Columnist: GTA IV "Stimulates Dark Impulses"
Columnist: GTA IV "Stimulates Dark Impulses"
May 5, 2008
In the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune, columnist Katherine Kersten has a lengthy whine about Grand Theft Auto IV:Games like GTA IV stimulate and glamorize our dark impulses. They create a taste for the psychological thrill that can come from dominating and degrading others. They encourage us to strip our fellow human beings of their dignity, and view them merely as objects of violence or sexual desire.
The hazards of violent games will only increase as new, more advanced technologies like the Wii system take hold... you can act out a game physically.
The average 32-year-old man who plays violent video games -- and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers -- is likely to be someone's husband and father. What qualities of character will his wife find when she looks to him for love, steadiness and fidelity?
And when his young son looks to Dad as a role model -- well, that's the problem, isn't it?
Comments
[quote]Ms. Kersten:
I feel I must comment on your recent Grand Theft Auto IV column. With all due respect I must disagree with your basic assertions on several grounds.
Research has not "confirmed" in any way that aggressive tendencies are increased through the playing of violent video games anymore than they are increased through the viewing of violent movies. There are multiple studies suggesting that there might be some kind of effect and multiple studies suggesting there is little to no effect that persists beyond actual playing time. This is hardly confirmation of a hypothesis by any scientific standard.
Secondly, I have played video games for most of my life, receiving my first Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988 at age 4. Since then I have owned multiple systems and played a plethora of violent games. I have not had a potential for "...coarseness and cruelty..." emerge "...after months or years of immersion in lurid and prurient interests..."
I hardly consider my interests lurid or prurient. I am not a fan of the Grand Theft Auto franchise but I have played the games, have you? They are no more lurid or "prurient" than movies such as Goodfellas, the Departed (a Best Picture winner), Scarface, or even Gangs of New York. It is ultimately a "crime drama." You are not rewarded for random violence, to the contrary, each act of violence increases your "Star [or Wanted] Level" which results in increasing law enforcement response including police pursuit, helicopters, the FBI and even the United States Army. There is no faster way to lose the game than to engage in random violence.
In regards to your comments regarding the Wii, again it strikes me that you seem to have never played the system. The Wii is hardly the sophisticated simulator that your article makes it sound like. The gestures used on the Wii amount to little more to minor wrist movements to flick the "Wiimote" or pushing your arm towards the TV and back or twisting your arm to rotate the remove. You can not "act out" any real activities with the system at all.
I am a gamer, most of my friends are gamers, most young adults nowadays are gamers. We have been playing games, many of them violent, for years if not decades. There has not been an explosion in violent crime or depraved activity. How long is this "emergence" supposed to take? 20 years, 30, 40? The reality of the current situation has undermined the basic presumption that violent video games lead to violence, it simply has not happened despite decades of use by millions of people.
Now, I am not saying kids should be playing Grand Theft Auto, it is rated M (17+) for a reason. It is comparable to an R rated movie and the content descriptors on the back of the box will make it clear to any responsible parents that their 12 year old should not be playing this game. The problem I, and many gamers see, is that parents do not read these descriptors. I have been in game stores where parents have been informed of the rating by the sales clerk only to be told "don't tell me how to raise my child" or, and in my opinion worse, been treated to a display of "I don't care, just give it to him."
Video games are merely the latest media to be subjected to this kind of treatment. In the 1950's your parents generation was threatened by Elvis Presely and those "long haired freaks" such as the The Beatles. Just as the "Devil's Music" has survived, I must argue you are fighting a battle that is already lost.
Thank you for your time. [/quote]
I don't understand most of these idiots think people only play GTA because of the sexual content and hooker slaying,when you could probably find the hooker killing online,and can definitely find sexual content and then some.
...For thousands of years.
Kids have killed Kids...
...For thousands of years.
Adults have killed Kids...
...Kids have killed Adults...
...For Thousands of years."
-BJB-
Knowing that bit of truth, maybe Katherine could tell us how GTA4 has allowed our 'dark impulses' to be shown, when, as history shows, video games have only been around for 40 years. Yet, mankind has gone to war against itself for a few thousand years in every part of the world. If Katherine believes this shows mankind's dark impulses, she never knew(know) the horros of the Nazi Regime of Germany from 1934-1945.
GTA4 has NOTHING, on what the dark impulses of the Nazis were capable of doing. Maybe, to save from looking like an idiot, she should learn HISTORY.
