GrizzlerBorno said:
See you quoted the second part of my comment but apparently Didn't even Skim it. You missed the point of my comment completely. My point is that Self-Defense in a video game is the situation when The CHARACTER is SURPRISED by a HOSTILE Assailant. Should I bold that or...?
Yes, you're controlling the character and you're not exactly surprised. But we're talking about Self-Defense in the context of a fictional storyline, so why would you're expectations have anything to do with it?
I hate pulling out the old "BUT movies can has...!?" card but, what you're saying is the equivalent of calling out any movie that uses Self-Defense as a plot device (protagonist gets framed for defending himself, or whatever), as "faulty" and illogical, because the "actor had already read the script" and thus had prior knowledge of the attack! Sorry mate, but that's broken logic
Except we're not talking about the character are we? You might be roleplaying that character, but we're talking about the psychological effects on you, the player. Nobody cares about the "Psychological(or physical) effects on game characters". They're game characters. We're talking about the effect on you, the player. And you, the player, the only living being that might be directly affect by the game you're playing, are perfectly aware that playing the game means simulating murder. And you do it.
Otherwise, if you're that far off removed from reality that you can't tell what's real and what's a game, you're either schizophrenic or psychotic, cause you're just detached from reality, and you shouldn't really be playing any game with guns... At all.
TheMaddestHatter said:
Okay, so let me get this nice and clear: You are saying that killing armed mutants, aliens, and cyborgs in overblown ridiculous ways that would never actually work in reality on some far flung planet as an insane caricature of a human being, is equal to loading up a gun and shooting a bunch of unarmed teenagers?
Here's a "shocking bit of truth" for you: Our psychological minds learn by conditioning. Your mind may not see any difference between these two scenarios, but mine sure as hell does. See, you are right, Bulletstorm would be horrible and sadistic if it were realistic in ANY possible way. But it's not. It's a game where one shot can instantly turn a guy into a skeleton, where a regular human has the upper-body strength to crush heads and blow up doors with a simple kick. Bulletstorm is far, far from anything even resembling realistic. This piece of trash, on the other hand, is gunning for realism. It wants to replicate the experience. While the events in Bulletstorm never, ever happened, the events of "School Shooter" are connected to some of the most horrific acts this world has ever seen. I had friends at Virginia Tech, who barely made it out alive. I knew people there. So unless you want to tell me that you personally knew an alien-cyborg-mutant who had his anus surgically removed with a grenade launcher, your argument doesn't hold water.
It's kinda funny because I'm actually doing a master's degree in the subject, and this kind of thing is going to be my thesis.
Conditioning is one form of learning. It was thought to be the only (or predominant) form during the 1960's, when Behaviorism was all the rage. We've since discovered that's just one of the ways we learn. We have other ways to learn... Like referential models that we use for inductive and deductive reasoning, but that's besides the point cause otherwise I'd have to spent the next year or so (at least) explaining the whole thing.
Another funny thing, you don't know what conditioning is. Classic Conditioning was the theory developed by one Ivan Pavlov. In very summed up terms, it was the association of a positive reinforcement to a neutral stimulus. In his study, he'd ring a bell, and offer a dog a treat right after. After doing this consistently and long enough, just the mere ring of the bell would be associated with the treat, and the dog would begin salivating even without any kind of treat.
This was later developed into the theory of Operant Conditioning by other such names as Thorndike and Skinner, which talked about how you can modify behavior through appropriate positive and negative reinforcements, etc, etc. Again, can't be bothered giving you an extensive class on the subject.
Funny enough, Bulletstorm or CoD are absolutely perfect examples of said conditioning at work, while this mod, as far as I've seen, is not, at all.
Both of those games, Bulletstorm and CoD, actively reward you for ANY act of violence you commit. In fact, the more violent and horrible the more points it nets you. Simply shot down dead? Meh. Shot right in the head? Better. Dismembered? Now we're talking. Dismembered, set on fire AND dropped off a cliff? Fuck yeah! The worse and more maladjusted your behavior is, more you're rewarded.
I know what you're thinking "come on, they're just flashy screens and random numbers!". They are. What if I was to tell you that that is, in fact, enough of a positive reinforcement? It really is.
I'll let you in on another secret, if these "aliens" have any kind of resemblance to human beings (like being humanoid, or in any way shape or form can remind us of humans), that's close enough as far as psychological effects go.
By comparison, the school shooter mod awards you no points for anything. It doesn't reinforce your behavior in any way. There's no story to progress to, there's no flashy screen saying "OMG CONGRATS YOU KILLED A PERSON!" and it certainly doesn't emphasize and reward more the worse possible behavior.
From an objective developmental point of view, the school shooter mod only desensitizes you to violence. So do Bulletstorm and CoD, except those actually reinforce the socially maladjusted behavior.
This leaves us with two options: Either you CAN do the distinction between reality and simulation, at which point this is all irrelevant, or you can't, at which point you shouldn't be playing either to be quite honest, but either way, the school shooter mod is actually, by far, the least harmful.
