Video Games and Violence

In recent years due to the popularity of the shooting game genre of video games and the increase in violent shootings in real life, people have questioned whether or not there is a correlation between the two. Do you think that video games are becoming too violent and that they are directly influencing the youth of this generation? What is your opinion on parents buying M-rated games for their kids who are clearly under the age of 18 years? Do you think it's right that media and reporters are using video games as a reason for some people's violent behavior? Do you think there is anything we can do to change this stigma?

Discuss!

It really depends on the game and how intense the violence is.

If there's blood and gore and intense violent themes, I would never buy the game for my 8 year old. But if the kid is 14 and the game isn't really that bad, I don't see the issue.

You see, people often think that those who play violent video games become violent themselves and crime is due to the bad video games out there. When in reality, playing violent video games has nothing to do with someones behaviour.
For example, in Super Smash Brothers Melee, do you think people think that if they hit someone so hard they'll go flying in the air like a plane?

Violent video games have their time and place. I don't think they're bad games, I'm just not interested in them. xD

I find that the games that get blamed for being "violent and bad for kids" end up being stuff like Minecraft and Pokemon. (Pokemon Black and Blue by PETA for example). Call of Dooty is just terrible to begin with and it's violent parts that you can opt out are very not violent unless you are like some super rich perfect christian child.

Personally? Hold on, allow me to brace myself for possible angry retorts. ;)

It always starts at home. I feel like most parents these days will do anything to blame someone or something else for their kids' behavioral problems. The school, their peers, the media.. I see it all the time. But heaven forbid said parents take any action/responsibility.

As for buying the kids those games -- it's solely the parents' responsibility to determine whether their kids are mature enough for that. If they don't know right from wrong, if they can't differentiate fantasy from reality by 15.. maybe you have bigger problems on your hands than the games you let them play or the movies they watch. Just sayin'.
But perhaps I'm biased, as I had access to things like Conker's Bad Fur Day and such crap by age 10. Only difference is: I didn't shoot up my school. =p

DDDchu said:

I find that the games that get blamed for being "violent and bad for kids" end up being stuff like Minecraft and Pokemon. (Pokemon Black and Blue by PETA for example). Call of Dooty is just terrible to begin with and it's violent parts that you can opt out are very not violent unless you are like some super rich perfect christian child.

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Pokemon actually very rarely gets blamed for ultra-violence, PETA was the exception to the rule - most of the things called out are in the FPS genre.

I think the idea of parents taking responsibility is incredibly important as well, because every child has a different level of maturity. There are some children I know that haven't yet grown out of the violence stage of life (most kids have one, nothing to be ashamed of), and the video games may contribute to keeping the child in that stage. But a child of the same age may be well past that stage and perfectly capable of separating fictional violence from real violence.

As far as adults, I wouldn't argue that playing violent video games has 100% no effect on anyone. But it has no more effect than other forms of media; no one's attacking Stephen King for his books, so why attack Call of Duty?

Sgt.Dustmop said:

It always starts at home. I feel like most parents these days will do anything to blame someone or something else for their kids' behavioral problems. The school, their peers, the media.. I see it all the time. But heaven forbid said parents take any action/responsibility.

As for buying the kids those games -- it's solely the parents' responsibility to determine whether their kids are mature enough for that. If they don't know right from wrong, if they can't differentiate fantasy from reality by 15.. maybe you have bigger problems on your hands than the games you let them play or the movies they watch. Just sayin'.
But perhaps I'm biased, as I had access to things like Conker's Bad Fur Day and such crap by age 10. Only difference is: I didn't shoot up my school. =p

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This. So much.


Also, you have to be a psychopath and/or have some mental health problems and/or be unable to separate fantasy from reality in order for a video game to make you violent. I've been playing video games for years, plenty of them violent, so if just playing them made you a violent person, I'd have already killed tons of people already. But have I? Nope. If I did, you'd have seen something like "Salt&PepperDiner, 21, goes on murder spree, killing 37" on the news. Several times.

