W
Wanderer
Guest
Well, if you're playing an evil character you should be able to kill children. I'm not saying I would, I'm neutral. I don't think it's a big deal, it's just a game.
You genuinely believe that video games are responsible for school shootings?
That's hilarious, especially coming from a gamer. Have you been feeling any urge to go "baaaa"?
Have you been feeling any urge to go "baaaa"?
The realistic graphics combined with a first person view, would make such videos absoluttely sick and twisted. The game would get banned worldwide once such videos got out - imagine small kids, with almost video quality, getting their heads chopped off, exploded, incinerated and so on.
To blame games on that is imho too much shortsighted. The problem is imho much more complex.
But - just as an theoretical example - in an alien culture that is warrior, war and weapons oriented, the media would cover war and weapons imho much more than in an alien culture that does not have any emphasis on war and on weapons at all.
It's all biased.
If I was living in such a warrior-oriented culture, I would have to strongly defend myself because of ANY arguments I would have against ANY element of the focus on warriors, wars and weapons. People would call me insane, because they would feel themselves being challenged by me and by my criticism. Because the focus on these things is totally NORMAL in this imaginary alien culture.
I would even go so far - I'm biased, too - to say that in such a culture different reasons for killing other members of that culture would be sought than the core of the culture itself - because otherwise the core of the culture itself would be challenged. and especially highly conservative members of that culture wouldn't like the core of the culture to be challenged at all. Now, replace "core" with "focus", and you'll have a similar thing, only not so strong.
On a meta level of all this, it is still unclear to me what the REAL influences of cultures towards killings are. There imho must be some, because we don't live in ageless, timeless capsules, but instead we are living being influenced by our cultures at any time.
Right now, statistics say that the amount of violence here in Germany goes up.
A tale I read this weekend in a newspaper told of a bus ticket inspector who received a broken nose by someone who just didn't want to be inspected.
The ticket inspector is quoted in that article that the quality of violence has increased over the last years. Other ticket inspectors are reported to agree.
Same goes for the destruction of a local park.
Where does this come from ? What are the developments within society which cause all this ?
If the reasons were clear - why, then, is nobody doing anything against it ?
I regard that the reasons are still unclear - and maybe they even never were reason to perform a serious scientific study on that. Or not enough studies.
The rising amount of violent deeds and the rising quality of violence must have reasons. Everything has reasons, it's as simple as that.
But where is the actual source ? What things are there which make people act like this ?
To what things are people exposed that they have such an influence on them that they are doing much more violent deeds than maybe several years ago ?
To me, one VERY important factor is the de-humanization of people. And the ingredients of their culture(s). Through commerce. But this is a different tale ...
The bottom line: Yes, I *do* believe that violence in games is ONE of many, many factors. And I also believe that people will defend it as long as they believe it to be perfectly normal.
The problem is imho much more complex.
-snip-
The bottom line: Yes, I *do* believe that violence in games is ONE of many, many factors. And I also believe that people will defend it as long as they believe it to be perfectly normal.
I had a great time killing the children in Fallout, actually had a great time laying waste to anything that moved for the most part. The children were memorable tho, it was surprising that a developer let you really cut loose in such a fashion. Actually quite amusing in a morbid sort of way. Take that, you virtual little shit.. BLAMMMO...
Good times wiping out an entire town, seeing if you can come out unscathed..
That said, i always kinda have to roll my eyes when people play the "what makes children any different than any other life?" card. C'mon, dont play dumb here. There is a difference. Just like when an old geezer kicks the bucket at 98, you say "well at least they lived a full life". Children havent lived at all, theyre still in the tutorial. Plus, theyre just so damn cute! Should have seen all the little ones dressed up, coming to our door this halloween, quite heartwarming.
But those are real children. I do not lament the death of virtual children, for virtual entities are not living beings - theyre targets!
I personally don't understand how anyone can act that way even in a game and call it fun...
Then you are a very different person than I am.
And yes, there has been an increase in violent crimes in most of Europe/US,