How far is too far? *Is* there a too far? If there is, what does it look like - Manhunt 2? CoD:MW No Russian? Halo?
Your thoughts, gentlemen.
Violence in Videogames: A Debate
(11 posts)-
Posted 5 months ago #
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I don't like games with 'real' violence, and much prefer to shoot robots and monsters, jump on heads or gun down crazy midget shield wielding hick Pandoran ex-convict psychos who tell me shit like "Tell my wife... She's a bitch!"
But, if it's going to be a realistic game, then you should go full on real and show the aftermath. The crying kids, the shrieking wife, the cops dragging you off. I've never played CoD or any of that kind of game so I'm not really in a position to comment, but it seems to me like they glorify the bloodshed, and stifle the horror.
I guess something like Spec Ops The Line (from what I've heard anyway) would be preferable to that. Even Uncharted, which has you gunning down hundreds of dudes while churning out snappy one-liners somehow feels far enough removed from reality to be okay.
In summary: Glorification of violence for violence sake is bad, and while I don't think that this type of game creates psychos, I don't like it as a gamer. It's like, you don't have any games where you can revel in being a rapist (except for that game) so I don't really see why we should be reveling in being a murderer.
I think germany have this the right way around. They're very strict about violence, but very lenient on sex in games/movies/TV.
Posted 5 months ago # -
I agree complete, T.G, although I do think Germany does take it a bit too far.
Posted 5 months ago # -
*Puts on false mustache and monocle*
There are two kinds of video games violence I feel are acceptable.
First, the tongue in cheek, not at all "scary", over the top style. Not sick or sadistic, but genuinely funny. e.g. Beating people around the head with a giant dildo in Saint's Row the third.
Second, any level of violence so long as it is relative to the story and helps you gel with a character. So let's think of the worse case.. a CGI render of a little girl being bound, gagged, her mother being raped and the girl being shot in the face. If it's there for the hell of it, it's just for shock value, and it's wrong. If it's there as a part of a deep and meaningful story, and explains why this main character is doing what he does today, I'm all for it.
Any portrayal of video game violence will never ever expand upon what my own imagination can picture when I read a book, and in books, we have much, much worse violence than the imaginary scene I just portrayed. The only difference with games, is that the images are graphically shown for anyone to see. You don't get that with books. If video games are ever censored I worry that it would feed down into movies and then books, and we just become a controlled culture with no freedom.
So on short, it's fine, all the time, at any level, so long as it's funny or relevant.
Posted 5 months ago # -
I was discussing this with a colleague at lunch and I just think violence in video games having a direct influence on violent people in real life is an extremely weak link.
If you were truly sane, you probably wouldn't even get as far as thinking about the consequences of a multiple shooting. In most cases, people probably wouldn't even think about it as they would simply write it off as being "crazy".
I think it would take a lot more than the influence of video games and violent media to take you to that sort of place. It goes well beyond the realm of rational thinking to arm yourself with the intention of going out to cause serious harm, or death, to completely innocent strangers.
Posted 5 months ago # -
"The limit on how far you can go depends on how much the mind can take".
-Theevilaires ;)
Posted 5 months ago # -
The thing with violent videogames, is that you can die. When I play CoD deathmatch, I don't feel like a omnipotent murder-god...
I feel like a jumpy rabbit, surrounded by other jumpy rabbits... Who happen to be armed :-)
Personally I feel books and movies can have a far more negative impact on glamorising violence.
Take James Bond for example. In reality he is a ruthless sociopath, who will deceive, intimidate and murder anyone who gets in his way.
Though the media portray him as a suave rogue, who can get a woman wet, with a smirk. How many angry young men wish they could do that?
Posted 5 months ago # -
I think to be human is to be violent. Video game are both visual and interactive(no other medium does that).
Most of the time the people that are influenced to a point of snapping are people that are unstable to begin with. I would assume that most of us here are well adjusted and mature. But we aren't the problem.
The problem I see are childern. I have recently watched some young kids(aged five to 12) playing some xb360. The games ran from Skylanders to CoD. These kids are blank spaces being filled in and molded by what they experience. And if what they experience is ultra violent gaming...you would be delusional to think those games don't influence them negatively.
