Violent videogame justice

[TerranRich]

FACT: Ragdoll Physics Relieves Stress

[BOYD1981]

i'm not sure if games really do relieve stress for me (sometimes they actually cause it), they just entertain me long enough so that i forget about being stressed.
but what exactly do kids have to be stressed about these days?
i know when i was a teenager the main thing stressing me out was school and it has had a long lasting effect on my mental health. my parents never put any pressure on me to make up for their failings in life by doing well in school so they could boast to friends at dinner parties or anything, but still i found it stressful, i can't imagine how stressful it is for people with pushy parents like that.
so taking that into consideration maybe there is something to the parenting issue that InCreator brought up, plenty of people who have had tough upbringings end up doing rather psychotic things (such as Ed Gein to name but one), plus some people are just born bad.
it's just that videogames are very widespread these days and are an easy catalyst for people to blame along with other things such as heavy metal music which people either don't understand or just plain dislike and try to force their opinions on other people.
it's all just very silly.

[Redwall]

I think video games (at least in my personal experience) are more of a stress deferrer than a stress reliever. That is, I can escape into Unreal Tournament or Diablo or something else for a few hours (or days...) and avoid thinking about what's causing me issues, but when I'm done the issues that cause that initial stress almost always still remain and continue to do so. It's really just another form of procrastination.

I actually try to avoid playing games for "stress relief" and try to stick to games that I actually find interesting, challenging, thought-provoking (gasp!), or just fun.

[TerranRich]

Now that I think about it, I guess it's true that it's more of a distraction than a solution. But still, it's not a cause by any means. That's the point we're starting to stray from.

[blueskirt]

Read the second article of this page before you seriously blame all on the parents.

But what exactly do kids have to be stressed about these days?

Being bullied, not exactly fitting in, loneliness, bad grades, being sucky at sport, people discovering things you'd rather keep secret until university at least, having to deal with past humiliation, still having that high pitched voice, acne all over your face, not having a b/f or g/f when nearly everyone does, breaking up with your b/f or g/f, having pushy parents/teachers, peer pressures, homeworks, exams, those annoying 10-20 pages essay works, having a body like those you can find on paintings in museum, not on fashion magazines and garage calendar, etc. There's certainly more I forgot or that I'm not aware of. Some can deal with all of this and wake up every morning. Some don't.

I just find it frightening that a lot of people seem to regard computer games as an alternative to commit real life crimes.

If I relied on video games in order to not go out and beat people up, I'd be exceedingly worried about the state of my mental health.

It is not an alternative to commit real life crimes nor an outlet to criminal ideas, people don't go around thinking "If I don't frags at least 100 n00bs in Unreal Tournament pretty soon, I'm soooooo gonna kill everyone in this room!". It is an outlet for stress and frustration. Were I to live with months or years of cumulated frustrations and stress without having a way to let it out, chances are I wouldn't be talkable, I wouldn't think straight, I might have flipped out, gone postal or commited other thoughtless and unforgivable acts already.

[Andail]

I think Boyd, and Redwall, make good points there. Maybe playing these violent computer games are more like a momentary escape from the stress, rather than a long term therapy?

I can gladly admit that I too have found myself taking great pleasure in beating up innocent bypassers in GTA. So it's not like I'm some stiff puritan who just frowns upon the very concept of computer violence. But afterwards I asked myself "is this, as an activity, really making me more harmonic in the long run? Or was it just to quench a sudden urge?" And then I tried not to make it a habit, to refrain from it.

I still find the "what part of NOT REAL don't you understand!?"-argument flawed. Things that aren't real still represent stuff. If you'd find that your child's (or any other person, really) favourite activity was to tie Barbie to a bed and pretend that Ken raped her, over and over again, while giggling, wouldn't you - even though you'd know perfectly well that it wasn't real, grow a bit worried? Would you like to discuss this behaviour?
Sure, the characters in GTA are pixelated NPC's, not at all real. But if they didn't represent real people - if they were just random blocks of pixels - assaulting them would hardly present the same amusement, right?

Again, I'm not saying that people who indulge in such activities are violent by nature, or prone to commit real life crimes, so don't take it so darn personally. I'm just again wondering whether they should look for passtimes less destructive and morbide.

[Afflict]

I have to say for me even thought the initial problem that caused the stress is still their I can now go (Revived) and deal with the problem where as before I was stressed out and not focussed I now have focus without the stress to re-asses the problem.

@ Terran Love the new Av.
@ Voh Tssk Tssk, pick a excuse. I didn't even realize my spelling msitake on that this morning.
@ Boyd I have to say that kids today stress themselves out so badly about utter BS which to them is important. To us we go WTF? I guess most of us in our youths were not running with the "popular" kids but had real friends (I am assuming this because every "popular" kid I did hang out with was superficial and skin deep. I then decided that it's not worth my time to try and fit into their "standards" and be a victim of the constant he said she said BS. Granted that this is about 10 years ago but lucky for me I was a very open minded & don't give a crap about what people think kind of kid.

