When is this **** going to stop??

DarkJager

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1256401,00.html

Another idiotic study that points the finger at gamers for real world problems. Everytime I see something like this, be it a study as to how FPS games make people violent, or the supreme muppet that is Jack Thompson spouting off, I really just want to smash something.

Will these knobs ever get a life and stop putting the blame on video games for every bad thing that happens? It takes a really, really sad person to even think of linking car crashes and video games together.

DonkeyStyle \o/

I really just want to smash something.

No doubt because you were playing a game where your character smashes things.

Cunny-Funt

lol I saw that coming. But yeah it total stupidity.

tba

give it another few years till it starts being seroius but by then most people with a voice and common sense will have played video games, and it will fizzle out like all the other fingerpointing fads.

Royale with Cheese

Yeah have to agree with tba. The people running the world these days didn't grow up with video games, and of course things were far better in the good ol days. Video games are just a handy way for them to point the finger. In a few decades it'll be something else.

jhegarty

I disagree...

I am sure back from my 10 year round trip to fight monsters on mars.... and there was none there

dam you doom

thelordofcheese

Dispite the obvious spin that has been placed on it by sky [seeing as "Young Male gamers might have a slightly higher chance of being in crashes" doesn't sell quite as well as "Gamers 'Make Bad Drivers'"], there may well be something worth considering.

Right at the end, for example, is the scenario they present of young children playing driving games and the potential for the driving style used in these games carrying over into real world driving.

We already know that young male drivers are more likely to speed and generally act the maggot behind the wheel, is it not probable that a childhood spent playing racing games could contribute to this mindset?

This is not to say that games are the cause of such behaviour, but maybe, just maybe, there might be something to this.

Even if it isn't very likely, gamers do themselves no favours by dismissing stuff out of hand, we mock people like Jack Thompson for doing it, why should we get away with the same antics?

Cake Fiend

DarkJager wrote:

It takes a really, really sad person to even think of linking car crashes and video games together.

I disagree. This is not like blaming the Columbine massacre on Doom or something similarly silly, there is very possibly a real link in this case. This is not Joe Moron Public randomly spouting angry assumptions, this is a team of qualified psychologists getting together to do a scientific study.

I think it's ironic that you complain about other people bleating their unqualified opinions on the matter.

Call Me Jimmy

thelordofcheese wrote:

Right at the end, for example, is the scenario they present of young children playing driving games and the potential for the driving style used in these games carrying over into real world driving.

We already know that young male drivers are more likely to speed and generally act the maggot behind the wheel, is it not probable that a childhood spent playing racing games could contribute to this mindset?

This is not to say that games are the cause of such behaviour, but maybe, just maybe, there might be something to this.

Well if movies with car chases are allowed games are allowed. A kid can watch World Rally Championship on TV. I just can't understand the argument against games at all.

Ciaran500

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

Well if movies with car chases are allowed games are allowed. A kid can watch World Rally Championship on TV. I just can't understand the argument against games at all.

It sounds like they're not trying to ban or blame anything, just looking for any link.

Call Me Jimmy

Well obviously a link will appear because the people who play racing games that are also real world drivers are young males (17-21).

If there is a link to racing games being behind some of their dangerous driving then where are the studies in the news about the link between people who watch 'the fast and the furious' and drive dangerously?

Sierra Oscar

The media for you...

tba

But in fairness Im sure that a control sample of non gamers would have found a more obvious link between the more dangerous drivers, that of age and gender.

Retr0gamer

Cake Fiend wrote:

I disagree. This is not like blaming the Columbine massacre on Doom or something similarly silly, there is very possibly a real link in this case. This is not Joe Moron Public randomly spouting angry assumptions, this is a team of qualified psychologists getting together to do a scientific study.

Just because it's a 'scientific study' doesn't mean it's true or if the study was carried out in a proper manner with no doctoring.

steviec

In fairness I could see how they might have a point. There's a big difference between suggesting someone will play doom then go out and shoot people and suggesting someone who's been playing Gran Turismo all day might subconciously go a mile or two per hour faster when driving because they've had their brain in tune to controlling a car at racing speeds all day.

