Has videogame violence affected you?

[Dfskelleton]

I've been playing violent games since I was 5 years old, and you know what? According to my family and friends, I'm a kind, loving person with a strong sense of humor (albeit rather dark humor). It has been known to me that when my friends try to do natural friend-to-friend goofy violence (you know what I mean) that I react rather quickly and with moderate strength, such as an occasion when one of my friends tried to poke me below my kidneys (like I said, in a playful, friendly matter) I had him in an arm lock almost instantly. However, I don't think this is from video games, but instead the Karate lessons I took combined with how I really don't like to be touched.
I still, like you, enjoy games with violence enough to make me wince (see: Mortal Kombat 2011, which I am currently addicted to), but I think movies and what not could cause as much damage as video games.

 

[TilMorrow]

It's desensitized me alright; violence in video-games has desensitized me to violence... in video-games.

It's certainly much easier for me to kill in video-games than it used to be. But in regards to real life... no. Not even slightly.

I don't even like killing large insects in real life.

Damn bugs why do you have to be so large and scaring looking when the smaller ones are more dangerous! Stop deceiving me!

OT: In response to the OP I would say violence in video games has not desensitised me. I know it's fake and not real and no where relatable to real life violence. But movie violence can be freaky especially when there's loads of gore involved.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

Ever since I played Halo: Reach, I've been desperately wanting to assassinate someone.

But otherwise, no.

 

[Anjel]

Has this kind of violence done anything to you at all?

NO! NOW STFU AND LEAVE ME ALONE!

Jokes aside, no. Personally I'm fine and I don't think computer games/movies can change ones personality directly. Locking yourself away for years engaging in a combination of the following; playing violent video games or watching violent movies, having no contact with friends and family, thinking about that bully that used to flush your head back at school, taking depressants (drugs/alcohol) in excess, building a dolls house using papier mache, finger nails and human excrement... this could change you from a fluffy bunny into a cannibalistic rabid animal that once resembled a fluffy bunny.

 

[Sholokov]

If anything it has helped to reduce my stress levels, as in games i can do those things that i cannot in Real Life. In all honesty as far as desensitizing I think it varies from person to person, however to say that it directly impacts how violent someone is, is an insult to human intelligence... but then again that's an oxymoron isn't it.

 

[K4ndY]

It's desensitized me alright; violence in video-games has desensitized me to violence... in video-games.

It's certainly much easier for me to kill in video-games than it used to be. But in regards to real life... no. Not even slightly.

I don't even like killing large insects in real life.

This pretty much sums it up for me.

Pretend violence in video games and movies makes me laugh most of the time, but real life violence still disturbs me.

IMO, it's just a question of being able to distinguish fantasy from reality.

 

[OddOzZy666]

It hasn't affected me at all...*grabs the nearest person and pummels them to bits*
Not. Affected. At. All

 

[PrinceofPersia]

After playing BulletStorm i get the sudden urge to rape people.

ROFL now that needs this:
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5008/5379086679_1b930d5b82.jpg

OT: You see OP the thing that negates most of this arguement about videogame violence leading to real violence or desentization is the fact that at an early age children can differentiate fantasy from reality. If they couldn't then everything from the Grim Fairy Tales and oneward we tell to our offspring would potential lead to increased violence.

 

[DRSH1989]

If it wasn't for violent videogames I would've killed a lot of people by now using my bare hands... but thanks to violent videogames, I can just play a game, make some frags, kill some zombies, run over some NPCs & work out my anger issues without hurting anybody... so no, games are good as far as I'm concerned because they elminate certain stress elements that build up during the day. Violent games can become a negative influence when young people (children mostly) are exposed to such mediums without having developed a conscience or learned some proper moral values first... so it depends on the mind of the one playing the games I would say...

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

It's complete and total bullshit. I live in Puerto Rico. In the first 3 months of this year there were almost 400 murders. My high school was next to a barrio(ghetto), and you could hear gunshots going off all day, I even remember one time hearing a long stream of bullets, and a few minutes later some guy walking down the middle of the street with an ak like it was the thing to do. One time I was held at gunpoint taking a friend to his house, some dudes almost killed me cause they were at war with a rival gang and they thought we were gonna do a drive by. All this considered i've only gotten into one fight and it was in elementary school and I only fought back to defend myself from some bully that had it in for me. So yeah, if some digital violence is enough to warp someone's brain and make them violent, then it wasn't the game's fault, that person simply has mental problems.

