I am fatigued by the constant, inane bleating of the anti-videogame-violence flock. Your righteous indignation and self-martyrdom is tiresome. Your efforts to protect the children would be better spent tutoring. Your figureheads are irrelevant. Your reasoning that violent videogames cause people to murder others is fundamentally invalid. Preferred entertainment media is the effect, not the cause of a pathology. I don't think that impressionable youths feel the overwhelming need to plan housing renovations after a round of The Sims, so I don't understand why it's assumed they'd feel the desire to kill people after playing a couple levels of Doom.

No.

Doom 3. Not Doom. No one's played Doom in over a damned decade. Stop using it.

A disturbed individual will seek out media that resonates with them. This is the nature of the attraction to entertainment. We cannot, and should not eliminate or censor forms of non-physical expression and entertainment that may prove dangerous to some individuals. You need to focus on the individuals, and damn well help them. Removing all forms of input that may push a disturbed individual over the edge, instead of addressing the source of their problem, is the most colossal form of irresponsibility I can think of.

By diverting public attention away from the real problem, you are effectively worsening it. Stop it.

I am fatigued by the anti-anti-videogame-violence flock (i.e. people that let out a knee-jerk scream at every hint of a negativity about games in the press).

Landslide, sounds like you need another playthrough of everyone's favorite murder simulator, to remind you of your innate moral convictions.

I think I am equally frustrated as landslide, I see it as part of a larger irresponsibility that at least in the US seems to be the order of the day. Let's all watch Terri Schiavo instead of talking sensibly about the problems affecting our economy. Let's all pass on a constructive debate and instead take polarized points of view with the intention of proving the other person stupid. The lash out at gaming is just another piece of the larger issue. There's no point proving gaming is just another medium, because whatever medium is next will take up the slack as the next distraction from handling real world problems ourselves. God Forbid anyone take any responsibility..

Landslide:
I don't think that impressionable youths feel the overwhelming need to plan housing renovations after a round of The Sims, so I don't understand why it's assumed they'd feel the desire to kill people after playing a couple levels of Doom.

Why not? After all, Sonic can turn gamers into murderers.
If it's not Sonic, I guess it's the ultra violent Hawthorne Heights and Blink 182, because those kids, oh my, they're tough, and it's not an easy listening.

About Thompson's game contest, I'm just speechless. Is he advocating for bloody, mercyless vengeance?

Jack should just play Orphan Feast. Excellent game.

you know...i can't wait for the president that goes, you know, i used to play GTA when i was growing up.

Yeah, right. "Do you endorsehot coffee?"
"No sir, I drink fraps only."

jt2002tj:
you know...i can't wait for the president that goes, you know, i used to play GTA when i was growing up.

Versus the one we have now who got DUIs and snorted cocaine? Yeeeah, me too.

Virtual Murder: My Anti-Drug

;)

I personally feel that the media's response to video games is like a medieval peasant's response to a computer. It's something they don't understand and find intimidating, and with the constant beeping, it could only have been spawned from hell.

the basic fact people is that violence against fellow man has been around since people have. anyone recall reading about cave men hitting their female interest with a club and dragging them back to the cave by their hair? violent crime rates have not gone up very much at all since vigeogames started regularly having graphic violence in them. in fact, they have slowly been going down since 2001. the problem is with the lack of parenting. videogames and tv are not appropriate babysitters when the mother is too busy sipping lattes with her friends at starbucks. and while i might admitt that violent games tend to attract the mentally unbalanced, it isn't a cause for their lack of a grib on societal standards. you can't blame an entertainment medium for people being violent, you can only blame society for failing to give a damn about this person until after they have butchered an innocent. and at least games depict a more realistic result of violence. old cartoons like Tom &Jerry, and Looney Tunes show brutal acts of violence, but don't show what actually would happen. they would lead you to believe that hitting some one with a car just gives them a lump on their head. so maybe we should ban bugs bunny before getting rid of games?

Copter400:
I personally feel that the media's response to video games is like a medieval peasant's response to a computer. It's something they don't understand and find intimidating, and with the constant beeping, it could only have been spawned from hell.

That's pretty much it! :) Every kind of new and mass technology has to cross a river where flows the strongest currents of disbelief, fear, incredulity, ignorance, stupidity, jaleousy, mockery, hate and else. A mini Dark Age for everyone.

If a violent video game causes someone to kill or harm another being or his/her property, they were most likely screwed-up to begin with anyway, and if they're a little kid who decides to play one of these games, then it's the stupid parent's fault.

And I'm not loving the over-extensive use of the thesaurus here. It just makes you look desperate.

