The Deputy UK Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has taken to radio to express his views on video games, and more specifically, Grand Theft Auto, since the fifth primary instalment was released last week and made waves in the sales department.
SpeaKing on the LBC Radio show, Clegg referred to the “corrosive effect” that the game has on players.
“Clearly these games can have an incredibly powerful, and I suspect in some cases corrosive effect, on someone’s behaviour, someone’s outlook; they get shut off, they don’t talk to other people, they just stay in their living room, their bedroom hunkered down in front of their computer,” Clegg said. “They occupy a hermetically sealed world of their own and that can have a very detrimental effect.”
Clegg then spoke of the idea of limiting the amount of time people should play games, but says that the law and human rights stand in the way of implementing something like that.
“In a free country, what do you do? Do you start saying to people you can’t use it for more than X number of hours? No you can’t do that,” Clegg said. “There are, of course, restrictions around content. But we cannot limit people’s use of , certainly not the amount of time they devote to this by law or by edict.”
The tragic Washington Navy Yard shooting which took place on 16 September has reignited the violent video game debate, with US news outlets addressing the topic.
You can hear the discussion at 21:00 minute-mark:
Source: Guardian
More gaming news:
US news show panellist defends violent video game claims
Killers obsessed with violent video games: Fox News
GTA 4 blamed for 8-year old killing caregiver: report
Dead Rising inspires weapon used for gruesome killing
No link between violent games, anti-social behaviour: research
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Well I don’t think he is necessarily wrong. There are probably people who experience a degrading effect on their life with their gaming habits. As gamers we need to remember that, in order not to sound like a bunch of arrogant A-holes who just blows off every argument that comes to us, we need to be able to listen to the statements other people make with a level head instead of just going “fake n gay!”.
I dont think gaming directly instigates violence, but there are people out there with unique circumstances that might be more influenced than what we’d expect. The fact that media focusses on those solitary individuals is also wrong IMO, but its up to us to just act like grown ups and always just take it and counter argument professionally.