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Games Entertainment Science

Two Studies Suggesting a Link Between Violent Video Games, Real-Life Behavior Have Been Retracted (qz.com) 174

Keith Collins reports via Quartz: In the first three months of 2017, academic journals retracted two papers that suggested a link between violent video games and real-life behavior. The first, entitled "Boom, Headshot!" was published in the Journal of Communication Research in 2012 and, after years of controversy, retracted last January. That study looked at the "effect of video game play and controller type on firing aim and accuracy," and found that playing first-person shooter games can train a player to become a better marksman in real life. Patrick Markey, a psychology professor at Villanova University, found some inconsistencies in the data published in the study. In January 2015, he and a colleague alerted Ohio State University, where the authors of the paper conducted the research. The lead author of the study, psychology professor Brad Bushman, emailed an official at OSU a month later, suggesting the allegations were part of a smear campaign against him and his co-author, according to Retraction Watch. Last January, the Journal of Communication Research retracted the paper. Bushman had agreed to the retraction, and began an attempt to re-do the original study with a larger sample size. A paper published in Gifted Child Quarterly in 2016, authored by Bushman and three others, caught the attention of Joseph Hilgard, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. The paper had studied the "effects of violent media on verbal task performance in gifted and general cohort children," and found that when children watched a violent cartoon for 12 minutes, their verbal skills dropped substantially for a temporary period. What surprised Hilgard most, according to an interview with Retraction Watch, was the sheer size of the effect. Hilgard said that OSU, Bushman, and others he spoke with about the study were helpful and forthcoming, but could not provide information on the study's data collection process. The author who collected the data, it turned out, lived in Turkey and fell out of contact following the recent coup attempt. Last week, Gifted Child Quarterly retracted the paper.
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Two Studies Suggesting a Link Between Violent Video Games, Real-Life Behavior Have Been Retracted

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  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Thursday April 06, 2017 @05:14AM (#54184117)

    Link or not, I do think videogames are still too one-dimensional in dealing out death. Also I really don't get why male teenie fantasies have to evolve around the closest approximation to real war we can produce. Battlefield 1 was the pinnacle: Celebrating the massakre that WW1 war as something enjoyable left an awkward taste behind. Yes, the GFX were aweseome and I'm sure the leveldesign and the gameplay were top notch. ... But why again do we have to simulate and fetishize real war as close as possible?

    I read an article about a scandinavian dad who had exact same discussion with his teenage boys. He made an agreement with them: They would travel to israel and talk with israeli and hamas veterans and visit the places where they hang out and tell their stories. After that, the boys could play whatever they chose to. ... Smart dad. I don't know how that turned out though.

    I do get Unreal Tournament CTF, Tribes CTF, Xonotic CTF and Quake 3 Arena CTF. Bouncing around through space with teleporters, strange gaming levels and respawning instantly once your fragged and shooting bizar weapons that don't exist in the real world is all-out fun. And the direkt link to violence I don't see in both cases. ... I do get stress and anxiety issues when playing these games for an extended period of time though.

    • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Thursday April 06, 2017 @05:21AM (#54184127)

      I do think videogames are still too one-dimensional in dealing out death.

      And why the hell would you just single out video games. Been to the movies in the past century? How about television? Death is part of our culture, rightly or wrongly.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The difference between games and movies is that AAA movies are usually at least somewhat responsible about portraying war as a horrible thing where everyone suffers. Games have started to get better about this in the last few years, although they often just throw in some disturbing imagery for the sake of being more "gritty".

        For example, good movies make you care about the characters, and care when they get injured or die. In games, death is usually reduced to a score count and temporary set-back as you res

        • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Thursday April 06, 2017 @06:46AM (#54184361)

          The difference between games and movies is that AAA movies are usually at least somewhat responsible about portraying war as a horrible thing where everyone suffers.