The more attention you give to guys like Thompson, the more they benefit. Yes I'm also tired of the bs the media puts out in regard to gaming lately. But as long as they don't hinder my actual purchase, it's fine by me. People will always try to find reasons for violence, except the fact that it's in our nature. Controlling these basic urges are what puts us higher up the foodchain in comparison to other mammals. Tackle the actual ease it is to purchase a gun and ammo in the US before you start pointing towards people having fun behind their computer already. Not to mention almost all other media having stated "violence" woven into it.

Well, as Yahtzee put so eloquently in his Manhunt review, it's quite clear that the majority of the acts of violence that are blamed on video games are actually commited by people who shouldn't be playing the games in the first place (how many cases of mass murder commited by adults have been blamed on video games? Not too many). In fact, in the newspaper the other day I saw something about "This time a fourteen year old pulls a gun on his school," and the first thing I thought was, 'which video game are they going to blame this one on?' My ranting doesn't stop there, oh no, I continue on into the area of censorship and bad parenting from here:
Censorship- it is my belief that there should be a minimum of censorship of things that occur in reality (of course, 'underaged impressionable thickies' don't need to see sex scenes, but at the same time, we don't need to be insulting human intelligence with acting as though violence doesn't exist or only exists, and other such things (read from an objective viewpoint though, since Wikipedia can't really be relied on for absolute accuracy).
Bad Parenting- First of all, you aren't allowed to so much as think a complaint against the video game industry if you are a parent and have ever bought a game that was rated above the age of any of your children. Furthermore, it is the parent's duty to make sure that their child understands the world around them, and the difference between fantasy (which includes games, some if not most television, books, etc.); if they can't do that, then they shouldn't have been parents in the first place.
I suppose that all of this stems from my belief that games should be pushed to become an art form. No, this ranting fool does not think that games are already an art form, they are too heavily changed from original intentions, or never intended to be real art in the first place. Few games are actually able to be called art in story, direction, visually, audio(ly?), and in the thing that separates games from other would-be forms of art: interactivity.

Something like that anyways, I probably botched one or two parts, but then again I'm just a puny human =]

Cavemen hitting females? I think that's merely a cartoon convention, not actual behavior.

However, people have been happily killing each other for years without video games to blame it on. After all, Charles Manson only had the White Album. The Unibomber had . . . well, he didn't have much, did he?

Pointing to video games is just an easy way to blame something tangible that can be controlled with a minimum of effort (i.e., pass a law.) Now, if someone wanted to make a case against the disconnect from society that electronics seem to facilitate, I'd say you might have something. Hours spent alone with your ipod, message board, or game do not a social being make. Add a predilection for paranoia or depression, and you've got a problem.

I'm a mother of three boys. I play games because I enjoy it, but I also play games because it helps me to connect with my boys and understand what they're playing and NOT playing. I have played every rated M game in my house. I know why they're rated M. Some my kids can play, some they cannot.

I do worry about our culture that tends to glorify crime and violence though. That goes far beyond video games.

It's not video games that make me want to commit violent acts, it's people like jack thompson.

Ive been having this argument with my mom for years. She can never think of any reason why shes right, she just thinks shes right.

It gets annoying.

Ah, "because I said so." I'm willing to label anyone who's said that as a bad parent. Did you say it because you didn't have time to explain something to your child? Well, then you're not making time for your child. Did you not have an argument altogether? Then apologize and retract your statement.

Katana314:
Ah, "because I said so." I'm willing to label anyone who's said that as a bad parent. Did you say it because you didn't have time to explain something to your child? Well, then you're not making time for your child. Did you not have an argument altogether? Then apologize and retract your statement.

Heh, easy to say if you're not a parent. My children don't *really* understand why they don't get to play games like GTA or Hitman. "All their friends do." *insert eyeroll* I could explain (and probably have) why I have issues with games that glorify crime and violence, games that *reward* you for doing horrible things like oh . . . steal and kill in a "real life" setting. This is different than movies about similar things, because in movies the guys who do such things are rarely the "heroes" and are rarely "rewarded." They don't see the world the way I it: how values have truly changed from when I was growing up (and not for the better IMO) and that as a parent I feel it's my job to limit activities that do not project the values that I feel are important.

The truth is they don't *want* to know. They, like all children, want what they want for their own reasons. They don't care if the sneakers cost $120 (the equivalent of two days hard work)--they want them.

Arguing/ whining/ begging usually ensues. It wouldn't matter if a parent presented a ten page thesis on WHY the answer is no---all the kid hears at the time is "no." (I say at the time because the answer is internalized if not understood. One day the lesson will materialize when they are parents themselves.)