Sorry, I was in a hurry. I'll clarify it now.

What I did was I disagreed with many points they made and did it in a rubric form like this below:

Q: Do Videogames make people violent?
MAVAV's Answer: Yes
My Answer: No, (details on why I said no)

And I did this for almost every point on the page and clarified some of their obvious mistakes, such as forgetting to mention the ESRB Rating System, how games are rated, PARENTAL ORDERS, and basicly how the US Army only markets their game for people with a SERIOUS interest in becoming a US Army Soldier.

I made several minor jabs at it being the Parent's Fault for allowing Videogame addiction and loss of grade levels because they don't control their child. It's not the videogame's job or the manufacture's job to do so but solely that of the parents, and how if they wanted their children videogame free that was their right but to attempt to force it upon other's is a violation of our Civil Rights and that they could pretty much just stop making fools of themselves with their half-truths and whole lies.


I also pointed out that while I play the Test several hours a week and other games almost everynight, I have managed to maintain a 4.0 average GPA and have the academic wreath on my ROTC uniform to prove it.

Also, their vaunted "studies" notice one second they label it "frenzy" and then four words later "in one of these studies" notice the other's DIDNT find that or they would've said "several or many" to further bolster their stand.

I also said that the Devs are some good friends of ours and play WITH us ingame and they dont try to release small packagse for "hits" to keep players comming. The Devs say "Hey, we'd like you to stay but if you dont wanna..."

Also, the unhealthy part and crap...GOD, I laughed until I cried then cited the "New England Medical Journal" for how it says many research studies have found that videogames improve Hand-eye coordination, stress releive and relax users.

Also, I made the point that most people use videogame to VENT their anger on fake characters rather than harm a real person and that most people should be able to distiguish the two worlds from each other and learn to check their feelings at the door. I hate 01 ingame but outside if I met him I wouldnt care about his ingame char. I would make my own assessment of his physical personality rather than his mask.

Physcological Help (This I litterally hurt myself laughing about...one reason my previous post was short) GOD...Videogamers dont need SHRINKS! they need parental moderation. anyone who thinks people need professional help on that or that people who cant distiguish the real world and the digital world need SHRINKS not the gamers.

Wow, good posts guys. This is more of what I was talking about. Two specific responses:

red cactus:

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This is complete bull****. It supposedly taught gamers the basic knowledge of how to kill? This is absurd. To kill is a natural survival instinct. It is engraved upon human mind, and indeed all living organisms. The so-called 'basics' of how to kill can learned from every day life. You are taught about your bodies from a young age, so who couldn't come to the independant conclusion that hitting someone in the head will do more permanent damage than hitting someone in the arm? If parents wish to keep their children from learning the 'basics' of how to kill, they need to keep them incased in a vault with no windows, and in a straight jacket, in a semi-concious state. I object to this article whole-heartedly.
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What they meant was "[i]some[/i] videogames can reduce the moral inhibition in [i]some[/i] people to killing."

I'm not sure if you guys agree on whether or not most people have a natural, moral inhibition to taking another's life (spilling blood). I seem to think so. The point is made in Minority Report about murder being the most destructive thing. I can go into more detail if anyone claims that humans do NOT have a moral inhibition against killing.

Statement (another fact, if you disagree, I can prove it): Repeating a certain action over and over causes such an action to become a motor reflex (you do it without thinking). A motor reflex means that it is something essentially "programmed" into you. The reaction comes from your second "brain" in the spine, instead of traveling all the way to your head. An example of this is special forces guys being attacked or mugged. You've heard the stories--they end up killing several attackers before they realize what they're doing. This is because their brain (the "choice") was bypassed and they began reverting to instinct and motor reflex.

Now, the question is, can video-games induce motors reflexes? This is an unbiased question in and of itself, and I think Pyroman_ace answered it when he talked about hand-eye coordination. Playing videogames DOES increase your hand-eye coordination, as well as ingrain certain motor reflexes in you. In Vendetta, if you're jumped, the first instinct is to either boost or turn and fire flares. In FPSs, if you're jumped, you whip the mouse around to where the guy is and blow his head off (or riddle his torso, which you choose).

So, we've talked about what motor reflexes are, and we've affirmed that videogames can enforce them. Now, the question is, is it healthy to program all those motor reflexes into your brain? Until recently, the question would have been easy to answer: Yes, of course!! The vast majority of games today provide "justifiable" violence. You're killing nazis, zombies, lawbreakers, or some thing/person intent on your life. However, a different rise in games has sprung up along the lines of Duke Nukem (sorry to you DN fans) and Grand Theft Auto. I would question the programming of this unjustified violence into one's brain.

However, this choice is yours, and hopefully every gamer has the maturity to show discretion in his choice of games. Not every game made is a good game. I think that MAVAV needs to alter its message. Instead of the wholesale banning of games, they need to encourage gamer responsibility.

All kids need parental supervision.

