Pretty straightforward question. What do you think?

Look at this lot....yes!!! ;)

I would say they might contribute toward violence, but they don't create the ability to be violent.

If some whackjob mows down a bus full of school kids, he was probably going to do it whether he played counter-strike, watched a war movie or listened to a song about killing cops. The people who commit violence are screwed up well before they ever touched a stupid game.

I do not believe they do at all.

It is the choice of the person who is committing the crime to commit it or not. The video game and or movie they just played/watched did not force them to hold a gun in thier hand and kill people who do what ever stupid ass thing they do.


Like that guy who played Everquest and locked his baby in the closet and it died from dehidration and lack of food. Everquest did not tell him to keep playing and ignore his baby, it was his own lack of will and responsibility that kept him from taking care of his baby. Thefore it is not the games fault but yet his.

When ABC or what ever channel did a story on that i dont think i was ever more pissed of then that.

Ok /rant off

For a small minority of , unstable to begin with, people then it could contribute to violence. The small number of incidences compared to the overwhelmingly large number of gamers is good proof of that. If violent video games leads to violent behaviour then you'd be seeing an astronomical rise in assaults and murders globally.

The first distinction to be made should be the nature of the video game, as in violent video games = violent behaviour. I doubt anyone has made the case linking the likes of Pong or Pac-Man to be a contributory factor in some teenager shooting his/her school up. Although Pac-Man may be to blame for other things.......

In some cases you hear of teenage kids being influenced by an FPS game causing them to behave violently as their lawyers would argue. However these are children that shouldn't be near those types of games to begin with. Luckily now the gaming industry has taken it upon themselves to rate their games much like the movie, music, or television does providing a guideline for parents when choosing a game for little Timmeh. As often as not the parents fail to be parents and give their budding psychopath a game that he/she is mentally unable to cope with. All these parents who complain about violent games should in reality pay more attention to their kids and what they are up to instead of trying to force an industry to take care of their kids for them. Parents need to be parents. They need to take the time out to find out what their kids are like instead of lettng the TV, or probably more commonly now, the internet raise them.

I've been playing video games for far longer than I care to remember. I remember when Space Invaders came out......and that was already having spent over a year in arcades. Since then I've played many games and have yet to injure or kill anyone. The most important thing is for the person to maintain a grip on reality and almost everyone who plays games knows they aren't really real. It will be a very long time before we get anything remotely close to eXistenZ or even Lawnmower Man. Once we get into a situation where the games are that immersive and have such a sensory impact then there might be a problem.

Those people that commit violent crimes and then blame video games are people that would have committed these violent crimes anyway. In the 60's and 70's it was music played backwards, earlier than that it was books. These are people that are mentally unstable. Just watching the news would be enough to set them off. There is violence all around us in our daily lives. Just watch the news, listen to the radio, read a newspaper, it's all around us.

I say NO. Its the parents fault not the games, if the parents would check and see what the kids were doing that would sale the problem.

On a more serious note. I'm with Mr.

As far as I know there is no credible link between violence and video games, or movie or television. People love to make the connnection because it is controversial, and they really have nothing better to do.

Violent movies and music and so on were around LONG before video games and LONG before kids started taking guns to High School. Even AD&D was getting a bad rap as causing devient behaviour!! That one is as hard to believe as video games causing violence.

Want a reason for increased violence? Look at some of today's parents. Look at some of the FRUSTRATING and POWERLESS situations kids are thrust into in this society. Fix those probems...we'll have less violence.

BIO

NO!

...but there does seem to be a link between video games and the lack of sex being had by said gamers...

hmmm...

Gaming = Lack of sex = frustration = violence??

heh

BIO

Ya, mom thought the D and D would lead us into a deal with the devil involving our soul for the ability to fly because Dr Dobson said so. I thought that was silly when I was younger but know that i'm grown I realize it wasn't silly, it was just ****!ng stupid.
What's funny is i bet most ppl here who said its stupid to think that video games make people violent probably support tougher gun control laws when the same logic should apply in my book. I have a gun(s), play cs all the time, and have yet to shoot anyone....yet. I think the formula is simple; there is a ratio of wack jobs to normal ppl. Ignorance will find a way to manifest itself without outside provocation. The more ppl, the more morons who will do dumb things and the more noticeable it will be.

What came first, the gangster, or the gangster rapper?
If listening to rap about drugs and violence is what makes ppl violent, where did the first rapper learn about it in to begin with.

Guns don't kill people...

Assholes with guns kill people.

But what if there were no guns? Or a little less extreme...real, effective gun restrictions...the assholes would be a lot less dangerous. Read on before you start your spammage now Pal...pay attention! ;)

I feel, if you wanna own a gun for hunting or whatever...fine, great, your right, your choice. But if you abuse that right...even a little bit...there should be dire (even lethal) consequences.

My brother-in-law owns a "small arsenal" of weapons, but he is very responsible with them and the ammunition. He has a weapons safe (literally a safe) that he keeps his weapons in and he's very careful when he uses his guns. So yes, I'm okay with people owning guns as long as they are responsible and no harm comes to other people as a result. It's the irresponsible people that worry me...whatever percentage of gun owners that may be.

BIO

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

;-)

Your taunting me while at work so I cannot get into detail.

In theory you are correct. In reality the only effective gun control would be to ban guns outright and destroy them all. Unfortunalty this can't happen for various reasons so all gun control laws serve to do is make law abiding ppl vulnerable to criminals, the latter of which doesn't concern themselves with such laws. Even if there were no guns you could just run down ppl with your car. As i say - ignorance will find a way to manifest itself.

quite funny cause we just had a test called the MEAPS which we are required to attempt to graduate and one of the essay questions was about "does violent t.v/games cause crimes" and i say HELL NO. If i had just written out the responce already today i would write a "thoughtful" post (might have to taint my reputation). But, Mr. said it pretty well... his post i agree with the closest.

Nope . . .