Sorry, apart from the moralising and the occasional nonsense-argument this is going too far out to be of any real relevance anymore.

I don´t want to stick "warning, this is not real - consume at your own risk" stickers on my games, but if I have to I will. The American legal system has made too many weird occurances possible - if games have to take that precaution against idiotic lawsuits then that´s what it will have to be.

As for content - do what you want, as long as you think that people will want to play it. If your conscience doesn´t permit you to make games with violent content, then don´t. There are other genres which make do without violence.
If you want explicit violence and extreme cruelty, please include it in your game. Games are lagging behind films a few years so I guess there are still a few interesting avenues to be explored and interesting questions to be raised.

As for the effects on the players: I´ve said this a few times before, but I´ll state it again: Violent games have ratings. Violent games are not for kids. If I make a violent games I do so for a consenting adult who capable of deciding what he or she wants to see. In order as not to offend anyone I´ll include a sticker saying: "This game contains violent content and may not be suitable for everybody. If you choose to play this game do so at your own risk.".

Those of you who are really interested in the psychological effects of games on children and adults please read up on the facts first. There have been so many unfounded statements that it has made my head spin and I don´t want to discuss any of them because they are either assumptions or hearsay - something we don´t need here because the research has been done and because there is actual data available. Only then is a meaningful discussion possible, otherwise it will always stay personal opinions.



Do what you think is right, but don´t try and force your beliefs on anyone else. This free speech all of you seem to value so much can be quite a pain when applied to everyone - please be mature enough as not to make the whole thing embarassing.


Warsong: edit your post, correct the mistakes and try to make some valid arguments, then I´ll re-read your post and respond accordingly. As the AP said, correct spelling and grammar are not a luxury, but a sign of courtesy and respect towards the
other posters.




Now, let´s try and get this one back on the ground and have some serious discussion.

quote: Those of you who are really interested in the psychological effects of games on children and adults please read up on the facts first. There have been so many unfounded statements that it has made my head spin and I don´t want to discuss any of them because they are either assumptions or hearsay - something we don´t need here because the research has been done and because there is actual data available. Only then is a meaningful discussion possible, otherwise it will always stay personal opinions.

Could you please elaborate? The problem is that studies on children who play violent video games do not necessarily agree in their conclusions, so which of these studies do you consider correct? "Actual data" is only meaninful if properly collected and competently analyzed. Garbage in, garbage out, you know.

I believe no study has established a link between video game violence and violent behavior in real life. What do you think?

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Could you please elaborate? The problem is that studies on children who play violent video games do not necessarily agree in their conclusions, so which of these studies do you consider correct? "Actual data" is only meaninful if properly collected and competently analyzed. Garbage in, garbage out, you know.

I believe no study has established a link between video game violence and violent behavior in real life. What do you think?

This is a difficult subject to discuss, even from a scientific point of view. This is most likely to the huge amount of media attention this subject has been getting - once tempers on both sides have flared high enough it is pretty easy to get studies tailored to go both ways. I´m not calling all and every study invalid, it is just that a topic which has created positions as strong as this one it easily happens that a questionaire or observation method gets tilted in one direction. One further problem with this issue is that the effects would obviously be long-term, so you´ll have to find a large enough base group to study.
So far (to my knowledge) there has been no conclusive evidence which would suggest that computer games cause or are linked to violent behavior, or that children playing violent games lose touch with reality.

What you can and should do however is look at the wider area of media studies. The effects of various media on the human mind have been studied extensively, as well as a discussion of the impacts of films and computer games on the individual.

You can also look at evolutionary psychology or social psychology if you are interested in the phenomenon violence. This is where I think the most catching up needs to be done, as many here have made statements like "prolonged exposure numbs you", "violent behavior is sick", "making violent games is sick". If you do some reading (I can recommend Zimbardo as an author of excellent entry-level works on almost every subject of psychology) you´ll see that violence is not an ailment of our times, but something which is as inherently human as talking or eating. Society has made physical violence more difficult and less accepted than it was, but the basic mechanisms are still there - evolution works much slower than to be undone by a few thousand years of civilisation.

btw: one recent study (somewhere on www.orf.at, I´m too tired to dig it out right now) conducted on 8-14yr olds suggests that playing video games moderately (no more than two hours a day) has no detrimental effect whatsoever, rather the opposite, the children who played regularly scored higher on reaction and cognitive tests and had a social life just as rich and active as kids who didn´t play. This of course has only a glancing impact on the violence discussion but I thought it to be an interesting angle on the whole "influenced by games" topic.

