Mod Makers Beware.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

"Explicit" Sex?

 

I have yet to see this coffee mod, but are you saying that watching this mod would be akin to watching a hardcore pornographic film?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No. But again thats not the point. In many countries the additional content violates the certification that RockStar applied for when the game was released.

 

Anyway as I said previously I would be quite happy for the certification boards to start certifying the content of the disk, rather than just the game. Just like the film board does currently when it comes to DvD that contain "deleted scenes".

[alanschu]

Playing certain games heighten violent responses in certain people tested.

 

What exactly is "wrong" with it?

 

Most studies I have read about it have indicated correlations, which are NOT evidence that support anything.

 

Any links or references to studies that show an actual causal relationship, and not a correlational one?

[alanschu]

"Explicit" Sex?

 

I have yet to see this coffee mod, but are you saying that watching this mod would be akin to watching a hardcore pornographic film?

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No. But again thats not the point.

 

 

It was the point. My question had nothing to do with what Rockstar did. It was a question about the actual content.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

It was the point.  My question had nothing to do with what Rockstar did.  It was a question about the actual content.

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Thats a whole other matter. The content violates the agreement so there is no point questioning just "how damaging" the content is. It's simply not important.

[alanschu]

It was the point.  My question had nothing to do with what Rockstar did.  It was a question about the actual content.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thats a whole other matter. The content violates the agreement so there is no point questioning just "how damaging" the content is. It's simply not important.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

When I asked about the "explicit sex," I wasn't trying to have a discussion about whether or not Rockstar was in the right or in the wrong, or if the rules or anything like that. Please don't try to turn it into one.

 

I was merely asking about the content, seeing as Numbers Man mentioned some sort of irrelevancy due to it being "explicit sex." I wasn't making reservations about "how damaging the content is" or anything.

 

I was merely asking a question about whether the content was actually "explicit sex."

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Oki doki.

 

On the subject of studies. The studies are not quick. By the time the results have come about games have already pushed the boundries further.

 

For example in one Xenon is called a violent game. Which is a bit mind boggling considering how abstract it is.

 

I can actually speak of the desensitising effect from personal experience. When you first switch on Manhunt your most likely going to get "shocked" especially the first time you sneak up behind someone and cave in their skull with a crowbar, or stab them in the eye with a piece of glass. Especially as it's all acted out in upclose slo mo cutscene form.

 

After 10 minutes you no longer notice. You simply become attuned to the extreme violence.

 

I've also seen people play Manhunt with the goal of getting the most gory and out there kills possible.

 

So until studies of recent stuff reach completion I'm not sold either way.

[alanschu]

I can actually speak of the desensitising effect from personal experience.

 

Not empirical. Personal experience is merely anecdotal, and does not support any claim about anything really.

 

 

When you first switch on Manhunt your most likely going to get "shocked" especially the first time you sneak up behind someone and cave in their skull with a crowbar, or stab them in the eye with a piece of glass. Especially as it's all acted out in upclose slo mo cutscene form.

 

After 10 minutes you no longer notice. You simply become attuned to the extreme violence.

 

That's not evidence that it has desensitized you to violence however. If after playing that game, someone in real life walks up and stabs someone in the eye right in front of you and you don't notice, then that would be desensitization. About the only observation I could make is that a gruesome scene, set in a fictional fantasy world, no longer bothers you. If anything, I would probably make an inference that you are interpret the difference between fantasy and reality. He also talks about this in one of his later points.

 

 

I've also seen people play Manhunt with the goal of getting the most gory and out there kills possible.

 

I personally went through Resident Evil 2, curious about all the violent ways I could blow away zombies. I still try to avoid hitting a gopher on the road when I drive to work. Furthermore, the fact that someone plays Manhunt with the goal of getting the most gory kills is not evidence that playing it leads to aggression. It's just a correlation. You cannot conclusively say that getting the most gory kills is NOT because they are already an inherently aggressive person, or have some sort of other, confounding variable.

