Do not fight back.

[Something Amyss]

No stop it, Stop thinking that rolling over and letting them straw man and scape goat video games is the right thing to do. It's a disservice to the games of course, but it's a disservice to the tragedy and the victims of it. The longer people let them keep blaming it on video games and washing their hands from it they won't look at the REAL problem. When they believe video games are the problem they'll think and spend money on ways to fix, ban, whatever while more and more tragedies happen instead of looking at gun control or mental health, something that actually might stop people from shooting and killing others.

Stop rolling over.

I just want to point out that the fanatics aren't going to care whether or not we do anything. Honestly, fight back, don't, it doesn't matter. The news still has the ear of a lot of people, and them screaming about games is going to happen one way or another. We're not making it worse by fighting back nor are we making it better. God Herself could come down and proclaim this link to be false, and the news networks would keep screaming it.

 

[Torque2100]

I'll just leave this here.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/3799-Fight-in-the-Name-of-Childishness

In my humble opinion, Jim Sterling hit the nail on the head. You are wrong, we ABSOLUTELY should fight back. It is imperative that we fight back and, counter-intuitive as it might seem we must strive to be every bit as loud and childish as our opponents because unfortunately that's what's needed to win debates in today's world. We can't win debates by appearing reasonable because the angry, unreasonable crowd will steamroll us. It's time to throw the High School Debate rulebook out the window.

Instead we need to find out who our critics are and personally demonize them. Carpet bomb any books they may have written with negative reviews, send nasty letters and e-mails to their homes and do everything they do to us only worse.

Is this wrong? Yes. Is it the way things should be? No. But it's the world we live in and we can either A) Pout and stamp our feet and say it's not fair or B) Acknowledge the facts knuckle down and do what needs to be done to defend gaming from the next big smear campaign.

 

[Yopaz]

No stop it, Stop thinking that rolling over and letting them straw man and scape goat video games is the right thing to do. It's a disservice to the games of course, but it's a disservice to the tragedy and the victims of it. The longer people let them keep blaming it on video games and washing their hands from it they won't look at the REAL problem. When they believe video games are the problem they'll think and spend money on ways to fix, ban, whatever while more and more tragedies happen instead of looking at gun control or mental health, something that actually might stop people from shooting and killing others.

Stop rolling over.

Eh, the best thing to do is to put the scapegoat and the straw man in the same room and wait for the scapegoat to eat the straw man.

OT: I'll let them have this one. They can put the blame on video games if they really think it makes a difference. The truth is that it doesn't. Gamers protesting or objecting to it is what they expect. We might whine and be taken as immature or we could do what most mature people do and give reasons that can't be proven and statistics that doesn't really prove anything. I'll be a part of that mature group that doesn't give a fuck because they can't really change anything regardless of how many fingers they point with.

 

[Johnny Impact]

The kind of person who uses games as a scape-goat is not the kind of person who is going to listen to intelligent answers, or else they wouldn't be doing it in the first place. Anybody with an ounce of intelligence can tell that there are a lot more plausible reasons for why somebody might kill another human being.

There is no need to respond to it at all, because there is nothing to respond to. The kind of people who blame games for shootings are the same as those who used to blame rock/rap music and horror movies, eventually they will simply assign blame to the next thing that they cannot be bothered to understand.

People can respond if they like, and I am not suggesting people "shouldn't", but you cannot cure stupidity and you cannot educate people who don't want to be educated.

/thread

Nothing more need be said. But to avoid low content I'll go on anyhow.

