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Video games under the gun, Violent images, gameplay spur lawmakers on.

Ripclawe

Banned
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5351969

Bcol_VideoGameViolence.gif
 
“There’s a culpability here that should be shared by those who are training kids to kill,” Thompson said."

Can't believe someone would actually argue this. And then you've got that he's suiing Rockstar and Sony because 2 crazy kids went and shot some motorists and blamed it on GTA. Why not go after the people who they got the guns from to begin? Oh yah, because then you'd be going afte rthe parents and we wouldn't want them to taking blame for this.
 

Tellaerin

Member
Last I heard, you don't aim guns with a Playstation controller in the real world. Any so-called 'expert' who claims that 'violent games are training kids to kill' is full of crap. :p
 

bishoptl

Banstick Emeritus
Why are so many of these assholes proposing legislation Democrats?

Wait a second...this is a Ripclawe post! A clever swipe at Kerry! IT'S CRYSTAL CLEAR NOW
 
element said:
Tony Hawk has violence? This is news to me.

They showed this before on NBC. Basically they showed Tony skating in front of a cop that hit him wit his night stick. That was it, they just kept doing it over and over.
 

aoi tsuki

Member
Tellaerin said:
Last I heard, you don't aim guns with a Playstation controller in the real world. Any so-called 'expert' who claims that 'violent games are training kids to kill' is full of crap. :p
The controller is not a gun or knife, but the strategies you learn in games can sometimes be applied in real life. Hell, the game of Go was used to devise strategies to be used in war. This isn't a new concept, it's just that games are a lot more literal in their representation.

i'm not saying games are training kids to kill, and i'm not saying they're not. It's just that when you're playing a game and thinking of how to kill a guard without alerting the other enemy soldiers, it's easy to see that there's more to it than just pushing buttons.
 

MetatronM

Unconfirmed Member
Madden ISN'T violent? That's news to me. Last I checked, football was about constantly hitting other people.
 

MetatronM

Unconfirmed Member
aoi tsuki said:
It's just that when you're playing a game and thinking of how to kill a guard without alerting the other enemy soldiers, it's easy to see that there's more to it than just pushing buttons.
If the kid is sane, then yes, it is just pushing buttons.
 

Ranger X

Member
This issue will never end and it's totally pathetic. While they bash videogame, Georges bush is pushing it's nose everywhere in the political world and creating wars. They also sell guns to countries where they actually REALLY TRAIN children to handle gun and "kill americains".

And what's up with parents and retails workers duty to respect games rating? Where's the video club clerk asking IDs to a suspiciously young kid? What's up with with our almost 80% violent TV shows and movies???
 
Wyzdom said:
And what's up with parents and retails workers duty to respect games rating? Where's the video club clerk asking IDs to a suspiciously young kid? What's up with with our almost 80% violent TV shows and movies???

Parents never get the blame for this stuff. It's never even brought up really. They just start looking into whether or not the kid played games, listened to rap or rock music, or watched violent movies. They never check to see just how neglected the kids were at home. Just look at the Columbine issue. How are you going to build a bomb in your house without someone finding out?
 

Tellaerin

Member
aoi tsuki said:
The controller is not a gun or knife, but the strategies you learn in games can sometimes be applied in real life. Hell, the game of Go was used to devise strategies to be used in war. This isn't a new concept, it's just that games are a lot more literal in their representation.

i'm not saying games are training kids to kill, and i'm not saying they're not. It's just that when you're playing a game and thinking of how to kill a guard without alerting the other enemy soldiers, it's easy to see that there's more to it than just pushing buttons.

I'd agree with you if it weren't for the fact that most of the violent acts that are blamed on games tend to be shooting rampages in schools, which really don't involve much strategy, subtlety, or anything else that they could have conceivably been 'trained' to do by playing games. A game like GTA or Doom is not going to 'train' you to be a real-world marksman, no matter what these so-called 'experts' babbling about 'murder simulators' may think. :p
 

way more

Member
Among games’ most vocal critics is Jack Thompson, a Florida lawyer who has tried, so far without success, to argue for acquittal of defendants in violent crime cases in which he believed that games made them do it.
I hate that motherfucker Jack Thompson. Whenever some psychopath kills 20 people he pulls out the video game defense.

