Should Violent Video Games be Banned?

[Littlle Git]

after the murder of a 14 year old boy with the 17 year old murderer saying it was because he was obsessed witha video game all of the papers are saying that violent games should be banned.


Discuss...

 

[Cirandi]

Sick bastards can blame away all they want...

Seriously, if i broke into someones house and stole all their posessions and i thought the fact i once owned a cute little bunny rabbit who died could get me away with less punishment i'd claim that.

I really don't think videogames ever caused anyone to kill someone else, not really... They might claim it but it's just a load of crap. I guess everyone who does something really stupid needs someone/something to blame for their actions. Just think about it... How many in the world play violent videogames on an at least semi-regular basis? Millions. And how many of those go out and kill someone? Probably an equal or smaller percentage of those who don't play any games/watch horrormovies/listen to norwegian forest metal bands at all.

 

[Tsabo]

Bull that a game can turn a lil kid into a ravin looney mass murderer.

When things like that happen there is obviously something more to it. Some psychological reason b4 hand. And violent games have warnings on them anyway, its down to the parent, their fault their kid is goin down for murder imo.

 

[ilaya]

got nothing to do with the videogame tbh.. just using it as an excuse for his moronic actions..

murders and stuff were happening before videogames came along.. what did they blame? the guy in question woulda done summit like that regardless of videogames being in existence or not.. some peeps are just like that.. total arseholes.

 

[Mojo]

after the murder of a 14 year old boy with the 17 year old murderer saying it was because he was obsessed witha video game all of the papers are saying that violent games should be banned.

Well the 17 year old's parent shud be banned for not spotting an issue with their sons mental health.

1 kid kills another

10,000,000 or so are not influenced :< math spks

people r daft :<

 

[Bunnytwo]

Yep if it wasn't the game he would be blaming his parents or the lyrics from some song or some such crap.

 

[Ezteq]

dont know if any of you recall a case about 10 years ago in the uk 2 little boys (think they were very early teens) kidnapped and murdered a toddler called jamie bulger they splattered him with paint and threw him on train tracks, at the time the horror movie "childs play" was blamed as apparantly the death was similar to chuckys demise, as many of you have said blame the parents indeed what kind of parents lets lil kids watch horror films anyway tbh.

there was another case that of mary bell who was a young girl in the 60's (i think or 70's) she killed a young boy and at that time there were no video games or vcr horror movies about, songs with demonic lyrics hadent even been thought of either, a lot of the time its just the defence lawyer trying to get a lighter sentance for the accused and blaming everything around them instead of admitting that some people are just warped.

the amount of horror films i watch and horror books i read i should be a murderer but im not, same to be said for the majority of the population, after playing sonic the hedgehog i didnt then have the urge to go out and stamp on chamealians (sp?) and playing house of the dead for hours at a time in the arcade didnt then make me want to go out and shoot the shit out of everything that moved.

sadly there will always be a small percentage of closed minded people that believe we arnt in control of our own actions and that we must be sheltered from books, games, songs and films that could lead us astray, let us just hope that these people never get any real power or it will be a very dull world we live in.

 

[Cirandi]

sadly there will always be a small percentage of closed minded people that believe we arnt in control of our own actions and that we must be sheltered from books, games, songs and films that could lead us astray, let us just hope that these people never get any real power or it will be a very dull world we live in.

I blame the church tbh

 

[Overdriven]

I went after somebody with a rocket-launcher!

BAN QUAKE!

...................

People are stupid.
You do it because you do. Don't blame VGs.

 

[Archeon]

No I don't think violent games should be banned, they're a great way to relieve stress imo. When i'm really - really pissed i'll still sit down with GTA3, stock up with ammo and gun down everything in sight.

What I do think they should do is revise the age certificating system for games, and make stores follow it more strictly. If we're thinking of the same case then the game in question was Manhunt (an 18) - I know the kid was 17 but still... sombody else (on another msg board) said that age is kinda irrelevent when it comes to how you deal with violence. You can have 12yr olds who will take it better than 21yr olds.


Still, thats just what I think. Blaming video games for killings is stupid. There are millions of people who play video games and yet they seem to be able to keep their obviously crazy urges to slaughter their neighbourhood in check.

 

[Serbitar]

charles manson blamed the white album by the beatles

but anyway, the videogames carry a warning and an age limit. It is up to the store staff to check the age of the person buying the game and equally if not more so the responsibility of the parents to prevent their children from buying said games and if the children still buy the game then to either remove it from the childs presence or take it back.

 

[remi]

its like banning the internet or violent movies.

 

[Sycho]

Nope.

Videogames can noway make you do such things and if they did you are obviously a sickminded person, which was the case here and he never showed weird actions to his family i guess so they never could see it.Yet again the media bastards take any way possible to make their papers sell and always asking for videogames to be banned when shit like this happens.

 

[Uliea]

Well if you read one tabloid report about this (The Mail i think) they state that the 17yr killed the boy to get some money to pay for his drug habit. How on earth the mother got from drugs to games i don't know. Maybe the reason he was playing Manhunt obsesively was because he was pumped up to the eyeballs on some kind of drug. <shrugs>

 

[Sigurd]

Well you see the thing is... the area the kid came from is an absolute shithole, one of the worst council estates in the country. I think you'll find that might slightly affect his stability, especially if he has mental issues anyway. Remeber, we're living in United Stagnation.

 

[Coim]

You can't blame video games for the actions of some moronic teenager.

Besides, if violent video games were banned, there'd be no decent games left.

 

[Job]

Maybe not in this case but exposure to hyper realistic violence, regardless if virtual or not ,does desensetize you to it.

