What does everyone think? Is this true....

Lucutus

_CreeD_

I was in Huoston last february and got to talking to one of the guys there about the Columbine shootings and how he agreed that video games were the cause. He went with the claim that the games taught them how to aim.
Very interesting since, besides the fact that learning how to aim doesn't make you want to aim at people, he had just finished talking about the fun he had at the weekend at the shooting range. Being a typical texan he figured everyone should have a gun. But he honestly believed that it was okay to go out and learn to shoot a real gun for target practice, but that playing a video game would not only teach you but make you want to kill people.

Video games are just another reflection of our predatory nature, not a source of it. Those that point the finger are usually looking for an excuse or reason for what happened (Like when the Columbine parents wanted to sue every major FPS software house....Because they're little darlings wouldn't really shoot their classmates, plant explosives on the body etc....Oh no...). Or completely deny the fact that we are all animals, as intellectually advanced as we believe ourselves to be, we still have adrenaline glands, we still get a thrill from beating an opponent etc. Just most of us have enough control to channel it all into something completely and utterly non-destructive (in the real world anyway).

I don't believe movies, games, books etc. in anyway cause violent crime. In the cases were perpeatrators have cited these as inspiration they're basically pointing to whatever gave them a Theme, not a cause. To do somehing that screwed up you have to be screwed up in the first place, it would have happened regardless.....
Just a side-note. The same thing has always been said of the link between P0rn and r@pe. Yet it has been conlusively proved that those countries with more liberal p0rnography laws have the lowest counts of r@pe (Bar one australian report that was commissioned with the sole intent of proving the opposite - not to assess but to prove the point of the sponsor, and thus is counted as invalid by sociologists).

Shinji

The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire game makes me want to kill Chris Tarrant.

TwoShedsJackson

That argument really gets on my wick. What everyone overlooks in the States is the easy availability of guns - you can get some handguns with only a driver's license.

Perhaps if little Johnny wasn't able to get guns so easily then he wouldn't be able to go on a kill-crazy rampage. These 'right to bear arms' freaks will just use any excuse to let them hold onto their precious assault rifles.

Bard

Originally posted by Shinji:
The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire game makes me want to kill Chris Tarrant.

So will it soon make you want to kill Gay Byrne?... or do you already?

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Bard
_____
-me-

Hobbes

Originally posted by Castor Troy:
That argument really gets on my wick. What everyone overlooks in the States is the easy availability of guns - you can get some handguns with only a driver's license.

Depends very much on the state. MA is very anti-gun. Most states do a background check, however there is a loophole in the law that if you go to a gun show you can buy the gun thier and then. They are trying to close that law.

Excelsior

vote ralph nader.
stop nafta.
wait, this is an irish site.

the argument is so ridiculous. it could only be argued by someone looking for a cover excuse. something to protect their own hobby/interest that is the real cause.

i rented out girl, interrupted on dvd last night.

i learnt that the aorta actually isn't in the neck, but i don't now want to hang myself.

Manach

Sure-indeed don't the Americans need their guns incase the Brits decide to invade again.


Still given our own history it is perhaps for the best we do not have a gun culture.

Perhaps if somebody went amok with a sword next they'll try to blame & ban RPGs.

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fair is the prize and the hope is great

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Mills

I remember watching a Dispathes program a few months back on channel 4 about video game violence, an american man, Army General I think, remarked that in one incidence the teenager who was doing the shooting had never been shown how to shoot. Somehow this kid managed to shoot 3 of his victims in the head from 20 metres or so. Can you guess what this was attributed to? He'd spent a few hours playing doom on a friends computer a few weeks back. This man was convinced that the boy had been taught to shoot, by doom! The worlds gone mad :-/

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I am inflatible !

Shinji

Mills, that'll be the wonderful Colonel Grossman - possibly the least intelligent human being to emerge from the USA in a long, long time.