Anything new or boundary-expanding is blamed for anything that goes wrong. When my parents' generation was young, their parents were absolutely certain the music of John Lennon and Bob Dylan was going to destroy their children's moral fiber and damn their souls to eternal hellfire. Why? Because it was new and expansive. They personally had not listened to it when they were young, and they had conveniently forgotten their own youth, when their parents said the same thing about the music of the Forties. And so on, as far back as you want to go. I guarantee there were cavemen who made the same complaint about the new fashion of bearskins the kids were wearing these days. Shocking! It's going to make the Sky God angry, just you wait and see.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I think the US needs to look at what is behind these shootings. Yes, they need to look at how they view guns in their society, but they also need to deal with why someone has a mental breakdown leading to a desire to get a firearm and start shooting. Public mental health has been a low priority for such a long time, in both the US and Canada, that we are reaping the consequences of ignoring it for so long. Yes, the decision to start shooting lies with the person doing it, but mental health is a societal issue as much as it is an individual issue.

But hey. It's far easier to blame the vidjya games than do any real work.

This is a well thought out and straight to the point GOOD answer. Respect to you my friend.
I don't usually weigh in on these kinds of threads because there isn't much I can offer that hasn't been said by the time I get here. But I wanted to throw up an internet Hi-5 to a well thought out post.

So, internet Hi-5 to you.

 

[spartan231490]

As most of you have heard by now I'm sure. At least the American users of this site have heard about the Naval Yard shooting on Monday. I'm not seeing as much but the reports are slowly trickling in that are again using video games as a straw man. Now we can either do one of two things. We can either A) whine and have a knee jerk reaction and just start saying they are wrong and act like little kids which will just prove to them how immature we are, or we can B) act like the mature people we like to think we are and respond with intelligent answers and disprove their theories about what caused the guy to go nuts.

what? Look, I hate the blame video game reaction as much as the next guy. Maybe more as a well adjusted adult that was introduced to M games at about 11/12 because my parents knew I could handle it. However, nothing we can say is going to disprove anything, unless someone on this site is a criminologist who's been sitting on some ground-breaking research.

I know you all are sick and tired of this happening whenever a tragic shooting occurs. I know I am. It will probably never stop but if we can get a majority of the public at large on our side then that will be the real win. As big as the industry is we are still a minority when it comes to the public at large.

Yeah, while I wish it was this easy, public opinion often has a lot less to do with reality or behavior than it does with the news. The news hates us, so until we get some science on our sides, we're screwed. In fact, considering the propensities of American politics, even if we get some science on our side we're screwed.

 

[Mcupobob]

Oh my god! Some psycho shot up a bunch of people and he happened to play video games?!! I bet the bastard also read books and watched shows and movies on the telly(I like that word..). When will this madness end??

Honestly nobody is gonna do anything or pass any legislation on video games, at least nothing to drastic. As long as the big corporations grease a few wheels and keep making money but the mountain loads their ain't squat they can do.

Which makes everything about the situation sad. Innocent people lost their lives to this guy who exhibited signs of mental instability and nobody did anything to get him help. Instead of addressing the real problem people will go on to blame video games, guns, rap metal music and sweaters for dogs.

All while the companies and interest groups throw money at P.R and politicians and the media cashes in reporting this circus. Will anything change or get better? Nope..

 

[Kanova]

I'm not a surgeon by playing Surgeon Simulator, I am not a swords master by playing Chivalry, I am not a pro driver by playing DiRT, I am not a master military commander by playing End War, I am also not a sick fuck murder by playing GTA or any other violent game. The people who flip after playing games are already fucked in the head. They would go do shit one way or another in a matter of time. Blaming games is as stupid as sucking on lead.

 

[Vegosiux]

Indeed. If you fight back, you're only proving their point, as the recent developments around the Escapist would have people believe.

 

[Lilani]

The issue is, once again, our mental health system. In the US were supposed to have the best health care in the world but the problem is nobody can afford it.

Not really, actually. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSjGouBmo0M] Yes everything is more expensive in the US, but that doesn't mean it's better. In fact in pretty much all health categories, the quality of American healthcare is less than most other countries with state healthcare.

On topic: I think it's fine to engage in this issue, refusing to talk about a subject never solved anything. We do have a communication problem, but it's simply caused by an overabundance of negative communication and a lack of positive communication. And a lack of directly engaging the sources of information. We don't really have a lot of people on our side in a position to go on FOX news and talk seriously about the real effects of video games and what causes people to be mass killers. However, FOX news has an infinite number of quacks on their speed-dial ready to throw video games under as many busses as it takes to make their target audience good and scared.

