June 26, 2007 -
Last week GamePolitics reported that a Bush Administration study on the Virginia Tech massacre made no mention of video games despite allegations by Miami attorney Jack Thompson and members of the Lyndon LaRouch political action committee that violent games played a role in provoking the rampage.Following the GP report, the LaRouche PAC called the study a cover-up on its website, and seems to allege some type of conspiracy between the video game industry and websites that reported on the Bush Administration's findings:
The video game lobby is praising the [Virginia Tech] report for its cover-up of LPAC exposure of the Va Tech massacres. On June 21, on the lobby's websites and magazines, Games Industry and Gammer [sic] Life, write:
"Despite the efforts of video game critics Jack Thompson and Lyndon LaRouche, the V-Tech report is out with no mention of video games at all... According to GamePolitics, the video game issue was brought up at the V-Tech Review Panel hearings no less than three times by supporters of Lyndon LaRouche PAC."
The Virginia Tech Review Panel appointed by Gov. Tim Kaine continues to study the April 16th massacre.
Comments
I'm not saying that letting the game spill out into reality is a bad thing. I'm just saying that the argument says that it is; something which is obviously wrong *because* of the Tetris Effect. There is absolutely nothing wrong in seeing a line of rings neatly arranged in a jeweler's window and giggling inwardly because it reminds you of Sonic. There's nothing wrong in pretending. It's something we all do when we talk about our gaming experiences anyway: "I shot him in the face with super shottie. Left a right mess. Then I was hit with a rocket and catapulted into the lava." We wince when our character is hurt and laugh at old victories. Nothing wrong with it.
One day we might see a car in a car park and think it looks exactly like one from GTAIV - they modelled it on that model, say. We might even imagine the fun we could have in stealing the game version of it and initiating one of those marvellous cross-county chases that the series is so famous for. Common sense, morality, and all manner of other factors tell us, of course, that we should not. The anti-gaming lobby blames the game for inciting that thought when they should be blaming the criminal for acting on it.
"If [...] then why is it that playing ultra-realistic golf (or any real-life sport for that matter) video games doesn’t increase your ’skill’ at playing them in real-life? Hmmmm?"
I never said it increases your skill. If anything it might even decrease it. What it does do is increase your personal relationship with the action you're performing. To use golf as an example, you might decide to take up the sport or maybe just pop down the driving range for a go. I bet the uptake in guitar lessons swelled dramatically shortly after Guitar Hero dropped. But again, sensible people know that taking up golf because you rocked at PGA is a different kettle of fish to taking up carjacking because you liked GTA. The anti-gaming groups can't see the difference there.
And one final thing: Games *do* train you. They just don't train you in quite the same way that the antis say. Dr. Kawashima trains you to be more alert and perform mental tasks more efficienty. Surgeons (citation needed but I do remember the story) apparently perform better with a gaming background because their hands are more used to fiddly, precise, repetitive functions. Playing Civ or Total War may make you more tactically aware of warfare. Counter-Striking through your formative years improves your hand-eye coordination and peripheral vision. At the very base level, a complete idiot might be taught by a game that headshots are a more effective method of killing someone or that shooting them in the knee will drop them. Again though: Knowing these things and training your mind are not bad. Using your superpowers for evil is the bad thing.
It's not the games, it's the person playing them.
Isn't that referred to as the "Tetris Effect" or something? Anyway, while it's true that most of us probably have considered doing some of those things out in the real world, we can also think ahead enough to anticipate the consequences, which deter us from actually doing it. In a shooter such as Counter Strike if you get killed by someone or yourself, you wait until the next match begins and then you're alive again as if nothing happened prior. We know that in the real world that doesn't happen. In a game you can run along that wall all you want as long you press the right buttons to initiate the action and you know exactly what will happen because the game is programmed to let you do perform that action flawlessly. However, common sense will also tell you that you can't do that in real life just because you can in the game; your foot could slip, you could hit the wall wrong, etc. The thing is that anyone who can be so influenced by games to think otherwise probably shouldn't be playing most modern games anyway.
Sure aim is improved by practicing(video games don't improve aim, sorry)and knowing the proper shooting possition(how to stand and how to hold the gun ect) but really firing a gun is easy, a very young child wouldn't find any difficulty doing it even if he wasn't exposed to violent games.
To use a better example: If the realism of modern games, "blur[s] the boundaries of fantasy and make[s] you more prone or susceptible to re-enacting the game, treating the world as it, or using its skills," why is it that playing ultra-realistic golf (or any real-life sport for that matter) video games doesn't increase your 'skill' at playing them in real-life? Hmmmm?
Right, because video games don't 'train' a person to do anything but play more video games, or play them better. I wish they did, then I'd be able to play golf with the old guys at the office ...
