Do video games make us violent

If games made me violent I would have gone on a massive country wide killing spree. Games make people violent just like guns kill people. It's not the tool/medium it's the person behind the tool.
 
Yes, yes they do! I play Carmageddon a lot! And I even start seeing points floating on top of Life stocks heads when i drive by farms!
 
Flex said:
Yes, yes they do! I play Carmageddon a lot! And I even start seeing points floating on top of Life stocks heads when i drive by farms!
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As long as you dont see livestocks heads floating over the top of your car, then you're fine. I remember thinking that I would become the worlds worst driver because I played Carmageddon...that somehow I would get into "game mode" and start driving over people. :p
 
mottamort said:
As long as you dont see livestocks heads floating over the top of your car, then you're fine. I remember thinking that I would become the worlds worst driver because I played Carmageddon...that somehow I would get into "game mode" and start driving over people. :p
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No No. that is why I went and got a wedge fitted to the front of my bumper. It scrapes all the limbs and other body parts up, and tosses it to the side and not over my car. So Keeps it clean, and the body parts flying around don't disturb me and block my vision.
Games have made me a monster!
 
"They can be a big influence for anti-social behaviour, but they are just a petty reinforcement to catastrophic thinking patterns that already exist."

The most concise, perfect summation of games/movie/music vs violence debate I've ever heard!! Very well put. Such a well written and researched article

It's all too often that people have flip their lid due to rage induced from playing video games. I myself have felt very angry sometime playing certain games. But it's never the actual violence in-game that's contributing to that rage, it's the frustration of various elements contributing to me having fun in game. While there is a strong case to be made that violent media can contribute to mild anti-social behavior that's harmless to anyone else, there is no denying the fact that it will send a mentally unstable person over the edge. But it's not the violence in the media that caused it, it's his/her mental stability that is the biggest factor in whether or not they will go onto a killing spree or not.
 
mottamort said:
You mean the person being a tool? :D
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Yes, a tool, a damaged tool. Most of the time the people partaking in shootings and the like have some sort of personality or mental disorder. This can cause them to be become obsessed (hyper focused) on a single thing. Some of these people hyperfocus on video games. Some of these people have access to guns.

For some insane reason people (more specifically the media) always seem to want to find a reason for a violent act. It's been (and I'm running this off the top of my head from articles I have read in the past):

- Video games
- Music (in the 90's it was rap, in the 80's and 90's metal was blamed, in the 60's and 70' rock music was blamed, etc...)
- drugs (because we see so many dagga smokers violently shooting each other; Marijuana/Dagga being the prime suspect not for years)
- Movies (While a Ben Affleck movie makes me want to kill, I simply don't)
- Television
- Smoking
- Alcohol

And the list goes on. The reality is that all/none of the above can be a contributing factor to a mentally ill/damaged person going off their rocker and killing someone else. Sometimes it's nobody's fault.

What I do blame some parents for is for ignoring age restrictions. Take "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)" as a prime example; It's rated PG-13. Key here is "PARENTAL GUIDANCE MAY BE REQUIRED FOR CHILDREN YOUNGER THAN 13"...yes, some kids just handle violence and language like it's no thing. Others though may be impressionable and without an adult to say something like "that's a really bad thing to do" how will the kid know any different?

I see that with my kid a lot. He copies and mimics everything we do. Teach your kids from a young age the difference between right and wrong. Teach them to follow rules/laws and respect others. The rest should come naturally to them.
 
PsychoFish said:
Yes, a tool, a damaged tool. Most of the time the people partaking in shootings and the like have some sort of personality or mental disorder. This can cause them to be become obsessed (hyper focused) on a single thing. Some of these people hyperfocus on video games. Some of these people have access to guns.

For some insane reason people (more specifically the media) always seem to want to find a reason for a violent act. It's been (and I'm running this off the top of my head from articles I have read in the past):

- Video games
- Music (in the 90's it was rap, in the 80's and 90's metal was blamed, in the 60's and 70' rock music was blamed, etc...)
- drugs (because we see so many dagga smokers violently shooting each other; Marijuana/Dagga being the prime suspect not for years)
- Movies (While a Ben Affleck movie makes me want to kill, I simply don't)
- Television
- Smoking
- Alcohol

And the list goes on. The reality is that all/none of the above can be a contributing factor to a mentally ill/damaged person going off their rocker and killing someone else. Sometimes it's nobody's fault.

What I do blame some parents for is for ignoring age restrictions. Take "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)" as a prime example; It's rated PG-13. Key here is "PARENTAL GUIDANCE MAY BE REQUIRED FOR CHILDREN YOUNGER THAN 13"...yes, some kids just handle violence and language like it's no thing. Others though may be impressionable and without an adult to say something like "that's a really bad thing to do" how will the kid know any different?

I see that with my kid a lot. He copies and mimics everything we do. Teach your kids from a young age the difference between right and wrong. Teach them to follow rules/laws and respect others. The rest should come naturally to them.
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Um. While I agree with what you said (Chris Rock said it best - "Whatever happened to CRAZY"), I just meant being a tool, as in being a dick :D
 
Good article, I agree that in the case of the shootings there is a lot more going on than just video games to blame. I liked that the author also had something to say on the anti-violence side of things too. SO often we gamers go into defence mode that we don't take time to step back and evaluate what we're playing, we should at least be aware of how games shape our thinking and decide whether or not a certain game has a positive or negative influence on us.
 
At the end of the day, there are always going to be mental disorders and people who cause violence for no other reason than the fact that they're fucked up and lost. And all we can do is try to learn from it.
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~Corey Taylor
 
Obviously the majority of antisocial behavior comes from issues like rubbernecking.

In many extreme instances in which someone decided it’s time to take a gun and see how many people can be erased, idiots in traffic is often regarded as the sole and primary cause for the incident, the case of unnamed being one of the most infamous of situations, in which freaking Grand Theft Auto was blamed for his psychopathic rampage re-enactment

There, I fixed it :p

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On a serious note though, i've had moments where I barked at my poor wife after being frustrated while stuck in a game or 2 in very sticky repeatedly dying moments. Much apologies had to be given :o
 
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