Kersten is exactly as she has been described by other readers of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune; a ranting fear-monger who is absolutely convinced that this latest "threat" will destroy the moral fabric of our nation, plunging our nation into a morass of debauchery and anarchy unequaled since the dreams of Bacchus. Her column is the Star-Tribune's response to complaints that they had a liberal-bent, and her screeds are always written in the same strident manner.
Ms. Kersten is the worst type of Christian; she claims to speak for all of us while maintaining a world-view that my faith finds unacceptably narrow. Her world is one where ideas are threats, where questions are sins, and where differences are unacceptable. Frequently, Ms. Kersten speaks to us "as a Christian," - but her's is not the faith of my father, my mother, nor any of my ancestors - it is a faith of fear and oppression. This faith has two good qualities going for it.
1) It is consistent.
If this were 1980, Ms. Kersten would be warning us of the evils of "Heavy Metal Music."
If this were 1950, Ms. Kersten would have informed us of the corrupting influence of "Comic Books."
If this were 1930, Ms. Kersten would see it as her moral duty to warn against the licentious nature of "Swing Dancing."
And, ironically enough, if it were the late 14th century, Ms. Kersten would be warning us that the availability of an English translation of the Bible constituted a severe threat to our immortal souls.
2) History has proven time and time again that these ideas can not last.
I've written Ms. Kersten on the topics of video-games and school violence in the past (this is not her first time speaking on either subject) and have attempted to correct her mistaken views; to date, I have never received a response. I take comfort, however, in the knowledge that we will one day be the generation in power, while accepting that we will also fall into the same traps our parents and grandparents have; we should simply hope that we can be the first generation to respond to new media ithout fear.
And she know this how? Maybe she is the one "fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers".
WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH!
You know, that is all I am hearing and you know what? Not appealing.
THIS IS ROCKSTAR!!!!!
Sorry for that.
Seriously though how can she sit there and pretend to know what kind of Father/Husband I am? So what she is saying that by playing GTA I am living at my darkest dreams? I'm sorry I thought for a second there I was playing it because it was a fun game.
She'll find love, steadiness and fidelity, like she'll find in every other normal human being. Next question, please!
/b
I love how they bring up sex in the game when a vast majority of the stuff is pretty tame. I also love how she brought up the wii and its simulated movements which could provide more realistic sex/violence in games, because we all know that by holding down the b trigger and pushing our wiimotes foward and backwards for 10 mins will make for a realistic sex simulation :P.
Why does it always come back to the Hookers and Drunken Driving with this game?
That would be against the law and I would go to jail. I guess I didnt play enough cus Im not an amoral monster yet.
Wait... GTA4 was on the Wii? where the hell is this version?!
tells me right there she's neither seen the game, nor the consoles its on.
why is it all the old farts out there think these games are making people violent?
especially the ones that HAVE NOT PLAYED ANY OF THEM?
how can you judge something you haven't tried?
its like fanboys praising their favorite console, but never even trying the others.
i've all 3, and of the 3 i like the Wii most for its innovative controls (despite its lacking good games so far aside from Manhunt, metroid and VC titles)
the 360 has grand online, and the PS3... well... its big and plays blu ray (its best feature really) is all i can say really, its nothing spectacular at all IMHO.
i was playing Duke3D when i was 9... why aren't i hanging out in strip clubs, all day/night getting lap dances, handing out my money to strippers, and talking big while toting a lot of guns?
i'm even former Navy and i don't do any of that....
wow... so much for violent games make violent people...
i can see it being true if you suffer a mental instability already, but thats true for anyone.
I get pissed off if i hear most rap music. why? i dunno, but it makes me wanna break something.
does that mean rap makes everyone angry and violent?
doesn't seem too.
but just cause it effects me, i guess i should go back and fight it some more making false claims on something i know next to nothing about eh?
/dismiss
Rockstar is NOT good at mind reading.
Rockstar could never make a game that personified my darkest imagineings. It would not sell and i'm fairly sure it'd put the developers into therapy.
FREEDOM!!
I find your article rather distasteful.
http://www.startribune.com/local/18538584.html?page=3&c=y
"The average 32-year-old man who plays violent video games -- and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers -- is likely to be someone's husband and father. What qualities of character will his wife find when she looks to him for love, steadiness and fidelity?"
