Violent Video Games=Serious Public Safety Threat ??

#41 I heard the Conan is being gimped (censored) in Germany over blood and nipples. It's M rated here so 17+ crowd. First adult content MMO by design. You can cut off limbs and do other crazy stuff. lol...

This would not be the first time a Conan series book was Burned in Germany, no offense to the good people of Germany. More of a slap at censorship and history repeating itself.

#42 What if you forced the kids to play one hour of cute platforming games(like thosse i used to play when i was a kid, when you were a monkey looking for bannas, a bear looking for his lost sister and alcholised squirell looking for booty, stash n drugs) for each hour they played something violent? But then you would end up with the children restraining to climbing in trees and eating bannas each time they had a conflict =)

But seriosuly, is not that a valid point? If you have the kids playing something not violent, but something that had another integral element that could be related to the reality, like platforming, would the kids try solving all of their problems jumping around like maniacs and collecting different items that normally are totaly trivial?

The answer would probably be: Yes the stupid ones would, same goes for everything.

Conker btw(alcholised squirell you know): is by FAR the most belivable character(given the game's setting) EVER!

Edit:
Also when i think of it, there might be some truth in the myth of violent media making violent people. My dad, is really physically impressive and has particpiated in OS and national competitions(in sailing if you care to know(when sailing was still for everyone and not just for jerks with alot of $$$)) and he claims that even though he could make people who offended and attacked him mush, he chosse to never do so because he did not have it in him(okay he broke a guys jaw once but they were both drunk then). Now we have my kid brother, who also has alot of muscles and participiates in sports on relativly high level(kitesurfing, represented Scandinavia in the north young blood camp 07(which for some pecculiar reason was held in Egypt)) has this problem, and that is that he wont back down for anything. Fer example, once there was this guy on a party that went berserk for unknow reasons that started hiting people, including girls which pissed of my brothers friend(who also is pretty athletical and fights matches in Tae kwon do(like Ryu and Ken in street fighter!)), who decided to try and take a talk with the mad guy. The mad guy proved inconsulable, and started making those funny drunken swings at my brothers friend who just proceded to back off and block and such stuff, because he did not want to lose his competition liscense. That was when my brother intervened. He steped betwen the guy, who proceded to swing at him first right then left. My brother grabbed both his arm(the other guy was drunk remember) and tried to hold him down. That was when the dude started to try and bite my brother, and that apearantly was too much for him, so he headbutted him full to the face, with the forehead connecting with the guys teeth and nose, resulting in some teeth falling off. The point is that while this scenario is quite frustrating, i am completly sure that my dad would never do such a thing, and the only thing that differs my dad from my brother is of course their's childhood. When my dad grew up, they hardly had TVs( they probably played with potatoes or something). When me and my brother grew up, we had movies like scarface and games like DooM and even though we did not have any particular fetish for violence, we watched them in a way similarly as of passive smoking(we had platform games, which i have ranted about 3 times in this post now). It could be either the video games, or that my brother simply was born more violent. I dont know for myself, since i never been in such an situiation. I opt for the video games being responsible since that takes responsiblity from me. To quote Freud: "i am a victim for the conditions"(dont know the exact quote in english).

#43 I play violent games, and when the violence moves the story along, I love it. Who doesn't love the visceral killshots in God of War? I also think violent content, no matter the medium, has an effect. All things we consume affect us, be it good, bad, or neutral. All forms of art move us in some way or another, that's what attracts us to it. And if the end result had no effect on our own development, then it failed.

Regarding children specifically, censorship is not the job of the government outside of advisory, and in extreme cases; regulation. But, when the responsible parties for censorships: industry self-regulation(ESRB/MPAA/RIAA/etc) and the adults responsible for demographic that society wants protected (children) fail to do it properly, then the regulating common denominator (govt) will step in and do so. Pressure needs to keep on parents and industries to have effective regulation if the society continues to want regulation/censorship. In a perfect world, parents would be good parents and this argument would be mute. But we know that a considerably percentage are not. We also live in a society that is convinced that our children will be abducted if they leave our site for even a second. So in return, our society pressures govt constantly to regulate all aspects of their lives so that the parents do not have to.

And then you have the opportunists who compound the issue by using "child safety" to champion their campaigns laden with ulterior motives. But I digress, as a friend once said, you can sum up the conscience of any society throughout time with, "Things are really really bad and change is needed."

As an added note, the factions of this argument really crack me up when they latch on to the reports/studies about the positive (or negative) effects of video games, but adamantly deny that there cannot be negative (or positive) effects. You can't have one without the other.

#44

Quote:I heard the Conan is being gimped (censored) in Germany over blood and nipples. It's M rated here so 17+ crowd. First adult content MMO by design. You can cut off limbs and do other crazy stuff. lol...

This would not be the first time a Conan series book was Burned in Germany, no offense to the good people of Germany. More of a slap at censorship and history repeating itself.

I relocated to Germany last summer from the Dallas/Fort Worth area and was surprised at the video game censorship myself. But I will add, I've been to 3 of the major cities here: Nuernberg, Muenchen, and Frankfurt, and in all three cities, I have noticed quite regularly, that well-dressed (read: not impoverished) children run around playing unaccompanied by adults. I've also noticed that all unrelated adults skold children when they get out of line. And the children straighten up when it happens. Also, I live near a subway station and children of aproximately age 7 on up ride the subway to/from school alone.

Is video game censorship directly related? No. Is it remotely related? Probably not. But implying that video game censorship is the path to Nazi Germany 2.0 (this is what you are implying, yes?) not only triggers Godwin's Law, but also utterly dwarfs the line I've drawn between censorship and child-safe society. If this wasn't your implication, then my appologies.

EDIT: had to remove the umlats.

#45

Quote:First adult content MMO by design

Actually there are several adult content MMOGs that exist, and a ton of them existed before Conan. If you meant to say a mainstream, widely publicised MMOG, then that's a different story.

#46 Http://www.gamepolitics.com/

Scroll down to May 15 2008. There's links there and probably information. That link at the top was probably something strung along or produced by Jacky boy.