why do people still blame video games for real-world violence?

[Karadalis]

- Because games are new and therefore suspect.
- Because games are often aimed at and played by children.
- Because it can be a convenient way to deflect from issues such as gun control.
- Because other people are doing it.
- Because, let's face it, they are very violent and emphasize simulated violent action on the part of the player.

I think that about covers it.

Actually, rather than games being new I'd say that games are the newest form of media. We haven't had anything pop up to be the new scapegoat yet (if we ever will). But games aren't exactly new. Hell, the violence in video games crap has been going on since at least the first Mortal Kombat and that was more than twenty years ago now. I was in Elementary school when that came out, so what that also tells me is that a lot of the people who lived through the start of all of this crap are now adults and many have kids of their own. Give it another 10-20 years and even Fox News will give up on the video games cause violence stuff.

Even earlier then mortal combat.

Remember the riots about that one arcade game where you drive your pixel car over pixel people?

People stormed arcades, tore those machines out and burned them... well some did... i saw a picture of that... once.

But it was the beginning of this "debate"

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I think if your argument is that they have 'no' affect on violent behaviour, then you should maybe reconsider.

The argument should be on to what 'extent' do we think that games have an affect on the minds of people. Can they turn someone who would otherwise not be violently inclined to murder? I would suggest that for the most part, no.

I'd say the difference with games comes with their interactivity and the greater involvement/direction from the player, compared with the nature of films or books where a story is told in front of you about someone else, so they should be examined more.

I don't think you can wholly blame a game in a violent instance, but allowing a violent mind the chance to exercise its thoughts of murder in a game can satisfy it to an extent, but once this fades - the idea that this person would sometimes be inclined to pursue it in reality, is not completely unbelievable.

Don't get me wrong. I in no way think censorship is the way forward or that games should be banned at all for violent content, but to say they have 'no' part in violent behaviour in reality - I think would be a mistake.

OT: Hi, this is my first post.

 

[Not Matt]

Because they can and they don't want to blame a medium they themselves understand, and in the US it's because most conservatives won't admit to that making it possible for every idiot who can count to 10 to buy a gun, so they need a scapegoat in the form of something new that they didn't have back when they were young and is therefore evil.
This is something that's been done to every medium and from the Devine comedy to the oculus rift. just ignore them and they'll die out, leaving plenty of empty space for this generation to complain about the New thing our kids enjoy. The circle continues

 

[Yopaz]

Because it's comfortable.

Violent behaviour is a complex issue. Some of us want to blame guns for the amount of shootings and we're half right. They couldn't have done it without the guns, but guns didn't cause it, it was simply the tool that was used.

A lot of bullies, murderers and others who act out on violent urges are people who just slipped through the cracks. Mental health, poor parenting, troubles in school, abuse, honestly I don't think we can begin to explain the network of reasons why someone commits an act of violence.

It's too complicated, but if we're going to blame the schools then that means we have to do something about the education system. If it's bad parenting then parents I might get the blame if my kid beats up someone. So I am going to blame chemtrails. The government is using them to make our kids violent psychopaths because then I can shift the blame away from any action and on to something else. I might carry a sign and walk together with a group to protest the use of them, but I never have to pay more tax, I never have to push for a change in gun laws and I won't have to spend time watching over my children.

I think if your argument is that they have 'no' affect on violent behaviour, then you should maybe reconsider.

I think I'm in love here. I've been saying it for a couple years now that it's pretty much impossible to rule out games as a factor in violent behaviour. The problem is that we've divided it up into the categories that it has no effect or it's the sole reason. It's impossible to have a debate when you're pushing for one extreme against another. When it comes to something as complicated as personalities we should always take multiple factors into consideration.

I would love to take this even further, but I feel I've said enough as it is.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

...because parents will try to blame anyone but themselves for the damage they do to their children.

 

[omega 616]

It's easier to say "that thing made that person that way" than to actually admit that humans still have a bloodlust and can be very evil if and when they want to be.

Plus it's obliviously bullshit, there are significantly less wars and conquests now and we have games, compared to a couple hundred years ago when it was a weekly thing and they had no games!

(I hope to god nobody takes that seriously!)

 

[Carlmike94]

It's already been covered by some, but it's a scapegoat. It's much easier to blame someone or something else rather than facing tha facts that it just might be your fault (not YOU, but you catch my drift, right?)

It's because authority figures like leaders, law-enforcers, parents, and teachers refuse to take responsibility for themselves, and thus place blame on something else like video games to avoid getting in trouble. It's like when you start a fight with another child for a toy, and when a parent or teacher arrives, you blame the fight on that child.

Yes, what you said.
Also, since they introduced FPS, violence (gun, atleast) has been dropping at a steady rate. My guess: people rather shoot digital people instead of real people. An outlet, if you will. It's easier, no jail time, and you can do it as much as you want with no real downsides.

 

[Bruce]

Because video games are in real terms the second newest media. Everything else has gone through exactly the same moral panics by exactly the same people.

Right now we are in that odd crossover period between video games and the Internet being the devil.

 

[Auron225]

Cus everytime I shoot aliens in Mass Effect, I want to go to space and do it in real life. And that scares people cus they don't want to enter a galactic war with the unknown.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

For me its pointless, more people are killed due to road rage than gaming. People have killed due to being made jobless, split up from a relationship or plain money issues. All people act differently to anger and stress and also whatever is going on in their lives.

Case in point, recently a man killed another man over a game of chess. I saw no news reports calling for banning chess - which is strange as Chess was a direct cause of the murder.

 

[kasperbbs]

Because they don't want to admit that they have no idea whats going on so they put the blame on something convenient, like violent video games, they sure as fuck wont blame themselves.

