Hi all, I am currently in the process of writing an essay on gaming and how it impacts the society. As you may be aware, there are some negative news that links gaming to various crimes and tragedies. Do you think violent games or games that depict violent acts will corrupt society? Do such games somehow drive certain gamers to do something they wouldn't have done otherwise? I am just interested to know people's general opinion on this matter. Even though you are a casual or non gamer I would still like to hear your vote on this matter. This is not an strict statistical poll but rather an attempt at gathering people's general opinions using the internet as a medium. Thanks for all votes offered ;) link : http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/459189

I think you'll find the majority on this particular site feel that games dont corrupt youth or society.
If you asked on a different site, you might get a different answer.
Of course, we are right ;)

But seriously, anyone who could be driven to violence by playing a video game clearly could not have been in a healthy state of mind to begin with.

My opinion is that children are impressionable to violence, but that is what the ESRB ratings are for. Stores will not sell a Mature game to a child just like they wouldn't sell an R-rated movie. If a child get their hands on a Mature game, that is the fault of an adult somewhere in their life. It would not be any different than a child treating women like objects after watching pornography. It is not the fault of those who make them, but those that give them to children. For adults, it is not much different than the violence that we have seen in movies for decades. I am not sure if there is a single case of an adult committing a violent crime because they "saw it in a movie and thought it would be cool to do". In fact, it may be arguable that video games would have less of an impact due to the fact that it is computer graphics vs. the real actors and special effects of movies. And as the above poster said, anyone who would commit a violent crime because of a game is a walking time-bomb of mental problems that are waiting to be detonated.

Aye, I have cross posted this in several gaming forums as well. Just interested to hear the developers take on this matter ;)

Quote: Original post by jonathanc
This is not an strict statistical poll but rather an attempt at gathering people's general opinions using the internet as a medium.

If you were actually interested in gathering people's general opinions, you'd ask them for them. A multiple-choice response question doesn't do that.

Not enough choices. The answer should be invariably "yes", but people's opinions on the degree vary wildly. Some would say, "yes, it corrupts the youth", others would say, "yes, it influences their decisions mildly". Those are very different answers.

@ the two posters above me

Thanks for the comments. It started off by asking some members of another forum about this matter. I created a simple poll and asked them to post opinions after voting.

Someone mentioned that I should try to sample opinions from different forums as well so here I am. I do take notes on what people say and try to use them in the argumentative essay I am writing. Perhaps the poll is there to help me keep track of what's what. Have to remember not everyone likes to leave comments and would rather just vote.

And yes, I should have strutured the poll a bit different since there's obviously a big skew at the moment. I can't edit it now because then the previous results will be worthless.

I would probably mention that when I asked for opinions on this matter in general, x number of people said yes as compared to y etc. Thanks for informing me about that though. I will try to improve in the future.

edit: Edited the poll a bit so voters can leave brief comments.

[Edited by - jonathanc on November 3, 2009 1:43:58 PM]