Desensitised

[werepossum]

Certainly games have desensitized me to violence to some degree, but I'm older than video games. Therefore movies, books, and worst of all the news have desensitized me to violence in video games much more than video games have desensitized me to violence in movies, books, and real life. Think about it - on the news now it's not unusual to see footage of people being killed, sometimes even murdered. The worst I've seen was a woman giving some kind of speech in a park when her ex-husband walked up and murdered her, shot her in the head at point-blank range. That's real life, real death, and that was on the news. I don't think any amount of video gaming can do as much damage to one's innocence as that.

 

[Uskis]

Edit: Same story as werepossum and nilpferdkoenig

I don't think i have been desensitized. I don't concern about doing horrible brutal things in videogames, but I still remember one 7 second clip i saw on the internet a lot of years ago. It was a clip in which a russian soldier gets his throat cutted by his captors (most likely the Taliban or tchecheniyans or how you spell it). Even at that point I had played violent videogames for a long time, but when I saw that clip I knew it was real and was completely shocked. I still get sick when I think about that episode, I remember it perfectly. It was the first time I actually saw real violence and murder, and I instantly felt the difference from what I'd do in the videogame, and what i saw in those 7 seconds. It was such a shock to me that my friends had shown me that clip.. for what?? Giggles?. It's really hard to describe the emotions I had when I saw that clip. I can only say I can still recall that precise image, situation and what I felt down to every fucking detail.

Years later I watched the son of one of my dads friends play GTA3 San Andreas after he got it for his birthday. I was very repulsed when i watched how he stabbed down a guy on the street, and stapped him while on the ground until he was dead (and a little more). At that point I was disgusted, and really started questioning my standards on violence in games and the people who utter concern about the issue, which I like any gamer had ridiculed and called twats up until then. I talked to his mum about it and told her to start caring for what her son played (hoping she would talk to him, but knowing nothing was gonna change). As I later was thinking about the issue, I sort of realized that if her kid was shown the same clip I saw with the murdered soldier, he too would realize the difference instantly. I simply can't believe a game can prepare you, or in any kind desensitize you to the horror it is to watch another person being murdered right in front of you..

Tales from the traumatized childhood

 

[beoweasel]

The thing is, that all violence isn't the same. If you know the violence you see ISN'T real, then the graphic nature of said act, won't really affect you, because nobody is actually getting hurt. However, if you see something where a person is ACTUALLY being maimed/injured in some form or fashion, it can have a serious affect on you.

For example, I can watch some poor bastard in a video game, get his head lopped off, and not bat an eye. However, I'd probably puke at the sight of an actual murder victim.

 

[Was Du Feelyat]

I don't think it's desensitizing.

I've played video games since ... let me think... late 1970s'... first game I played was Sea Wolf? or Battlezone?

I was playing Hitman the night before 9/11, and I couldn't go back to it, the idea of killing civilians in a game even, just horrified me.

And I was playing Resident Evil the night before someone in my family passed away, and a bajillion zombies in games didn't make it any easier to see a dead body in our dining room.

Video Games by themselves are not desensitizing. The moral choices we make in our gameplay however? I think that is. Whether it's willingness to cheat in a game, or amoral actions in a game, i think those desensitize kids.

 

[Jacman413]

No.

*Sigh* Let me tell you a story.

Yesterday I was walking around the orchard near my house, and I felt a crunch under my shoe. Turns out it was a sparrow. It must have had a broken wing or somthing. As I looked down at the bird now slowly leaking blood, I felt like the most terrible person in the world.

Then I threw up into the grass.

So, to answer your question no.

 

[OriginalUsername]

Yeah I think that a combination of gaming and the internet (mostly the latter) has desensitised me to violence but I can't see why that is a negative thing. So what if I wouldn't gasp or even give a shit at all if there was a news report on TV about children being massacred, or if I don't cry at things that would have anyone else weeping. What the fuck does gasping and crying achieve anyway? I think it's an advantage to be honest.

 

[Rockyroadkill423]

Just think of that Combine soldier's children!

http://www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-05-17

Yes! As soon as I said that, I went on a search trying to find Concerned again just so that I could post it. Unfortunately I was unable to. Thanks muchly for reconnecting me with this long lost comic! Too bad it ended...*cries*

But to remain on topic...

I heard once from a friend that 90% of the time, the moment blood is drawn in a fight, the victim will lose their will to fight, even if it's a little scratch, and their flight response is initiated. Oddly enough, this was the same friend with whom was discussed his "I don't care who it is, if I get in a fight, I'm going straight for the balls" strategy a little later.

 

[Kemmler0]

Desensitized by games.... Ha.... the city i live in has the highest crime rate in the world. There are far scarier things waiting from me outside my front door.

And with the riots recently, things are getting seriously dodgey. Some one was wrapped in an old matteress and set on fire a couple of kilometers from where i live.

