Are 'violent' games really violent?

[Kaftan Barlast]

CoD4 doesnt send any friggin' message either, its completely and utterly subjective. Somone might say paintball is worse because you cause actual pain, whereas another person would say Quake is worse because it has blood pixels. You cant really say that videogames are violent, you can only state your personal opinion. And that opinion changes with time and the public consensus.

[alanschu]

I'd argue that playing paint ball is probably worse than playing violent video games.

 

Though I disagree that you can't say video games are violent. Whether or not some content is violent is really neither here nor there though. The original Kung-Fu game could be called violent, because it depicts acts of violence. Things get fuzzy though, because you can literally be quite liberal with it. Depending on how you define violent content (say, acts of aggressive behaviour against other entities in the game), you could (rightly) argue that games like Pac Man and Super Mario Brothers are violent video games. I will agree that the definition of violence, and how you define a video game, is subjective though. In that sense, I do agree that it is influenced by personal opinion.

 

I know I sure loved getting payback on those ghosts when I was younger.

Edited November 5, 2009 by alanschu

[Morgoth]

Don't think gory and brutal video games make you violent, but if you play too much of that crap, it may desensitize you, amking you an emotional cripple. Can't say the same thing about listening music or reading books.

[kirottu]

Don't think gory and brutal video games make you violent, but if you play too much of that crap, it may desensitize you, amking you an emotional cripple. Can't say the same thing about listening music or reading books.

 

I have played violent games since commadore 64 and saw my first horror slasher when I was 7 or so years old. When I was 23 I went to a CPR class and nearly fainted when they showed us pictures of real injuries and how to treat them.

 

Fantasy and reality are two different things.

[I want teh kotor 3]

What did I just say?

 

Very good question. I have no idea.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Don't think gory and brutal video games make you violent, but if you play too much of that crap, it may desensitize you, amking you an emotional cripple. Can't say the same thing about listening music or reading books.

 

 

troll

[Morgoth]

Don't think gory and brutal video games make you violent, but if you play too much of that crap, it may desensitize you, amking you an emotional cripple. Can't say the same thing about listening music or reading books.

 

I have played violent games since commadore 64 and saw my first horror slasher when I was 7 or so years old. When I was 23 I went to a CPR class and nearly fainted when they showed us pictures of real injuries and how to treat them.

 

Fantasy and reality are two different things.

And what has that to do with what I said?

[Walsingham]

I think something you may concede is that the transition from fantasy to reality, when we are taliking about violence with gun, petrol, and knife, is all too quick. There is hardly enough time to notice one's distaste for all the mess in the middle of a shooting.

[alanschu]

Actually I don't concede that.

 

If you want me to be generous, I'll concede that some people, with additional confounding variables, may find it easy to make the transition from make believe to reality.

[kirottu]

Don't think gory and brutal video games make you violent, but if you play too much of that crap, it may desensitize you, amking you an emotional cripple. Can't say the same thing about listening music or reading books.

 

I have played violent games since commadore 64 and saw my first horror slasher when I was 7 or so years old. When I was 23 I went to a CPR class and nearly fainted when they showed us pictures of real injuries and how to treat them.

 

Fantasy and reality are two different things.

And what has that to do with what I said?

 

Oh, sorry. I didn

Edited November 6, 2009 by kirottu

[Morgoth]

Yes, I understand that you're a wimp that faints when seeing some blood.

[Walsingham]

EDIT

 

Actually, thinking about my conversation with the para yesterday it has occurred to me that in many ways growing up in a culture of REAL violence (small farming community, one pub ) where violence is unarmed, at least has the virtue of acclimatising you to the reality. Moreover it teaches you to express anger in other ways than the instant death of a shooting or explosion. However, if your entire impression of violence is fictional then you get no real awareness and learn nothing beyond the abstract sense that violence is ok.

 

On the other hand I want to repeat for emphasis that I feel humans are NATURALLY and inescapably violent. And I get angry when pacifist fantasies provoke the spectre of repressive censorship.

Edited November 6, 2009 by Walsingham

[kirottu]

Yes, I understand that you're a wimp that faints when seeing some blood.

 

That

[Gorgon]

EDIT

 

Actually, thinking about my conversation with the para yesterday it has occurred to me that in many ways growing up in a culture of REAL violence (small farming community, one pub ) where violence is unarmed, at least has the virtue of acclimatising you to the reality. Moreover it teaches you to express anger in other ways than the instant death of a shooting or explosion. However, if your entire impression of violence is fictional then you get no real awareness and learn nothing beyond the abstract sense that violence is ok.

That's self congratulatory nonsense. I can say that because we are not in a one pub hick town.

