Violent video games

2008-08-20T21:35:31Z

Fsguy:

'''Violent video games''' are [[video games]] that teach and encourage the players -- typically children -- to engage in horrific virtual violence. Teenagers playing these games are desensitized to violent and criminal acts<ref>http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2008/04/07/violent_video_games_held_to_be_free_speech?page=2 </ref><ref>http://www.apa.org/science/psa/sb-anderson.html</ref>. In a particular study specifically children who were diagnosed with neurotic behavior and predisposition to aggression reacted to violent stimuli brought by video games, though not all of them showed aggressive behavior as a consequence<ref>http://www.qj.net/Study-Violent-games-don-t-alter-normal-kids/pg/49/aid/88522</ref>.

Examples of violent video games include:

* [[Grand Theft Auto]] (series) -- The series, which now spans ten games, is considered a "sandbox" game where a player can roam around a virtual city at will. The player is able to obtain many different types of weapons, murder anyone they encounter including other criminals and prostitutes, innocent bystanders, and even police officers. One of the games also included a modification that allowed a player to engage in graphic sexual acts in the game however this was not made for the public and was found long after the original release.

* [[Doom]] and [[Quake]] are first person shooter games wherein a player roams around various levels killing various demonic creatures. The games have been described as murder simulators and were used as inspiration for the [[Columbine Massacre]] as well as other school shootings.

* Postal 2: Apocalypse Weekend (M-rated) -- The ads for this first-person shooter boast that new weapons will enable you "to hack your enemies to meaty bits!" It involves a game character who commits violent acts against unarmed civilians. Other features in the Postal series include: urinating on people to make them vomit in disgust, using cats as shotgun silencers, and playing fetch with dogs using human heads.

* The Punisher (M-rated) -- Game player is able to jam knives into victims' sternums and pull up to increase the damage, cut off heads, ram a character's open mouth onto a curb, run a character over with a forklift, rip a character's arms off with an industrial hook, and set a character on fire in an electric chair.

* Resident Evil: 4 (M-rated) -- Game player uses a special blood-splattered chainsaw controller designed for playing the game, which includes chainsaw decapitations and impalements, and characters ripping off other characters' throats and biting off their heads.

* Manhunt (M-rated) -- Game player's character is James Earl Cash, a convicted serial killer facing execution. The execution is ordered to be faked so that a character named "The Director" can use Cash as a star in a series of snuff films. As the Cash character kills other characters, by suffocating them with a plastic bag, slicing them up with a chainsaw, shooting them point blank with a nail gun, stabbing them in the eyeballs with a glass shard, or beheading them with a cleaver, The Director makes sexually vulgar comments. The game has two difficulty settings: fetish and hardcore.

* God of War (M-rated) -- Game features disembowelment, mouth-stabbing, eye-gouging, severed limbs, and human sacrifice.

* Silent Hill 1-4 -- large portions of these games involve roaming around decaying buildings and beating hideously malformed humanoid monsters to death with blunt instruments.

* Condemned -- Requires the player to bludgeon NPC's to death.

The Court of Appeals for the [[Eighth Circuit]] declared this to be [[free speech]] and struck down a [[Minnesota]] law that prohibited minors from purchasing or renting video games bearing a "Mature" or "Adult Only" rating.<ref>''Entm't Software Ass'n v. Swanson'', 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 5634 (8th Cir. Mar. 17, 2008).</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Video games]]

== References ==

<references/>

== Sources ==

* [http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60631 Violent video games free speech?]

[[Category:Video Games]]

Talk:Violent video games

2008-08-20T21:33:38Z

Fsguy: /* Four games? Hahaha, no. */

Wait. How do violent video games teach children to "engage in horrific virtual violence" when violent games aren't intended for children? Most are M rated games and, at least here in California, minors can't even buy them. [[User:Ultimahero|Ultimahero]] 02:08, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

:Because parents don't have the patience to check the ratings on what they buy their children. Or, even better, explain to them the differences between fact and fiction, allowing them to seperate the lovely gore of Grand Theft Auto from real life. [[User:IndianaJ|IndianaJ]] 02:12, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

