First person shooter video games

[We Never Know]

You weren't referring to studies. Rather, you were referring to what cigarette packages didn't say on them.

I actually wrote a meta-analytical paper on this topic a few years back. Of course I can't find it now. But what I found was that very early studies on the subject were lacking in a number of areas.

What I (and others) found was that the number one predictor of violent and/or aggressive behaviour in adolescents was violence in their direct and surrounding environment. Like watching their father hit their mother. Like experiencing gun violence. Like being physically abused.

Why weren't the then warnings on them years ok?

Put it together.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I find it rather odd that the same people who want to ban guns, blame guns, etc stand up for FPS games that their soul purpose is mas shooting and killing.

That's not necessarily the "sole purpose" of FPS. As another posted pointed out and explained.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Why weren't the then warnings on them years ok?

Put it together.

If you wanted to do a proper comparison, you should have posted some studies instead of making a weird point about cigarette packs.

Why did you completely ignore the rest of my post?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

We don't see a lot of things in other countries that we do here. Some of it is only an American thing.

Then that must mean it is not the media as there is nothing significantly special about us.

 

[We Never Know]

Then that must mean it is not the media as there is nothing significantly special about us.

Fun facts...

In the last 15-20 years those games have became more popular, more graphic, more realistic, more etc.

In the last 15-20 years more gun laws and restrictions have been implemented

In the last 15-20 years mass shootings have increased

But its better to blame the gun

 

[Quagmire]

Oh, you're gonna get it from apologists
for The Gaming Industrial Complex.

Yeah. I've found that if you're going to address this issue at all you better be ready for a lot of deflection, knee-jerk politicizing, and overly defensive snark.

*reads through thread*

Yuppers.

"The meta-analysis does tie violent video games to a small increase in physical aggression among adolescents and preteens."

^ This doesn't seem to be as big of an issue as this below.

"Results showed that only football players and wrestlers were significantly more likely to get involved in a serious fight than other athletes. In fact, they were 40% more likely to be aggressive, even off the field. Athletes of other sports showed no association with aggression."

Are Certain Sports Making My Teen Aggressive?.

I think we should be more wary of violent sports, which increase violence much more significantly. These actually train you to actually be able to hit people, and efficiently.

Which I think is something we should take a look at if our society ever develops a mass puncher problem.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

You are too young but I can remember when cigarettes didnt have health warnings on them because they were thought not to be dangerous.

I remember Joe Camel though, and additional studies after '69 showed he had to completey and entirely go.
The problem with that is those studies happened early on and were heavily funded by the tobacco companies. What I posted is many years after DOOM and Mortal Kombat and including new data that was available when DOOM and Mortal Kombat first came out. But DOOM isn't a symbol of violence, it's become a creative obsession of making various and unexpected things (like a pregnancy test) run it.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

In the last 15-20 years more gun laws and restrictions have been implemented

That's just false they have been greatly lessened over this period of time.
And a walking points correlation like that doesn't establish causation. Especially whwn the violence isn't seen in other countries with the violent media. That is a fatality upon that hypothesis. If it's the media we must see it elsewhere. We don't.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

But its better to blame the gun

It's more accurate to blame the real gun and it's surrounding culture than the fake gun and it's surrounding culture. Especially when the later relies on really bad generalizations made by people who don't know the difference between an Xbox and a Playstation.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Which I think is something we should take a look at if our society ever develops a mass puncher problem.

Our society does, in fact, have a "mass puncher problem".

 

[The Hammer]

Its about violent video games. FPS games in IMO top the list.

That's why there are age restrictions on games, just like the rating system for movies. Not sure what else can or should be done.

 

[The Hammer]

Its about violent video games. FPS games in IMO top the list.

I'm still more concerned about sports irt causing violence.

 

[Quagmire]

Our society does, in fact, have a "mass puncher problem".

That link won't open for me. I just keep getting this:

Doesn't seem to be any way to make it go away.

 

[Heyo]

Why weren't the then warnings on them years ok?

Put it together.

There were and there are. FPS come with an age restriction label.

 

[The Hammer]

Which I think is something we should take a look at if our society ever develops a mass puncher problem.

Snark aside, physical violence (ie punching/kicking) is more common on school grounds, then gun shootings. Shootings get attention because they often kill.

U.S. schools - physical fights among students, by ethnicity 2019 | Statista

 

[Debater Slayer]

IMO profits outweigh everything else.
Example.. cigarettes which denied things for years, then finally admitted the health risks but are still freely sold as long as you're old enough to ruin your health.

"WASHINGTON - Playing violent video games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D or Mortal Kombat can increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior both in laboratory settings and in actual life, according to two studies appearing in the April issue of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Furthermore, violent video games may be more harmful than violent television and movies because they are interactive, very engrossing and require the player to identify with the aggressor, say the researchers.

"One study reveals that young men who are habitually aggressive may be especially vulnerable to the aggression-enhancing effects of repeated exposure to violent games," said psychologists Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D., and Karen E. Dill, Ph.D. "The other study reveals that even a brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior in all types of participants."

