Poll: But What If They're Right?

[squid5580]

If they are right and games do cause ppl to snap and kill each other why hasn't there been more VG related deaths? Why haven't all the "10 yr old annoying kids playing Halo 3" (cuz they are only on the 360 apparently) been carted off to jail? What about games like God of War (damn you Gears now I can't use GOW for that) that sold millions upon millions of copies. So if every copy was sold to a different person shouldn't there be an army of psycho gamers slaughtering everyone in the streets?

 

[geldonyetich]

If they're willing to put health labels on all forms of violent entertainment, then I would be for it. As this is not the case, I can only see video games as being unduly demonized, because the impact is identical. Therefore, I am against it.

 

[Baby Tea]

I fail to see the connection between violent kids and video games. If a kid is violent, and played violent games...how are the two linked?

I bet I could say that nearly 100% of all cancer patients have eaten cheese. Thus, cheese could be a link to cancer. But, of course, that's ridiculous.

If a kid played a game, and went out to kill someone because of something he saw on the game, then the game is merely the catalyst for an obvious psychosis that has its roots elsewhere (Either psychologically, or a chemical imbalance). The kid could have flipped out by watching a dog get hit by a car.

If anything, Congress should be passing bills and laws that make parents go through a parenting course on proper raising before having kids.

 

[Rankao]

Sigh...

Looks like I'm going to have to right my Senator.

Edit:
What do all of these politicization act like that they are scientist and researches and decide what is healthy and what isn't?

 

[ace_of_something]

Now tell me that games are dangerous.

-- Steve

Actually crime has fluctuated the last 10 years. What has gone down is people's willingness to report it. Most of these statistics people use is from UCR (Uniform Crime Report) of the FBI. Even the statisticians who compile that data admit it is often used to mislead people because no one lone factor contributes to something complex as deviant criminal behavior.
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EDIT: That being said i am against this bill. It's just grandstanding.

 

[ElephantGuts]

I agree that that may be possible, but think about the difference between video games and movies, and what supposedly makes videogames worse. The playing through of violent acts in videogames would barely make a difference if at all, it would be watching the acts that puts them in a person's head. Movies do the same. The real difference is that it's relatively easy to get records of what videogames people have played. It's much harder to track every single movie someone has watched. Plenty of people play videogames and manage not to commit violent acts. Movies have been around for a long time, so it's difficult to show a correlation between them and increased violence.

[http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/04/gaming-real-vio.html]

Now tell me that games are dangerous.

-- Steve

edited to fix link: also, graphic from Wired.com

This graph helps prove that there isn't a correlation between games and violence (nice graph by the way. Thank you). People are going to do violent things, just because they happened to play a videogame doesn't mean the videogame is the cause. That person probably also watched a lot of violent movies, so how come no one says that the movie is what made them do it? Because they can't prove that the person watched the movie, but there's a copy of GTA3 sitting in their house so that becomes the scapegoat.

 

[Rankao]

What games fix is people with to much time on their hands.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

I bet I could say that nearly 100% of all cancer patients have eaten cheese. Thus, cheese could be a link to cancer. But, of course, that's ridiculous.

My favourite point along those lines is that 100% of cancerous tumour biopsies find Dihydrogen Monoxide [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide] (DHMO), an industrial solvent, in the tissues. So obviously we need to regulate dumping of this dangerous chemical...

-- Steve

 

[GenHellspawn]

Honestly, they can load up game boxes with all the bullshit they want, and I won't really care.

 

[Gorevomit]

i think it's more self important people on a holy crusade to fix what they think is the great scourge of their nation. this just reeks of self righteousness

 

[squid5580]

Honestly, they can load up game boxes with all the bullshit they want, and I won't really care.

Until game cases come out like cigarette packs. 3/4 warnings 1/4 box art. Maybe they can use pics of kids with guns standing over a pile of corpses. IF they had any kind of scientific proof that this is right then ya go for it. It won't make any difference and will prolly boost sales for a while.