It's very clear that most people involved in this argument argue from a position of ignorance. The NRA come from the point of view of having shot guns but never played videogames. The bleeding-heart Moms against Videogames groups have seen videogames being played but never shot a gun in their lives. Anyone who has done both will tell you that there's a significant difference between shooting a target in real life and shooting anything in Doom, or even a "realistic" game like CS. Hell, even using a lightgun in Time Crisis or whatever won't train you to use a real gun, since there's no weight or recoil involved.

Ja,
Rob

Blitzkrieger

It's complete ******. I've spent my whole life playing video games, as would have most of those kids and just about every kid nowadays. I've played all the most violent games around for years but I....(I was going to say I never feel like killing anyone but thats not true ) ......I've never killed anyone.

If it was true that video games caused violence then every kid in america would be shooting up schools.

Baz_

Well there is a little recoil in time crisis, however shooting in games can in no way be likened to shooting in real life. I put a disclaimer on this having never shot before, but the weight difference alone is enough to make it sufficiently different, then you have the fact that most people aim with their mouse some even use the keys (yeuch), my point is that in them ways, i.e. no realism in aiming, there is absolutely no comparison, then you have the noise, and no matter how hard you think you are, unless you are used to hearing a gun fire, the sound will give you a little bit of a shock.

As for the bigger picture, videogame violence creating killers, well I simply don't believe that, but I don't think that should be the end of it, i.e. I don't think so, so I don't care. The same way I don't think watching a violent movie makes killers, I still wouldn't let my 2 year old nephew watch them. What should be done, and what I believe is being implemented, games industry-wide, is that a better rating system should be set up, and then parents (not games designers, graphics designers, programmers, distributors, not any industry figures whatsoever but parents) should be vigilant in observing the ratings, before the children buy the games, and vigilant when children are playing games. Just like I believe nearly all films are PG, if you don't like a part of a film, don't show your children the film, if you don't like a part of a game, don't let your children play the game.

Baz_

And thats exactly it isn't it, it's not an external influence that causes someone to go mad, it's just the external influence which pushes them over the edge, and I don't know about you but the only thing I experience while playing games is pleasure. Except of course if I get my ass truly whipped in which case I feel shame.

Hobbes

I think I posted this before...

I forget the exact incident, but there was some kid that committed some atrocity that mirrored some story of King's. So, a reporter asked King if he felt in any way responsible. His response was that he was more involved with his stories than any reader could ever be, and the stories never pushed him over the edge. He grew up with the Three stooges and Roadrunner cartoons and knew the difference between real life and fiction. If someone was so close to the edge, he didn't need any story from King, he could be set off by being rained on by a thunderstorm. Who would you blame then?

SantaHoe

RE: Doom teaching kids how to shoot people...
By the same logic, 'Pong' teaches kids how to play tennis.

Blame it on whatever you like, but you have to ask, how does a 12-year-old get his hands on a firearm?
I think in the case of the Columbine shootings, the whole Doom thing was just a smoke screen to cover those irresponsible enough to let weapons fall into the hands of kids.

/me takes his daddys BFG-10K to the supermarket for some revenge.

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yoink

_CreeD_

"Games Player arrested after turning up at a local supermarket dressed in a floppy sunhat and overalls, wielding a replica SuperShotgun and Wrench....The suspect was apprehended after his level 3 Sentry gun failed to deter police from entering the frozen food section. "2 tins of pringles glued to a Coronation Street tin is just not enough to deter the long arm of the law" stated Gardai X....

Police are still searching for the suspect's accomplice, last seen running up to Gardai and pressing a Band-Aid box repeatedly into their chest - hissing and running away.

[This message has been edited by _CreeD_ (edited 11-10-2000).]

SantaHoe

hehe
That's why I'd take Quake 3's BFG-10k over TF's Engy any day

BAAAWOOOSH!!! ---- Splat
(cleanup in isle three please)

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yoink

pat kenny

one instance that did worry me a t first notice was a Brazilian guy who went in to a cinema and started shooting people before doing so he went into the bathrooms and done something that would have revield a secret area in DUKE-NUKEM(shot a bullit into a mirror or something),(he had been playing the game a lot recently)
This article was shocking me until I got near the end where it mentioned that he had been suffering for phycological problems.
Now you might say if he didnt play Duke-Nukem
he wouldnt have done these things but Im sure he would have vented his anger in some way(resivior dogs ear sceen,or scarface chainsaw sceen)
But the most disturbing thing about this article was that a man with a history of phycological was able to legaly hold a firearm

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Young men are you listen'en to me.I said young men.......

