Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior • Hacker News Board

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#531

Post by ajuc » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 7:40 AM UTC

zadokshi wrote: post #423

ajuc wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the fact that gaming grew by every metric by orders of magnitude between 80s and now and violent crime dropped by half of more everywhere in the world. If the effect was even 0.01 with growth by 10000% we would have noticed.

> How about the fact that gaming grew by every metric by orders of magnitude between 80s and now and violent crime dropped by half of more everywhere in the world. If the effect was even 0.01 with growth by 10000% we would have noticed. Have shootings not gone up? Has no one noticed it. It’s counter intuitive to think that games that simulate practicing shooting people would have zero influence on people this incline…

Shootings have gone down significantly in almost every country in the world.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#532

Post by rcoveson » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 7:45 AM UTC

buran77 wrote: post #457

rcoveson wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not comparing apples to apples. E-sports leagues will penalize you if you audaciously disrespect your opponents. Also, the majority of the most popular e-sports don't include extreme game play distractions like kill cams. In League of Legends, CS:GO, Overwatch, and Dota, a kill does not disrupt the killer's animations (it would be infuriating if it did). Comparing the tea-bagging that occurs in online Halo pla…

You were very selective with your reading of my comment, discarding any bit that inconvenienced your uncharitable and wrong interpretation. Not sure if this is bad faith or a reading comprehension issue. Throughout my comment I made a few things explicitly clear. That I don't blame the gamers, rather the game devs for including the option and the leagues for choosing to play games that have this. And that many games…

So, to restate the problem as you see it: There is currently some overlap between games that include humiliation-encouraging mechanics and games that are popular as e-sports. There should be zero overlap; those games should not be played professionally because playing them professionally indirectly endorses all the features of the game, including those humiliation features? Even when professional leagues ban their use. I can at least understand where you’re coming from, but I still think your generalization of e-sports is as strange as generalizing meat sports.

My first question is, which games, which mechanics, and which e-sports organizations are we talking about here? Because from my perspective, the biggest e-sports in the world are LoL, CS:GO, Dota 2, Starcraft, and maybe WoW. Not one of these has any purpose-built game disrupting humiliation mechanics like the ones we’ve talked about. And as far as I know, the organizations that run the largest tournaments for these games are often, even usually, not the same organizations that run tournaments for other games.

So you have trouble taking all of e-sports seriously because some org runs tournaments for some games that happen to include mechanics that encourage highly unsportsmanlike behavior. Do you have trouble taking all of wrestling seriously because showy costume wrestling exists? Riot games doesn’t get to tell indie Street Fighter tournaments to shut down because they’re making e-sports look bad, nor would that if they could, because people who actually care about e-sports don’t assign Street Fighter’s problems to LoL.

The “gaming and e-sports industry” doesn’t act as a unit any more than all of cable television does.

So, call out your offenders, if you feel they aren’t being called out. But first, ask yourself: did that game developer even intend to make a game whose primary purpose was being a sport? Or are the tournament organizers just trying to make it work as one, despite it having some features that have to be disallowed? And why is that a big deal?

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#533

Post by tomc1985 » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 8:14 AM UTC

therealx wrote: post #524

greggman3 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

GTA V has a fairly detailed torture sequence as part of the main plot, and IIRC it was the first AAA game to simulate a first-person lapdance

Star Wars the Old Republic (the KOTOR MMO) gets pretty dark if you roll dark side. There's also torture, shooting innocents into the void of space, and a few of the class stories let you kill a lot of people for no reason other than that they're no longer useful to you. It's a bit campier than GTA but I can't think of any other RPGs that model being an real asshole quite so well. SWTOR is actually kind of an interesting example because it has EA and Disney behind it, even if the latter joined on after-the-fact and invalidated the canon the game is based on.

Spoiler alert, but one of Far Cry 3's endings sees you murdered after climaxing during sex, all in first person.

Hardly chaste, if you ask me.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#534

Post by Leherenn » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 8:17 AM UTC

yibg wrote: post #483

afandian wrote: post #117

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 wonder about this too. There seems to be some inconsistencies with how society thinks about violence vs sex. Rape and murder are two of the most serious crimes, and both are punished severely; with murder more severely in most cases. But when movies or games depicts extreme violence, including murder, it’s seems as fairly normal and accepted. But when rape for example is depicted, it causes a lot of controversy. Ul…

I'd say a part is that the violence is turned toward competition, not emotion. Who's going to win the fight? The emotion part is toned down.