I think Penny Arcade put it about right...
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-08-11
:P

a point here though, Which I thouk you miss, SirCamps.

The motor reflex is motor, which means you are -not- programmed to "kill" in the sense the authors of said article make out, "squeeze trigger, turn kick , slash left, back , drop down" but "left key, mouse turn, circle back, leftclick, strafe, leftclick".

This is a very important difference when speaking about "killing" and motor reflex.


No, one doesn't match the other. You ought to know that you don't get better balance and reflex reaction after playing tekken, and that you definitely can't do the wide-split turn kick reaction when somone taps you in the back.

So, in short. Stating that the motor reflex training from games might be "negative" cause it promotes killing is a moot point.

Well, you're right, I might have missed the point, lemme refine it.

Is it possible that doing a certain action over and over in a game makes you more likely to do it in real life (or more likely to do it without an inhibition)? Maybe Tekken isn't a good example. Mac users, have any of you played Black Shades? After playing that for a long time, do you catch yourself observing 360º of your surroundings? I do. Strategy FPS players, doesn't the way you assault a building carry over into your thinking? Or perhaps scanning for snipers in that Z-pattern? Maybe I play games for a dual purpose... training and fun. I can't claim to speak for all of you and I won't. At least for me, I view everything as a potential skill to be learned. I don't doubt that I'll have the maturity to prevent myself from thinking life is a game. I can't speak for others...

All in all, I think it boils down to the maturity level of the gamer. I would not want an impressionable 13 year old playing an M rated game without his parents talking to him first. I'm not saying he can't, but I think his parents should be involved and at least discuss in-game actions with him. Children have to be taught by someone. Again, my thoughts...

"Or perhaps scanning for snipers in that Z-pattern?"

-Marketing research has shown that this is how people scan anything in their field of view. Games don't train you to do it.

And scanning 360 degrees is just a good habit to get into while you're out. I can't tell you how many times I have narrowly avoided being run over by someone who wasn't watching where they were going on their bike.

But that is all moot. Muscle memory is different from making moral choices. How to properly shoot an assault rifle or storm a building, or optimum battle strategy are all matters of muscle memory or learning through repetition. Moral decisions are not. Nobody questions the morality of shooting a russian soldier in Goldeneye because nobody considers sending a stream of 1's and 0's through your controller to influence 1's and 0's on your screen as being a moral decision.

Ending someone's conciousness, however, is. If a game ever came out that immersed me so well that I actually did catch myself making a choice as if it were a moral one, rather than a game, I would applaud it as one of the greatest games ever made and I am sure you would get a lot of people that would genuinely think twice before doing something they would not do in reality.

Since I dont have my psychologybooks left here I can't find the name of the researcher who early this 20th century separated groups of people , and made a group "torture" another person during questioning. At the time comparing reactions from the group with both peer pressure on the torturers side, and without, as well as the difference when they had visual "personal" contact with the victim and when the victim was sealed off/only audible/not noticeable.


This cuts in pretty well with how games are and are percieved. We have a very big wall between the executioner and the vicim, and a very very poor impersonation of the victim. This distance is what makes it "easy" to kill in a game compared with the action in Real Life.

Milgram's "Obedience to Authority" study.

I'm familiar with the study. As I recall, it basically concluded that the less you identify with the victim the easier it would be to hurt them.

It seems like common sense to me. The less you consider your victim a victim the easier it is to hurt them. It's easier to shoot someone who is pointing a gun at you than it is to shoot someone who is begging you for mercy. (Not that I would know.)

The other conclusion, however, was more unsettling. It also said that people were more willing to break their personal codes of morality or ethics if they were by themselves than if they were able to be viewed by others.

Thankfully, no people were harmed in this experiment. They were just actors who got a mild tap and were told to act like they were being subjected to pain.

Thanks FM, Thats the name (one of theese days I have to get memory, Where can I download an upgrade? oh. dang; )

Magus: Yep, and thats very much part of what goes on with games. The "distance" is quite enormous (hey, they don't even act as if they hurt when I kick them in the groin...).

Thought I should bring it up since it quite resembles the whole thing now. How do you think the action would be percieved if the "victim" was a computer generated 3d model (as seen in, fex. Max Payne? ), when the "feedback" was the computer generated interpretion of the pain, with belonging small grunts and so on?

I think the whole lowering of moral inhibitions is rather much overstated, as its been previously proved that we don't obey "morals" or "ethics" if there's a peer pressure, or if there's a distance ( monitor, wall, computer game, paper 'n' pen ).

http://a.parsons.edu/~dyoo/2002-3/interactivity/mavav/

That makes this whole tread moot. 8^P

PS- /me wins!

Video games don't make you sad and depressed, they make you arrogant and narcissistic-- OMG DUDE NM YOU JUST ALL SUCK ANYWAYZ

Doesn't matter 'cause the whole thing's a hoax! ZING!

Still funny as hell.

Excellent job--very, very nice.

*sigh* stupidity is the name.