Video Games and Violence

[VS]

What is your opinion on the people who think violent games such as Call of Duty cause violence in children?

Personally I believe that all the stuff they say isn't true.

A quote: "FPS are training our children to kill thousands of innocent people."
My opinion is that no, most FPS games aren't against innocent people, but against armies

Who else has an opinion on this?

 

[JDavidC]

Unless someone already has a problem to begin with, then no, these games would not cause violence. I've played more than enough FPS games to know that quote is a load of baloney.

 

[blaze boy]

What is your opinion on the people who think violent games such as Call of Duty cause violence in children?

Personally I believe that all the stuff they say isn't true.

A quote: "FPS are training our children to kill thousands of innocent people."
My opinion is that no, most FPS games aren't against innocent people, but against armies

Who else has an opinion on this?

Children shouldn't be really playing game that clearly aren't aimed at them and 100% of the blames lies sorely with the Parent who brought for their children, there is a reason why the age rating system exist.

Also any studies that says that violent games make people violent shows that it has a very weak link in making people violent.


Also people have always been violent long before video games existed.

 

[Pokénaut]

Kids shouldn't play extremely violent games if they aren't mature, and still pretend play. It seems at that point they can still be effected by violence.

 

[TeamRocketGrunt]

Well, Prussia, I think that since it's based on WARFARE it could be kinda educating. Violent, but educating.

 

[Necro101]

There is a rating when you buy a game... btw So if your not the age they say that means you should not be playing it (I have never followed the ratings but I started playing CoD at like 11 or 12 I was but I understood the difference between video games and real life.

RAWK ON

 

[32er]

It depends on the child.
If their mature, sure they can play it.
If not, it's best kept away from them.

 

[SBaby]

As far as I'm concerned, it's nothing but a meaningless excuse in a vain attempt to place the blame on someone or something else, instead of taking responsibility for one's own actions.

And just to let you know, every game that comes out has a rating associated with it. So there is absolutely no excuse for buying an M-rated game if you don't want your kids playing violent games. Why should the rest of society pay for someone else's stupidity?

 

[Malanu]

Well, Prussia, I think that since it's based on WARFARE it could be kinda educating. Violent, but educating.

Not really TRG. The only way the game could be "educating" is if the player doesn't sleep for a week, eats MREs for a week and is told what to do every moment of everyday. Oh and actually fired a weapons with recoil. while wearing 20-35 lbs of gear.

 

[VS]

Not really TRG. The only way the game could be "educating" is if the player doesn't sleep for a week, eats MREs for a week and is told what to do every moment of everyday. Oh and actually fired a weapons with recoil. while wearing 20-35 lbs of gear.

Actually the people with the most social lives including me are big COD players. I haven't played in a while do to NHL and Serebii

 

[GhostAnime]

There are strong links between aggression, sensitivity toward aggression, and reacting somewhat more violent than a kid who doesn't play video games.

But links between actual physical violence that harms people? Very weak.

Still should be up to the parent on whether the kid can handle it or not.

 

[Malanu]

Actually the people with the most social lives including me are big COD players. I haven't played in a while do to NHL and Serebii

See, I just play the swords and sorcery games and Pokemon. Though I may just start playing Skylanders with my son. It looks fun and the creatures are sorta cool looking.

CoD n hasn't interested me cause shooting with a controller isn't anywhere near RPG enough. Now if I had a "rifle" controller, I might be interested in finding out how good a cold blooded killer I am!

 

[Psychic]

Malanu and mariobrosvswariobros, please keep the subject on violence and video games, not what you play or whatever.

I'm not entirely sure about this myself. I do believe a lot of studies have shown that there are links, but they also don't take into account the effects of priming - exposure to something will affect your response to something else later. If you're exposed to violent activities, you're more likely to respond violently to something later. As for long-term affects, I'm not sure.

However, I'm more concerned about the verbal "violence" in co-op modes. The amount of offensive, aggressive, and sometimes straight up homophobic or sexist language players can use is a little staggering, especially when you start getting into "I'm gonna rape your ***" territory. From my understanding, there isn't really anything to prevent players from screaming obscenities and threats, so it's essentially seen as okay and acceptable. Would some players then start bringing that kind of language to the outside world? Whether it's a 12-year-old not knowing better or under-your-breath name-calling, I'm inclined to think some of it can carry over.