 

[wordsmith]

when you are exposed to a constant level of violence or perhaps alot of violence at once, your body(this is a theory based off of a few sources) and mind adapt because it takes the violence as a natural(and constant) occurrence that it must be prepared for, making you more calm in situations most people would flip out in.

That feeling of "calm" is actually the adrenaline kicking in. After the initial surge (aka horror or fear), your body generates a flow of adrenaline to literally "keep you going", to avoid death. The flow of adrenaline actually becomes your "normal" status for a short time, and so you have heightened reactions, faster movement... hang on, this sounds like a FPS powerup...

anyways, your adrenaline-infused state becomes a calm state, and after being subjected to the same (or similar) scenarios multiple times, you will be able to react in a way similar to the adrenaline state, without the initial boost

 

[ThaBenMan]

Just think of that Combine soldier's children!

http://www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-05-17

Yes! As soon as I said that, I went on a search trying to find Concerned again just so that I could post it. Unfortunately I was unable to. Thanks muchly for reconnecting me with this long lost comic! Too bad it ended...*cries*

No problem. Concerned is a great comic.

Anyway, on-topic - yeah, I'd say I'm fairly desensitized from games and movies.

 

[MK-Smash]

Desensitised my ass, I was watching I, Claudius the other day in latin class. Watching Caligula doing a cross dressed strip tease was one of the most disturbing things I've seen to date(it even ranks above when he cuts open his sister's stomach to eat his baby).

What latin class are you taking?

I've killed every sort of enemy in every sort of game in every sort of gory way (beheadings, cannabalisim, torture, bleeding, impalement) and I'm 15.
One day I asked my friend: do you think that we still would scare if someone was beheaded infront of us?
He was like: "check this out"

We went to his computer he showed the most disturbing thing that I have ever seen in my life (a real life gore video).
I swear to god, every single frame haunts me and another friend of mine that he showed it to too. We actually often talk about how the video keeps us up for an hour before we can sleep because we're still so freaked.

So in a way I guess that I'm still able to feel disgust over such aweful deeds!

Link-age?

 

[mGoLos]

Well yes, but the moment I see blood in real life I turn white and run for help.

You are perfectly capable of discerning between movie-violence and 'oh shit this is actually happening' violence and if you feel otherwise it's because you are fortunate enough that real life hasn't reared its ugly head at you ... yet.

I've worked in the metal-industry for eight years now. I've had one accident myself which resultet in a broken rib and me crying like a baby in absolut shock

And then there was the not-so-funny accident where a colleague cut the arterie above his right wrist and sprayed blood for a few seconds before jamming his thumb in the wound ... strangely enough the look on his face was the worst part. Watch out for those razorthin steelplates.

Also, you can find a video on break where a guy accidentally slices off his own thumb with a powersaw. He then runs for the car-keys (presumably) and comes back to the garage for his thumb; then he runs past the camera. You can hear him breathe as he runs past. That is what shock sounds like and it will give you chills.

 

[WlknCntrdiction]

i was actually experimenting in GTAIV the other day and was shooting random peds in different places on their bodies with the pistol to test euphoria, i just found it fascinating how they reacted but i didnt care, they were just a collection of pixels on the screen to me, i actually laughed when one walked on, stumbled into traffic and got run over lol, made my day that did.
yet i dont think im a bad or "sick" person, i know the difference between real life and games, i wouldnt ever go out and do this in real life cause i know what repurcussions would befall me if i were ever to do something so stupid. to me GTAIV has nailed the "reality" aspect with the physics, i can run over peds, shoot them in different ways and just generally do things i wuoldnt get away with in real life just for the lulz. even if GTAIV werent around i still wouldnt act out my sick ideas on real people cause thats just stupid.
i have the sense to discern between wats real and wats not, some people dont have that ability, i just hope i dont come across any people like that in my life
so i would say yes i am desensitised to a certain degree.
when i got my first headshot in GOW i jumped cause i wasnt expecting it but the second time and subsequent times after that its just "meh" now. however on the other hand Condemned scares me, and ive only played the demo of it, cant wait to get the full game lol, i love the adrenaline rush it gives me.

 

[guyy]

I'm probably pretty desensitized to video game violence, but certainly not real violence or even other forms of imaginary violence. Horror movies are really popular right now, but just watching the trailers to those things makes me sick; needless to say I've never seen a horror movie, at least not a modern one with ultrarealistic and obscenely graphic violence.

The people you need to watch out for are the ones who not only don't react to video game violence, but seem to regret the loss of reaction and try to get it back. That is, FPS gamers who laugh maniacally when things get especially messy, download gore-enhancement mods, and say things like "gore is just wonderful" without a hint of sarcasm. Something is not right in those people's heads.