Anyway the ESRB rating system is the most respected of any industry, even Liberman has backed off due to it's success. This issue is just one of those hot buttons that shitty politicians press instead of focusing on real issues. It's like porn or violent movies, just filler for some blowhard to spew when he can't rant about anything else.
 

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
Like every OTHER issue regarding games, there appear to be only two thoughts about violence... and they're polar opposites.

A - Games are too violent! This will warp kids!

B - Games aren't too violent! Just because I see lifelike images of folks careening about in pain, and I am able to shoot them repeatedly in the face, doesn't mean that it's too violent! It's just make believe!


Bah. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle...
 

Tellaerin

Member
DavidDayton said:
Like every OTHER issue regarding games, there appear to be only two thoughts about violence... and they're polar opposites.

A - Games are too violent! This will warp kids!

B - Games aren't too violent! Just because I see lifelike images of folks careening about in pain, and I am able to shoot them repeatedly in the face, doesn't mean that it's too violent! It's just make believe!


Bah. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle...

I'm just not fond of games (or rock music, or anything else) being trotted out as an excuse for violent behavior, as if they're some form of mind control. None of these media divest people of their free will and force them to kill. If it was that easy to control peoples' minds, some third-world dictator would've used heavy metal and surplus copies of Enter the Matrix to build an unstoppable army and conquered the free world by now. :p
 

Minotauro

Finds Purchase on Dog Nutz
Violent video games/movies/music are a SYMPTOM of a violent culture...not a cause. They just make convenient targets.
 

Mock

Banned
It's Jack Thompson, folks, anything he's involved with is rejected by the courts rather swiftly. As Frank Zappa would have put it, Thompon's solutions for video game violence is "the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation."

Really, even the most uptight conservatives think Thompson is a loon.
 
DavidDayton said:
Like every OTHER issue regarding games, there appear to be only two thoughts about violence... and they're polar opposites.

A - Games are too violent! This will warp kids!

B - Games aren't too violent! Just because I see lifelike images of folks careening about in pain, and I am able to shoot them repeatedly in the face, doesn't mean that it's too violent! It's just make believe!


Bah. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle...

My problem isn't that they're blaming games and other forms of entertainment for these violent outbursts, it's that they're only blaming those things.. If you hear the background stories on these kids you notice that the one trend is that they're obviously neglected or just simply not brought up right. As I pointed out earlier, the kids from Columbine were able to build a bomb in their own house. It was also reported later on that their parents obviously didn't look after them too much. Then you've got the 2 kids in this story. They were able to find shotguns in their own house. Yet the first people they go after is the game industry. The game industry didn't supply them with that gun. The game industry didn't buy a 14 and 16 year old a game that's clearly only suited to 17+ year olds as the box says. What do these people expect the game industry to do? There's only so much they can do before it becomes the parents problem and not the game industry. When you start to see a theme of the parents just not being there for hteir kids it becomes very obvious as to what the real problem is.

Someone posted last year (or the year before) on the forum that in their store a woman came in and bought Vice City for her kid. They came back the next day wanting a refund because of what they saw in this game. Now while it's respectable that she took it away from their kid, it should be pointed out that she didn't pay attention to warning given to adults buying these games for kids. GTA is loaded with warnings on the back "Blood, Gore, Strong Language, Sexual Themes and Violence".
 

TTP

Have a fun! Enjoy!
Zelda: The Wind Waker

Nintendo better add Mature to the next Zelda then.

Just noticed Kingdom Hearts is also in bold. Disney is teh violent.
 

tedtropy

$50/hour, but no kissing on the lips and colors must be pre-separated
If anything, video games are that little cathartic extra something that PREVENTS me from going out and killing people. Nothing vents stress quite like taking out it out on the poor, poor inhabitants of Vice City....
 
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