 

[evenest]

In the nineteenth century, they decried books as a cause for the decrease of morals in young women.
In the twentieth century, they claimed that television would rot our brains.
In the late twentieth- /early twenty-first century they said that videos games made people more violent.

Now that I think about it, I guess they were right.

If a group does not want to admit the real cause of a problem or is unwilling to search for the underlying cause of it, it is much simpler to blame the thing that group doesn't like/is fearful of/doesn't understand/etc.

For violence, it is easier to blame video games than the laughable availability of guns, the absence of good parenting skills and the failure of society to address the ills that it continually sweeps under the rug. The problem with that is, even if we took all the video games in the world and destroyed them, violence would continue and they'd find another scape goat.

 

[Dragonlayer]

There are plenty of reasons. Fear, lack of understanding, the generations gap, it explains a case of senseless violence. It's not merely one thing.

My own father once asked me why I still play video games. It was a sort of shocking question. I replied by asking him why he watched TV, movies, DVDs, and read books. Funny thing is that my mom agreed with me. But I do get it. He doesn't understand. To him, video games are a toy. They are "lesser" entertainment for children as they are something you "play". Adults don't "play".

It also helps explain why these sort of things happen. After all, random acts of violence never happened in the past. These are new things. Which is a lie, but it doesn't help that we have a 24 hour news cycle that has to find things to keep itself relevant. And that means you now hear about things that don't just happen a state over, but on the other side of the country and in every other country.

Why do people think the US Government perpetrated 9/11? Because it makes them feel better. I mean there's no way terrorists could have done that. That's the sort of thing that only a huge government conspiracy could pull off. That would be like some maniac walking into a school and killing children with a gun, knife, or bombs. That just couldn't happen. Not normally, right?

And in the case of school violence, who is a better scapegoat than "the other"? After all, "normal people" don't play violent video games.

Because whenever I rage-quit COD: Ghosts online, I go outside and punch a random neighbour.

I guess that explains the Knockout Game.

Hi-ooooooooooooooooooh!

Captcha: Weasel Words

What a wonderfully fitting description for the vast majority of "GAMES CAUSE SOCIAL EVIL X!!!!" outrage.

 

[Angelowl]

The same reason the people burned witches. People do not like to having to think, as a rule most of us prefer simple explanations and simple solutions to problems. And since reality is very very complicated, to the degree that even the greatest minds are stunned by it, your everyday person considers it to much of a bother. And combine this with a lack critical thinking and you get people who prefers a lie that makes sense before a truth that does not.

 

[FightingFurball]

- Because games are new and therefore suspect.
- Because games are often aimed at and played by children.
- Because it can be a convenient way to deflect from issues such as gun control.
- Because other people are doing it.
- Because, let's face it, they are very violent and emphasize simulated violent action on the part of the player.

I think that about covers it.

You forgot one of the main reasons.
The internet and gaming directly competes with the other media especially TV. So those sectors try to drive people away from their competitors even if they have to use utter bullshit.

 

[Eve Charm]

Well everyone needs their scapegoats for why the once superpowerful society in the world is starting down the path to becoming a third world country. Video games are the reason for violent crimes not the minimum wage being such a joke that there is no way you could live off it even working the full 40 hours but raising it will kill small businesses that maybe employe one or two minimum wage workers. Also that health care for everyone is a bad thing and people aren't poor enough to be sitting on the butts collecting unemployment because " They still have things like refrigerators " like keeping food from spoiling so you have something to eat later is a god damn luxury.

Yes videogames, not civil unrest of how much harder it gets for most people to make a living and it's their fault they can't donate millions of dollars to get people in office that will in turn make sure they save billions in taxes. Videogames.

 

[Stu35]

I believe games have little, if any, effect on ones psychological disposition towards violent behaviour... That said, one cannot go to absolutes in such things - that is to say, I won't say "Games don't cause violence", because that would put a box round the truth which is easy to go around (for example there ARE incidents where people have blamed video games for violence, and the opposite argument will always turn to these in answer of "Games don't cause violence",

Better, I think, to say this: Even if games ARE in some rare cases a reason for violent behaviour, that's not a good enough excuse.

Other reasons for violence include: Sex, Music, Food, Cars... In fact, pretty much everything ever.

So... Yeah... Basically, people who want anything censored need a better excuse in my opinion.

 

[J Tyran]

I really don't think it's an issue anymore. Mainstream news outlets (at least in the UK/Ireland regions) have actually embraced video games. BBC had a news report about LA Noire bricking PS3s, to warn consumers. Sky News had report on a 90 year old lady who still plays GTA - not a judgmental piece mind, but an honest to goodness "Hey lookit this cool granny" kind of a report. There was also that case a while ago where some guy stabbed another guy over a game of CS and pretty much everyone in the court facepalmed (judge and jury included) when the defence tried to insinuate that the game was at fault.

The problem is none of that gets heard about. Not here at least. You get one guy writing an article about how Mass Effect or whatever inspired some serial killers and we get twenty page threads acting all persecuted about it. Maybe it's worse in America (or somewhere else I don't live) but the issue is effectively dead as far as I can see. Paranoid gaming hatemongers still exist in the same way apocalyptic doomsayers still exist - they rant and rave but nobody listens to them.

Really, the best approach is just to ignore them, I think. It used to be an issue, probably, but I think we're at that stage where even those ignorant about videogames wouldn't think twice about the Jack Thompsons still out there.

There could be a logical reason for the difference in attitudes in the UK, the idea that games inspire spree killings has never got any traction because the only spree shootings in recent British history[footnote]Hungerford, Dunblane and Cumbria[/footnote] where not only decades apart but the perpetrators did not have any links with gaming at all and where all middle aged men.

Many of the spree killers in the US where young and naturally many of those young people played videogames