I always laugh at games like Grand Theft Auto. What do they teach you? You can go around being miserable to everyone around you, bashing signs, cars, off-roading, shooting cops, looting people, and you'll still get away with it! Why should a game teach this? How could this possibly benefit our society? If people want to be all powerful go stomp on ants!

Simple: Games aren't supposed to teach, they are supposed to be fun. Any learning is a happy byproduct, unless you're playing something purposefully educational.

Plus stomping ants makes your shoes smell funny (at least the ones around here)

Or... you could read a text-book if you want to learn things. You can use games as a means of escaping from reality for a while and living in a fantasy world where those kinds of things are possible.

I play Splinter Cell and by no means do I think that I am now capable of breaking into CIA headquarters or a terrorist bunker. I play Republic: The Revolution and by no means do I think that I have the skill to create a faction and overthrow the government. I play many FPS's and I do not consider myself at all to be an even average marksman.

The important thing is to know where to draw the line. I read lots of fantasies, but I know that dragons do not exist, why? Because I approach things such as fiction as being "not the truth" and therefor "not real".

I think that GTA has only gotten bad press as a result of stupid people looking to place blame in places that it doesn't belong. Games don't make you violent, the violence is already there, you just seek out the easiest scapegoat and blame them for your homicidal behaviour rather than facing the consequences of your own action.

Your post is completely irrelevant to any sort of "game design" discussion, in fact, I don't know why I'm responding, perhaps as a defense of every single person here. I suppose that there will always be those (particularly criminals and poor parents) who look to things such as "rock and roll music" and "violent movies and games" to account for their/their offspring's actions, but my whole-hearted belief is that it's just not true or possible.

Parents today act as absentee landlords, relying on other people to take charge of raising their children. If the lines are clearly drawn in the sand and there's no gray area concerning what is and is not morally acceptable, there can be no influence from outside sources. Sadly though, we are living in an era of television raised children, now the internet. We can't always control what our children have access to, these things are sometimes out of control (unless you want to keep your kid in chains in the basement, a worse option I think). So we must do the next best thing and make sure that in all that we do, we instill a sense of morality in our children and hope that they will make the appropriate decisions for themselves.

My two cents, something to chew on,

Vopisk

Yes, right after I posted, I realized that this wasn't a relavent topic for the forum (at least the way it was worded).

Plus whatever Vopsik said

I saw the travelling Vietnam Memorial with a couple friends when it came to our area. One was really shaken by it, all of us took it seriously. She asked, "I wonder what they do if someone's name is misspelled?", and I told her, "I'm sure they check it many times before it's 'written in stone'". We all laughed a little.

I'm fond of the saying "If I didn't laugh, I'd cry". I was just reading C.S. Lewis' "The Four Loves" for a book study. He talked about some of the horrible things done in the name of God and Country and said that they escape being comedic only by being tragic. I think that games, by not being real, allow us to enjoy the comedic side with less shame.

This isn't to say that there aren't sick f**** who play games as a socially acceptable way to to commit these crimes, but I don't think they learn that from games. For what it's worth, I think I remember studies concluding that violent games don't make people violent, but may set off an already violent person.

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Original post by azoundria I always laugh at games like Grand Theft Auto. What do they teach you?

Pattern matching, tactical foresight, experimental problem solving, manual dexterity/reactions...

As for the story, how is it any worse than any caper movie? The Godfather? Why aren't we all cool mob bosses?

Quote:

Original post by azoundria I always laugh at games like Grand Theft Auto. What do they teach you? You can go around being miserable to everyone around you, bashing signs, cars, off-roading, shooting cops, looting people, and you'll still get away with it! Why should a game teach this? How could this possibly benefit our society? If people want to be all powerful go stomp on ants!

why do people drink alcoholic beverages? it provides no benefit to society, it can cause riots, it can kill people. yet still people drink this death substance. what does it teach you? how is drinking a benefit to our society?

why do people posting on game development forums about Grand Theft Auto? it has no benefit to society. you could be doing your job and doing something for society, but no, you must make some stupid point about how games teach nothing and you want to look for a fight because you're a idiot with nothing else better to do.

[completely uncalled for insult removed - Kaz]

[Edited by - Kazgoroth on January 24, 2006 12:43:22 AM]

I'm not seeing how this is at all inappropriate for the forum, it's a very valid point.

While games generally aren't setting out with the purpose of teaching, and probably shouldn't for the most part (Education Games Don't Have To Stink, by Ernest W. Adams) I certainly think they can have an influence on people, especially in the sense that they could help to reinforce or refine beliefs already present in the player. As the linked article observes, games don't teach, they illustrate, so while it's fairly difficult to actually teach something in a fun game (as Vopisk mentions, playing Splinter Cell doesn't in any way impart the skills used by the character) they could certainly provide a good demonstration and/or reinforcement of something the player already knows or believes.

Now, why should games have players acting out the kind of behavior they often portray? I ask you instead, why not? Games are an escape from the constraints of reality, and why shouldn't that (at least some of the time) include doing those things that almost all gamers certainly know is wrong, and that most would certainly never seriously consider doing in real life? It can quite reasonably be argued (and I would agree) that there is no epidemic of youth violence caused by videogames as the mass media would often like to have us believe (see The Truth About Violent Youth and Videogames), so why not allow players to enjoy a little unrealistic on-screen mayhem?

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Originally posted by azoundria I always laugh at games like Grand Theft Auto. What do they teach you?

Now, to address this question directly, I'd have to say that these games don't really teach you much of anything. You'd have to be pretty disturbed already to play one of these games and take away the lesson that you'd actually get away with that kind of behavior in real life, and even in the game itself it's made fairly clear that the behavior is wrong - that's why they send the police after you. These games aren't trying to teach you anything, they're trying to entertain. Personally, none of the GTA games have been able to hold my attention for very long at a time, and I have far more fun playing other games (some of which I'm sure you would object to on similar grounds), but they do have a certain amusement value in just being able to do utterly stupid things you would never even consider - or that might not even be possible - in real life, and I know a great deal of people find them very entertaining indeed.


Now, this doesn't mean there shouldn't be more games around that have more of a good 'moral foundation' or whatnot, or that discourage that kind of behavior, and I'd certainly like to see more games of this sort. Obviously I'm not the only one who'd like to see more of such ideas either - one recent thread that springs to mind is Constructive (as opposed to destructive) Gameplay Concept. So even though I don't think there's anything wrong with the GTA type games and others that get called in to question out there, I do think that it's something worth considering. If nothing else, it might lead to a concept that's actually a bit different from all the other games out there, and perhaps along the way you might reinfornce the good moral values someone was taught by thier parents, or help to illustrate how destructive behavior is wrong.

Oh, and be nice guys - disagreeing with what he's saying is all well and good, that's how we end up with an interesting discussion - but if you're going to respond at least be civil.

The most disturbing thing I saw in GTA was a mission where you had do drive a car off the pier into the sea with the passenger compartment locked shut and the drowning people screaming inside.

And this game gets the 18+ rating only after the "Hot Coffee" scandal, which is basically about two people being nice to each other for a change.

Brave new world... I think it is symptomatic for the lack of campassion and respect for other peoples' existence in our society.