~Psychic

 

[Manafi's Dream]

However, I'm more concerned about the verbal "violence" in co-op modes. The amount of offensive, aggressive, and sometimes straight up homophobic or sexist language players can use is a little staggering, especially when you start getting into "I'm gonna rape your ***" territory. From my understanding, there isn't really anything to prevent players from screaming obscenities and threats, so it's essentially seen as okay and acceptable. Would some players then start bringing that kind of language to the outside world? Whether it's a 12-year-old not knowing better or under-your-breath name-calling, I'm inclined to think some of it can carry over.

~Psychic

Sadly, my own little brother is guilty of being exposed to these trash-mouthed morons.

I don't believe video games contribute to physical violence, but I would like to believe that the ability to chat with other gamers has contributed to unrestricted verbal violence that plagues many games with wi-fi features. I can't see any way this is preventable in the older crowd, but when 9 year old children are swearing like sailors, it is apparent that either parents do not follow the age restrictions on video games, that store salesmen don't have consciences if they sell R-rated games to pre-teens, or that children have become so snot-nosed, bratty, and selfish that they get anything they want from parents, who either do not wish to be involved in protecting the innocence of their children or have already lost that battle long ago. Needless to say, parents are not strict enough, when they should be more protective of their children.

 

[Zibdas]

I believe this is wrong. If video games affected one's mentalities, why haven't all the facebookers gone and become farmers?

 

[GhostAnime]

Verbal violence sounds like something inevitable to me. It's a result of our anonymity online. The Internet in general has the same exact problem. I think the best solution for that is to have some sort of mod system or point system based on how mean a person is online.

 

[FE21]

Unless you were upper class, up until world war I, here in America we were "hunters" of sorts taught not to sympothise with animals, and the common practice (to anything) was "Tough." This is still evident in some third world countries and (this was not included to start an argument!) Isreal. Only very recently have we started to care about things like "emotion" and respecting living things. The fact is, this is part of are instinct just as much as shopping (gathering), or bullying (preventing lesser males from getting the good females) is. So whether we play violent video games or not, that instint (to hunt for food) is going to remain intact.

 

[Timas]

It seems like video games have been used as scapegoats for as long as they've been around. 'Oh, it wasn't a case of bad parenting on our parts, it was the influence of a game he's been playing for three days that made him torture and kill that animal!' Maybe some video games are partly to blame but it's ridiculous to claim that just playing a game can change someone's set of morals or ideals of civilised behaviour.

Now whether or not certain video games are making us more and more desensitised to the idea of doing bad things to people... well, that's a whole 'nother ball game. I've heard the COD series and shooters similar to that are supposedly programming us as humans to make it easier to, say, shoot someone in real life and feel nothing because in our mind, we've grown to think that person is just going to respawn and there won't be any consequences.

That's a different argument though. If you're asking whether video games are the Devil on your right shoulder, telling you to do bad things, I'm going to have to put my foot down and say no, I don't think video games are individually to blame for someone's actions.

 

[Treecko's Awesomeness]

Am I seriously the only fifteen year old on the internet who doesn't play M-rated games? It seems like nobody cares about the ESRB anymore. I'm sure some younger people can handle it, but we really don't need eight-year-olds on wi-fi games describing in detail what they've done to our mothers. It's stupid, and their parents should know better than to buy that kind of game for kids who are obviously too young for them.

That is besides the point, though. Video games do not cause violence. Unstable whackjobs cause violence. If I'm the kind of person who decides that "Oh, I just used an X-box controller to shoot a digital bullet out of an imaginary gun at a person who doesn't exist. I think I'll go kill people!", then there's not that much that can keep me from going over the edge.

 

[Estellise]

What is your opinion on the people who think violent games such as Call of Duty cause violence in children?

Personally I believe that all the stuff they say isn't true.

A quote: "FPS are training our children to kill thousands of innocent people."
My opinion is that no, most FPS games aren't against innocent people, but against armies

Who else has an opinion on this?

I feel the same way.