Rape on the other hand is mostly emotion.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#535

Post by Can_Not » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 8:21 AM UTC

metaxy2 wrote: post #520

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…

More likely, teenagers play video games, if not just for fun, to escape from the "general nihilism and lack of value" that our society exudes on them, despite society desperately trying to blame all it's flaws on video games.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#536

Post by Thlom » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 8:26 AM UTC

greggman3 wrote: post #489

noobermin wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think violent depictions in media won't make people more violent then how can you then think that sexual depictions make people more sexual or not? People don't have violent encounters in life (or any even that could escalate into violence)? Really? Seems like you're making the OP's point, something is special about sex in your mind.

Something is special about sex. People have sex. People don't kill others (generally). Compare how many people you personally know that have had sex vs how many people you personally know that have killed someone. As the study above points out, violent videos games don't make you more violent but I'm pretty confident sexy media (games, movies, music, etc) make people more horny and therefore more likely to seek out s…

I don't think sexualized media makes people more horny, but it can alter young peoples expectations of sex and possibly adults fantasies/sexuality.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#537

Post by Thlom » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 8:38 AM UTC

rgblambda wrote: post #313

giantg2 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, what's your interior house walls made of? I'm not saying don't barricade yourself. Just that if you have an attacker in your house who is intent of killing you ("beating you to death") and an average police response of 5 minutes or more, they can get into any room in a typical house. You can barricade the door, but anyone who knows about construction knows drywall is easy enough to get through. Most interior do…

Sometimes I forget how America centric HN is. The internal walls in my house are made of stone. But it's an old house. Most in my country are made of brick.

I read the first sentence and thought you would comment on the fantasy of the ultra violent burglar who is intent on murdering someone who has barricaded themselves in a closet …

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#538

Post by adamredwoods » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 9:05 AM UTC

hellotomyrars wrote: post #407

adamredwoods wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Columbine murderers played a bit of FPS, I wish it had reduced their anger.

And yet the millions who buy Call of Duty every year somehow keep it in check and don’t commit mass murder.

My point is that it doesn't guarantee reduction in anger or stress, therefore should probably not be prescribed as such.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#539

Post by adamredwoods » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 9:23 AM UTC

seangrogg wrote: post #378

adamredwoods wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is evidence of gaming personalities committing suicide. There is evidence of gamers doxxing, and even worse, swatting.

There's evidence of academic stress leading to suicide. Does that infer a causal link between academia and violence?

It could, any studies?

Going back to streamers and video games, Twitch has definitely had its share of toxicity:

https://gamecrate.com/how-twitch-now-holding-streamers-respo...

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#540

Post by ajuc » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 9:59 AM UTC

buran77 wrote: post #457

rcoveson wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not comparing apples to apples. E-sports leagues will penalize you if you audaciously disrespect your opponents. Also, the majority of the most popular e-sports don't include extreme game play distractions like kill cams. In League of Legends, CS:GO, Overwatch, and Dota, a kill does not disrupt the killer's animations (it would be infuriating if it did). Comparing the tea-bagging that occurs in online Halo pla…

You were very selective with your reading of my comment, discarding any bit that inconvenienced your uncharitable and wrong interpretation. Not sure if this is bad faith or a reading comprehension issue. Throughout my comment I made a few things explicitly clear. That I don't blame the gamers, rather the game devs for including the option and the leagues for choosing to play games that have this. And that many games…

I've played DOTA 2 and Starcraft 2, and while both are exceptionally competitive multiplayer games - DOTA is far more toxic. I've had maybe 10 toxic communications in years of playing sc2. Almost every lost game of dota ends in name calling and blaming each other for the loss. Almost every game of starcraft ends with the losing player writing "gg" and surrendering.

In my opinion there's several factor contributing to this differences in cultures:

1. starcraft match usually takes about 15 minutes. Dota game takes about 45 minutes.

2. you are expected to surrender in starcraft when you recognize it's over - playing to lose condition is disrepectful; you cannot surrender in dota in practice (abandoning the game is harshly penalized by the matchmaking system)

3. there's more than 10% chance you'll be stuck playing a lost game that you have no influence over for more than 30 minutes in dota. This never happens in starcraft - either you surrender or you think you can win.

4. the culture of starcraft is influenced mostly by Koreans. Showing off isn't considered cool. Fountain diving is common in dota.

I don't think it's multiplayer games that are inherently toxic. I think highly competitive team-based multiplayer games played with random people with no way to surrender are :) And even then I'm yet to see an example of dota player becoming violent because of the game. If any game can do this it has to be dota.