SantaHoe

Aye, get rid of the guns - and psychos will have far less killing potential.
At least if a nutter is attacking you with a knife, you've got some chance, and he's not going to easily be able to kill 10+ people with one before he gets his head blown off by local police.

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yoink

WhiteWashMan

guns are easy enough to get in any state or country, even ireland.
howvere the fact that the population of the US is ohhh many time larger than irelands would mean that they should have incidents sorta in the same *many times* region.
its just no-ne jives a damn when a cavan farmer is shot (and who could blame us)
besides, theres no-one where in ireland where you can take out half enough people before running out of atargets. ireland just isnt viable as a target hotspot....

darthmise

To quote Jim Carey at the mtv video awards..
"If everyone would spend a little more time with their children we'll be okay!"

Video games or gorey films have nothing to do with it.

Cake Fiend

Isn't it funny the way these parents try to blame their 15-year-old or whatever's psychopathic rampage on a clearly 18's rated game (which they probably bought for said social fu<k-up). I wonder what their reaction would be if anyone mentioned their lack of care/attention to the child for letting the freak play this devil-game (never mind the fact that they let/didn't know the kid had a firearm in the first place ffs).

And repeated LOL's at sad people trying to equate mouse-pointing skills with real gun aim, like who do these ppl think they're kidding (and who the f3ck still plays and would gain good aim from Doom ffs, that's one of the most pathetic accusations I've ever heard).

SheroN

Hitler used to play a lot of doom i heard as a child...doom caused the hollocaust{!}....people are naturally violent some can vent it properly..others can't because they're not shown how to by their parents and elders...

Greenbean

This might not go down well, but I do believe video games can significantly increase your ability with guns. We all have an urge to be competitive - its very natural to use war-games to be competitive, its extremely natural to re-enact fighting and shooting as young children. Ok, ok so there may be a huge difference in holding a gun and reacting to recoil than moving a mouse around etc - but the ability to scan a scene and pick out targets according to some citeria (ability to defend, ease of shot, use of terrain) are fairly undeniably learned skills. I get a little bemused when we point blank ignore some realities to avoid feeling bad about them. The thing is, the fact that I know these skills bears nothing whatsoever to my wish to kill people or what not. I have a stable mind and nothing bar the excepted extremes (self-defence etc) would cause me to kill.

If someone learns clay pidgeon shooting, when a farmer's son learns how to shoot tin-cans, when the farmer shoots crows this isn't a phsycotic mind gearing up for a shooting - its just improving a skill; one that because of our nature/circumstances we like to do. Big deal. Like what everyone else says, they are possibly the weight that topples the insane mind over the edge but they aren't the reason it became insane in the first place.

I do believe young minds shouldn't play violent games because these minds haven't formed a sense of good/bad or a good coherent reality. Typically it takes the age of puberty before the frontal lobe of a developing person grows - and its supposed at this age the mind stabilises enough for higher thought.

In all of the shootings there seems to have been evidence of troublesome progress for the killers in their lives. It certainly wasn't the games that triggered it - more likely family problems or social problems in school, as well as double personalities in one case with voices in the head.

But for christ sake don't just say point blank that quake/unreal wouldn't improve your skills in a paintball scenario for example - it would in some ways. Don't say point blank that the gore in soldier of fortune is fine - its really a little too much if you are 11 years old. Just accept that some of the games we play are adult orientated and they are not for unstable minds. They aren't to blame though - thats for sure.

