Video Game Violence

ImagoX said:
Can't we just all get along? We're all gamers, here... Or do you want me to get out the hose, again? :cookiemon
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Hey Imago...easy on the hose thing! I'm ending this right now because it was getting out of hand. Since this is distracting other people consistently, I'm willing to drop the subject without having resolved anything. I'm tired of NOT talking about games.

Also, since there are a number of Christian, conservative gamers on this site who disagree with me without actually getting their feathers ruffled when I post, I'll just discuss things in a polite and adult manner with them.
 
Actually, wasn't this supposed to be about Video Game Violence? To quote the movie The Mighty Wind, "Wha-Happened?"

I think that with the big topics of immigration policy and the Iraq War clouding politics, the Mid-Term Elections in November won't feature politicians bashing video games more often than usual.
 
basilmunroe said:
Actually, I think that Jack Thompson actually served to reduce the amount of negative press video games get, after the world noticed how obsessed he is and what a wally he is.
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I'm unfamiliar with the term, wally, but I agree. Sounds pretty much like what he is.
 
Really? Hm. Must be a Canadian term. I didn't know that. Wally=moron to the degree of a penis.

I guess there are a lot of insults that are strictly Canadian. Here's a few, you tell me if you've heard 'em:

Wally

Hammerhead

Lloyd

Hoser
 
I've heard of Hoser, but anyone who watched the movie Strange Brew could say as much I suppose. Lloyd is interesting? Same kind of negative connotations?
 
Ugh, maybe I was a bit too hasty in assessing the situation about video game violence being out of the news lately:

Columbine Video Game Draws Relatives' Ire

DENVER (AP) -- An online game based on the Columbine High School massacre is drawing criticism from relatives of those who died in the 1999 attack, including a father who says it trivializes the actions of the two teen killers.

The game, Super Columbine Massacre RPG, was posted on a Web site last year, but is becoming more popular now. It draws on investigative material, including images of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who killed 12 classmates and a teacher before committing suicide.

Players are told it is "ultimately up to you" how many people Harris and Klebold kill that day. Each time Harris and Klebold kill someone in the game, a dialogue box pops up that says: "Another victory for the Trench Coat Mafia."

The game also includes crime scene photos of the killers and images of students running and crying, though it does not have photos of any victims.

"We live in a culture of death, so it doesn't surprise me that this stuff has become so commonplace," said Brian Rohrbough, whose son, Daniel, was among those slain that day. "It disgusts me. You trivialize the actions of two murderers and the lives of the innocent."

The site's creator, who identified himself in an e-mail interview only by the name "Columbin," told the Rocky Mountain News he wanted to make something that would "promote a real dialogue on the subject of school shootings." He said he was inspired to make the game because he was in Colorado at the time of the attack.

"I was a bullied kid. I didn't fit in, and I was surrounded by a culture of elitism as espoused by our school's athletes." He added that he considered the killers, at times, "very thoughtful, sensitive and intelligent young men."

Richard Castaldo, who was paralyzed from the chest down in the attack, played the game after reading about it on a gaming Web site. He said it reminded him of the 2003 film "Elephant," which follows students and others on the day of a school massacre without assigning reasons or blame for the bloodshed.

"It didn't make me mad, just kind of confused me," he said. "Parts of it were difficult to play through, but overall, I get the feeling it might even be helpful in some ways. I don't think it's bad to discuss."
 
scribe999 said:
Hmmm, I'm a technical writer, and I write quickly. I rarely need to go back and edit beyond a word here and there, but that's just training. Also, I've already finished school. Plus, I get into work early so I have all this time to just trade barbs with a teenage Sean Hannity wannabe.

Speaking of school, how has school been going for you, Weise? Learn anything new? You know, every day you learn something new is a day not wasted. Are you learning Algebra? Your ABC's? Do they even teach history anymore?

Your attempt at pointing out semantics is giving me quite a chuckle. So, I'll clarify what I suppose you were trying to say. First, I was stupid. Then, you decided I wasn't stupid and just ignorant. Now, I'm just a "tight ass douche", which is fine because I've been called worse by better than you. I hope you know what a douche is actually for, though...do they teach that in school as well?

I actually did write that I was sorry if I offended you about Alaska, but you didn't care about that. I still stand by my opinion that you are an inexperienced child and that you're still far removed from reality because of what you write. As for your "apology", I didn't see one. I saw one insult that transitioned into another.

Also, judging by what you were saying about visiting cities, I guess it still means that I must know something more about the world. Now, this is based entirely upon your argument that visiting enough places equals "cosmopolitan-ism", so I'm actually taking a page from your book--I've visited (and not just layovers): Boston, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Phoenix, Las Vegas, London, Glasgow, and Seoul. Still makes me more "experienced" than you.

As for being wrong, I'm as human as the next guy. But, so far, all we've talked about is our opinions, and I have yet to be called out on any actual facts by you. If you go back and do some fact-checking and find that I made a mistake, by all means, pass it along. You just like to call me ignorant because I didn't back down to your browbeating and name-calling that takes the place of reasonable discourse. So, I called you out, and I got the Bill O'Reilley treatment of being told to shut-up and being told I'm ignorant because I disagree with your worldview.

