The Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games

[bootcamper]

Nope............................................just kidding
*gets shot at by mob. "Hah! Cant touch this. Dodges Bullets*

[numbuheightbitstar]

bootcamper said:

Wow that was so random it could compare to spam but its not because i agree with you. The ketchup is used in movies for blood when somebody stabs somebody. And that scene is what inspires people to play video games that are addictive. Then when those video games get banned people kill people for that reason.

Can't blame me for having a sense of humor ^__^

Truth be told, America has become downright pathetic about violence on TV and in video games.

Case in point... in Japan, Detective Conan is considered a very good show, perfectly suitable for children, and is wildly successful (It's even outlasting the Dragon Ball series).

In America, Detective Conan is forced to play in the wee hours of the morning due to "graphic content," during a block of "adult-oriented" cartoons. Obviously though, it doesn't appeal as much to adults and has for this reason become a commercial failure on American airwaves.

Yet endlessly regurgitated cop shows can play ad infinum and score high ratings, just because it's, you know, OKAY for live-action TV to be adult in nature yet still play in reasonable time slots.

And then there's video games.

poppyseeds said:

yes of course!
the thing wrong with americas youth today is ketchup!!
we must rally together to stop this menace
*sarcasm alert*
seriously you guys are just kidding, rite?

What, was the smiley not a big enough indication?

[bootcamper]

Thats because there are more religous oor should I say ridiculas people in America. Adult Swim Needs its own channel.

[numbuheightbitstar]

bootcamper said:

Thats because there are more religous oor should I say ridiculas people in America. Adult Swim Needs its own channel.

Dear God, it so annoys me when people try to tack the religious as being the cause of the problem.

Guys, I'm fairly religious myself. Furthermore, I have met MANY religious people who feel that the censorship of American television and video games is downright pathetic.

It's not religion's fault, in fact how often is religion actually brought into question regarding violence on television and in video games? Many people who bring it up never once mention their beliefs and instead talk gab about how it supposedly inspires kids to commit acts of violence.

[SAVE_US.WBTC]

Usually the religious groups who do protest the violent content of the games are the whacked-out ones like the American Family Association and Focus on the Family. Their agenda is usually so far-right that, even if people do agree with them on this particular issue, they won't be taken too seriously overall. The only person right now who invokes religion regularly and is seen as a threat is Jack Thompson, the attorney who has sued game companies for causing violent incidents, and is currently going after The Sims 2 for supposed nude sims. www.stopkill.com if you want to look around and piss yourself off.

Anyway, a lot of the attacks on the gaming industry are actually coming from the left. The supposed defenders of free speech are trying to appear as centrists and gather "family values" votes. Notice the language of many of these people. It's not even so much "video games cause violence" anymore as "video games are offensive to our values." And they use that as justification to attempt unconstitutional laws to restrict minors' access.

[bootcamper]

Ya those religious people who want there childrin to never see violence in there life but end up failing anyway. Dude we have the exact same amount of posts.

[numbuheightbitstar]

bootcamper said:

Ya those religious people who want there childrin to never see violence in there life but end up failing anyway.

*Sigh* you didn't read my post (or the one after mine) did you?

Religion. Is. NOT. To. Be. Blamed. For. This.

[bootcamper]

No I dont mean religion I mean those who think their children shoud never see violence in there life and protest against violence in cartoons. And video games.

[numbuheightbitstar]

Anyway, I think the saddest thing here, is that America, the "Land of the Free" is turning out to actually be very censor-happy.

Fortunately though, it won't keep up forever. After all, one day those of us who are protesting these legislations will be legislators ourselves, and be able to undo anything our well-meaning yet completely vapid adult population tried to do.

[SAVE_US.WBTC]

I hope it ends soon. I would've thought that Washington State's law being overturned last year in Video Software Dealers Association v. Maleng would be the last time someone tried to pass such legislation, but now, in the face of three courts overturning these laws, Illinois has just passed their own bill, which I'm sure will be overturned as well. It's obvious that Rod Blagojevich is using this as political wrangling for a presidential run. I hope people there force him out of the Governor's office before that ever happens.

The same thing happened in the 1950's with comic books. Dr. Frederic Wertham, a psychiatrist, interviewed delinquent teens in Harlem who happened to read a lot of violent comics. Using completely anecdotal stories, no control group, and confusing correlation with causation, Wertham wrote a book called The Seduction of the Innocent, prompting the Senate to attack the industry, and for comics to adopt the Comics Code Authority. Comics weren't even recognized as an art form for years. Fortunately now, the CCA seal of approval is just a formality, and nobody ever complains if a kid buys a comic that doesn't have that seal. If history repeats itself, the same thing will happen 20 years from now; nobody will think twice about video games or make a huge case out of a kid buying something with an M rating.

Today, a group called Peaceoholics, based out of Washington DC, is using the same Wertham-like methods to villify video games, specifically anything made by Rockstar. They visited teens in juvenile hall, and found that some arrested for carjacking played San Andreas. They used this correlational, anecdotal evidence to lobby the DC City Council to pass an ordinance restricting "obscene" video games to youth, and this week picketed Take Two's offices in New York. I should email them and point out the errors of their arguments, and counter with some good old common sense by Gerard Jones.

[tako]

Ooh! I'm REALLY late for this topic, but yeah, I live in Illinois! So violence & video games have been a hot topic in my family!

I have several things to say.

First, it's not the government's place to protect children from mature games. It's first and foremost the duty of parents. That's what a parent is FOR: raising children to be upright and moral and being involved in your children's lives.

Actually, I really don't know WHY they passed the law. As mentioned earlier, it's a waste of resources. What do they hope to accomplish? Keep kids away from mature video games, like they keep kids away from alcohol, or something? It just doesn't work. If a kid wants a mature game, they'll find some way to get it.