Another thing that would be interesting to look at would be social disorders, especially those occurring in a family context. It has been mentioned before that the media shouldn´t be blamed for bad parenting as obviously it cannot be a substitute, but I believe that this avenue has so far been left mostly unexplored.

As to which studies are "correct" I´d suggest that we bring up individual studies for discussion - if anyone would be willing to dig up an example. Then we could look at the methods, the subjects and the conclusions which were drawn and discuss for ourselves whether the arguments made are valid or not.

quote: Original post by Peeves
Pills are an excuse for your problems, they just make you think you are doing better.

that is a stupid thing to say. pills come AFTER the problems, how can they be an excuse for something that began earlier? maybe if you took yours you would have a clue. and you can''t seriously believe that the scientific studies done on these pills they prescribe are not valid, can you? well maybe, if the aliens (or is it the devil?) told you so.

quote: I know of about 15 other people in my town who are like me, there are problably even people like me reading this (not as intense, but with some of the same thoughts)

well, they need pills too. maybe you guys should start a club. just remember: it is not good to shoot up your school.
why don''t you get over yourself, take your pills, and grow up?

quote: again it is a useless battle even on this part of "sane game developers".

you get no vote in who is sane.


--- krez (krezisback@aol.com)

After reading your narrow minded posts, Krez, I''d have to say I wouldn''t trust your vote in who is sane either.


----
Herb M. (mdfmKoRn)
www.sky-meyg.com
s3202@attbi.com

Can we drop the psychotherapy please?

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost ]

quote: Original post by mdfmKoRn
After reading your narrow minded posts, Krez, I''d have to say I wouldn''t trust your vote in who is sane either.

did you also forget to read the posts where he said he laughed at the world trade center thing, and all the other things about how he loves death and chaos and all that?
if you think i am "narrow minded" to say that that is a bit loopy then you obviously don''t know the meaning of the phrase.
i''ll stop just because nobody here apparently cares, but really... don''t blame me for thinking this is a bit sick:

quote: i have been to 2 mental homes before so i don''t need help, i have a perminant problem that i can''t get rid of... When i see violent things... i laugh to calm myself from wanting to run out and do the same to another person, im a sick fuck, i know, but its feelings i have that i can''t get rid of.

--- krez (krezisback@aol.com)

The argument that people who are for spressing violence in all forms(games, boxing...) is equatable to the argument vegetarians and animal rights people make about killing animals.

They argue that we don''t need to kill animals for food or clothing( leather, fur....). The other side of that argument is that we wouldn''t be where we are if it weren''t for doing these things. Look at our bodies, compared to other mammals. You may notice a huge lack of fur. The only way for us to survive the winters and settle into colonies was for us to kill animals for their fur, and eat them in the process.

The same goes for overall violece. Our societies were forged from war and violence, from struggle and competition. We wouldn''t have survived without the struggle, and the need to adapt.

The arguments for both the animal killing and the overall violence boil down to the same question. DO WE NEED THEM IN TODAY''S SOCIETY?

For the animal aspect, the answer is yes. With all of the synthetic materials out there, we still use goose down for coats and pillows. We use animal fur and feathers all of the time, because they are warmer and feel better. When it comes to implementing methods which are thought of as cruel, for rare or vanity items(mink coat, veal chops), it comes down to the law of nature. We''re up here on the food chain, and we can do what ever we want with any type of animal. And until we come up with a way to have it so that we don''t need animals for our everyday life, that won''t change.

As for the violence part, I would have to say yes once again, but with less furver. For one, we are still a world that accepts boxing, even though we''ve tried to abolish dog and cock fights. Now people are trying to do away with that. But how can you discount boxing, when martial arts are so highly regarded. Similar thoughts of offense and defense go through each combatants mind, they''re just taught and implemented differently. Offense and defense......the backbone of our society, even today. We are a much more prosperous world in general today, but we still compete each day, for jobs, for love, for life. Violence is a part of this and it always will be. Have you ever seen a baby take a swing at somebody? Violence is a natural action.

As far as violence being used as a gimmick for games, I have one thing to say. Violent or not, a good game is a good game. It''s not the developers'' fault if you''re too stupid to be fooled by gore or graphcs, or to be influenced by the violence. We may still have primal instincts, but our growth as a society has given us the tools to know when to use them. If you don''t know when to use them, you won''t survive....not today.