 

 

So until studies of recent stuff reach completion I'm not sold either way.

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Then why state that the professor was "wrong." You just flat out said that he was incorrect.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Not empirical.  Personal experience is merely anecdotal, and does not support any claim about anything really.

 

That's not evidence that it has desensitized you to violence however.  If after playing that game, someone in real life walks up and stabs someone in the eye right in front of you and you don't notice, then that would be desensitization.  About the only observation I could make is that a gruesome scene, set in a fictional fantasy world, no longer bothers you.  If anything, I would probably make an inference that you are interpret the difference between fantasy and reality.  He also talks about this in one of his later points.

 

I personally went through Resident Evil 2, curious about all the violent ways I could blow away zombies.  I still try to avoid hitting a gopher on the road when I drive to work.  Furthermore, the fact that someone plays Manhunt with the goal of getting the most gory kills is not evidence that playing it leads to aggression.  It's just a correlation.  You cannot conclusively say that getting the most gory kills is NOT because they are already an inherently aggressive person, or have some sort of other, confounding variable.

 

Then why state that the professor was "wrong."  You just flat out said that he was incorrect.

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All case studies are based on it. It's just a matter of gathering enough of them together.

 

It's a pretty good first step. The violence bar is constantly raised. What would have gotten you an 18 several years ago will now get you a 15. Games which would have been banned outright (manhunt) now get a general release on an 18.

 

Zombies in the RE mold are fictional anyway. There is a certain inbuilt protection when it comes to fictional entities over reprentations of real ones. Why someone would want to discover the most gory ways possible to dispatch another human being, albeit a digital representation of one is best left to their therapist.

My professor once called me frighteningly sane and I dont think it was meant as compliment.

 

And so he is. Only its wrong without the "".

[Darque]

People who think violence in video games leads to real world violence are crazy.

 

A more realistic conclusion is that violent people are drawn to violent video games.

 

Don't blame the game, blame the person.

[alanschu]

All case studies are based on it. It's just a matter of gathering enough of them together.

 

Case studies perhaps...but not all studies are case studies. And case studies cannot see anything more than a correlation.

 

 

It's a pretty good first step. The violence bar is constantly raised. What would have gotten you an 18 several years ago will now get you a 15. Games which would have been banned outright (manhunt) now get a general release on an 18.

 

I fail to see the point honestly. All you have said is that society has gotten more tolerant to violent video games. You haven't made any claim that it somehow makes people more desensitized to violence. I've killed probably millions of virtual entities in video games, but I doubt I'd particularly enjoy watching someone get shot in real-life. I certainly wouldn't treat it as just something that's happening and for the most part ignore it.

 

 

Zombies in the RE mold are fictional anyway. There is a certain inbuilt protection when it comes to fictional entities over reprentations of real ones. Why someone would want to discover the most gory ways possible to dispatch another human being, albeit a digital representation of one is best left to their therapist.

 

I see....so it's possible for people to see that a zombie is a fictional entity, but not a videogame character

 

It's also presumptious and elitist of you to think that someone that does play a game like Manhunt to kill people in gory ways requires therapy. It someone that does that to a real person that needs therapy.

 

 

Why someone would want to discover the most gory ways possible to dispatch another human being,

 

Just to clarify:

 

They aren't killing human beings....they're playing a video game...no one dies

 

 

My professor once called me frighteningly sane and I dont think it was meant as compliment.

 

 

And so he is. Only its wrong without the "".

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No, he's not wrong. His statement is true. You're just not reading it correctly.

 

Correlational data only shows that variables are related. It proves nothing. Which is exactly what he said...there's no conclusive proof.

[Darth_Schmarth]

People who think violence in video games leads to real world violence are crazy.

 

A more realistic conclusion is that violent people are drawn to violent video games.

 

Don't blame the game, blame the person.