SantaHoe

Well I think what most people find hard to believe is that (can't remember the quote)... DOOM teaches kids how to shoot/aim guns.
We're not necessarily talking from a tactical point of view (ie. utilizing cover, escape routes, strafe-jumping etc.)
DOOM only allowed aiming along the X-axis, with one button to shoot, with a gun that reloads itself.
You could hand me a gun, and I wouldn't have a clue how to use it... (taking 'safety' off, reloading clips, etc) ...and I've played my share shooters (including, but not limited to, all versions of DOOM and Quake)
These are things the kid(s) must have learned outside of games (DOOM in particular)

Although, I agree that young kids shouldn't be exposed to excessively violent games like SoF, especially not if they're obsessing with it and games like it.

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Jak

I shoot regularly and I play the odd game of Quake/Unreal.

There is absolutely no comparison whatsoever between the aiming process in either. Nor is the ability to control a mouse and strafe jump in any way related to mounting and firing a gun/shotgun/rifle.

My opinion on this is simple enough.

Videogames do not make killers. In fact i doubt if there is one single thing which can make someone a murderer.

However violent videogames may be one of the hundred things which pushed some kids over the edge.

JAK.

Shiminay

I posted this before in a similar debate months and months ago, but I feel I should do so again...

I was in the local Xtra-vision (in Castlebar) and I saw the manager (who I know) hand GTA over to a little kid (maybe 10 years old max). Naturally enough, this made me a bit mad cause at the time, gamers like (most of) us were coming under flak because of our hobbies.
I asked the manager if she'd have given that kid an 18's cert video to which she replied "Of course not!" so I then proceeded to ask her why she felt it was OK to give the kid an 18's cert game. The question took her by surprise and I got the box of the game and showed her the big red "18s" logo on it. She countered with "But sure, it's only a game. What harm could it do?"
I then proceeded to explain (in as graphic a description as I could manage) the object and gameplay of GTA and she was shocked (to say the least) and immediately implemented a policy in her shop that ID be checked for games.
A step forward, but it proves what kind of ignorance there is to games. People don't realise the content until some dumb ass army general in America comes out and blames a game like Doom for Columbine.

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All the best,

Cake Fiend

Originally posted by Greenbean:
Don't say point blank that the gore in soldier of fortune is fine - its really a little too much if you are 11 years old. Just accept that some of the games we play are adult orientated and they are not for unstable minds.B]

Which is why games like this come with a big red "18" on them. If a parent gives a game like this to their children, they have only themselves to blame; they are clearly not responsible parents. As Dav points out, people really don't understand that there are some excessively violent and realistic games out there, and because it's 'only a game', they think it's a new version of space invaders or something. But they're the first thing everyone turns against when the kid blows his schoolmates away. The parents should make sure the games their children play are suitable for their age group before they pin everything from WW1 to Columbine on them.

Greenbean

So can I take it that most people would be all for a legal classification/censorship system for games, if only at least to make sure the responsibility is thrown into the hands of parents/store-owners and not thrown in the face of adult gamers/producers who like playing adult games?

Chubby

[rant]
There might be differences between blowing up space monsters in first person shooters and firing a gun in real life but there's stuff you can learn from the games you can use. No kid is born knowing how to aim ahead a moving target to hit it. We've played so much fps now that if we're given a gun and told to hit a moving target we'd automatically compensate for the traveling velocity and the direction it's moving in by aiming ahead of the target. We'd probably miss because we are not used to the recoil and weight of real guns but the knowledge is there. The old saying "knowledge is power" comes to mind.

What violent games and films do is give impressionable kids ideas. Sure, get rid of the gun culture and people can't shoot each other but I can still club you to death with a crowbar and know I should aim for the head for a critical hit, or cripple your legs so you can't run away, or mutilate your aims so you can't fight back. Okay, just because I know how to do it doesn't mean I want to but just because I have access to a gun doesn't mean I want to go out and shoot people.

So what's to blame, the knowledge or the tool?

The censors think the "knowledge" is to blame so censor everything, games, films etc until people are of a age thought to be able to make rational decisions. Keep them kids ignorant. Before the first caveman discovered how to use bones and branches to club animals to death, they weren't weapons at all. But our cultures, films, books, tv, games, does not allow us to do this. So every kid know a gun can kill by pulling the trigger and how to aim even though we've never seen, held or fire a gun before.