 

[Ishal]

We don't really have a lot of people on our side in a position to go on FOX news and talk seriously about the real effects of video games and what causes people to be mass killers.

Would it matter if we did and they went on FOX news to have a ahem* serious discussion? Hannity or O'Rielly would just sandbag them and troll them like they do any other guests (atheists, say) that don't agree with their and their audiences viewpoint. Misery loves company, and the FOX news viewers like to be angry and scared as you say, so that is what they get.

It's the wrong venue to expect a good conversation about this. These people have long decided that real violence (sports,guns,and whatever else) is not to be blame, but pretend violence is.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Grand Theft Auto V killed my father and raped my mother! ! !

That's quite impressive, given the short time it has spent on the market.

 

[Lilani]

Would it matter if we did and they went on FOX news to have a ahem* serious discussion? Hannity or O'Rielly would just sandbag them and troll them like they do any other guests (atheists, say) that don't agree with their and their audiences viewpoint. Misery loves company, and the FOX news viewers like to be angry and scared as you say, so that is what they get.

It's the wrong venue to expect a good conversation about this. These people have long decided that real violence (sports,guns,and whatever else) is not to be blame, but pretend violence is.

This is true, however there are people who watch FOX news and aren't under their spell, and nowadays with the magic of the Internet certain interviews can live on as clips which are enjoyed on-demand and without having to slog through actually catching it on TV.

Because the people who would accept and/or ignore the sandbagging and trolling by the hosts are the people who decided from the moment they heard the headline how they feel about the issue. Unfortunately, they're already a lost cause. However, if you put somebody with a lick of sense who can stay composed under the sandbagging and word traps, then what everybody else who isn't under their spell sees is a very composed and reasonable person remaining composed and reasonable while being badgered by an unreasonable bully. For example, when Bill O'Reilly interviewed Marilyn Manson. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUdF2CbKIa8], Bill already knew how he felt about Manson and how he wanted to portray him on his show. Hell, the segment he brought Manson in was called the "Children at Risk" segment. And even though Manson was very well spoken and composed as Bill tried his hardest to portray Manson as a terrible person, Bill never commented on or commended any of this. He never said anything positive about Manson, and pretty much every question he asked was also an accusation of some kind. Because saying anything about being surprised by his responses or agreeing with him in any way on anything would only be counter-productive to his goal of proving that Manson is a bad influence.

But again, the only people who would listen to that interview and take away what Bill wanted them to take away were the people who were determined to agree with him no matter what. Every other open and reasonable person who sees the interview will see how reasonable Manson actually is. So while in a way going on the show of someone like O'Reilly or Hannity is "falling for their trap," it's also providing food for thought for the masses of others who aren't drinking their Kool Aid, and providing examples of why the likes of O'Reilly really have no credibility on any such matters.

 

[Lugi]

This sums it all:
http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2013/09/19/a-culture-of-violence-comic/

 

[LetalisK]

This sums it all:
http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2013/09/19/a-culture-of-violence-comic/

Huh? What comic? I couldn't get past the incredibly hot header at the top of the page.

 

[Sellon88]

I'm starting to think that there doing this to get traffic not from anti gamers but gamers themselves. Think about it, with an estimated 70% of the planet is playing video games http://online.lovetoknow.com/how-many-people-play-video-games plus the fact that cable news has an old and probably anti gaming prospective http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/business/its-viewers-are-graying-but-their-passion-pays-for-fox-news.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 and also the amount of people that share the post to other people, the people that go to the site to leave ether hate or some form of rational info, and the direct links to the site or video to the rant posted on many blogs and websites fox or any news corporation just need's to sit back and count all the money. That's what I think is happening news company's use video games not only as a scape-goat but a cash cow because hey it may be total bullshit but hey it's bullshit made of solid gold.