 

[Extravagance]

I suspect there are valid grounds for the desensatized argument in certain groups of people. It's certainly something that needs a psycholoical study purely aimed at the 'gamer' group, maybe using a non-gaming section of society as a base example.

I personal am certainly not desensatized by the legion of violent games I've played; Shooters, GTA and it's clones, action games, RPG-fighting, and in a way even Pokemon. There is certainly a certain satisfaction from doing well in these games, getting a high number of kills and in some small way ruining someone elses gameing session. And I know I get quite frustrated when a fight/whatever doesn't go my way.

With offline games like GTA etc, there is defenite satisfaction gained from killing random npc's at will, often in extremely violent ways; but usually this is because it either goes against the rules of the game you're playing (killing marines in Halo 1), or because they're so evidently not real, and the game is evidently not real, that it feels ok. You're shooting at pixels, not people. I also find a good COD session highly cathartic. It relieves any stress I've been building up for a while, and there's a real sense of achievment for climbing the score-boards and beating people who are (in ranking terms) better than you.

I still can't really watch gore-horror, or horror films in general without being horrified, and scenes of brutality in the more mainstream media also have the same effect. It's only going to be a tiny minority that play a violent game, and then go away and commit violent acts. Unfortunatly, it's those few people that the media tends to focus on. Kinda like whenever there's a school shooting in America and they find the shooter listened to heavy metal or Marilyn Manson.

By the look of the other replies, being able to cope with/enjoy/cause violence in a fantasy setting with ease makes it more shocking that someone would actually do that in reality.

 

[JochemDude]

Yes, just like about everything else in life affects you.

 

[Iwana Humpalot]

It has made me immune to gore, and i also swear alot more than i use to. (Curse those noobs whit their tubes)

 

[brinvixen]

Personally, I can barely handle the violence in video games yet. I love the God of War series, and performing the special fatalities are always satisfying. But some of them -- especially the ones in the third game that got the PS3, HD graphics upgrade, making the entire thing even more gory -- made me wince. On the same token, Mortal Kombat is definitely fun, and I want that new game, but those fatalities in the trailer (with the X-rays images so you can REALLY see the damage) made my body ache for the avatars.

But maybe I'm just a wuss. I'm okay with that too.

Just as a thought, but I can't even imagine how video-game violence and real-life violence could correlate anyway. Nowadays, video game violence is so over-the-top that it has no relation to reality anymore. Even those games that are going for "realism" still have their elements of spectacle violence. If anything, I would say (as has probably been said already) that video game violence would make people more sensitive to real life violence. Since they're so used to seeing all this "shock-and-awe" type violence, it would make the real deal so much more emotionally jarring. It's like when people say "that stuff only happens in the movies". Just sub "movies" for "games" in this context.

 

[colourcodedchaos]

Video games haven't made me violent, and I'll beat the tar outta anyone who says they have!

...

That came out wrong...

 

[Continuity]

The only effect video game violence has had on me is that it has desensitised me to video game violence.. real violence? Still scares the shit out of me.

 

[RobCoxxy]

It's desensitized me alright; violence in video-games has desensitized me to violence... in video-games.

This.
I see Scorpion punching Sub Zero off a cliff onto spikes, I laugh.

If I saw this happen in real life, I won't scream "FATALITY!"
I'll ring the rozzers.

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

I'm a pretty tame person in regards to violence, I haven't been in a fight for years.
Violent scenes in movies usually make me cringe, but video-game violence hardly ever bothers me.

The only time I think it has is a scene in Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway when you shove a guy out of a church tower, and when you go down to see the body you notice his eyeballs have popped out.

 

[Fwee]

I'd say the cutscene after the Holly Summers fight in No More Heroes got to me. I walked around for days trying to cope with what I'd seen.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I'm desensitized only with in game violence, because it's not only awesome but kinda badass depending on what's going on. Although there have been a few in game violence that I've seen that bothered me, most of them from Silent Hill and that one scene from MW2.

Now if I ever see any of that shit in real life I'd probably scream and runaway like mad, and then go get the cops or military if that kinda shit went down.