Then the paretns are to blame, not video games. They're responsible. [[User:Ultimahero|Ultimahero]] 02:15, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

And I've never been desensitized to indulge in violent acts. This seems like a straw man argument. [[User:Ultimahero|Ultimahero]] 02:17, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

:To play devil's advocate for a moment: The vast majority of people who play these games don't act out on them. But there does seem to be a correlation in that school shooters tend to play those games. But it may well be that violent people like violent things. The media also noticed that these people listened to metal and tried to say that metal causes violence. I listen to metal and I definitely resent such implications. [[User:DanH|DanH]] 02:23, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

::Don't forget about comic books, man. Also, what about Cho, the shooter at V-Tech? He didn't regularly play video games, which was rather remarkable for someone in his demographic. [[User:IndianaJ|IndianaJ]] 02:24, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

But there are millions of people who play video games, and only a handful of shootings. There are far more people who play that aren't violent than those who are. The whole "video games make people violent thing" is an incorrect stereotype. [[User:Ultimahero|Ultimahero]] 02:25, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

:To be fair, violent video games really are acting out violence, and I don't think the article claims that everyone who plays them will be violent. Music and comic books aren't. It's something that I'm kind of up in the air about. I don't think my kids will be playing Grand Theft Auto when I have them. That being said, I don't support Hillary Clinton's calls to ban such games. [[User:DanH|DanH]] 02:29, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

::This is the age old question: do video games make people violent or do violent people play video games? From what I've read there are a number of studies which provide evidence for and against the claim, so we can't really take a concrete position. That said, video games do tend to get a bad rap in the media, particularly from uneducated folk (in this field) like Jack Thompson (who accused Counter Strike for being responsible for Cho and Halo for being responsible for the Washington Sniper, neither of which was true). I'm removing the quote that was added because it's one persons opinion with no scientific backing. [[User:StatsMsn|StatsMsn]] 06:56, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

[http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2008/04/07/violent_video_games_held_to_be_free_speech?page=2http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2008/04/07/violent_video_games_held_to_be_free_speech?page=2 This] stands out as a particularly reliable source for the claim that teenagers who play these games are all desensitized to violence and commit horrible crimes. And the second source does not say directly that the games lead to violent or criminal acts. In fact, there isn't much evidence of violent video games being a major cause of violent acts in real life. -[[User:BMoore|BMoore]] 10:42, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

:The first reference is good enough by itself, but goes beyond that and cites various sources supporting the claim. The second does state that these games lead to aggressive behavior (under the "theory" section). [[User:WilliamH|WilliamH]] 10:57, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

Any chance we can work in the most prominent study saying the opposite? [http://wii.qj.net/New-research-reveals-kids-who-don-t-play-videogames-at-all-are-more-at-risk-of-violent-tendencies/pg/49/aid/118505] "If you go to the local Cineplex and see a Jackie Chan or Jet Li movie and you watch a bunch of teenagers come out of that, of course they're going to be sort of hitting each other and kicking; you know, they're excited. But that goes away very quickly.

:I'll try to work in the linked study. [[User:WilliamH|WilliamH]] 22:15, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

And so there's this leap of faith that if a child or teenager or even a young adult is exposed to this and they have a short term response, then that means it's going to change their behavior. We found it to be actually quite the opposite. " [[User:IndianaJ|IndianaJ]] 12:29, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

Typically speaking, people who go out and shoot up schools or whatever tend to have social or psychological problems anyways. Fully functional folks don't go out and kill people like that. So video games don't cause the problem, it's already there. Besides, if you were to take all the people who play these games and don't have violence problems and put them on one side, then take the ones who play and do have problems, then the first group would be much bigger. [[User:Ultimahero|Ultimahero]] 17:15, 4 May 2008 (EDT)

==Four games? Hahaha, no.==
GTA spans ten games: GTA, GTA 2, GTA: London 1969, GTA 3, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, GTA: Vice City Stories, GTA: Liberty City Stories, GTA: Advance, and GTA IV. I think I'm missing a second London and I'm not sure if SA stories was canceled, so it could be twelve. [[User:DannyRedful|DannyRedful]] 16:03, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

Condemned has not been released for the Wii... research gentlemen

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Violent video games

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