The problem is (I know I have family that is still in school) They want to hang with the popular kids it's sort of a life or death situation if they don't make the cheer leading squad & they virtually starve themselves to try and look like all the photoshop celebs in the beauty mags... I also have the complete opposite of this in my family, where the kid has turned completely introvert and doesn't even want to communicate to normal people outside school. He has started home schooling just to get away from the kids in school. Luckily his parents are cool else he would of been pressured and forced to stay in school push high grades & would probably do something hectic in the long term.

Thinking about it now its people that would drive people to commit crimes, using the guy as an example he doesn't like violence yet he is one of the bigger kids. He never stands up for himself, yet when a kid threw a teacher in her face with a paper ball he beat the kid up. My point being this, being pushed beyond his kind believes will simply push him over the edge no matter what you to do him won't. Altough I am sure he beat up the kid for all the other times he didn't beat up the others.

Another case recently in the news here in SA is where two boys took an axe to another boy. Chpping him into bits, here is the thing, (Manhunt would probably been to blame) if the kids were not rural kids. They grow up in a shack they have no tv or pc, and they get basic education at the local school.

If they were rich kids or even middle class kids that had a tv, or pc and played games. The Games would for sure be in the firing line on this brutal killing. The kids are 8-10...

This topic is beginning to become serious food for thought.

[evenwolf]

Tonight I murdered about a thousand and a half Giant Ants, Spiders, and Robots in this game:



It's quite innocent!   My motives are to stop an alien invasion by using everything from assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers to blow up their armies.   I can play with a second person & follow a team of NPC soldiers around the city.

The goal is to kill giant ants.   Now if I wanted to, I could turn to the guy on my left and blow his head off.   The video game is about giant ants but the soldiers still die when hit by friendly fire.    It's more realistic and causes the player to plan his attack.    If you shoot a rocket & a guy is standing right in front of your barrel, it does not safely pass through him & hit your target.    Everything inculding you explodes.

That's realistic too!   We're not just talking about having more detailed bullet holes and screams of horror when you kill innocent bystanders.   We're talking about gameplay that makes sense & also challenges you.    These kind of games are the true victim when it comes to censorship.     The wording gets all hazy & the fact that you CAN kill a human means that any law forbidding murder of humans will emcompass this game.   WHICH IS ABOUT KILLING BUGS & ROBOTS.       

It relieved a lot of stress for me.    And might I remind most of you that the word relief rarely ever is interpreted as "cure."    Relief itself is temporary.   If a boy has violent behavior and a doctor prescribes a violent videogame to cure him, I would advise we murder the doctor with a bayonet.

[WHAM]

Just going to throw in a personal opinion:

These games are given an age restriction (in manhunt 2's case 18+ usually) that keeps kids from getting their hands on the games. Yes, this means that I think youg kids can be influenced negatively by this sort of material in some ways. Then again, how did the kids get their hands on the games? There was someone over 18+ that got them the games, or sold them the games. This would mean that its not the games fault, as it was not meant for children, but the adult's fault for failing to keep the game away from kids.

The way violent games affect youngsters and children? Simple! Only a few kids of the masses are already slightly or badly deranged and have a few screws loose in their heads. These few can take games so to heart that they begin re-enactments in real life. Then there's the 99,9% of underage players who dont do squat, because they are in their right mind.

Besides: does game violence really reflect in real life? Is it not the other way around? I talked to a few of my friends about the matter and they (as well as I) are in the lines of the following: We take out all anger and feelings of violence in videogames. We start up a violent videogame and blast the feck out of our enemies instead of doing it in real life. We could let out our violent feelings in the streets, beating up old granmas and little kids, but we dont. We play violent videogames and that's that! Videogame violence should be concidered as a sort of therapeutical way of relieving stress (this does not work with F.E.A.R. That thing CREATES stress... and makes me almos pee my pants sometimes...).

Final opinion:

No games should be banned and no material: violent, offensive, pornographic or anything else, denied access to from adults. The age restrictions should remain as-is, and "parents for security of children" organisations need to stop blaming the entertainment industries and start looking after their children. The saying: "Having a kid is a full time job" is no joke people!

(By the way: I am 17,9 years old (Sooo close!), played videogames from age of 6 and more or less violent ones from age of 8. Havent EVER even punched a person or tried to truly hurt another person. I have only hit someone in self defence, never to attack. Living a normal life, going to work and school and waiting for manhunt 2 to come out se I can PLAY!)

[InCreator]

Havent EVER even punched a person or tried to truly hurt another person. I have only hit someone in self defence, never to attack.