If I play vrally for hours and then jump in my car, I find myself driving faster than usual..plus Ihave to force my brain to accept the fact that Iwont just bounce of the wall if I go to fast.

There is an effect there, just most people can easily snap back to reality.

You shouldnt think of it as 'video game' it is just the same as any exposure to experiences and ideas, child soldiers become war hardened, why not child 'medallion of warer's?'

 

[tRoG]

*points out that the said game has an 18 rating*

... The kid's 17.

And, to do something like that, would have to be a physcopath anyway.

 

[harebear]

And, to do something like that, would have to be a physcopath anyway.

This is the point tbh, no normal person what ever influences they have will, imo, go murder someone for no reason. Think they said smth about he might be inside for like 12 years or so, life needs to mean life Ie. until you die.

 

[emma]

Video games dont make you do anything, its your choice and for this kid to do something like that, he must have had several screws loose in his head anyway.


What i want to know though is what was a 17 year old doing with a game rated 18 anyway.

If he baught the retailer he got it from is at fault.
If his parents baught it then thats there problem.

Games are entertainment, not instruction manuals on how to wtfpwn irl.

 

[Morchaoron]

those parents are fucking morons, if they claimed that their child was "under control of the game" those brainless idiots should have acted earlier...

always easy as a parent to say that "our child was normal and there was nothing wrong with him but the game did this to him"


reminds me of a case here in the netherlands, some kid in my city stringed himself up as a joke but accidently killed himself while doing it (broke his neck)...

His parents blamed jackass and they got it removed from national television, but some people i know from work knew this guy and told me he had always been a reckless prick doing completely idiotic things without any regards for his own safety, but noooooo according to the parents he was a good boy and it was the TV shows fault uke:

 

[zaksoth bleion]

What's seen and observed is only to be reflected on the person - meaning personality.
If a person will go nuts, he/she will do it no matter what the cause is - ie. game (or movie). However the person just needs some impact to make what he or she does, which in the end, will show how the person is.
You can put this through various shrinks but it'll not make a difference of what the person what (is) in that particular situation(general)... (and you could argue if it would be any different at all)

 

[Sissyfoo]

I think they should be banned. Not because I agree that they are wrong but because I am curious to see what those fuck wit do-gooding cock sucking whores will try to ban next...music? books? film? school?

 

[liste]

Did an assignment for Psychology class on this subject once. There has been some major research happening for the last 10ish years or so, and they're all inconclusive.

However, they do agree on a few points of note.

Most importantly, an average, healthy, stabile person playing a video game for an hour each day, will not become a mass murderer due to this (unless he, in his mind, decides, that being so would be cool. This does actually not neccesarily mean that you have a sick mind, but rather a sick train of thoughts, which is different, as the thoughts can be controlled by the individual, whereas the mindset cannot).

Take a kid, same age, consider he has issues of a kind, be it abuse, incest, alcoholic parrents or whatever, or even a birth defect of sorts. Could also be "just" depressed or Skizo etc. Give him a game like most FPS games today, and let him play a few hours each day. You'll see the dramatic difference.

It is all but proved that these kinds of games are both heavily addictive and mind altering (anyone who has played a game like this for an extended period of time, will know that you have had dreams about it, had spontaneous thoughts about it in your every day life etc). A healthy mind can deal with this, if it is not overabused (can you say Counter Strike for 8 hours/day 24/7 ? ), but a sick cannot.

So the general opinion among serious researchers in the area, is that the violent games does not corrupt your mind (unless you're _really_ squeezing it in which case you're asking for it) unless the mind already has a flaw. This flaw does not have to be big, and it does not have to be serious. Any flaw will be manyfolded by these games (and movies, music, cartoons, comics and whatever else you can think of )

So i say, we need a system that somehow makes the "weak of heart" stay off the heavy stuff.
That's not gonna happen for another 20 years

 

[Ezteq]

liste has just nailed the answer on how to solve the problem sadly the governemnt will never lable games unsuitable for those with unbalanced minds as the political correctness squad would be down on them like a ton of bricks..........untill one of them is gunned down by a schizophrenic 8 year old yelling "medel of honour!!!"

anyone else believe that people should be made to take an exam before they become parents?

 

[Gamah]

No Way!

I have played games A LOT for over 6 years now (Modern games) Like CS, HL, Daoc, GTA etc etc.

I used to play games 12+ a day 5-7 days a week..I have never had any urge to harm somebody...infact I hate fighting and stuff irl..but I will be the first to pick up my rocket launcher and blow someones face off in quake :>

Anyway is it that time again (Looks at watch) every couple or years theres a call for something to be banned

 

[Sissyfoo]

Until I played Mortal Combat I had never once thought about ripping someone's spine out...now it is ALL I can think about.

Coincidence?

 

[harebear]

Sissy is a pyshopath! quickly strap him to the table and analy probe him!1

 

[Jaem-]

I don't think its down to the video games tbh, I play violent games sometimes, doesn't give me the urge to go beat someones brains out, I find playing them stress relieving sometimes.

If the person has difficulties with violence, he/she shouldn't be playing such games, watching such movies with it in, in the 1st place.

 

[Lorra]

Sorry if someones has already said/raised this point but got bored of reading :b - video games properly stop more people killing others rather than making them kill people. When i had a shit day i used to come home plug in my PS and then shoot the shit out of bad guys in time crises, did i then go out a kill someone. No. Why? Becuase i had just spent all my anger kicking seven shades of shit out of some guy on my PS.

People who go out and beat other people up purely for the reason they wanted to can not and shouldnt be allowed to blame there actions on anything other than they are a sick bastard.

About blaming it on the parents it is not always the parents fault, sometimes kids are just like that (actually thinking about it all eventualy comes down to the parents ><).