Do you think that these people are created by violent video games? Or perhaps it is more logical that they are attracted to them because of their pre-existing mental health. Where did all the sicko's of society come from before we had video games? Do you have any kind of research or statistics to support the idea that the total % of the population who exhibit violent and unhealthy behaviour as a result of their mental state has changed very much since the introduction of violent video games? Banning video games is cutting off the head to cure the headache, it's attacking a symptom, of a problem I don't think has changed at all since the creation of modern society.
In addition, the media is a reflective entity, if what you see in the media bothers you, you should look back at society and decide what in society is causing the problem, there is not supply before there is demand.
And what's with the "men and boys." I want to know if any women play GTA.
Phew. For a second I thought she was describing an average 32-year-old-man. Instead, she described an average 32-year-old psychopath. So, I'm safe.
I want her to explain, in detail, how GTA4 is so evil, but The Godfather series of movies is considered a classic (and I know a couple schools -- High Schools -- which show those movies for appreciation classes).
The early 80's called, they want their knee-jerk paranoia back...
The last people you want to mess with is gamers. I think Jack Thompson is starting to learn that. But who knows?
Since just about every man in his 20's and 30's plays games, I guess we have TONS of women in empty, loveless relationships/marriages!
I was going to say I would be just as qualified to make those kind of judgments as she is and with just as much research to back me up. But then after thinking about it, I am way more qualified than she is on the subject.
Ill tell you why, because THESE GAMES DO NOT CAUSE VIOLENCE.
Jesus H Christ.
I would assume she would only find those qualities if she was smart enough to look for a man with such qualities.
I'm curious as to why so many of these writers ignore women...they are discussed as victims and targets, but I wonder if female gamers are immune to all these evils that are supposedly welling up in men. I mean, everyone talks about how negative these violent masculinist fantasies are, but all the arguments assume that the game is reinforcing something already there, thus eliminating women from the picture entirely. I wonder what happens when the narrative is reversed and we ask what a husband finds when he looks for all those same qualities in his GTA playing wife... or if both of them play the game... for people brining up so many feminist issues in their critiques of the game, these journalists and bloggers are all showing a remarkable gender bias.
average 32 year old man thinks
b) uninformed
c) stupid. obviously she belives everything she
reads
d)all of the above
All i want to know is how these people even hold there jobs when they make statments like this, is there no way to hold these people responsible for the bullshit that comes out of there mouth.
Move along, nothing to see here...
Nice letter. Please, anyone else writing letters, be tasteful and rational.
No doubt if we did that, however, we'd have a religion founded by anti-games activists that centres around Jack Thompson's sacrifice for the sins of those video game playing criminals.
This would in turn cause us to ask ourselves; "Was it worth it?"
Next!
I RTFA, and it is hilarious. She even went all "Godwin's Law" on GTA.
Roman Gladiators, Medieval Executions, Rwanda Genocide, Nazis, and ....GTA 4???! That's a logical train of thought there.
Her, JT, and Kevin McCoullagh (not sure the spelling, the Online Virtual Orgasmic Rape guy) should all team up. Imagine the combined force of their sexual repression. They would be able to create the worlds most extreme hyperbole.
And Jack. I know we're all waiting for the day we hear he's in the clock tower with a Wii Zapper and a copy of Grand Theft Auto.
Another day, another moron jumps on the "GTA 4 will destroy us all" bandwagon.
lol what?
The average 32-year-old man who PLAYS GOLF— and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers — is likely to be someone’s husband and father.
The average 32-year-old man who READS BOOKS— and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers — is likely to be someone’s husband and father.
The average 32-year-old man who ENJOYS FRENCH COOKING— and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers — is likely to be someone’s husband and father.
the points are entirely unrelated
That is a great letter. I would just once like to see anybody who's been sent a letter similar to this try and defend thier arguments in a rational and public manner. Then we will see how quickly the anti-game movement dies.
These accusations are getting as tired as the jokes upon the name itself... this isn't virtual reality, and the remote's setup is in no way 'realistic.'
"The average 32-year-old man who plays violent video games — and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers — is likely to be someone’s husband and father. What qualities of character will his wife find when she looks to him for love, steadiness and fidelity?"
...no comment. Just no comment.
"And when his young son looks to Dad as a role model — well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?"
That's a bad thing for a child regardless of what video games the adult plays, isn't it?
Something wicked this way comes.
What's done cannot be undone.
Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Out, damned spot! out, I say!
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
However, she apparently has dark thoughts when thinking of a game like GTA and passes it as proof that having dark thoughts will cause infidelity. If anything, wives cause infidelity not games. I digress though, I can't believe she's choosing to use her age as wisdom, she can't argue her age on grown men's thoughts, it's plain silly.