The actual study says it finds a statistical link and the article itself even mentions how it is of course skewed by games players being of the same demographic as more dangerous drivers in general anyway, I don't see how it's controversial to be honest.

DarkJager

I don't think its meant to be controversial....just more money and time wasted on a project that will not result in anything at all. Do psychologists have nothing better to do nowadays than scour for links between video games and problems in real life?

Call Me Jimmy

steviec wrote:

someone who's been playing Gran Turismo all day might subconciously go a mile or two per hour faster when driving because they've had their brain in tune to controlling a car at racing speeds all day.

I agree that this is possible yet for some reason this study is only related to games playing, giving the impression that playing racing games is responsible for boy racers. I wouldn't have minded if this study was to do with the link between entertainment and dangerous driving but that doesn't have the same ring to it I guess...

Cunny-Funt

yeah but the differene to playing a racing game and actually being in a car drving it is so huge, but there is an effect I mean...

When I 1st had a shot of driving a car in "RL".. I was fking terrible at changing gears etc. But I was very good at judging distance and cornering + reverse parking and the likes for my 1st shot. & I would put that down to having played a lot of driving games actually lol.

But simple acceleratiing and changing gears + breaking I was by no means a natural at, at all.

In a game you just press X and you go fast, press square and break fast etc. This is no where near what its like using peddals. I remember breaking way to hard and jolting forward really fast and I was only going 15 mph at the most. That puts the reality into you. So I could never say from playing games all my life to driving a car, that I ended up a "faster" driver. Maybe slower lol .But I would say it made me a much quicker learner in some aspects of driving.

I wonder has anyone else here had similer feelings when they 1st srated driving after playing racing games for years?

thelordofcheese

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

Well if movies with car chases are allowed games are allowed. A kid can watch World Rally Championship on TV. I just can't understand the argument against games at all.

The point being that Tv's and movies are a passive medium, as opposed to games which are interactive, you do learn how to respond to a given scenario in a game, where as with Tv or movies you tend to sit there and let it wash over you.

I'd be very surprised if a study like this ever returned no evidence of any link, especially in the short term.
What's not doing these studies any favours is the short space of time they are conducted over [any attempt to prove a long term link would need years of study, not months or weeks] and certain sections of the media giving them sensationalist spin in order to shift a few more copies.

DarkJager wrote:

Do psychologists have nothing better to do nowadays than scour for links between video games and problems in real life?

VideoGames are a relatively new area of entertainment, and figuring out how it may affect people is kinda what they are supposed to do.

po0k

Cunny-Funt wrote:

yeah but the differene to playing a racing game and actually being in a car drving it is so huge, but there is an effect I mean...

When I 1st had a shot of driving a car in "RL".. I was fking terrible at changing gears etc. But I was very good at judging distance and cornering + reverse parking and the likes for my 1st shot. & I would put that down to having played a lot of driving games actually lol.

But simple acceleratiing and changing gears + breaking I was by no means a natural at, at all.

In a game you just press X and you go fast, press square and break fast etc. This is no where near what its like using peddals. I remember breaking way to hard and jolting forward really fast and I was only going 15 mph at the most. That puts the reality into you. So I could never say from playing games all my life to driving a car, that I ended up a "faster" driver. Maybe slower lol .But I would say it made me a much quicker learner in some aspects of driving.

I wonder has anyone else here had similer feelings when they 1st srated driving after playing racing games for years?

I'm learning to drive now, and I have to agree with everything you said.
While games give you the speed sensation (SW Pod Racer on thrust - weeee!), they also force you to react far faster, process more visual information in less time and read the road as far ahead as possible, graphical rendering limitations allowed for.
And ffs, racing in a game is a game. Driving a car puts a far greater motor co-ordination load on your brain, you physically have to be more alert, as your subject to alot more sensory input because you're actually driving and not laying back in the couch.