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Yeah, every time the argument of violent movies/games causing violence in the real world comes up I just think "old people afraid of newness". I'm totally convinced that the percentage of video-gamers committing acts of violence is as small as that of non-video-gamers, if not smaller.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Case studies perhaps...but not all studies are case studies.  And case studies cannot see anything more than a correlation.

 

I fail to see the point honestly.  All you have said is that society has gotten more tolerant to violent video games.  You haven't made any claim that it somehow makes people more desensitized to violence.  I've killed probably millions of virtual entities in video games, but I doubt I'd particularly enjoy watching someone get shot in real-life.  I certainly wouldn't treat it as just something that's happening and for the most part ignore it.

 

I see....so it's possible for people to see that a zombie is a fictional entity, but not a videogame character

 

It's also presumptious and elitist of you to think that someone that does play a game like Manhunt to kill people in gory ways requires therapy.  It someone that does that to a real person that needs therapy.]

 

Just to clarify:

 

They aren't killing human beings....they're playing a video game...no one dies

 

 

No, he's not wrong.  His statement is true.  You're just not reading it correctly.

 

Correlational data only shows that variables are related.  It proves nothing.  Which is exactly what he said...there's no conclusive proof.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Statistics are nice, but they dont make things look any better.

 

And violence in the media in general.

 

You really dont know how you would react. You might think you would react that way but all those years of gaming may well change the way you react.

 

Thank you

 

Therapy related to video games is pretty big business.

 

Zombies dont exist period. Representations of reality, especially contempory reality are a much more grey area.

 

Thats not relevent. The point is they are taking pleasure in acts of extreme cruelty something about stabbing someone in the eye with a piece of glass is getting them off.

 

Your missing one important part of the equation here. Yes you can say that no one would ever do that. But it's also much more truthful to say that the biggest thing that stops such people acting out is fear of punishment. You can see this quite clearly when social order collapses. Where social order dosnt apply is when people lose it in "the heat of the moment". There people are not thinking logically and punishment dosnt come into it. I think the French called it crimes of passion and mitigated the death penalty in those circumstances.

 

So many people might well be inclined to kill someone for real, or steal a car for real if they could do it without fear of punishment. Three cheers for social order

 

It proves enough for these to be taken very seriously and rated beyond the age when you can legally perform these acts yourself (talking about sex here obviosly).

 

Anyway It's not my goal to harsh on video games

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Yeah, every time the argument of violent movies/games causing violence in the real world comes up I just think "old people afraid of newness". I'm totally convinced that the percentage of video-gamers committing acts of violence is as small as that of non-video-gamers, if not smaller.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Would you be suprised that 80% of people in a certain young offenders institution had played what were classed as viloent video games.

 

Now you cant read too much into that because of the number of people who play these games anyway. But it's the sort of statistic that people like for shock value when campaigning against games.

[alanschu]

People who think violence in video games leads to real world violence are crazy.

 

A more realistic conclusion is that violent people are drawn to violent video games.

 

Don't blame the game, blame the person.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

*ding*

 

The "evidence" that case studies show for violent video games making violent people equally supports the claim that violent people prefer to play violent video games.

 

 

It also fails to ignore a host of other variables, which even the Surgeon General (hey, we have no problem believing him when he tells us smoking is bad for us) says are more important to a child's aggression levels than a video game.

 

But noooo, we look at the fact that the kid played a video game. We ignore the fact that 90% of boys play video games, so it's almost guaranteed that if one performs a violent act, then he probably played a video game....and probably a violent one at one time or another. You get the old school media harping about how Doom created the monsters of Columbine, despite the fact that the rest of the world had also played Doom.....6 years earlier. And given 90% of boys play video games, you could argue that an overwhelming majority of them do not display the anti-social acts that the media harps on about. In fact it almost, seems like it might have something to do with some sort of confounding variables

 

 

When I was 12, I was playing Doom like crazy. Wolfenstein 3D was awesome, and I enjoyed a good shoot 'em up game. I didn't think twice when I saw that impaled body twitching and bloodly, satanic symbols all over the place. But it didn't stop me from crying when I went gopher hunting with an air rifle with my brother, and shot my first gopher. I probably wouldn't have thought too much about it, but I happened to be right beside it, and looked into its eyes as the poor thing was sufferring and dying. I couldn't stomach it and my brother had to put it out of its misery. But I guess the fact that I can mow down counter-terrorists in Counterstrike makes me some sort of monster.

