Has videogame violence affected you?

[Rockchimp69]

Snip

It's because when something bad happens I kind of draw a comparison with the fake violence.

I'm not quite sure how to explain that but it's like it re-enforces the realism of the situation and makes me think "shit this is real".
Like "I knew this kind of thing could happen but I didn't really expect to actually see it" in less words.

Hope that made sense cause it was hard to explain

 

[cthulhumythos]

i've played gears of war (among many other shooters, but they don't fit my example as much).

one thing i love to do in gears is chainsaw people in half. it's hilarious.

in real life however (or at least movies) if i see someone get even a papercuton their finger, i cringe and grab my own finger, as if it was cut as well. also blood can make me nauseous. and if someone even references slitting wrists i shudder.

so honestly, i think it's very easy enjoy simulated violence and pain, without desensitizing to seemingly realistic violence and pain.

 

[thejackyl]

Violence in video games will almost never desensitize people to real life violence. In video games, it's much easier to tell that the person you are controlling, or are brutally murdering is not, in-fact, real. Even with the best graphics, video game characters will always have that uncanny valley effect.

My favorite genre of games is horror, and they spill gallons upon gallons of blood and gore, it's only desensitized me to being able to handle seeing blood. I still can't stand seeing really nasty wounds, but I can stand the sight of blood easily. But that may just be the fact that I've matured since I was squeamish around blood, which was back when I was 8 (I'm now 23), and back than I was squeamish about digitized blood.

Hell, I watched my brother playing Wolfenstein 3D and started bawling when his characters face started "melting" (than again, I was about 7 or 8, so cut me a little slack)

 

[Jackhorse]

Yeah its affected me. Everything I've seen or done has affected me in some way, whether it was just making me consider a decision with one more factor involved or changing the fundementals of my psychology. I wouldn't say its affected me more than books or movies or the stories I've been told, but it has affected me.

 

[EscapingReality]

The cathartic value of bashing through zombies in Left 4 Dead has prevented me to do so in real life.

 

[Icehearted]

The only thing it's done is prove how sensitive I can still be to the suffering of other. The desensitization debate made me pay closer attention to my feelings when I did encounter real violence.

Violent video games don't make me a murderer any more than games with sexual content make me more sexually active. I was a regular healer in World of Warcraft, and yet I have no interest in taking up a career in medicine. Curious, that.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

I don't think I have been effected by video games that much, some movies on the other hand...

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

Videogame violence hasn't desensitized me at all. Now shut up about it before I stab you in the face.

 

[Lybs]

I blame teletubbies for domestic violence because it makes as much sense as blaming something else that isn't related like video games, music or McDonalds.
There are studies that show that games can give adrenaline and some people can't get out their emotions so some use video games to vent out their frustration/angry/desperation but in some cases games can enhance the frustration sometimes like if your mad because you just realized that you played 6 hours of grinding and then get killed by a rare strong mob in any given RPG without saving.
But if video games made us more violent I'd say NO, just look in here in Europe how many wars/revolutions we had going on between 1800-1940 before WW2 started.
I say predigest makes us violent and nothing else.

 

[Siege_TF]

'X breeds X and exposing someone to X will eventually desensitize them to X'. As far as I'm conscerned this is not theroy any more than the theroy of relativity, it's the 'and make them X people' bit that falls flat on it's face because of that last word; people. You know, those rational beings with actual thought processes who don't react based soley upon instinct, experiance, and stimuli because they have rationality?

Yeah, those. I mean us. Overexposure to socially deviant stimuli, such as from violent video games may well encourage deliquent behavior, but that's only with the absence of variables that discourage such deliquency such as regular basic interaction with other people. Regardless we remain sentient and rational beings for the most part and violent video games cannot be held soley responcible for any deliquent behavior.

How have violent video games effected me in particular? Well, back in my early teens, around 1993-1994, when I enrolled in karate I had no idea what I was doing, so I just mimicked my (at the time) favorite street fighter chracter's moves; Sagat, whose uncomplicated moveset at the time mixed with the basics of Goju-Ryu Karate well enough to give me one-up over my peers in sparring; I got moved to the adult class a year early. A couple years after that Street Fighter Alpha 2 was released on the SNES and I got the nickname 'demon child' as I incorperated moves from Gen's Mantis style and Akuma, while retaining the moves drilled into me in class (which resemble Makoto's).

What stopped me from persuing a professional fighting career? I was mauled by a bear in 2000 and hardly have any meat on my right arm between my elbow and shoulder.

So yes, violent video games can effect you, at least as much as any other regular stimuli.
Is that effect wholly negative? No, I don't believe it is.

 

[Neksar]

Gaming should not be the only activity/hobby the child has especially during key social development parts of a child's life. Real human interaction is required(online social life doesn't count) to know how act and how to problem solve situations that can't be simulated(conflict resolution). Someone who doesn't know how to deal with people will naturally avoid people, likely to an unhealthy degree.