Stop making tools? Impossible. We already know how to make such deadly tools and that they're great weapons to use against your enemies. Ban them? Yes, that makes sense but it's impossible on a global scale and like all banned substances, there'll always be a black market for it.

So what do we do? Both censor materials that provides such knowledge and ban the killing devices. The aim? To keep irrational people from such knowledge and devices so they can't harm themselves or others. This is what it's really about. It's not about you or me. The rules might apply to everyone and pi$$ us off but that's only because we cannot tell who and when someone will go nutz. Then again, do we really care about all the man made trouble in the world? Should we have our fun and not care about what's happening outside? Ignorance is bliss [/rant]

[This message has been edited by Chubby (edited 18-10-2000).]

Jak

There is fk all knowledge you gain from playing a game that you dont gain taking a pi55 in a bowl.

Games teach zero real physical weapon skills.

Chubby

Originally posted by Jak:
There is fk all knowledge you gain from playing a game that you dont gain taking a pi55 in a bowl.

Games teach zero real physical weapon skills.

That's because you're wierd enough to associate aiming your pi$$ at a stationery target at point blank range to tracking a moving target in the distance. Games doesn't teach you how to handle firearms physically but they teach you how to aim and that's all it boils down to once you're used to the recoil and physical weight.

Hobbes

Sorry Chubby, Games do not teach you how to aim.

The only thing a game can teach you based on the usual argument is to treat people as objects/targets in a game.

You would get better firearms training off a water pistol before you would something like doom/quake.

Dustaz

Arent law enforcement folk in the states taught to shoot in bursts of 3 to the torso because it is liklier to stop the target?
so video games have taught us wrong??!!! Bastiges! oh well, back to paintball to prepare for my killing spree.
Actually , i wonder if you got the irish quake team or something and played them against yer average stag party out at Splatoon, would quake give them an advantage? interesting experiment....

Jak

I believe that was done ...

Not sure who won though .. think it was all Quake folk.

Shiminay

Originally posted by Hobbes:
You would get better firearms training off a water pistol before you would something like doom/quake.

Good point Hobbes - but no one give's a toss about the latest and greatest Super Soaker (or whatever)

I've used a real weapon (shotgun) and I really don't feel much of what I'd have done in a game had any baring on it. I'd been told about the recil and how to hold it tight against my shoulder by my mate (had he not been there, I'd probably have broken my collar-bone).
I tried firing off at a moving bird and missed miserably - inexperience combined with not actually being able too see as I'd taken my specs off incase the recoil knocked them off (well, I didn't know it wouldn't!).

As for what GB said about censorship, well, if memory serves, there was a big arguement not too long ago by all of us about the Irsh Film Censorship Board taking over the classification of computer games and how it'd knock release dates back. Is that not the case now or did the IFCB not do it?

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All the best,

Greenbean

I disagree, games do teach you fighting abilities - I'm not sure its the aim; its more the tactical thinking and awareness; the ability to react to stimulus; the ability to know how to deal with a situation in the safest way to your own person. Games train the mind at picking out weak points in "oppenents" who may have as much in common with reality as chalk and chesse. Regardless, you are abstractly learning how to destroy that opponent and figuring out what factors are important. When it comes to real combat training, you do the exact same. What the censors worry is that thinking in this "dis-passionate" way of thinking; this continual tactical thinking will warp the mind and turn you into a killer - BUT theres no logical step from quick decision making to suddenly becoming a killer (If that were true, half of Wall Street would bring guns into work). The censors also worry that theres no sense of circumstance - the men revive to fight another day; in an ironic sort of way they are worried when you shoot a guy in the head to make him die quicker, rather than just take out his legs to stop him. But since you know its just a game you don't feel compasionate - hence head kills etc - its not real. The problem arises when someone takes a game as reallife - they are impressionable; they take it to heart. These people are already messed up, but games just might be the thing that puts them over the edge or these people may be too young to know any better.

Hobbes

Head shot? Ever seen what a bullet does to someone when you shoot them in the chest or the stomach? It's a bigger target.

C B

There has been an awful lot of discussion of aim in this topic, which is a large heap of bull****.

