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Post by Ben on Jul 6, 2008 11:05:51 GMT
What. The. Frig.Yes, that's right kids, those two French fellas who were stabbed 250 times, tortured and burnt in their flat had that horrific act of violence imposed on them.... Because their killers wanted to steal their PSPs. That was the only possible explanation according to the Mirror. £260 worth of electronics warrants that does it? Despite the fact it's being treated as pre-meditated. Edit: I changed the title to reflect the way the thread's going instead of posting a new one...
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The Doctor
Polythene
Dude....Chris totally farted!
Posts: 492
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 6, 2008 12:14:29 GMT
I can't believe i'm actually going to say something sensible for once....
Speaking as an avid player of games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Silent Hill, House Of The Dead etc...I have to say that most of the media coverage of supposed "Game-Related" violence is both disgusting and nothing more than rancid piss spewed out of the mouths of tired old tabloid hacks who have nothing better to blame for what is becoming an incresingly violent society. Sure there are idiots out there who may play GTA or something similar and then think that's how they should live their lives. But those morons are FEW and the majority of people who play these games see them as nothing more than a game. This argument points back to the days of the "Video Nasty" when the British Censorship board went mad and decided to ban a bunch of 74 Video titles that they deemed unfit for viewing. Yet today most have been passed as uncut by the BBFC and only 12 have not been granted a certificate (9 of those have never been re-submitted and the other 3 because the directors refused to make certain cuts) Yet today they seem tame and almost cheesy! So what happend? Well the press didn't have anything left to blame and then the Video Game revolution happend and the press and the lunatic "ban everything!!" brigade now had something else to fire at. Please don't get me wrong here. I'm not totally denying that there is a problem...because there is...and, for the most part, the blame can be laid at the feet of the parents who buy these games for their (usually) over-spoiled kids. So there has to be laws introduced that make parents realise they can't buy these games for underage kids. This really goes back to my point of "it's only a video game" well yes it is....and the likes of you and i know that....but how is a child who A: is looking for a role model and B: is easily influenced at the best of time supposed to know this? Therefore, as i said, we need to find someway of making parents realise that they can't buy GTA 4 for their ten year old and think "oh well....it's only a game what harm can it do?" The goverment needs to introduce some sort of fine or warning system that will make these idiots wake up and realise that, for young people, games are more of an influence than it is typically thought....
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Post by ludicrouslouisa on Jul 6, 2008 12:47:18 GMT
OK... well. I'm not a gamer. Ok, I enjoy a bit of Mario and Pokemon and such, but I do not do games.
However, I don't really have much against games. Yes, I wouldn't play them, but if you want to, fine! They don't make people violent. I mean..yes, OK, playing violent video games and watching disturbing movies might be the sign of a disturbed mind, but it's a FACTOR..you're not just going to sit in front of GTA and turn into a raving homicidal maniac.
My main concern is that gamers seem to love Windows so damn much, and as such they make up a significant portion of the windows market, and then they make sure that all games produced are for Windows and they perpetuate the monoculture of a shitty operating, and so it goes on. That concerns me far more than a bit of bullet time!
yes, I think there should be age limits and warnings on games, and I think that parents should know what their wee kids are playing, but kids have been violent since..forever! Before they played video games, they were out shooting pigeons with slingshots, and hitting each other. Nothing changes, really.
I'm just not big on ridiculous, overzealous censorship. This is once again another "think of the children" argument. These people don't LIKE video games, so they decide that no one should be able to enjoy them.
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Post by Ian on Jul 7, 2008 18:26:02 GMT
I studied this in Sociology for a whole term - it's all sillyness imo, I haven't off to kill anyone after I play GTA, if anyone does then they clearly have a screw loose anyway.
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Post by gingerpimpernel on May 6, 2009 18:48:13 GMT
I studied this in Sociology for a whole term - it's all sillyness imo, I haven't off to kill anyone after I play GTA, if anyone does then they clearly have a screw loose anyway. Despite our disagreements in the Mark thread, I can't fault you on this. I myself am currently doing a project on this very subject for college, part of which involved a survey. Based on which, the percentage of gamers who are likely to fork out good money for a game based on media coverage and hype based on violent content is 6.7%. GTA is practically a satire on the media coverage violence gets anyway, so to tone them down would dilute the games humour immensely. Funny the amount of parents that complain that their children are able to play this stuff when they would have had to buy them for them in the first place anyway. I know plenty of parents who wouldn't let their kids anywhere near the likes of GTA. But then, I know people who have brains and know how to use them. Interestingly, last year I bought Gears of War 2. A fairly gory, 18 rated game. When I first went in to buy it, I was ID'ed (which I took offence to, being 26 and all) by this wee pipsqueak who didn't look legally old enough to sell it (I write this under the impression that like with alcohol, you have to be overage to legally serve it). I didn't have ID on me, and she told me to get a parent to buy it for me! Kind of defeats the purpose of age ratings really.
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