You can dish it out, but you can't take it "little fella".
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Hmmm you people like to laugh out loud alot... should definitely get that checked by a doctor could be ADD or ADDHGF but who knows. As for you scribe, Ive practicley lived in these places. Or did you just not care to read that little guy? Funny how your still angry at me calling you little. Ha! Oh jeez I better see the doc tomorrow. As for freaking out after being called on something, I do believe I was me who called you out first and here we are a thousand posts later.Ooooops maybe I should be more mathimatically specific. But you know I failed my test, I just couldn't get what came after M. So the fact that you have been called a douche by people much smarter than me means something. It means other people call you a douche, and I'm geussing, a lot. But dont mind that little highly probable geuss. Its just, people dont like other people like you that talk like there the next Einstein! Ha. oops there I go again. But, why are you wasting your time on a little fella like me? I'm not the one taking it, you are. It just pleases me to see you call me a dumbass then go on in the next paragragh about how you are so smart and educated. God scribe, I want to be you some day. Wait a second, why would I want to be a tight ass douche (pussy cleaner fag) that gets called a douche by everyone else except on his little online forum where people really believe your BS.

But I came on here to break this off. I just had to respond. Been going on long enough and Ive proven my point many times but it really would be better if we were talking in person. O well.

Hey everyone go to www.yomamma.com
 
basilmunroe said:
Oh wow.

I just got strange looks at the office cause I was laughing out loud.

Hey Wiese, hate me more! I want to see if it's possible for you to be more irrational and immature than you're already being. Come on hate me ... do it!
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And keep talking, I want to see if the Canadian people can get anymore homosexual than they already are! Hoyhoy.


PEECE
 
basilmunroe said:
I really fail to understand the purpose of making a game out of what happened at Columbine.
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Especially since it's one of those events that placed such a harsh light on video games themselves.

Then again, there are all sorts of exploitative games...remember not too long ago there was an online game where someone offered a cash reward to anyone who could reconstruct and prove the method of the JFK assassination using a simulation. Not to mention there was that awful first person shooter game that had you fight Osama Bin Laden as the final boss in hand-to-hand combat.

Finally, there are all those racist games put out by extremist groups that require shooting minorities.
 
basilmunroe said:
I really fail to understand the purpose of making a game out of what happened at Columbine.
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Read the last quote of the article, the one from the kid that was paralized in the shooting and still played the game anyway. Even HE said that it's something that people are OK to be talking about. By that logic, why make a movie about an incident like this? Or a book? Or make a painting? The idea (it is to be hoped) is to get people to think about things and wonder why they happened, so that maye it won't happen again. That, or the creator was trying to work through their OWN issues and used the game media as a wat to do so.

Of course, I've never played the game (although now I want to), so I don't know if it's exploitative, crass, thought-provoking, stupid or what have you, but I do understand the urge that creative people sometimes feel to work through a troublesome issue by creating art out of it. Is this game art? Who knows? I'll have to see it for myself... thank God we live in America where we CAN talk about anything we want.

Oh, and by the way, the next person that slings a personal insult in here will not only have their post deleted but will also be looking at a little vacation from the forums. If you're too immature to stick to topic then you can go elsewhere for a while.
 
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I see your point Imago. I guess I just object to giving people a way to vicariously carry out such a horrendous real-life event. I'm all for shooting bad-guys in games, as long as they're based on a fantasy (however grounded in reality that fantasy is - i.e. WWII games and such are still based on fantasy, they don't set up precisely accurate historical battlefields and whatnot).

Although, I find more value in more fantastic games than I do in realistic ones. As far as FPS goes, I like Geist and Metroid and Halo, not Call of Duty or any of the Tom Clancy games.

But, I do see the point here. It opens up a dialogue, and there is freedom to do that, I just think the medium was chosen in poor taste.
 
I understand that there may be a creative catharsis involved in creating a game like this, but the difference with other forms of media, games are interactive. Imagine, instead of the movie, United 93 someone created a video game...in which you play the terrorists.

My level of empathy can only go so far. Now, I wouldn't outright condemn this online Columbine game without knowing more about it, but it is a sensitive topic to be creating a game in which you act as the killers.
 
Well, hey, Grand Theft Auto has sold a bazillion copies, and you can do really horrendous things to people in that game. If someone made a game out of The Passion of the Christ, you know someone, somewhere, would say it should be banned for "excessive gore". It's all a matter of opinion.

Do I really want to play a game that has you hunting down helpless teenagers with a shotgun? No, not really... but I don't feel like playing GTA either- I like to be a HERO in a game story. But, if someone that has violent tendencies plays the game to work out feelings of rage or anger that they might otherwise act out in REAL LIFE, then it has value.

Every scientific study (read as: not sponsored by a religious or "family" group and that are professionally peer-reviewed) done on video game violence has found not a single correlation between violent games and real-life violence- in fact, they seem to suggest that people that play the occasional video game are just as well adjusted as the mario fans of the world and that the games might serve as a release for pent-up feelings of frustration and rage. Some people take out their frustrations on the football field or in the raquetball court, others play games where they "kill" hundreds if not thousands of enemies.... I'd rather they do that than show up one day at Arby's with a sawed-off.

Are there people that play to an obsessive level, and who then go on to do heinous acts? Well, of course they are. But there are also people that go on shooting sprees because "God told me to" and point to chapters of the Bible that totally justify, in their own sick heads, their shooting rampage, and people aren't seriously talking about banning the Bible. Bottom line is that ANYTHING can be the target of an unstable person's fixation- supermodels, TV shows, books, actresses, amusement park rides, collectable stuffed animals and, yes, even video games.
 
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