The son looks to dad as a role model and sees a man who supports him, when he looks at you [the columnist], he laughs and is glad he isn't a whiny old hag.
Is she serious? Let's see... in a given year - how many stories are in the 'news' - including newspapers that help boost human dignity? How many stories in the news are about others dominating and degrading each other?
How much of the news targets, exploits, and uses the 'thrill' of murder, violence, death, tragedy to boost sales?
PRETTY MUCH ALL OF THEM.
Get a clue woman. Seriously - open your damn eyes.
What the hell does her age have to do with anything? And how in God's name can you claim to know she has no husband?
Not like anyone there is actually going to read it.
"WOW. This is probably one of the most ignorant and out of touch editorials I have ever read.
The desensitization of entertainment is one of the most parroted myths around today.
The fact is people are built for survival. This means that they will do some pretty awful things to ensure their own comfort. If we are ever to move beyond these primal instincts we need to be willing to examine why they have such a strong hold over us. This not only means through scientific study, but also through cultural mirrors. Grand Theft Auto is hyper-violent. It uses extremes of dark comedy to illustrate what goes on around use everyday, everywhere.
I find it disappointing that so many commentators, such as yourself, are quickly jumping on a bandwagon of dim-wittednes rather than using their platforms to encourage discovery outside of what someone might be aware."
As for all the comments about movies:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076100/
Truly Ron Howard is the harbinger of the apocalypse.
Amen brother. Well done.
Lady, most people would KILL to have that game on the Wii.
"The average 32-year-old man who plays violent video games -- and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers -- is likely to be someone's husband and father. What qualities of character will his wife find when she looks to him for love, steadiness and fidelity?
And when his young son looks to Dad as a role model -- well, that's the problem, isn't it?"
I am a week away from 28 and am a Father to my partner and I's son. What gives her the idea that I spend my free hours doing what she says? In all of my time (well over 150 hours) spent playing any of the previous GTA titles, I have visited a prostitute once (because one of my friend's thought it was funny). The only passer-bys I have killed have been by accident. Guess what, in real life I don't fantasize about anything she suggests.
When my son looks to me as a role model, he is going to see an honest, hardworking man, which is what I am. How DARE she imply that due to my choice of entertainment I am some kind of a degenerate thug?
i guess thats what she imagined.
My girlfriend watches me play the game because she finds it funny when I get myself killed. It's called understanding the difference between reality and non-reality. The game is meant for entertainment value and these twits are getting on their high horses and spouting fictional content as if it were true to anyone that will listen.
As for a kid? I don't have one, but if I did play these games and had a child, wouldn't it be better that I spend time doing something they enjoy doing as well? Isn't being involved with your kids life and doing things that interests you both meaningful anymore? So what if it's a game such as this, at least then you're there to help them see the difference between right and wrong, real and not real.
These people that bash video games without every trying them or even bothering playing any video game just amuse me with their ignorance.
http://fruitfly.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/katherine-kerstens-republicanvi...
Let her be folks - just another tired old loony who can't keep up with the world.
If anything, her rantings reflect more on her imagination that the demographics she's hitting.
The guy who was playing shot a man off of a motorcycle and I was amazed to watch as the victim crawled to the side of the road begging for mercy. What really amazed me was that other "civilians" in the area started running towards the injured man, yelling for help and trying to do what they could to aid him. This was some rather impressive crowd behavior in my opinion and I realized at that moment that I simply could not play this game the same way I see others playing it. I also realized that I did not have to play the game the same way he was playing it.
GTA provides an amazingly open environment in witch to act but the thing I noticed was that mindless violence and murder were not, in fact, rewarded in any way. From what I could see killing "civilians" and causing property damage is a choice, not an objective. And while I was disgusted with what the player was doing that was something he was choosing to do, much like someone choosing to unleash a tornado on their "SimCity".
There is a lot more thinking I need to do on all of this but I am hoping that I can eventually come to a better understanding of both sides of the issue of game violence.
the least that these experts can do is play the freaking game, then criticize to get publicity...sheesh whats the world coming too? (dont answer that)
quite interesting
Hello,
You have probably already received many (some better written then this, many probably worse) emails about your opinion piece but I wished to chime in too.
Putting aside just how amazingly insulting your article was to the many people who play games like this (including many wives, girlfriends, and daughters).. you do realize that your line of reasoning is the same basic one use to, say, stop women from having rights in many countries like leaving the home, working, or revealing their face to other men?