I was babysat in this way as a child, though I would say it was mostly my fault. I find that nowadays I have difficulty interacting with people, but to say that it was "because of videogames" is tantamount to saying that a person is overweight and so they must be eating more than their fair share of Twinkies. The effect can have multiple causes, but what irks me the most about this videogame issue is that people think that they're some sort of major cause.

I go to a Jesuit university, and many of the people here wholeheartedly believe videogames cause children to be violent, with no justification other than because it's what they've been told. A sizeable share of videogame haters, I think, could be brought to our side by providing helpful information, but so many others would rather just have it be a scapegoat for society's issues that they turn a deaf ear to the truth.

If anyone here is familiar with Postal 2, then they could easily tell you it is rated M for Mature, but I seriously run into people on a regular basis that believe people sell those games to kids without checking ID, or that they're rated E for Everyone. If a news network were to research this topic in earnest and provide the masses with the actual facts of the matter, they could feasibly end this stupid debate in one fel swoop.

Hope it was coherent, those of you made it through all of that.

 

[beema]

I have no idea how I would gauge this, but I don't think it has effected me too much. That might also be because video games didn't start getting very graphically violent until my formative years had more or less passed.

I don't know why people are always harping on violent video games, as opposed to all the ultra violent movies and TV shows out there. It's not like it's very hard for an under-aged kid to watch adult TVs or movies. Most of the pointlessly violent stuff is directly marketed to younger kids anyways, since that is the mindset it would appeal to.

 

[Dfskelleton]

I've been playing violent games since I was 5 years old, and you know what? According to my family and friends, I'm a kind, loving person with a strong sense of humor (albeit rather dark humor). It has been known to me that when my friends try to do natural friend-to-friend goofy violence (you know what I mean) that I react rather quickly and with moderate strength, such as an occasion when one of my friends tried to poke me below my kidneys (like I said, in a playful, friendly matter) I had him in an arm lock almost instantly. However, I don't think this is from video games, but instead the Karate lessons I took combined with how I really don't like to be touched.
I still, like you, enjoy games with violence enough to make me wince (see: Mortal Kombat 2011, which I am currently addicted to), but I think movies and what not could cause as much damage as video games.

 

[TilMorrow]

It's desensitized me alright; violence in video-games has desensitized me to violence... in video-games.

It's certainly much easier for me to kill in video-games than it used to be. But in regards to real life... no. Not even slightly.

I don't even like killing large insects in real life.

Damn bugs why do you have to be so large and scaring looking when the smaller ones are more dangerous! Stop deceiving me!

OT: In response to the OP I would say violence in video games has not desensitised me. I know it's fake and not real and no where relatable to real life violence. But movie violence can be freaky especially when there's loads of gore involved.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

Ever since I played Halo: Reach, I've been desperately wanting to assassinate someone.

But otherwise, no.

 

[Anjel]

Has this kind of violence done anything to you at all?

NO! NOW STFU AND LEAVE ME ALONE!

Jokes aside, no. Personally I'm fine and I don't think computer games/movies can change ones personality directly. Locking yourself away for years engaging in a combination of the following; playing violent video games or watching violent movies, having no contact with friends and family, thinking about that bully that used to flush your head back at school, taking depressants (drugs/alcohol) in excess, building a dolls house using papier mache, finger nails and human excrement... this could change you from a fluffy bunny into a cannibalistic rabid animal that once resembled a fluffy bunny.

 

[Sholokov]

If anything it has helped to reduce my stress levels, as in games i can do those things that i cannot in Real Life. In all honesty as far as desensitizing I think it varies from person to person, however to say that it directly impacts how violent someone is, is an insult to human intelligence... but then again that's an oxymoron isn't it.

 

[K4ndY]

It's desensitized me alright; violence in video-games has desensitized me to violence... in video-games.

It's certainly much easier for me to kill in video-games than it used to be. But in regards to real life... no. Not even slightly.

I don't even like killing large insects in real life.

This pretty much sums it up for me.

Pretend violence in video games and movies makes me laugh most of the time, but real life violence still disturbs me.

IMO, it's just a question of being able to distinguish fantasy from reality.

 

[OddOzZy666]

It hasn't affected me at all...*grabs the nearest person and pummels them to bits*
Not. Affected. At. All

 

[PrinceofPersia]

After playing BulletStorm i get the sudden urge to rape people.

ROFL now that needs this:
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5008/5379086679_1b930d5b82.jpg

OT: You see OP the thing that negates most of this arguement about videogame violence leading to real violence or desentization is the fact that at an early age children can differentiate fantasy from reality. If they couldn't then everything from the Grim Fairy Tales and oneward we tell to our offspring would potential lead to increased violence.