if not then you wont, you either have it in you or you don't.... media such as games only give ideas or triggers the urge.... but so could a book, picture, poem or simply a conversation overheard at the supermarket.... even a newspaper front page on a shelf.

Games are guilty of nothing more than providing entertainment, technology?... thats a different story, games are just some the some cargo on the technilogical freight train.

 

Halo and Mimsy both pointed out valid points of goody-ness to games, I want to add another: storytelling medium. Some of the games out there are thrill-per-second: the shooters and fighters; but to me, the true value of games comes out in their unique variety of storytelling. I read almost incessantly and love a good movie, but a game with a great, well implemented story tops them both. While each person has there own tastes, the mediums all have their "Classics" which are universally renowned. Examples abound, and I won't bother to list them here, but this argument was one that I used on an English instructor in college in an interview for one of my own papers that argued for games right to be known as "art" :-D. Basically if games are too violent and adult themed, shouldn't most libraries be emptied of 75% of their contents, specifically the Fiction section? Not to mention 98% of movies burned :major

 

I completely agree with you! So much in fact that to me personally it doesn't matter how good every other aspect of a game is, if I don't like the story, I won't play it.

I also agree with you and Halo on books and how they often are as violent, or more. In fact, given that a good book makes me imagine everything in it as I read, I would argue that the book is more interactive than a game is. When I play a game I affect the story and characters, when I read a good book, my mind creates them.

 

ha! here's an example of a game that is pure torture to play, but who's story is so rich and genuinely funny its worth it, to me anyway: The Bard's Tale.

I guess the thing that makes the games more enjoyable to me in a small way is that the outcome can be changed. If the player tries hard enough, then the terrible things can be avoided. With a book, the reader sometimes suffers the whims of the author.

Halo:

I've never played those, but they are now on my back-log list lol. Examples that jump to this mind mine are: the KOTORs (better than the movies), Indigo Prophecy, and Eternal Sonata (mostly because of the amazing soundtrack)

Things reaching that point terrifies me to tell the truth.

 

Granted, but the same can be said of any linear game... any Japanse RPG ever made, for example.

 

if you say so. :-D i don't play many of those. the genre thrashing algamated bit annoys me too much lol

 

i dont need video games to be like that am already crazy well according to me lass i am lol.

 

Thank you! Glad you like them.

 

When my kid was around 4 or so, and under a different stet of parents he loved Duke Nukem, Castle Wolfenstien, Doom, you get the idea. We could see it having some very negative effects on his personality, so we banned him from these kinds of games until was older, around 12 or so. When he picked back up on them he was ready to handle them emotionally.

It is the parents job to monitor their children and decide. Too many times they want to blame everyone else but themselves.

IMO, it is very negative for young children, but it is the parents job to watch and raise them.

How's it been going Mimms?