A little while ago I brought up the always fun debate about violent video games in a post briefly discussing some laws that were being looked at by certain local governments in the US and of course we discussed violent arcade games. Arcades have been largely ignored in this debate in recent years since there hasn’t been anything that was violent and caught the attention of the mass media. Most of that these days gets focused onto games like Grand Theft Auto. I never really cared that much for the series myself but when I did play it it certainly didn’t make me want to go out and start stealing cars. And it appears that a majority of people are the same way, in a surprise to certain experts.
These links were sent to me a couple of weeks ago but I wasn’t sure how to best fit it in but I figured that even though this has little to do with arcade games, arcades are video games too so it’s relevant. It’s good to see some studies falling in line with some common sense for once, so if you haven’t read this already, it’s worth a look in case you are interested in the whole violent game debate. Their final conclusion comes to the fact that it’s not the place of anyone to ban violent games outright – let our free markets decide and let parents be parents. Do I want to teach my 2 year old how to play Halo or Paradise Lost? No, of course not. But if I want to play those games on my own time without my son around, I should be able to in a free society. OK, enough ranting, here’s the links:
[Open Education: Part 1 – Shoot ’em up games cause anti-social behavior?]
[Part 2 – The Surprising Truth about video games]
[Part 3 – Don’t banish, manage]
I have to say, I’m actually less annoyed with the anti-game crusaders than I am with the gaming media – magazines, websites, blogs – that waste ink on the debate. Why do they bore us with this stuff? We gamers don’t give a fuck what these witch-hunters have to say, we just like to play our games in peace. Whenever I see a post like this I just skip over it, as I imagine most other readers do too. These guys will never succeed in getting video games banned from America, Third Reich style, not when 72% of Americans are gamers (according to the most recent poll).
The difference with this information though is they are lending some support to the fact that violent games don’t turn us all into maniacs which is why I posted it. 🙂
is not the game that make violent people, is the people that make violent actions…
I think you should stop the vioent games or you can sell it but it should be rated so they cannot play and distroy their life