 

 

It also ignores the possible outlets that videogames can provide. I'd much rather have people perform gory, twisted acts on someone in Manhunt than in real life. When I get pissed, I'll load up a game of Counterstrike and shoot up some people. Better then going off and getting drunk and doing something else potentially worse.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

When I was 12, I was playing Doom like crazy.  Wolfenstein 3D was awesome, and I enjoyed a good shoot 'em up game.  I didn't think twice when I saw that impaled body twitching and bloodly, satanic symbols all over the place.  But it didn't stop me from crying when I went gopher hunting with an air rifle with my brother, and shot my first gopher.  I probably wouldn't have thought too much about it, but I happened to be right beside it, and looked into its eyes as the poor thing was sufferring and dying.  I couldn't stomach it and my brother had to put it out of its misery.  But I guess the fact that I can mow down counter-terrorists in Counterstrike makes me some sort of monster.

 

 

It also ignores the possible outlets that videogames can provide.  I'd much rather have people perform gory, twisted acts on someone in Manhunt than in real life.  When I get pissed, I'll load up a game of Counterstrike and shoot up some people.  Better then going off and getting drunk and doing something else potentially worse.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's a bit different to the blockyness of Wolf 3d to the almost photorealistic graphics of the next gen. What the game dosnt reproduce is the smell...

 

When I was about the same age I was taken fox hunting. Not that I had a lot of say in the matter but it wasnt a nice experience. But then I dont go out of my way to kill anything even bugs and stuff unless they "attack" me.

[Darth_Schmarth]

When I was 12, I was playing Doom like crazy.  Wolfenstein 3D was awesome, and I enjoyed a good shoot 'em up game.  I didn't think twice when I saw that impaled body twitching and bloodly, satanic symbols all over the place.  But it didn't stop me from crying when I went gopher hunting with an air rifle with my brother, and shot my first gopher.  I probably wouldn't have thought too much about it, but I happened to be right beside it, and looked into its eyes as the poor thing was sufferring and dying.  I couldn't stomach it and my brother had to put it out of its misery.  But I guess the fact that I can mow down counter-terrorists in Counterstrike makes me some sort of monster.

 

 

It also ignores the possible outlets that videogames can provide.  I'd much rather have people perform gory, twisted acts on someone in Manhunt than in real life.  When I get pissed, I'll load up a game of Counterstrike and shoot up some people.  Better then going off and getting drunk and doing something else potentially worse.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's a bit different to the blockyness of Wolf 3d to the almost photorealistic graphics of the next gen. What the game dosnt reproduce is the smell...

 

When I was about the same age I was taken fox hunting. Not that I had a lot of say in the matter but it wasnt a nice experience. But then I dont go out of my way to kill anything even bugs and stuff unless they "attack" me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have a hard time believing video violence is related to the graphics. Then again, like I said, I have a hard time believing violence is related to video games in the first place. The fact that violent people have played violent games or watched violent movies remains an arbitrary coincidence. Perhaps the game has functioned as some sort of trigger, or even inspiration, but that only as a substitute for something inevitable.

[metadigital]

I think people worry too much about the silly things.

 

I saw a mother refuse to buy her teenage son GoldenEye because it was too violent of a game...despite it's "Teen" rating.

 

I guess wandering around in a virtual world is too damaging for a young person, who clearly will not be able to differentiate between the video game and reality.

 

There's a lot of hoopla about video games, and I think a lot of it is unfounded.

 

Here's an interesting article by Henry Jenkins, an MIT professor (director of comparative studies).  The article isn't just some opinion, but an actual report with references to studies to support his ideas.