You could blame the parents, and some of it falls on them. You should also blame the companies that market ultra violent games to kids(and to uninformed parents). Does this website have age verification blocks for kids? Yet it is common for adds to be all over the site for ultra violent games. You walk into GameStop, they just about give away GameInformer, samething...full of pages contaning reviews/previews/adds all trying to get the reader to want mature raited games. Is there an age limit on the mag? Does Gamestop warn parents that the mag contains such info? Do I feel parents need to step up? Yes. But they aren't the only ones. Lets say your watching football on TV with your kids and an advert form some hardcore porn pops up. Would floor you. Now you could cailmly tell your kids that the movie is not for them, or THAT website is not for kids. But things have already been set in motion. Yet that is exactly what hapens when GTA, CoD, BF, Saints Row, Gears, etc gets adds run on TV.
I know gamers alway feel they are losing there freedom. Your not. My friend is a NRA member(national rifle association). When ever some kid takes his fathers gun and shoots another kid, he bitches about not giving in to the liberals because if he gave up his right to own a semi automatic pistol, then they would want his hunting rifle next. Gamers can be like that. If you start placing restrictions on some games, eventually they will take all games away. Fact is no average citizen needs an assult rifle or a semi auto handgun. And the fact is ultra violent games are being marketed to and consumed by kids. Something does need to be done.
Just like certian political factions try and divert the focus away from the real issue(where a real solution would be unfavorable to the cash flow of their constitutes), so do the power brokers in the games industry. How many sales of Halo, CoD, or GTA are made to minors or the uninformed people(they are just games) that buy them for kids? A sizable amount.
So the games industry wants you to think your freedoms are under attack. And alot of you buy it right up. Do you really need an AK47 to hunt ducks?
Posted 5 months ago # -
If you want to legislate against it, you should be able to prove that media stimulates violent behaviour in kids.
I don't recall hearing of a mass killing without the perpetrator being some kind of looney, and as we all know, they tend to get inspired by quite a few things, whether it's The Beatles or Jodie Foster.
There were school shootings in the US long before Columbine, and there have been several devastating shootings and killing sprees in Germany. Trying to neutorically repress every negative impulse clearly doesn't work either.
I think it's a lot more likely that unstable individuals are drawn to violent media, than it is that violent media would be creating unstable individuals.
I think that legislative ink would be better put to use trying to spot and help the people who are off the tracks mentally. One thing I notice is that people always talk about pretty clear warning signs after one of those mass shootings. No one does anything, though.
I think the industry itself has some (unspoken) responsibility to tell stories, and in most cases ultra-violence only serves to take away from that. You shock people, or in some cases thrill them, because you have no idea how to reach them otherwise. It's cheap, and incompetent, like putting a pretty girl on the railroad tracks in an old movie.
Posted 5 months ago # -
I do think some games are distasteful. Take Mortal Kombat, God of War or Gears of War - *not* distasteful IMHO because they're so OTT, tongue-in-cheek and based in fantasy.
But that "No Russian" bit from CoD:MW... well, I'd have been personally ashamed had I been working on that team. Unnecessary and gratuitous. If any one scene in any videogame allows the player to revel in unnecessary realistic violence with a straight face, it's that one.
As for free-roam games, I prefer Assassin's Creed's system of dealing with attacks on civilians to GTA's, where it becomes a kind of sport.
I just think that certain devs could show a little bit of social awareness when designing content for their games.
In essence, the more "realistic" a videogame makes itself out to be, the greater the responsibility it has to avoid glorifying acts of violence, IMHO.
Posted 5 months ago # -
To me it's all a bit speeding tickets/Indy 500.
You don't exactly need to attach a chainsaw to a rifle, and you don't have to make anyone explode in Mortal Kombat.
Unneccesary and gratuitous is the name of the game, and to me it speaks of an industry that still doesn't understand the value of quality writing.
It's a bit like Hollywood in the 80's. If you had a quality writer then it was either dumb luck, or you deliberately picked one of a select few. Either way few people cared, and it was really all about adding some violent action anyway. You didn't need a writer to do that.
There's a big leap from tasteless to harmful though, and between the lack of scientific evidence, and the fact that most of these guys had psychiatric problems before they killed, the debate just seems pretty staged to me.
Posted 5 months ago #
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