And that's the real problem. Why do kids want mature games, anyway? Only people who actually like that stuff are going to be willing to spend money on mature games. I don't like M-rated games. I have better things to spend my money on. I mean, to me, people with violent dispositions are the ones that buy violent video games. That doesn't sound right... Hm... people who are already numb to violence are the ones who enjoy violent video games. Taking away their violent video games doesn't solve any problems.

In the end, parents have to be involved in their kids' lives. My sister has a friend whose family has talked about what kind of games are appropriate. They screen the games before buying. As for my parents, they know that I don't buy violent video games. Buying appropriate video games is a FAMILY matter, not a legal one.

That's my 2 cents.

[SAVE_US.WBTC]

Tako, I hope I'm not touching any raw nerves with a political discussion, but I'm not a fan of your governor. When Joe Lieberman criticizes the industry, at least I know he's sincere in his beliefs, and stands by his convictions. Blago, on the other hand, has all the convictions of a used car salesman. I saw his voting record. When he was in the House of Representatives, he voted against a bill that was almost identical to the one he just passed. Now he's coming up with some BS that that bill wasn't harsh enough. His motives are simple: he's hoping to run for president in 2005, and he wants to appear as a populist and go after hot issues. This move to the center is an appeal to moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats that he represents their interests.

And that's the real problem. Why do kids want mature games, anyway? Only people who actually like that stuff are going to be willing to spend money on mature games. I don't like M-rated games. I have better things to spend my money on. I mean, to me, people with violent dispositions are the ones that buy violent video games. That doesn't sound right... Hm... people who are already numb to violence are the ones who enjoy violent video games. Taking away their violent video games doesn't solve any problems.

Here's where I disagree. I enjoy a lot of M-rated games, including some of the more notorious ones like GTA and Manhunt, and I've only been in one fight in my life, and that was in first grade in self-defense. It's not just people with violent dispositions who like these games. In fact, the opposite is true; many passive, intelligent, nice people enjoy these games. For kids like these, the violent characters are their way of exerting power and a side of themselves that they can't or won't exhibit in real life. For example, during and immediately after 9/11, I played Doom a lot. It was my way of feeling fearless and powerful in a certain realm where I was, in reality, afraid and powerless. I was 18 at the time; imagine how much more intense those feelings would be in someone half that age. Here is a piece that truly illustrates my point:

www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2000/06/violent_media.html

[bootcamper]

I enjoy halo 2 and to be honest, it shouldnt be rated M. Its violent but its so si fi that nobody is going to get the influence to kill people. I wouldnt mind if they band adult only rated games but not only violent games.

[tako]

webuiltthiscity said:

Here's where I disagree. I enjoy a lot of M-rated games, including some of the more notorious ones like GTA and Manhunt, and I've only been in one fight in my life, and that was in first grade in self-defense. It's not just people with violent dispositions who like these games. In fact, the opposite is true; many passive, intelligent, nice people enjoy these games. For kids like these, the violent characters are their way of exerting power and a side of themselves that they can't or won't exhibit in real life. For example, during and immediately after 9/11, I played Doom a lot. It was my way of feeling fearless and powerful in a certain realm where I was, in reality, afraid and powerless. I was 18 at the time; imagine how much more intense those feelings would be in someone half that age. Here is a piece that truly illustrates my point:

www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2000/06/violent_media.html

...Good point. Looking at that section of my post now that it's not 3:00 in the morning... wow, you're right. I shouldn't have said, "violent kids are the ones playing violent video games," because that's just wrong. I think I meant something more like...

When a kid commits homicide, it's sometimes blamed on the violent video games they play. But why? There's obviously a lot more going on the kid's life, and there's obviously other factors that are more important. If a violent kid plays a violent video game, they might think that violence is "okay" and go out and do it themselves, but those kids are special cases and must be violent enough already to think of it and want to pull it off. If you look at other people who play violent video games, they're not violent people at all.

My point was that video games are not the problem when you're looking at violent children. You have to look at the child themselves. But somehow, that got really messed up.

[numbuheightbitstar]

Of course, sometimes parents have worse morals than the video games they're railing against.

Rockstar may think it's perfectly fine to make shallow games chalk-full of shock factor just for the sake of money, but that's better than supporting censorship. Seriously, if you want a kid to learn good morals, have him play Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar.

Which leads me to something I've found quite amusing about the whole ordeal. As one article I read touched upon (probably even the article I linked to in my initial post, I forget), when people tried to censor comics, what actually happened was that comics got even MORE violent.

Would you believe it was actually a video game company that started the whole "violent video games" shebang? It's true... Nintendo was the first company to make a big deal about it. They wanted to use it as leverage against Sega, a company who was at the time known for being more lenient than Nintendo (a case in point being the whole Mortal Kombat fiasco--Sega allowed the game to keep the blood, but it had to be activated with a secret code. the SNES version turned all the blood into sweat and removed some of the more gruesome deaths).

Ever since then, more and more "Mature" games have been being made just for the sake of business. By making it "taboo" to make mature games, it creates an audience, and the controversy surrounding said games basically constitutes free advertising.

Back in my day, there were very few games that would be considered "mature." Most were quite family-friendly, even in Japan. Sure, we had games like Wolfenstein and Doom, but no one made as big a deal out of them because there was no controversy. Then the Mortal Kombat fiasco starts and people look backwards on games like Doom and Duke 3D and suddenly, whaddya know, there's a controversy.

And now, Grand Theft Auto is one of the big names of gaming, while Mario and Zelda get to be considered "kiddy."

In away, you could say that Liebermann CREATED Grand Theft Auto.