 

Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked

 

I thought it was a good read, and given I find people overhype stuff way too much anyways, tend to be in agreement with most of it.

 

What do you guys think?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The first point is interesting, but it relies on another, undocumented a posteriori cause: that the contraceptive pill became legal after Roe v. Wade about twenty years ago, and there was a marked and significant drop in unwanted pregnancies, the babies of which would now be prime crime-commiting age. (This was actually documented in a year-on-year fall of about 5% (iirc) exactly seventeen years after the court ruling.) :D

 

Regarding point Five, again, this is correct; other studies show that children learn different, and unpredictable, things from the same lesson. Try it with a class of school pupils: teach them a new mathematics technique, say, and then test them to see what extra knowledge the children actually have afterwards.

 

Good article.

The second one is wrong.

 

Playing certain games heighten violent responses in certain people tested.

...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Regarding the second point, Henry Jenkins is quite correct (remember that last link about violence in video games, when the leading study was quoted?) that there is no causal relationship. When you read this point in concert with point Eight, it is possible to understand the danger implicit in your misapprehension.

[alanschu]

Statistics are nice, but they dont make things look any better.

 

What on Earth are you talking about?

 

And violence in the media in general.

 

You really dont know how you would react. You might think you would react that way but all those years of gaming may well change the way you react.

 

Oh. My. God. Just *imagining* it gets me emotional. Very likely the first thing I'll think of would be the family of the person...as it would likely strike up horrible memories that I endured when my brother was killed in a motorcycle accident. I have a grasp of reality. And I have an idea on how I will react if someone was shot right in front of me.

 

I get emotional watching ACTORS that portray realistic events getting shot (i.e. Saving Private Ryan, or Band of Brothers). Watching a nameless soldier, wounded crying out "Momma" is horrifying. It's also why I love the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan (and virtually all of Band of Brothers). Given the testimonials from D-Day veterans about how real the scene was depicted, I get a sense of that being what actually happened. And I don't feel bad just for the heroic Americans and whatnot....but also for the Germans in the pillboxes that get torched alive by a flamethrower.

 

 

Thank you

 

I have no idea what you're referring to. To my calling you an elitist???

 

Therapy related to video games is pretty big business.

 

Really? Therapy, or Psychology? They are to VERY different things. If it's really as big of a deal as you make it out to be, then the activists would be letting us know all about it.

 

 

Zombies dont exist period. Representations of reality, especially contempory reality are a much more grey area.

 

Thats not relevent. The point is they are taking pleasure in acts of extreme cruelty something about stabbing someone in the eye with a piece of glass is getting them off.

 

They're not actually stabbing someone in the eye though. They're taking pleasure out of playing a video game.

 

Your missing one important part of the equation here. Yes you can say that no one would ever do that. But it's also much more truthful to say that the biggest thing that stops such people acting out is fear of punishment. You can see this quite clearly when social order collapses. Where social order dosnt apply is when people lose it in "the heat of the moment". There people are not thinking logically and punishment dosnt come into it. I think the French called it crimes of passion and mitigated the death penalty in those circumstances.

 

So many people might well be inclined to kill someone for real, or steal a car for real if they could do it without fear of punishment. Three cheers for social order

 

Which has nothing to do with our discussion about video game violence. I agree with your notion that fear of punishment stops a lot of violent crime. You're also downplaying the humanity of it all. See how someone reacts when they are responsible for the death of someone. Go interview the guy that hit my brother, and see how happy of an event that was for him (even though it was an accident...neither side was at fault).

 

You make it sound like killing a person is an easy thing to do.

 

 

It proves enough for these to be taken very seriously and rated beyond the age when you can legally perform these acts yourself (talking about sex here obviosly).

 

When did things turn to sex? I thought we were discussing the chap that posted those myths. And the correlations still don't prove anything aside from there being a relationship. And even then it doesn't prove that because the relationship could be due to a third, unseen variable.