Violence isn't new and children acting violent are not new either. Get over yourself, god damn it. Since when is a person killing another person such a big fuckin deal. It happens, its happened millions of times throughout history. People kill eachother, people have been killing eachother for a long time. Infact its pretty safe to say its ALWAYS happened throughout human history and probably pre-human history. Now we just have guns, guns kill people faster and easier. That means you can kill people faster and easier than ever before which hey guess what leads to more people killing other people. Guess what it also leads to, people killing a larger amount of people in one go. Guess what else it leads to... People killing other people over stupid shit. If you can kill someone fast and easy it gives you less time to really think about what your doing and it also allows you to kill more people in your moment of insanity. If your brain can't accept that, maybe you should try to give it a bullet. -.-
Its the fucking guns not the games with guns in them. Some people's stupidity actually makes me ill.
The lines are already blurred.
The whole point of my statement is this, you are assuming that it's ok for GTA to 'play in your head' but not ok for Mario, which is the same type of media, delivered in precisely the same fashion, and, in truth, requiring the same areas of the game to play.
There IS no reason why people shouldn't be imagining Mario if that is the game they ingest most of, and yet they don't.
If that's the case then my argument still stands, it shouldn't make a difference what computer game it is, the boundaries would still be blurred if this condition existed, if kids are imagining characters and events from shooting games and overlaying them over real life, then there is no reason whatsoever that they wouldn't do the same with other games.
False. The argument is that realistic games blur the boundaries of fantasy and make you more prone or susceptible to re-enacting the game, treating the world as it, or using its skills.
To use your analogy against you then: If you saw a brick floating in midair with a question mark spinning around its sides, wouldn't you be a little tempted to hit it and see what happened?
Ever notice how it's only the "violent" video games that teach us anything? I've never, ever heard of Dig Dug being named as the cause of people starting tunnels in their yards....
If a computer game can cause a condition where someone goes out and shoots people, then there MUST be a condition where people bang their heads on low ceilings to see if a coin comes out. Just because it sounds utterly ridiculous is immaterial, either games do this or they don't, they can't 'half do it' depending on what is convenient for the soap-box brigade.
Shh... Dont give The Big Dick any ideas.
Welscome to GP Shawn.
Of course they couldn't even spell the gaming news sites they did reference.
Where's my fat kickbacks? Sorry couldn't resist.
Shawn Sines
Game Reviewer - Columbus Alive!
Co-host - GameOn! Podcast
News Editor - Gaming Today/news.filefront.com
Regarding JT, I think there's already a medical term for that - going senile.
I apologize for the double-post
"Dick Cheney isn’t at the center of a vast conspiracy to teach everyone how to kill by using video games."
Actually, I think he is, and he's even got Bungie in on the act:
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/14/cheney-honored-with-dubious-halo-3-medal/
The LaRouches should've used this as ammo for their conspiracy merry-go-round - then it'd actually be funny.
Imagine you are writing a book report on, for instance, Mesopotamians, and in your research someone offers you a story about digital watches, which has nothing to do with the subject of your report. Then they get angry you didn't include it in the text. "Fahey Covers Up Mesopatamian Digital Watch Connection."
Consider for a moment what people like JT believe about video games being linked to violence. Lets say, for a moment, that everything they say is true. If so, then that would mean over 10 million people (and alot more no doubt) would be, trained, expert and active killers. AMIRIGHT?!
However, this is not the case. In fact, as i posted before on another thread, that violence in teenagers has actually DROPPED in the last few years then raised.
It needs to be borne in mind that the UK very recently sent a complaint from our Parliament to the German Police regarding the suspicious death of a young English Jew who was attending an Anti-War rally held by the LaRouchians.
Regardless of whether there was foul play or not, I don't doubt they are doing everything in their power to distract people from that fact.
It has nothing to do with games.
It's also nice to the see hand of 'Nutcase' brigade finally reaching out to accept it's own.
The ESRB, set up by legislation sponsored by Senators Lieberman and Clinton, has allowed video game sales to grow into the billions of dollars by giving "M" or "Mature" ratings to such games at "Grand Theft Auto."
From this statment, I see a lack of credibility regardless of him being a conspiracy theorist or not. What legislation is he talking about?
True, Liberman's concerns over Mortal Kombat did inspire the industry to create the ESRB, but I do not recall any legislation. Also, Clinton was not a Senator back then. Furthermore, does this statement imply the ESRB is a government agency, which is not?
I really want to e-mail LaRouche through his Ask LaRouche address and ask what legislation is he talking about and why should we bother considering his views when he does not understand basic institutions.
That was too perfect, so here you go.
http://kscakes.com/LolCats/Uploads/Saved/im-in-ur-docturz-addicting-ur-k...
They're in ur docturz addicting ur kidz!!!
Doesn’t he also think that the queen is controlling the world through a money laundering cartel?
The guy is an idiot that no one in the world cares about
Yes?
No?
... no.
The way those LaRouche lunatics "spin" their words, it makes me glad I didn't go with them.
Middle Eastern cab drivers were warned to stay away from the WTC.
The CIA killed both John and Bobby Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Jewish world domination.
There Is No Cabal.
The internet is, in fact, a series of tubes.
How about Watergate was really a panty raid?
Ah LaRouche, I needed a good laugh today. Thank you.
That's basically the gist of what i got from this.
Their wall of lies have been shattered by common sence and now their upset about it.