5th July 2018 - Video Games in the media

Today's Topic - 5th July 2018

Submitted by @Merc

The news media loves to return to one of their favorite topics from time to time: Video Games. Only, usually never in a positive way, with one of the main reasons being that ‘Video games cause violence.’ But is that really so? What do you think?
:bulletpoint: Use the Discord 2000 character limit to it's full potential. Short answers are a waste of time. Try and express your point in as much detail as possible.
Argo - 07/05/2018
The news media loves to say that doesnt it.
Maybe they feel threatened by the other growing markets,
or they know their readership will soak it up, who knows.
But no, just like with rock or metal music, movies, or anythign else for that matter,
It has no correlation with violence whatsoever
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BelaramRoarbak - 07/05/2018
(I apologize for my English grammar) Violence is in the genes of the humans and took a big role in our history. Today's western culture is don't have that much phisical violence in everyday life but the repression of the agression caused by psychological disorders is make our society passive-aggressive, and to find what cause this, they pointing to the video games because it's not some agression you watch (like in movies, news) but that kind you do, or have interaction with. And they blame that type of entertainment, game, art or whatever because they afraid of it, if you don't know something in details you are  afraid of it. Because they don't see that verbal harassment  or other psichological harassments are sin, and somebody have pain from it, and they think graphical violence what don't cause pain to nobody are the cause of the most phisical agression of the children :smile:
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RedRhett (Sid's Pet Owl) - 07/05/2018
I guess when i see someone stealing a car and blaming it on GTA i think A.terrible in the moment excuse and B.They are possibly crazy

I guess something good about games is that they let you let out weird emotions like when i get really pissed instead of going crazy and destroying something or wanting to take my anger out on someone i play Doom. Or if im feeling lonely and could use some socializing i play multiplayer games like Payday 2

I also think that Video Games could use a bit of praise because it also helps people cope with life with games like Night in the woods (shoutout to @Fox (Potion Seller) ) Dark souls (like NakeyJakey) and games i personally used to cope with some sadness like Grow Up

Something interesting someone said during a TED talk was a Lady saying something like: We need to stop women getting raped in video games and ReviewTechUSA talked about this topic and he bassically sayed something like: Thats great and all but no triple A or respectable Indie dev has made games where woman get raped. sure there can be sexual themes like in GTA, Far Cry and Deadpool (yes i know Deadpool was a shitty example). But only sick 20 year olds make games where you can rape women

Something Else that the media should be talking more about is greedy schemes (lootboxes and CSGO skins) by developers like EA, Valve and Activision

(My first Discourse, i hope i did good :blush: )(edited)
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Silen - 07/05/2018
First and foremost, the news media makes the headlines with everything that is negative nowadays, because that's what attracts views. Just like when planes crash, they are quick to blame the engineers who build them, even though it wasn't remotely their fault, just like when school shootings happen, all the news channels go after this or that reason, never actually going to the core of the problem. I think in general, most of the news media is irrelavant, because in terms of our internet buddies, all they're doing is generating ''clickbait'' stories to attract viewers.
In terms of games promoting violence, it can actually do so, but only with those who are unstable or simply put, crazy. In these cases, any sort of action might provoke that violence, so again, games are neither the exceptional evil, nor the greater good here. The rest of us simply consume it like any other form of entertainment and just because I shot someone in Insurgency doesn't make me a criminal able to mow down people in streets, because that's a) not possible b) not something I'd consider.(edited)
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Ice CreamMan - 07/05/2018
The news often correlates violent games to violent behaviour, and rightfully so but with violence portrayed as a core part of gaming, it seems unfair. Different games have different themes. The idea that games introduce violence into players is more of a generalisation. To put it into perspective, take the DOOM series. DOOM has a very gory graphic style and incorporates violence, death and slaughtering demons by putting it center stage. This may prove to make players more aggressive or violent but remains to be seen. Another game to use as an example would be Getting Over It with Bendett Foddy. The game is generally described as frustrating and it is, but nothing about the game shows violence. The violence comes from the aforementioned frustration in the game design. The game is meant to be challenging, but still fair to the player; put in enough time or get lucky and you'll get past it. Although, you can be unlucky and be sent back to the start, fall down a considerable height or even restart on accident, the frustration can easily make violence; breaking objects, chairs thrown, mice and keyboards smashed on the table, even windows broken. As a final example, Slime Rancher. A calming game that at most, becomes a little annoying. In Slime Rancher, you make a farm collecting slimes of different types; rock,tabby,honey,void,pink,radioactive,etc. The game's graphics also help calm the player with its cute and cartoonish art. This doesn't (or shouldn't) induce violent behaviour. All games have different themes and with them, different mindsets that are supposed to go with them, such as the exciting and fast paced action in DOOM, the slow and steady tending in Slime Rancher, the frustrating but fair mountain of Getting Over it. I don't think that the media calling games violent is fair because of the generalisation, but that's just my opinion.(edited)
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TheSlyBrit [EU - PC] - 07/05/2018
Personally I use games to vent frustration, if I didn't have them I'd probably be more violent. Not that I am capable of anything further than getting into a scrap. The idea that they cause shootings is absurd. I mean, studies show that violent people will gravitate towards violent things. If you make a game like DOOM, sure a few nutjobs will want to play it just to kill things but most people play it because it is fun. The news literally only does this sort of thing because it's relevant to the present and is widespread enough to cause controversy. When people stop giving a shit and just keep to themselves, they'll find a new thing to crap on.
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July 6, 2018
TheSlyBrit [EU - PC] - Last Friday at 10:59 AM
@RedRhett (Sid's Pet Owl) Unless you're talking about games where the player character is directly involved with, or directly witnesses it, there are actually quite a few games that have themes of sexual violence or have rape occur in them. And, y'know what? It's not a bad thing. Rape happens, people need to know how horrible it is. Only problem is usually it isn't done with enough tact to make it much more than something to shock the player.
RedRhett (Sid's Pet Owl) - Last Friday at 11:01 AM
nah im talking about participation to be honest i guess i know in some games you can talk to rape victims i mean where you are the one doing it. Thanks for the @ though :smiley:(edited)
makes scense?
July 7, 2018
Kudo (lore seller) - Last Saturday at 11:40 AM
I believe that they use video games as a scapegoat because they don’t have anything else to blame for some kind of issue. There has been multiple studies proving that video games are not the cause of violent behavior. If so, why aren’t violent movies and tv shows not being cracked down? Or anything with violence?  It’s probably because video games is portrayed as a medium with violent themes yet there are games that don’t focus on violence. In my opinion, video games are a source of comfort I use, the same with watching shows and reading books. It’s a medium used for entertainment. I get very frustrated when people trash video games when they don’t even play video games themselves.
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Thinking Emoji Mushrooms - Last Saturday at 1:51 PM
there's a tarmack video on youtube that deals with this a lot better than I can but honestly it's just because when people get mad, they'd rather blame some demographic they aren't part of as the problem. And that's part of the problem with people in general: we condense everything down into a "well it's gotta be SOMEBODY's fault!" kind of issue when really, the problems that exist in the world are not created by any one group or another, they're issues often with our entire systems that are complex and multifaceted and difficult to understand.