For a 17 year old male, I'd say you had one hell of a nice childhood.
What amuses me is that people who beat up others are not videogame addicts, at least not on the level where  game content should make anyone worry about. Bad kids hang around and look for trouble, not spend nights on sneaking upon an NPC in a videogame.

Kid who is messed up enough to commit a murder, has alot more serious reasons to do so than just a game he played.
Maybe endless bullying in school? Really awful home/family life? Serious complexes? A motivated killer is a psychopath and there's something that caused it. In all cases, parental care should eliminate and handle these causes before it's too late. Unless kid is simply crazy, but our society doesn't charge mentally ill anyway.

I've played MOST of games ever released on PC, and all my personality has benefitted from it is good knowledge of modern weaponry, good knowledge of history and social systems... plus good hand-eye coordination. Nothing like urge to kill or maim anyone.

[TerranRich]

It's been said that video-gamers make better drivers, due to better hand-eye coordination and mental reflexes.

[MrColossal]

Quick question... If video games cause violent behavior... Should there not be a correlation between violent criminals and QA testers?

[LimpingFish]

Circles!So...many...circles!

Freedom of speech, Freedom of Choice, Bad Parenting, Big Brother, Censorship, etc, and not to belabour the point...ETC!

I have no problem with material such as Manhunt 2, Cuming in Socks 4,  or Hip Hop Beanie Cop-Killa Sex Farm Mix Cutz CD (with free drug spoon).

Sell it all, but sell it to (and market it at) adults. The term "Adult Material" is not vague terminology, and society (in the UK, US, Uraguay...) has set definitions as to who is of "Adult" age.

I'm sorry if the pornography industry has hijacked the word "Adult", and I see the irony in the term. I also see the hypocrisy in how stores (generally, but not exclusively, based in the US) refuse to stock anything labelled "Adult" and by doing so undermine any attempt to prevent non-adults from acquiring such material.

But this argument goes so far beyond "Do violent games cause violent behaviour?" that, by concentrating on such questions, all we are doing is confusing the issue.

Knee-jerk political reactions are dangerous and counter-productive, but so is the "Freedom of Speech! Unconditional! Everthing for everybody!" lark.

Both parties have the same faults: A general unwillingness to engage in compromise, and a general lack of, well...common sense. The situation at the moment is simply deadlocked.

Until we move past that obstruction, we're just pissing in the wind.

[TerranRich]

Freedom of Speech! ... For those old enough (18 in the US) to understand what it means to have that right, and what responsibilities come with it.

[Nine Toes]

I didn't read much of what was already posted, but it's my strong personal opinion that if a video game entices you to go out and kill someone:
1: Your parent weren't doing their job, by talking to you and explaining that killing and hurting people is wrong, and that video games are fictional, and not real, or
2: You're just plain fucked up the head and you need to seek psychiatric help immediately.

If some kid told me, "I killed another kid because of a video game", the first thing that would be running through my mind would be, "Yeah, it wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald who killed Kennedy, it was the bullet who killed Kennedy."

[12431]

does this look like stress relief to you?:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zTCAmmdNOKo


I whole-heartedly support the AO-rating of Manhunt2.
The main purpose of the first manhunt game was to shock, which decreased gameplay a lot. I really can't imagine the sequel to be an improvement in any way. Maybe this AO-rating will give R* an opportunity to improve, and give us a game that is actually FUN TO PLAY for once!

[TerranRich]

Heh, those kids were wusses. Plus, horror games are not the same as semi-realistic shoot-em-up games.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

The day I made the mistake of playing Alien VS Predator (as Alien) was the worst day of my life.

I spent the entire day trying to walk up walls and kick people to death with my tail.

The fact that I didn't have a tail was by no means the worst - imagine me trying to kill someone and not finding the damn R_SHIFT button! How am I supposed to attack!

Funny thing, the people who play videogames the most - the ones who would theoretically play it to such an extent that they would indeed be induced to go out and wreak havoc - are, therefore, people who don't go out much. If they spend all that time playing VideoGames, their thumbs are really strong and their hand-eye coordination is superb, but it takes more than that to actually steal a car/kill a person/etc.

-------------------------

Been there, done that, we all know that banning games for reducing violence is silly, and we've all given countless reasons, and Michael Moore has already put it down to bowling (so don't bowl, and you won't kill).

I thought the issue was a different one? The ethics of making a game like this?

In the end, though, freedom is a beautiful thing. I don't think games like RapeLay or Manhunt should be made... HOWEVER, people are free to make them.

And the rest of the world is free not to play, if offended.

EDIT - At LimpingFish: ayuh, sell it to adults. Makes sense. But then the money starts talking... ah, the loveable human condition.

[ManicMatt]

does this look like stress relief to you?:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zTCAmmdNOKo

Yes actually, they looked like they were having a lot of fun pretending to be scared!