Even you admitted that such violent impulses are normal. Normal everyday people have a sadistic side and will revel in playing with it. But significant evil is done when we try to completely suppress or ignore this. Shelter someone from a topic and then introduce them to it late in life and you tend to get wild and do things they shouldn't. You see this all the time with highly sheltered people discovering pornography, violence, alcohol, etc late in their development. Repress something completely only leaves you with the two extremes.
GTA style games let people get out these impulses in a safe and healthy way. In fact the game can be a good bonding experience between couples and can even be a good way for younger players (who let's face it, have a lot of frustration and angst) to get their aggressions out in a healthy way INSTEAD of taking it out on real people.
I am also not sure which 'research' you are referring too, but the only studies I have seen have been pretty dodgy and fail to show causation (at best they show a correlation). The studies do not rise to the lofty level of 'confirming' that video games have the effects you mention.
Lastly as an active member of the bdsm community I am particularly disturbed that you use "S&M sex scene" as some horrible eye catcher to catch the reader. Wonderful example of your own pandering to puriant interest in an mock-indignant way. I would be more worried about teenagers trying to emulate, say, street racing found in so many games and movies then I would S&M considering such behavior is far riskier and kills more teens per year.
I suggest leaving one.
It's another person... bashing games... again.
...
I'll be playing GTAIV.
Also for the last time people, there is no rape in this game, and there are strip clubs in real life. You also, just like in real life, can't take out a weapon in the strip club or the bouncers will beat the crap out of you.
The only consequence I've ever felt from GTA was finding myself driving a little faster than usual if I go somewhere after playing.
Does turning women to the dark side make them sexier?
Excuse me for the sexist joke, but I think it had to be said.
Anyway, bringing out our "darkest impulses" is one of the reasons why people play violent video games; we can't do this stuff in real life, but we *want* to do it anyway, so we act it out in video games. Harmless, virtual video games.
I wouldn't dream of taking a life.
I abhor violence against women unless it's in self defense
I've raised a lethal weapon toward another person.
MY police record remains clean.
Wow, what is wrong with me eh?
First off, most women I know are onkly interested in gangstas, wealth, and dnagerous men.
Second, it's called change. Society has to do it every once in a while. Women are going to have to learn to judge wether or not the gamer is still a good man or if he is a dangerous psychopath. I'll give you a hint, does his shirt have sleeves?
If we were to stick with dogmatic views of our potential mates, then women would have to start cleaning, get back into the kitchens, and keep their mouth shut when the men are talking.
But the funny thing is, society changed and we learned to adapt.
''And while I was disgusted with what the player was doing that was something he was choosing to do, much like someone choosing to unleash a tornado on their “SimCity”.
best example ever!!
surely the critics cant pick and choose their arguments. Either it makes you violent or it doesnt. so the fact i loved to send volcanos, tornados , ufos and giant robots to stomp over my city killing millions of virtual people means that im a violent person in real life? does it heck!
And like you said, its a CHOICE. im getting fed up with the 'cop killing / hooker killing simulator' argument. I can go the entire game without killing either if i wish.
hardly a good 'simulator' .
(putting aside the 3rd person, giant floating aiming retucule, auto aiming and tracking of the floating reticule, auto reloading, recoilless guns, ability to fly 50ft off a clif in a car because its 'cool' and land unscathed, die and return to life at a hospital after being shot by 10 bullets, recovering from said bullets halfway through a fight by walking over a glowing medpac, driving erattically down the pavement and through people's front lawns, past cop cars, without them blinking etc etc.. the list goes on ..)
And that in itself is a bad thing?
I suspect sending her emails is pretty pointless, except for helping us vent our rage. From what I have read on her, she seems pretty convinced in her point of view through emotional attachment rather than any rationality.
Humans have dark impulses. This is a fact, and is unchangeable - and anyone who tells you differently is passing a collection basket.
What better way to expunge them than by playing a video game?
So what they're saying is no female in the entire world plays Grand Theft Auto?
That's pretty sexist.
You know? GTA4 brings family together. Just yesterday, I played GTA4 with my brother, sister in law, mom and dad. We passed the controller around for two hours. I've never heard my mom and dad laugh so much before.
It also sound like Mrs. Kersten thinks that all 32-year old men must be phantazising about "murdering passersby and roughing up strippers". Generalizations much?