And even more difficult for trashy "news" outlets to make snappy clickbaity headlines on to attract the attention of the eggplants that watch them, this is why I consider every news outlet to be the tabloids(edited)
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July 10, 2018
Xenken - Last Tuesday at 1:55 AM
In my experience, there definitely are categories of particularly impressionable children and/or adults that will think and act in more violent terms if you give them violent videogames that they stick to with no counterbalancing role model, just as they would act if given a violent movie/tv show/whatever else under similar circumstances.
Is this bloc overepresented for money making articles? Yes, certainly.
But it exists, and the resulting potential "videogames can cause violence" answer is worth exploring even if it still leads to a technical no vis a vis the question being asked.

(Note: this question is going to need a discussion re-focus if it wants to go anywhere. "The media are right in portraying all video games as evil and dangerous" Isn't exactly a point that's going to hold a multi-sided debate, especially in this server.)
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Thinking Emoji Mushrooms - Last Tuesday at 2:16 PM
well speaking from personal experience, I don't really believe that demographic exists because as a kid, I was labeled as falling under it. Being the type of kid with a parent that had a very hands-off approach to parenting and a lot of apathetic authority figures everywhere, it's not inaccurate to say that most of my learned morals early on came from fiction. And a lot of that fiction was video games, but nothing above an E rating for most of my childhood (unless skateboarding games count). Having said that, I still had violent urges as a child, and those weren't instilled in me through games, but was a product of my real life environment teaching me that violent action was the only way to bring attention to myself and the problems that I had, or the only means to defend myself.

My conclusion from anecdotal evidence is that a kid's real life is always going to affect them a significantly larger amount than anything in fiction because the generally good-natured morality of the fiction I consumed wasn't enough to balance out the reality of my situation, so it would probably take a kid growing up with both disturbing fiction and real life issues to become a true danger to others.

And at that point, blaming fiction becomes moot. It's more productive to focus efforts on making real life less problematic for kids than it is to just take away their fiction, especially if that fiction serves as a means of catharsis in a situation where they otherwise have no outlet. Doing that's just gonna make their situation worse, and it sends the message that nobody really cares about how bad they have it as long as they aren't bothering anyone else.

I am aware the danger of using personal or anecdotal evidence in debate but I really feel like it's relevant here.
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dethe - Last Tuesday at 11:00 PM
Expressing concerns over the kind of media "the youth" are exposed to comes up quite a bit in the most common kind of cultural criticism: grumbling. Whether it's jazz, rock, comics, recreational drugs, or video games, a critique of people's culture, habits, and media diet can be a way of criticizing, the people who enjoy it. All this without having to be brave enough to admit that that's what's being done.

Such a critique can easily  mask its motivations: someone somewhere is complaining that the music genre all the damn kids are listening to nowadays "isn't even music" as we speak. A fear of getting old can be a difficult thing to admit to yourself and others, and so being unwilling to recognize that they hold such a belief, our hapless critic allows the belief to motivate and inform actions, unwittingly. One way of dealing with that fear without having to identify it is to lash out at what seem like its cause: that damn music the kids are listening to that just sounds like noise to me. I've given a plausible reason why I dislike it, while also covering for my own insecurity.

But the hidden belief need not be connected to how something makes me feel. In the case of violence in videogames, the dominant form of cultural criticism comes following another instance of mass murder in the United States of America. That this sort of critique covers the class interests of those making it almost goes without saying, as time spent debating whether video games are to blame is de facto time not spent criticizing an industry which works hard to make firearms unreasonably commonplace.
As others in this thread have rightly pointed out, there is no good reason either conceptually nor from empirical studies, to suppose that violent videogames make violent people,  and I concur with that view. Nonetheless, the status of cultural products as commodities should (and does) leave them open to both a critique of their value as a purchasable products or service, as well as a critique of their value as parts of our culture. The latter, where we are concerned with art as a reflection of our culture, should lead us to wonder which sorts of beliefs are being challenged, and which bolstered, by some piece of culture. So long as we do so honestly and courageously.