For most people, I think real and imaginary violence, at least, are very different things; if you don't mind watching some guy get eviscerated in a horror movie, that doesn't mean you're losing your mind and may go on a killing spree. But if you start enjoying goryness for its own sake, you should probably play some less violent games for a while...

 

[WlknCntrdiction]

I'm probably pretty desensitized to video game violence, but certainly not real violence or even other forms of imaginary violence. Horror movies are really popular right now, but just watching the trailers to those things makes me sick; needless to say I've never seen a horror movie, at least not a modern one with ultrarealistic and obscenely graphic violence.

The people you need to watch out for are the ones who not only don't react to video game violence, but seem to regret the loss of reaction and try to get it back. That is, FPS gamers who laugh maniacally when things get especially messy, download gore-enhancement mods, and say things like "gore is just wonderful" without a hint of sarcasm. Something is not right in those people's heads.

For most people, I think real and imaginary violence, at least, are very different things; if you don't mind watching some guy get eviscerated in a horror movie, that doesn't mean you're losing your mind and may go on a killing spree. But if you start enjoying goryness for its own sake, you should probably play some less violent games for a while...

not necessarily, i know the difference between real life and games, in the end even if you enjoy gore for the sake of it(like i sometimes do)im not about to go downtown and commit murder just for the lulz, i have boundaries.
sometimes when i was playing GOW i would revel in blowing locusts bodies apart, even if the body was intact i would actually waste shotgun ammo on decimating the body even further after their death if i didnt think they looked "dead" enough, no lie.
i absolutely hate horror movies with a passion, i can relate to them since they're real people and that(to me)makes it even more unbearable for me to watch. my ex loves horror movies and whenever she suggested we watch one i would be out the door before the word "horror" left her mouth.

i guess it depends on the mental capacity of the person really, you have people who have endured really horrible things in their life who still turn out as normal people and who dont go out on a demonic rampage. im lucky that the closest to an "experience" ive ever had is with Condemned 2, scared the shit of me but i will soldier on to complete it against my better judgement lol.

 

[stompy]

i guess it depends on the mental capacity of the person really

Yeh, that's what I think as well. Some people like to see gore in video games, but they realise it's just a game. There are some others who can't make out the difference between fiction and reality. The former may be weird, but they'll have enough restraint to not go on a rampage. The latter though, they need to seek medical attention.

 

[zebubble]

Personally (sorry if someone said this before) I believe that videogames do not desensitize you. For example, I play a lot of Grand Theft Auto, Half Life, and alot of other violent games. I watch movies like Saw and Hostel (which, by the way, is easily 4x bloodier and more violent than saw) and laugh. However, if I ever go to a gore site or see measurable amounts of blood in real life (not like someone accidently cutting himself, but like alot of blood) it makes me sick and nauseated.

In Summary: If I know it's not real, It doesn't effect me. But when it's real, it sickens me.

 

[crepesack]

i dont really react when someones head gets blown off mainly because they do it so unrealistically its funny but when its done well i tend to cringe and in sad parts of movies i tend to cry, and im a guy

 

[Kovash86]

Right, all these annoying anti-gaming idiots keep going on about how games desenstise people to killing/death etc. I've never believed in that, but recently I've noticed it's kind of happened to me.

I'm currently 17, and up until recently, graphic violence/gore/people dying has upset me. I've just finished up playing HL2:E2, and at the end it was almost as though I knew what was happening was sad, but I just didn't really feel any proper emotion; thinking back, at the end of Halo 3, it was about the same thing.

I've also started watching more horror films lately, and the gore (i.e. flesh eating viruses, beheadings etc.) just don't seem to bother me at all, and I'm typical a relatively squeamish person.

So I guess, summing up: do any of you think that gaming has desensitised you to certain things?

No reading Xfiles comics when I was in 6th grade while I was on a bus did that to a limited degree, no I recognize when something is desensitizing me, it's this gut-wrenching kinda nauseas feeling and aside from that one time I've never felt it since, I know it desensitized me because I looked at another gory thing a short time later and was unaffected, but that's my fault for getting a hold of some adult material (in the first page or two a office full of people got shot up quite graphically, at that age it was kinda scarring) no video game has ever made me feel like that especially because they aren't quite as graphic as that was.

No what has desensitized me more than anything is when I hear about what other humans do to other humans, for no reason other than skin color or religion, mostly it just makes me not give a damn about anyone else. One thing that did however make me sensitive about a subject was when I was in a roleplaying game and I was having fun, except one player had given his character gaydar and wouldn't go 3 sentences without mentioning it or the copious number of gay guys in the setting we were in, this made me sensitive to the fact that I want to punch people who hate homosexuals, worse later on down the line my GM made me feel powerless in several uncomfortable ways and I realized I didn't like bondage all of a sudden. I didn't care too much about it before but now I carefully avoid porn involving it.