If some deranged lunatic whats to go on a random killing spree they don't really need to know how to aim just how to handle a gun and fire indiscriminately.

Greenbean

The question is whether the imitating of gun battles in games is inductive to making someone want to kill people in real life.

[This message has been edited by Greenbean (edited 19-10-2000).]

Figment

A statistic i read a while back pointed to Japan where they have the highest rate of violence on tv and computer games and they also have the lowest crime levels. Mind you the Japanese were always a bit different.

Theres Lies
Damn lies
and statistics

Hobbes

ever seen the Yakuza in action?

One time in Japan a Yakuza Boss was moving into a rich neighbourhood and the people living there were complaining of the crime coming in. The Boss said that when he moves in there will be Zero Crime in that neighbourhood (or at least the criminal won't live very long). They seemed to accept that.

Canaboid

My own opinion for what it's worth.

The major contributory factor in most of these cases (school shootings or whatever the atrocity of the day happens to be) is bad parenting. As far as I can reason the break down of the family unit results in screwed up kids. This is true here in Ireland also but it seems further progressed in the US. If the reasons for my argument aren't at least apparent please say so and I'll try to outline them but I'm a bit pushed for time now.

Incidently, I first fired a shotgun aged 11/12 (my dad hunts). I was bought an air rifle about the same age. Age 14 I was bought a .22 remington rifle (Real Gun). I dicked around with these but never developed an obsession for guns. If I learned anything it was that I don't like killing things. No real point to this, just a thought.

C B

Originally posted by Chubby:

That's because you're wierd enough to associate aiming your pi$$ at a stationery target at point blank range to tracking a moving target in the distance.

Obviously you didn't notice that Jak's post was at 6.20 in the morning (after consuming copious amounts of alchol). In all probabaility from his PoV the toilet was a moving target in the distance.

UNIFLU

I can agree to a point with people blaming games etc for increases in violence in children as children under 7 years dont have a good grasp on the whole reality/fantasy idea. Growing up with a whole range of violent films/games about you does to a degree lessen the shock of violence. Im sure most of us can remember films that we thought were gruesome or thought were violent and if you saw it now you may not even blink. The graphic content of some of these things had increased to the point of reality. Surely that has to have some effect on the more impressionable people in this world. With the Americans they have noone to blame but themselves as most households seem to hol a small arsenal. If you didnt have a gun you quite simply couldnt shoot someone. Seems pretty straight forward to me.

Im not saying that games etc should be blamed, just agreeing with the point earlier that some form of censorship has to be srtongly enforced and also apply blame to the parents for the childrens actions. Methinks that if parents were made fully responsible for their childrens actions there would be much less troublesome kids.

~~Bring back the wooden spoon!!!!~~

Hobbes

Originally posted by UNIFLU:
*snip*

You watch too much TV UNIFLU. Try living there.

ThunderingMike

"That F__king Shotguns straight out of Doom!"

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Get 'em Marco!

[This message has been edited by ThunderingMike (edited 21-10-2000).]

Hobbes

10/23/2000
MARIO IS TEACHING MY SON TO FLASH THE WRONG GANG SYMBOLS

In this antagonizing world the voice of the individual is so often lost, particularly the solitary voice of a single mother. But please hear me out. I know that many senators and important big people are trying to regulate the video game industry with labels or ratings, but there are so many behavioral problems that they simply fail to address, problems that only a mother can understand.
For example, on the lava levels in the basement of the castle in Mario 64, it is not uncommon for the little plumber (my son's role model) to have his buttocks set alight. He dances about, grabbing his behind, but eventually recovers -- when he does so, he very clearly, just for an instant, flashes the hand symbol of da Bloods.

I know that kids are smarter than to imitate what they see on the TV screen, but frankly if my son were to flash the sign of da Bloods in the supermarket he'd be capped right there in the Alpo aisle. We live in a Crip 'hood, and my precious angel can't afford to be frontin'.

Please, please, censor your video game content before someone gets all wu-tang'n'**** on my son's ass. Thank you, and peace out.