 

Furthermore, proof is never required for acts to be taken seriously. All it takes is a bunch of self-righteous elitists that think they know better than other people to insist it be taken seriously.

 

 

 

EDIT: FIXED UBB QUOTE TAGS

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I have a hard time believing video violence is related to the graphics. Then again, like I said, I have a hard time believing violence is related to video games in the first place. The fact that violent people have played violent games or watched violent movies remains an arbitrary coincidence. Perhaps the game has functioned as some sort of trigger, or even inspiration, but that only as a substitute for something inevitable.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

In a series called "The Truth about Killing" Grub Smith (he of Travel Sick fame) subjected himself to various tests.

 

The gist of it was that in WWII only about 2% of soldiers were effective at killing.

 

One of the tests he did was like the scene from clockwork orange. You know where your eyes are held open and your bombarded with images of death (in this case it was unedited footage of the Rwanda attrocities).

 

This left him deeply disturbed (and if you know anything about Grub he's done some out there stuff).

 

He also did the are you a sociopath test where you get a mixture of pleasent and unpleasent images and a noise between each. Socipaths dont empathise so they see other people the same as they would see an object like a fork or a paper target. For a sociopath there would be no difference between shooting a virtual person and real one.

 

He then signed up for Army training , and through a mixture of "video games" and SIM exercises (apparently the closest you can get without being shot for real) which use paintball bullets. After that he was absolutely itching for a fight.

 

BTW these days about 80% of soldiers are effective killers.

[alanschu]

Would you be suprised that 80% of people in a certain young offenders institution had played what were classed as viloent video games.

 

No, I wouldn't. Because I'd suspect MOST kids have played what are classified as violent video games.

 

 

Now you cant read too much into that because of the number of people who play these games anyway. But it's the sort of statistic that people like for shock value when campaigning against games.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You can't read ANYTHING into that number. It tries to find a link when there isn't one. If the 80% of kids that "had played what were classified as violent video games" are in there because of playing violent video games, then where the heck are the rest of the millions and millions of kids that aren't in young offender's institutions.

 

Nevermind that virtually ALL of the kids in young offenders instituations come from less than stellar environments.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I have no itention of sorting through that lot

[alanschu]

...

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I have no itention of sorting through that lot

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Fixed the quote tags.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I have no itention of sorting through that lot

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Fixed the quote tags.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thank you.

[alanschu]

In a series called "The Truth about Killing" Grub Smith (he of Travel Sick fame) subjected himself to various tests.

 

The gist of it was that in WWII only about 2% of soldiers were effective at killing.

 

One of the tests he did was like the scene from clockwork orange. You know where your eyes are held open and your bombarded with images of death (in this case it was unedited footage of the Rwanda attrocities).

 

This left him deeply disturbed (and if you know anything about Grub he's done some out there stuff).

 

He also did the are you a sociopath test where you get a mixture of pleasent and unpleasent images and a noise between each. Socipaths dont empathise so they see other people the same as they would see an object like a fork or a paper target. For a sociopath there would be no difference between shooting a virtual person and real one.

 

He then signed up for Army training , and through a mixture of "video games" and SIM exercises (apparently the closest you can get without being shot for real) which use paintball bullets. After that he was absolutely itching for a fight.

 

BTW these days about 80% of soldiers are effective killers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Grub made a classic mistake in performing this "experiment." He performed it on himself.

 

He cannot possible control for any expectations he may have about the experiment. If he even had a little bit of an expectation that going through what he was planning to do would make him more likely to get into a fight, then he's already going to skew his data.

 

Researcher bias. It's why the double-blind method was created.

 

It's like when Ebbinghaus did memory experiments with himself. They were scientifically invalid, because his expectations of his tests skewed the experiment before it even started. (To be fair, Ebbinghaus didn't try to tell anyone otherwise. He was just trying something that no one up until that time had thought about trying).

[Darth_Schmarth]

Grub made a classic mistake in performing this "experiment."  He performed it on himself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

True. It's a bit like playing chess against yourself, if you like.