Korean Job Discussion Forums

[why not do it]

I remember the advent of video games: pong, space invaders, pac-man, scrambler, tetris, asteroids...they were great games. Now it seems they are mostly about guns, killing, drugs, theft. In the USA they are thinking about banning the new Manhunt game.

Personally I believe that freedom of the press / expression has to have some limits, and I see no useful or positive anything coming from games like Manhunt, GFA, and all the killing/war type video games that are so popular today.

I have never read any information regarding a definite connection between violent video games and an increased tendency towards violent acts, but I would not be surprised if there is a connection.

Are violent video games:

A: Totally harmless

B: A bad thing

C: A good thing

What do you think?

[RACETRAITOR]

I find it hard to believe that video games create aggression. Certainly no more than physical sports like football.

[Alyallen]

Violent games are fun....FOR ADULTS!

Parents need to stop passing the buck (literally and figuratively: doling out money for games they can't be bothered to research is STUPID) on the government to parent their kids.

It's simple. Buy the game. SIT DOWN AND WATCH YOUR CHILD PAY IT. If it looks inappropriate for your bundle of joy...TAKE IT BACK TO THE STORE.

I personally couldn't live if I couldn't play a game where I get to murder someone every once and a while. But then again, I'm a big Final Fantasy nerd so that the death in that type of game isn't quite the same as in say...Resident Evil. I mean...I did tae kwon do and I did kung fu, so kicking someone in the face versus killing an imaginary character is hardly the same.

As racetraitor said, it's no worse than playing football.

[cangel]

I absolutely believe that violent games during a child's formative years are potentially dangerous and could cause future negative behaviors. Why does the Motion Picture Association have ratings? Games should as well. And, as Allyallen suggested, parent's should stop passing the buck. If you give your kids access to this cr@p, in any form (games, movies, music etc) then expect a malformed child. I am not saying this will happen to all children... Violent games should not be sold to minors nor should adults provide access to these games. This, IMHO, is tantamount to corruption of a minor.

[Alyallen]

[RACETRAITOR]

[cangel]

Sorry... Yeah, games do have ratings but I think the ratings are a selling point not a deterrent to their purchase...

[swetepete]

Man, if only they'd banned video games back in the Kaiser's Germany, they could've averted World War I.
Talk about your missed opportunity.

On a slightly more serious note, I would add that while violent vids don't necessarily cause people to be more violent, they do help stupid people/ kids do stupid things. The kid in Virginia Tech might not have had such a huge body count had he been limited to simply watching movies about killing; having played lots of FPS (first-person shooter) games, however, he quite likely had a better conception of the appropriate way to pin down a room full of targets. Likewise the two headcases in Littleton CO some years back.

But is banning violent vids really going to do the trick? There is no shortage of ultraviolence out there for people to buy. "Heat" shows a pretty effective way of pinning down a superior force while making an escape. Any number of war movies show us some basics on sniping, bombing, and booby-trapping.

And that's not even bringing the internet into it...

As for the new psycho killer game, I'm not convinced that it'll inspire people to go out and chop each other up with axes. It might, but I doubt it. Anybody who lets their kid play that game--or any Rockstar game, for that matter--probably should get chopped up though. That's pretty much criminal negligence.

Finally, I must say that the pro-war movies of the 1940s and 1950s probably did more to encourage large scale, institutionalized violence than anything we've seen yet from video games. A more effective target for censorship--if one's goal is the cessation of mindless violence--might be movies that casually glamorize killing while encouraging homicidal self-righteousness and a glossy, bloated military, like 'Top Gun.'

In any case, these are not really deeply-held beliefs, for me, but suspicions. Mostly it's just a bored devil's advocate, and a hesitancy to endorse even seemingly benign censorships. There's lots of things I DO advocate censoring though, and I'd be happy to ban ultraviolent video games if shown some proof that they actually do make people into raving psychos. But I've played a lot of shooters, and played all the GTA games, and listened not only to heavy metal (remember the 'suicide solution' scandal back in the '80's, anyone?) but also to gangster hip-hop, and haven't killed, pimped, or maimed any real people yet.

Well, except for that incident with the diabetic softball team (which is where I get my nickname from btw), and they pretty much had it coming anyway.

[Alyallen]

[SuperFly]

[mindmetoo]

I don't think there is any research that shows violent video games create violent children. There is certainly short term aggression after violent game play, no more so than seeing a violent movie.

I think such games should have voluntary classifications and parents should be parents.

[YoshaMazov]

Millions upon millions of kids play Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt every day, and all but a select few can differentiate between games and reality.
The games weren't quite as graphic back in my youth (Super NES and such), but we still had games, like Contra, which involved copious amounts of murder. If you want to sensor video games, you'd better be prepared to sensor movies and music. And since there's not really a public sphere involved with video games, government censorship would prove legally dubious. It's why NBC and CBS are easily censored, yet HBO and Cinemax can show graphic violence and nudity.
The moral panic that has erupted from said video games is completely ridiculous. All these children crusaders need to take a good look at themselves and wonder if they couldn't spend their time fighting serious matters, or, heaven forbid, spending time with their kids instead of screaming from rooftops.

[mindmetoo]

[YoshaMazov]

[mindmetoo]