Violent video games can increase aggression

This is over 20 years old, though, and it talks about a group who are "habitually aggressive," so they already have other issues causing above-average levels of aggression. More recent studies have shown no causal link between real-world violence and playing violent video games:

Longitudinal study finds no evidence that violent video games lead to aggression

Just a game? Study shows no evidence that violent video games lead to real-life violence

Study Finds No Evidence That More Violent, Difficult Video Games Spur Aggression

Or..

The evidence that video game violence leads to real-world aggression | Washington State Magazine | Washington State University

The article notes that the study has also faced some dispute, and the causal link to violence that the APA have confirmed has nothing to do with mass shootings or gun violence (highlighting mine):

While the effect sizes are small, they’ve been similar across many studies, according to the APA resolution. The problem has been the interpretation of aggression, with some writers claiming an unfounded connection between homicides, mass shootings, and other extremes of violence. The violence the APA resolution documents is more mundane and involves the kind of bullying that, while often having dire long-term consequences, is less immediately dangerous: “insults, threats, hitting, pushing, hair pulling, biting and other forms of verbal and physical aggression.”

Also, preteens are not supposed to be playing FPS games. As I said, the minimum age rating for such games is 13+, with many being rated 17+.

 

[Heyo]

That link won't open for me. I just keep getting this:

View attachment 71532

Doesn't seem to be any way to make it go away.

May be because you're on a phone. I have no problem on my laptop.

 

[Alien826]

What is the main porpuse and point of a FPS game?

I'll answer for myself only, and let others discuss the effect on children, as I don't know about that.

The main "purpose and point" for me is entertainment and escapism. Video games are the latest chapter in something that started for me in childhood and took the form of reading books that took me out of my boring world into different, exciting places. After I discovered Science Fiction, I read it almost exclusively. Then there were movies, that got more realistic and immersive as technology improved. Finally video games, where the representation has become so realistic that it's almost like real life. VR is the next step, but needs some work.

Has it had an influence on me? After reading books and watching movies about aviation, I became a (private) pilot in real life. Would I have done so anyway? Difficult to say. Having killed thousands of simulated people and monsters in games am I more likely to do so in real life? Absolutely not. I detest firearms with a passion.

So how do I separate the two things? When I turn off my video game it's over, and I switch back to reality. Just as I did with books. There's something called "suspension of disbelief" that we use when we get into a book or a movie or a game. It ends when the game does. There are also many things that separate the experiences. In the game I don't feel pain. If I die, I come back to life at a previous point in the game. I can save the game and replay something that didn't go well. None of these things apply in real life.

There's another dimension to it. Games are often designed to give the player various choices where decisions can be morally based, or not. I'm currently playing Cyberpunk 2077, a game set in a horrible dystopia with unrelenting violence. My character has already fallen in love, and is about to choose to spend the last six months of his life with her rather than have his personality recorded and possibly inserted in another body. That's what the character does, but I decide.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

That link won't open for me. I just keep getting this:

• On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men.
• 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experience severe intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner contact sexual violence, and/or intimate partner stalking with impacts such as injury, fearfulness, post-traumatic stress disorder, use of victim services, contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, etc.
  • 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. This includes a range of behaviors (e.g. slapping, shoving, pushing) and in some cases might not be considered "domestic violence."
  • 1 in 7 women and 1 in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner.
  • 1 in 10 women have been raped by an intimate partner. Data is unavailable on male victims.
• 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of severe physical violence (e.g. beating, burning, strangling) by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
• 1 in 7 women and 1 in 18 men have been stalked by an intimate partner during their lifetime to the point in which they felt very fearful or believed that they or someone close to them would be harmed or killed.
• On a typical day, there are more than 20,000 phone calls placed to domestic violence hotlines nationwide.

 

[SomeRandom]

You are too young but I can remember when cigarettes didnt have health warnings on them because they were thought not to be dangerous.

I thought they didn’t have health warnings on them because of “free speech.”
I remember years ago the tobacco companies in the US successfully won a Supreme Court case arguing that putting health warnings on packets violated their First Amendment rights.

Meanwhile in my country (and I suspect others) cigarette packets had to, by law, put on extremely graphic health warnings
Like pictures of dying cancer patients, lungs demolished by smoke and other graphic warnings.

Strange that my country also has the same exact games as the US and yet no where near the same level of gun violence, culture and youth aggression. Since we focus on things like actual mental health help for the youth.
Almost like violent media (which has been a staple of entertainment for thousands of years in human society) is but one factor. And that you actually should be addressing mental health concerns instead.
Strange.

You want to ban Shakespeare from the youth too? Some of those plays are beyond violent. Most movie recreations of Hamlet or Macbeth are rated like M15 in my country
How about Passion of the Christ? A movie based on the passion plays from medieval times? Granted I don’t think people under the age of 18 should be watching such a film. Since it got that R rating for a reason
But some Christians may disagree with me, so idk

Not saying that kids should be playing FPS games. But our rating system is pretty strict, far more strict than the US as has been pointed out. And even then some only have a M rating (equivalent to a US PG13 rating) so even they don’t see all FPS games as excessively violent. And I trust the media board.
I mean like literally all media it’s really up to the parent to follow the ratings board. Granted even in the 90s that was a little hard to enforce with the budding enterprise of the internet kind of making that moot. Nowadays, all I can say is good luck to parents.