As for these men's wifes I hope, guess, feel and think that they know the difference between playing a video game and acting out something in the phantasy/imaginiation realm of the game and doing these things in REAL life.
And I hope the little boys' dads teacch the little boys to distinguish phantasy in a game from reality in real life ---
It's painfully obvious she has no idea what she's talking about. Claiming that every person who plays this is suddenly going to wish they could go on a homicidal rampage is insulting to the human race. If we're so stupid that at the age of 32, or in my case 17, that we can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality than we should still be living in caves trying to make fire.
Where is her evidence? Did she do some kind of psychological study? No, she's just a "journalist" who wrote this article because GTA is a well known and easy target. There are other games - and media in general - that are far more violent and get far less attention because they're not called GTA.
Violence imagery does not alter behavior. All these anti-violence activists and parents groups think that they're protecting children by sheltering them, but I think the opposite is true. The more you coddle someone and shield them from how the world really is, the more naive they are as a child and the more gullible they'll be as an adult.
By going how many people love to use their age as an argument on "experience" as to how long they've lived on the planet as proof of their point, I'm going to assume the 32 years is some marker she establishes to be knowledgeable about people that age. This I believe is why she is at least 10 years older if not older that 32 years mark.
I said I doubt she has a husband, judging by her remarks. I didn't say I know for sure. People with extreme emotions like her is rare to come across that "supposed" husband. We all have our own "perfect" partner, I just find it unrealistic. That's my reasoning.
Actually, that's my workplace. That's why, at age 45, I go home and play videogames.
(Am I the only one who thinks that writing that paragraph got her excited in a particular kind of way?)
Incidentally, I still haven't gone off the rails in GTA. Liberty city is so well rendered, i'd feel.... bad. I might be a hired killer [in the game] , but I've got to sleep at night.
@ Joe Actually I think she has kids so that assumes she had a husband at some point. She is pretty much into the "traditional family Christian yada yada values" so I'm pretty sure she would be married.
But who really knows?
I just made a horribly false statement. It assumes she had sex at some point.
That's where people like this would go "Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to." XD
Her kind reproduce asexually.
There are weirder fantasies out there that adults practice, and most do not originate from some video game. I don't believe most BDSM fetishists got their start from fighting as Spawn or Voldo in Soul Calibur. I can't safely raise a family knowing I blast undead corpses and shoot video game cops? I can't have a girlfriend if I play Dead or Alive and see digital boob candy?
Granted, some video games do make you see things a different way. When I was playing Tony Hawk 3 a lot I'd make up skate combos around the things I see in town. But you'd need to be very delusional to act on these thoughts. I know I would get scraped knees and broken bones if I tried those crazy combos, since I don't know how to skate for real and have no interest in doing it.
"all of us have a potential for coarseness and cruelty that may emerge after months or years of immersion in lurid and prurient games."
Has anyone ever conducted experiments on playing video games that tested the long term effects over years, or months?
Her final verdict in the article is "don't marry a gamer, he'll treat you like trash". Yeah, just let the stereotype of a socially inept gamer get worse, and then gamers will be even more socially inept because they get rejected. It creates a vicious circle! :p
Yeah, I read the article too. The thing that really made me mad was this paragraph:
"Adolescents who play violent video games tend to be more hostile, to argue more with teachers, to get into more physical fights, and to do more poorly in school, one national study reports."
I'm the least hostile person in my school, I only argue with teachers who I'm friendly towards and it's almost always constructive, I've never been in a fight, and I'm in the top of my class.
I know that I'm just one statistical point on the bell curve (whether at the ends or the average, who can say?), but if we go with Thompson's method of statistical sampling (i.e. his son buying an M-rated video game), we can say with confidence that video games increase intelligence and decrease aggressive behavior.
This is insulting beyond words, to think playing game would make you a terrible husband and human being...
Woops....
Silly! Women don't play games. They do the dishes and fix my Sammich.
On the case of the article, one has to wonder how she says research shows kids are effected by violence and how she has no research that is cited so I think she pulled it out o her bum just to make herself sound credible.
The fact is that people have dark impulses anyway. Everybody has that dark pit within themselves. For some people is comes out only when they are drunk and they bash their wives ... or out at the pub when they get into a fight. Some people watch horror movies to indulge their dark fantasies. And others safely enact on the dark impulses in a fake, fictional world.
When will people get it! It's AN OUTLET. Would she rather people get drunk and bash their wives?
SHE'S A WITCH! A WITCH! BURN HER!!! BURN HER!!!!
/Monty Python mode