 

Anyway my first encounter with real violence (drunken brawl) taught me that 1. I'm no good at it, and 2. I'm not indestructible, even if the alcohol insists otherwise. I wonder what the lesson would have been if I had hurt the other guy to the cheers and adulation of the onlookers and my friends. Probably not a good one. There is nothing in all the vector constructs I had blown to bits prior to it that hinted at how emotional, ugly and just plain stupid it was in reality.

 

My prior knowledge of violence, well I didn't have one. I knew well enough what it wasn't though, that John Rambo taking out 300 Russians with a bow and arrow had about as much to do with the real thing as computer games.

Edited November 6, 2009 by Gorgon

[Walsingham]

But you admit your first encounter was a brawl rather than a piece of mechanised aggression, which is precisely my point.

[lord of flies]

What's up everybody, it's Lord off Lies!

 

Im not quite sure you can say that games have messages, even in the academic sense. You might aswell ask what kind of message a hamburger sends.

No More Heroes was an excellent game with real messages. As the game progresses, each boss fight begins to gradually challenge your perception of what a boss fight is supposed to be, and the cutscenes establish a goal and a method of achieving that goal. And when you reach the end... it becomes vividly clear that Travis' fixation on his dumb assassins gig was nothing more than a pointless waste of time and a distraction from the real world. His goal is unachieved, his plot unresolved. He, and the player, have fought so hard... for nothing. An excellent ending with a deep meaning: video games are a dumb distraction, if you build your life around them, you are an anime-loving manchild, much like Travis.

 

Something I hadn't been giving enough mental time to: we are naturally quite violent. As a species we react violently and aggressively when deprived or threatened. And that is as much true of closeted academics as the sons of the ghetto.

Nothing is quite as revealing as playing Postal 2, getting bored with the incredibly bad main plot, and cheating yourself some weapons so you can go on a rampage. Then, as you piss upon someone you've beat half to death, finding yourself sporting a boner. If we are allowed to go on a rampage, it triggers something inside a person, the same something that is the reason ancient militaries tended to go on a murdering and raping spree every time they seized a city.

 

Goal-oriented gameplay turns this off, it seems. When one plays through a video game, this basic, adolescent feeling of rampant violence is subdued by our immediate goals and plans, and by the challenges the game may present.

[Walsingham]

Then, as you piss upon someone you've beat half to death, finding yourself sporting a boner.

 

*Tumbleweed*

[GreasyDogMeat]

Nothing is quite as revealing as playing Postal 2, getting bored with the incredibly bad main plot, and cheating yourself some weapons so you can go on a rampage. Then, as you piss upon someone you've beat half to death, finding yourself sporting a boner.

Someone has issues.

 

You should only piss on people in Postal 2 to put a fire out... or to make them puke so you can decapitate them and have vomit spew out of their neck instead of blood...

 

Why is everyone looking at me funny?

[lord of flies]

Then, as you piss upon someone you've beat half to death, finding yourself sporting a boner.

 

*Tumbleweed*

Obviously you've never played Postal.

[Oner]

Someone has issues.

 

You should only piss on people in Postal 2 to put a fire out... or to make them puke so you can decapitate them and have vomit spew out of their neck instead of blood...

 

Why is everyone looking at me funny?

Mmm, I didn't know that.

[Blarghagh]

Then, as you piss upon someone you've beat half to death, finding yourself sporting a boner.

 

Like I said before, some people just don't have it in them to seperate real from fantasy and anything could have made them snap.

 

 

(Also, isn't this message board supposed to be fit for all ages? That seemed a bit graphic and disturbing to me.)

 

 

P.S. Yes I have played Postal, even cheated and gone on a rampage. That allowed me to laugh at the cartoonishness of brutally killing some computer generated goombas. That's it.

[Walsingham]

Then, as you piss upon someone you've beat half to death, finding yourself sporting a boner.

 

*Tumbleweed*

Obviously you've never played Postal.

 

If it makes me find beating someone to death erotic then I have no desire to.

[lord of flies]

If it makes me find beating someone to death erotic then I have no desire to.

Why do you assume that simply because you get a boner, it's erotic? You can get a boner from many things other than sex. Jeez. Get your mind out of the gutter.

P.S. Yes I have played Postal, even cheated and gone on a rampage. That allowed me to laugh at the cartoonishness of brutally killing some computer generated goombas. That's it.

To be fair, Postal was a really bad game.

[GreasyDogMeat]

Why do you assume that simply because you get a boner, it's erotic? You can get a boner from many things other than sex. Jeez. Get your mind out of the gutter.

I just ate a grape and I ****ed in my pants!

[Calax]

you know who thinks that violent games aren't violent?

 

>.> sorry, I had to do it