The "violent video games are corrupting our youth!" line is primarily the old establishment hanging onto a tiny little shred of control they still hold, staring down just how wrong they are, and flipping the ♥♥♥♥ out. Alternately, old people resent the young -- probably for their youth.

...Honestly I don't video games are as pivotal in these school shootings as people make them out to be. I'm sure violent video games may have something to do with it, but it really ticks me off when people say things like "Well all these school shooters played Call of Duty X hours a day." because more of them were depressed and/or suicidal, but you never hear that mentioned. If you end up playing Call of Duty that doesn't mean you're going to shoot up a school.

As for what I think about buying games for children under eighteen... I think that it depends on the game and the child. I really think the only people who should be allowed to play Call of Duty and/or Grand Theft Auto are those above the age of 18. But games like Halo and Persona 3 really aren't that bad. (And, personally, I don't think either warranted an M rating, especially since Persona 3 was rated 12+ by PEGI.)

I think people need to stop to look at just video games. Like really there is way more that influences kids nowadays than just video games. TV, music, everything gives a influence on them. It is just easy to blame video games since you actually do those things in the game instead of witnessing them on the screen. Parents who buy M-rated games for their kids should know better, but alas, it is their decision so they are gonna accept what they have done.

Sadly we cannot do anything against this since this is just another form of stereotyping which pisses me off. The media needs to look further than just video games and they fail to do so cause they are just too lazy for it. At least that's how I see it.

I never really saw a problem with violent games as long as the parents are responsible they should be able to determine what and what isn't suitable for their child.

I have had experience of video games affecting real life though. So I was at the corner shop, like the shop that's round the corner, and being the greedy little poop I was I wanted two mars bars instead of the regular one but i didn't have enough money. I had recently started a new save in skyrim, and I was like, wait it's okay, I'll just steal them, and if I get caught I'll just load up the previous save. I swear to God I almost walked out the store before I realized my mistake. I also hadn't slept in like 34 hours but it was still really stupid :p

I'd rather not go on a huge rant about this, my main points are that the government and pop culture desensitize us to things that harm us and other people so that we don't think they're all that bad and we want to go out and do them ourselves. And the news portrays people who do bad things as icons, then more people go out trying to do more and more horrible things so that they will be more well known than the last person who did something bad. Everything has become a popularity contest and video games do feed into that because they pick and choose the most prominent things of our culture and utilize them to draw in crowds of people to play games that are just like what's around us, or in certain cases they make games to try to escape from all the bad things around us into a world that we know doesn't exist.

Sgt.Dustmop said:

Personally? Hold on, allow me to brace myself for possible angry retorts. ;)

It always starts at home. I feel like most parents these days will do anything to blame someone or something else for their kids' behavioral problems. The school, their peers, the media.. I see it all the time. But heaven forbid said parents take any action/responsibility.

As for buying the kids those games -- it's solely the parents' responsibility to determine whether their kids are mature enough for that. If they don't know right from wrong, if they can't differentiate fantasy from reality by 15.. maybe you have bigger problems on your hands than the games you let them play or the movies they watch. Just sayin'.
But perhaps I'm biased, as I had access to things like Conker's Bad Fur Day and such crap by age 10. Only difference is: I didn't shoot up my school. =p

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I have to agree with you. Parents don't like to admit that there is something wrong with their children and so they blame it all on video games. I mean look at games like Call Of Duty. The violence at the very least is not-violent. All you do is shoot random people with guns and forget about them in a minute.

But then there's the fact that children are exposed to violence at such a young age. For example my friend's brother was 5 when he played games like Assassins Creed and Hitman which involved a lot of bloodshed. But he's still a very meek and gentle kid. That proves that video games don't influence your kid to be a criminal except if their psychotic.

Another example is this. Everybody knows about the incident where a psychotic man dressed as Joker came and shot down people during the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. The violence in Batman is pitiful compared to that of the violence in so many video games. So it isn't the video games that force your children to behave like Al Capone ,parents, it's the very fact that their mind is not proper.

But then there are some parents who take it to a whole new level. I know some parents who don't allow their children to play game like Pokemon because they believe that pokemon fight with each other and kill. Yeah figure out what that means by yourself.