 

[Grimm91]

Its like the warnings on cigarettes just because some people say its bad doesn't mean everyone going to stop, smokers still smoke and gamers will still play video games.

That's true. I have been telling my brother to quit smoking for as long as I can remember and he has tried to get me to stop gaming. So if the bill is passed we would be even. Really though what would the warning say? "This product may cause women to lose interest in you and potential obesity? Consult a doctor if you experience amazing gameplay for 4+ hours."

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Another thing to consider is that correlation does not equal causation. Violent people probably like violent media, so of course someone who goes on a killing spree will probably have seen a lot of violent movies and perhaps owns some violent video games. This does not mean the violent movies and games caused them to be violent. This concept has been drilled into my head by my psychology professors over the last several years (correlation not meaning causation, that is).

I think that if they're going to increase the warning label content for games then it must also be done for movies. Game ratings have a surprising amount of information as to the content of the game compared to movie ratings. Plus, the game rating info is usually way easier to find than the movie info. A game like GTA IV or whatever will say rated M: violence, profanity, nudity, alcohol/drug use and so on quite clearly on the box. A movie like Kung Fu Hustle will say rated R, and then in tiny print may have something along the lines of "violence, language, etc", but it's way harder to find that stuff on movies. Finally, I find that even when I can find those bits of info, the ones on movies tend to be way broader than those on games. Meaning that nudity in movies could be a brief flash of breasts, or a nearly hard core rape scene. Games tend to be a little clearer on the content.

 

[goodman528]

Against, because people are highly persuadable on issues they don't know about, and this bill is a slippery slope.

 

[shmaller]

They're probably leaving out the fact that all these kids are on massive doses of antidepressants. If someone is mentally unstable enough to see something happen in a simulation and attempt to re-enact in real life, it's not the video game's fault. That's like if I were to commit suicide tonight and they found me on this forum and called you all guilty of assisted suicide.

 

[Fanboy]

I'm for it.

Maybe some parents will actually read it and think twice about giving GTA to their 6 year old. Then they will have nobody to blame when little jimmy shoots his parents...

...well, at least not video games...

 

[goodman528]

Against, because people are highly persuadable on issues they don't know about, and this bill is a slippery slope.

BTW, it a video game had a label saying "Danger: This game contains excess violence and lots of blood and gore". I think it would encourage 15 year olds to buy it rather than deter them. The real issue here is educating parents to not buy GTA for 5 year olds.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

I bet I could say that nearly 100% of all cancer patients have eaten cheese. Thus, cheese could be a link to cancer. But, of course, that's ridiculous.

My favourite point along those lines is that 100% of cancerous tumour biopsies find Dihydrogen Monoxide [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide] (DHMO), an industrial solvent, in the tissues. So obviously we need to regulate dumping of this dangerous chemical...

-- Steve

Curse you, Dihydrogen Monoxide! You killed my great aunt! And you cause massive amounts of erosion and property damage every year. Bastard.

 

[ReverseEngineered]

Like I said, gaming is simply different from rap, metal, cartoons, R-Rated movies and all those things, any way you slice it. To not even consider the idea that they might have a different mental impact is very dangerous.

This is a good reason to look further into the issue, but it's a terrible reason to legislate warnings. Surgeon General's warnings carry some heavy weight to them -- if the government is stepping in, it must be bad. Considering how little evidence there is of games causing violence, and how inconclusive the entire body of research is, it would be irresponsible to jump all over the issue. If we're wrong and games are harmful, there may be a few more murders this year. If we're right, denouncing games out of fear could destroy an entire form of entertainment and put an entire industry out of work.

The only case where it makes sense to keep kids from video games is when those kids already have violent tendencies. It doesn't take a surgeon general's warning though; it just takes some parenting. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you don't give sugary candy to a diabetic kid no matter how much he whines. Likewise, parents shouldn't give violent games to their kids if they are afraid it might influence them.

There are already enough laws protecting us from ourselves. Let's not introduce another one based on an unfounded fear.