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This is something that seems to crop up in the news quite a bit and with the new GTA on the shelves it’ll probably be heightened over the next few weeks. But what is your take on it?
Personally, I remember playing Double Dragon (and games like it) on the Sega Master System. The purpose was to beat people up and make your way through the levels, very tame by today’s standards but it still had a violent theme. As did a lot of games I played at that time and into my teens – there were a lot of them around. Streetfighter, Streets Of Rage etc. Though it didn’t affect me, I wasn’t going out beating people up due to something I saw on a video game. I was more like likely to try things I had seen watching wrestling and so were the majority of my friends. I was more likely to stand on my mum’s exercise bike and jump onto the bed pretending to be Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka or something similar than copy a video game.
I am now a huge fan of the aforementioned GTA games – first sampled it with a demo of GTA 2 when I was 14, something my parents never knew about as it was actually an 18 – and also own/have owned the likes of State Of Emergency, Manhunt, Godfather (PS2 & PS3) and Scarface. Never have been influenced in any way by any despite the negative press attached to them, so is it the game or is each individual responsible for their own actions?
My eldest plays all the violent games and is the most passive lad ever.
But then again are they really any different to sonic running around and bouncing on people etc?
All games have an element of having the beat/kill something or other.
Im afraid I think it is a poor excuse to blame games for real life violence. If you have violent tendancies you will still show them whether or not you play the games.
I think now it’s highlighted more because of the content of the games, the beating people up/killing people angle has reached an entirely new level than it once was.
As you pointed out though, these sort of games have been around for years – certainly my childhood and teenage years were the years when consoles started to get big and fighting/shooting games were everywhere.
I do agree with your point that if someone has those tendancies then they don’t need the games, but I do think they can influence – much in the same way music, films etc can influence people – and when that happens it can be a dangerous thing. But then, anything can influence anyone. I think State Of Emergency was banned in Australia but when you go down that road where does it end?
Btw, GTA IV is feckin fantastic!! :D
Ah i remember the good old games from my childhood, lovely and violent
How could I forget about Mortal Kombat? I used to throw sickies to get the day off school so I could spend all day trying to figure out which button combination performed which fatality with which character :lol:
@anita Gofradump wrote:
Ah i remember the good old games from my childhood, lovely and violent
Welcome back…x
ty pink xxxxxx
Well in America we tend to have this perception that art causes bad behavior, especially in impressionable young people; as if teenagers didn’t care about sex before Elvis came along, or that the teen gang phenomenon can be traced DIRECTLY back to Tom and Jerry beating on each other in cartoons. The plain and simple truth is we Americans cling to ANYTHING that can function as an excuse for the un-checked instinctual behavior of our young people which results from the poor parenting that runs rampant in our culture. The fact is as much as kids like violent video games and sexually suggestive music they get MOST of their attitudes about right and wrong in the HOME from the adults and authority figures they have the most contact with. But of course when things go wrong, and kids turn to drugs, sex, and violence as an outlet or to get attention, it’s MUCH easier to point the finger at Quentin Tarentino, or Grand Theft Auto than to declare a “war on parents” or something like that. It would seem to me that sex, violence, and altering one’s consciousness through chemicals are all forces of human nature which go back well beyond the invention of video games and TV.
@misterboston wrote:
Well in America we tend to have this perception that art causes bad behavior, especially in impressionable young people; as if teenagers didn’t care about sex before Elvis came along, or that the teen gang phenomenon can be traced DIRECTLY back to Tom and Jerry beating on each other in cartoons. The plain and simple truth is we Americans cling to ANYTHING that can function as an excuse for the un-checked instinctual behavior of our young people which results from the poor parenting that runs rampant in our culture. The fact is as much as kids like violent video games and sexually suggestive music they get MOST of their attitudes about right and wrong in the HOME from the adults and authority figures they have the most contact with. But of course when things go wrong, and kids turn to drugs, sex, and violence as an outlet or to get attention, it’s MUCH easier to point the finger at Quentin Tarentino, or Grand Theft Auto than to declare a “war on parents” or something like that. It would seem to me that sex, violence, and altering one’s consciousness through chemicals are all forces of human nature which go back well beyond the invention of video games and TV.
Well said, and it is much the same over here. The blame culture just seems to be the easy option.
@johnboy25 wrote:
I think now it’s highlighted more because of the content of the games, the beating people up/killing people angle has reached an entirely new level than it once was.
As you pointed out though, these sort of games have been around for years – certainly my childhood and teenage years were the years when consoles started to get big and fighting/shooting games were everywhere.
I do agree with your point that if someone has those tendancies then they don’t need the games, but I do think they can influence – much in the same way music, films etc can influence people – and when that happens it can be a dangerous thing. But then, anything can influence anyone. I think State Of Emergency was banned in Australia but when you go down that road where does it end?
Btw, GTA IV is feckin fantastic!! :D
where do ya think sgt peppers been for the last week! :lol:
My fix is tomb raider… dread to add up the hours Ive spent playing it.
Classic line on peep show the other night “oh no… theyve nicked the playstation and my memory card…. 120 hours of quality me time just gone!” :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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