I'm not surprised if there's no link between violent games and violence in real life. But as a subtler concern, I do wonder if (some) violent games help to cultivate a sense of general nihilism and lack of value. I work with teens and maybe 15% of them have this sense of "blankness" in the spot where a sense of value/meaning/morality should be. (Not even in the classic 90's sense of "teen apathy" -- more like they've…
Consider the rest of their environment. I think the nihilism among young people has more to do with coming to terms with the mortality of your country and planet than anything else. Violence is not a new thing, but haven't solid evidence that it will only get harder for you and future generations is pretty new.
GTA3, Vice, SA, 4, and 5 are chaste? Far Cry 3, 4, 5? Red Dead Redemption series? God Of War 1, 2, 3, Reboot? The Witcher series? Mass Effect series? Are you sure we're talking about the same game industry?
Honestly, GTA has been mellowing out over the years. the antics of running around a strip club beheading prostitutes as might have happened in vice city are replaced with a focus with the main story which most of the time would not be out of place on primetime TV - is it still set in a dark crime world, yes. But they've moved on from the level of shock factor of earlier titles. There's maybe one sequence in the first…
I personally am not concerned about murder or shock, but I think it's worth saying what many people think. Many games containing violence are probably made in poor taste. For example, it would be a red flag for me when meeting someone if their favourite video game studio is Rockstar Games and that's all they like to play. It'd be like saying their favourite TV genre is reality TV and they're proud to watch it constantly. It's OK once in a while, but I hope they often expand their horizons. Rockstar's modern games certainly have some value, but relative to many other games they feel like technically-impressive immature time sinks. My snooty point aside, violent video games seem not to correlate with aggression, but I suspect they at least correlate with some annoying personality traits. Some artistic masterpieces worth consuming contain a lot of violence, I just don't think that's the norm, so it's easy for outsiders to lump "violent games" together as a threat.
I'm not surprised if there's no link between violent games and violence in real life. But as a subtler concern, I do wonder if (some) violent games help to cultivate a sense of general nihilism and lack of value. I work with teens and maybe 15% of them have this sense of "blankness" in the spot where a sense of value/meaning/morality should be. (Not even in the classic 90's sense of "teen apathy" -- more like they've…
I would argue if they are spending 40% of thier time on games, than it's the lack of other stimulation required for development that's the problem. If they were playing Atari Pong for that long, I would suspect he same outcome you observe. The violence in the video game had little to no impact on this scenerio.
Honestly I feel like the mainstream games industry is pretty chaste. A large part of the audience is younger, and it is their parents who are buying the games. You want something to be engaging, maybe even edgy, but not so edgy that mom and dad wouldn't want little johnny playing it. Part of the equation is that combat is interesting to simulate. It has clear rules ( live or die ), a lot of different ways you can twe…
GTA3, Vice, SA, 4, and 5 are chaste? Far Cry 3, 4, 5? Red Dead Redemption series? God Of War 1, 2, 3, Reboot? The Witcher series? Mass Effect series? Are you sure we're talking about the same game industry?
Yeah, they totally are. You aren't able to, in detail, say, operate on someone while they write in pain. Or, slowly cut up someone with a swored and watch their organs fall out as you laugh and kick salt in it. You can't try and force an abortion by kicking a pregnant NPC down the stairs over and over. These are just items off the top of my head.
I am not saying I WANT or would play said game, but that level does not exist in these games.
Haha, I almost forgot this gem. In grade school, I accidentally brought a pocket knife to school since it was left in one of the side pouches of my backpack after a camping trip the previous weekend. I was naive then. I told my teacher about it, which could have ended very badly. His response, "Just don't take it out or tell anyone". Oh, the good old days.
I'm a fairly recent graduate from school- I accidentally carried a pocketknife in the bottom of my bag from grade 6 to 11, never had amy problems with it.
You obviously didn't go to a school with metal detectors...
I'm one of those people who is entirely bemused by violent videogames and films (I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be bemused by my pastimes too). I'm not trying to argue to stop anyone doing it, but I would really like to understand it better. Many video games are essentially simulators of things that we're prevented from doing in reality, because of the laws of nature or society. Whether that's dropping…
I keep a baseball bat by the bed and a shotgun in the corner. That's my plan on resolving a burglary. Somewhere in there it would be nice to call the police. But they are a good 15-20 minutes away and would only be coming to see if I made it out alive or not.
You should get rid of the gun or put it in a safe when you are not using it for sport. It's too dangerous to have it just in the corner. It's more likely that you or a family member will use it against yourself or someone else you love.
If the mechanics were sufficient, why are people not posting more pictures of airliners flying into buildings in Flight Simulator? It is a simulator, so it has the best mechanics. The violence is the only thing missing. Flight Simulator will just display a boring dialog saying "you crashed".
Because flying into a building doesn't gain you any benefits in the game. It's not part of a goal, it has no purpose. Since it's not part of the mechanics: as you point out, it's not (frequently) done. That seems to support the claim that it's not about seeking violence.
As someone who flew an airplain into the statue of liberty on purpose (in a simulator of course) - it was purely out of interest what will the game do, not violence.
The same goes for the torture scene in GTA5, it didn't "feel" violent, it felt like you playing a part of the story in an alternative reality. Again, out of curiosity, going along with all the torture methods available.
I'm one of those people who is entirely bemused by violent videogames and films (I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be bemused by my pastimes too). I'm not trying to argue to stop anyone doing it, but I would really like to understand it better. Many video games are essentially simulators of things that we're prevented from doing in reality, because of the laws of nature or society. Whether that's dropping…
I don't think it is the case that physical violence generally is okay in video games. For example, if you learned that someone played very realistic torture simulators you might feel uncomfortable about that, or about leaving your children with them. I think the idea is that guns and bombs and such are cool, and probably lots of people have the impulse to just let loose some destructive volley, blow something up, sho…
I take it you've never removed the ladder from your Sims pool after they hop in for a quick swim?
So you're saying if there were multiple causes and one of them was corrected, his numbers wouldn't catch it, right?
Yes. Total violence going down doesn't prove that violence from video games isn't going up.
Lets say the effect is 1 additional violent crime per 1000 gamers per year.
With 2.4 billion gamers we should have seen increase by 2.4 million violent crimes per year in last few decades.
It's very unlikely that data hides such an increase, especially given the fact that in different countries game adoption and crime follows slightly different curves so it should be possible to separate changes caused by other factors.
If there's any link it must be negligible for the data to fit.