A note on violence in videogames:
Any competitive activity will, in the short term, rewire the brain to become more aggressive. It's human nature, has been proven, and is not limited to video games. I would expect as many people have kicked over a monopoly board than have hurled a nintendo controller in disgust.What's more, it's extremely insulting to say that video games cause undue levels of violence when time and again sporting events are plagued by riots, beatings, stabbings, and onfield shenanigans.So fuck you, and fuck your studies regardless of what they say. We all know it's narrow, opportunistic and media-driven politics.Now that that's out of the way, Savage Sun has had an update - more weapons and enemies, better wave progression, lives (good luck) and a bunch of other changes. It's been really refreshing jumping back into Game Maker and doing a nice simple project. I think I've spent far too long designing complex games, and lost sight of the easier, faster and fun games that could be made.I think, in fact, that I might devote one night a week to the creation of a new game, from start to finish. Small games that are refreshing and fun, made for no other purpose than to make fun games. No limits on originality or quality.Anyone who feels like joining me feel free (and I'd love to see some results).I think a project like this willl need a few things to work though, primarily graphical assets and reusable code. So perhaps for the first few weeks I will work on these things. Having things like menus completed and ready to go will certainly save time!Well, thoughts and ideas of course always welcome.
Well you can't really say video games lead to violence when there is obviously many many non-violent gamers. Me for example.
Any study that says video games make people violent is incorrect, it's not a universal thing. People are already violent and pretty much anything can cause people to become violent if it gets them worked up. Whether its a video game, a movie, a conversation, bad driving, etc. Depending on the study, I would say that the act of limiting a violence study to video games is somewhat like skewing the data. If the violence would exist either way, linking it to video games just makes the games look bad for no reason.Anyway, I'm just talking about these studies in general, not any specific one. Some are good.Hasn't it already been proven that ever since video games gained popularity that the crime rate has dropped?
I can't find the original source to that, but here is a small example: linkProbably. If only because a lot of teenagers commit crimes out of boredom.
What about movies? Most of the (good) movies out there are violent too. How about music, and other art forms? Violence is everywhere; why pick on games specifically.
Another issue is this idea that playing video games makes you crave violence and therefore you become more likely to go commit acts of violence in real life. I personally LOVE some pretty violent video games. The Resident Evil games, Fallout 3 and NV, Assassin's Creed 2, etc.. However, I become fiercely apologetic if I so much as step on someone's toe, and I cringe when I hear about stabbings on the news. There is a clear difference to me between video game violence and real life violence, and I think that is the case for at least 99.999999% of gamers.And another thing, most of these studies are horribly biased and are inconclusive. I don't know if you guys read the recent article on gamespot that showed: "Kids who have been exposed to violent video clips repeatedly slowly stop showing as much of an emotional response to them as time progresses." Yeah, basically they sat some teens down in a chair, and showed them violent clips for over an hour, and watched to see if they stopped being shocked by them after a while. The results were SHOCKING; kids get desensitized to things they see a lot of. But we come back to the whole thing about how any sane person can tell the difference between a game (OR a movie), and real life. There's my 2 cents. I doubt anyone who frequents this site has a differing opinion on these "studies," though. XD"I would say that the act of limiting a violence study to video games is somewhat like skewing the data."
Thanks Kabob, that's basically exactly what I meant. I'm really not getting my words out today am I? :P"Doesn't change your statement."It changes the context, is all I meant. As I said, I wasn't making a statement on which studies I believed were true or false. I'm not a scientist, and I mostly don't care. What I'm saying is they're brought about by fear of change, media shit-stirring and political grandstanding. And ultimately, it isn't the video games that are causing aggressive behaviour, but the act of participating in a competitive task. The studies may or may not be biased, I've seen compelling ones from all sides. But they are narrow in scope.You are still just making conjecture without any proof. Also you are massively abusing the word scope.
What if it's just his opinion flashback?
I think you're over-thinking it, Flashback.
I don't know about the "fuck your studies regardless of what they say" part, Zyzyx66, but I agree with the notion that videogames cause aggressiveness just like anything else that's competitive in nature.So he could've written his blog with a little more maturity.
I don't see the point in making a fuss about it.