          Oh that's just nonsense as a general proposition. Sure some movies do but far more often they out and out glorify the violence. There are plenty of movies where the violence is the main attraction and they don't make any effort to make it seem horrible. Heck most of the Marvel movies make it a good approximation of bloodless.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            In Avengers, the bad guys had names. That already puts them away above the average FPS goon.

            Compare a game like Call of Duty to a film like Saving Private Ryan. In COD, they literally have a scene where you have to press X to care. That's the depth of the emotional involvement you get with a bunch of largely anonymous team members, and even they aren't around for much of the game.

            Ryan has a number of characters who get significant development on screen. They have personalities that aren't just "generic mili

            • Probably because they *aren't* a story telling medium so much as simple escapism. Nor do they need to be more so to accomplish this goal.

            • In Avengers, the bad guys had names. That already puts them away above the average FPS goon.

              It doesn't matter. You can give the goon a name, but he's still nothing more than an obstacle.

              If you want the enemies to have character and meaningful interaction, you're looking for adventure games and RPGs.

              I mean, think about it: you're talking about a FPS... did you forget what the "S" stands for? The entire genre revolves around shooting things.

              There are certainly action movies that have a similar feel to FPS games, e.g., Commando and Rambo II, but they have fallen out of favor with the public. This may

        • For example, good movies make you care about the characters, and care when they get injured or die.

          Note that the characters you refer to above are the "good guys" in the movies.

          In games, death is usually reduced to a score count

          Note that those are the "bad guys"....

        • For example, good movies make you care about the characters, and care when they get injured or die.

          Really? How many movies made you care about the enemy bodycount? I can't think of many (none come to mind, but there *must* have been a few).

          I'm not really surprised you choose the Jack Thompson side of any issue, but still ... surely you must put at least some thought into your words?

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            How did "care about the characters" become "care about the enemy body count" in your mind?

            I'm not on that idiot Thompson's side of this. You apparently missed the part of my post where I said "I'm not saying games are all terrible or any nonsense like that", in anticipation of your assumption.

            I think you were triggered and didn't read my post properly.

            • How did "care about the characters" become "care about the enemy body count" in your mind?

              When did the enemy in movies become something other than a character?

              I'm not on that idiot Thompson's side of this. You apparently missed the part of my post where I said "I'm not saying games are all terrible or any nonsense like that", in anticipation of your assumption.

              I think you were triggered and didn't read my post properly.

              Anytime your ideology shows or is predicted you bring out the "triggered" phrase. It's getting old. You're wearing it out, like you wore out "misogynist" to refer to people who don't care about diversity politics, and "racism" to refer to people who want to decline foreign visitors.

              • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                When did the enemy in movies become something other than a character?

                Have you actually seen many war movies?

                The enemies usually don't get a name, a personality, any lines... You might get one or two who have some kind of 2D, paper-thin personality, just so that the heroes have someone to give their struggle context and meaning. The vast bulk of them are just a faceless hoard, sometimes literally as these days there isn't much point putting a proper face texture on a CGI soldier who ends up being 3 pixels high.

                It's getting old.

                I agree, I'm actually really tired of people just assuming I think

                • Have you actually seen many war movies? The enemies usually don't get a name, a personality, any lines... You might get one or two who have some kind of 2D, paper-thin personality, just so that the heroes have someone to give their struggle context and meaning. The vast bulk of them are just a faceless hoard, sometimes literally as these days there isn't much point putting a proper face texture on a CGI soldier who ends up being 3 pixels high.

                  That's precisely the point people are trying to make. How is that different than a computer game? In the movie the "bad guy's" backstory isn't fleshed out, and you feel no sympathy for the fact that he has a wife and child back home in Kiev or wherever. You don't care about his demise because you have no association with him at all. He's just part of the vague and largely undefined "bad". In a computer game the "bad guy" is the guy trying to kill you, and you him. He's a CGI character often only a few pixe

          • How many movies made you care about the enemy bodycount?

            Maybe John Wick? I remember that being a selling point. Great movie, too. Haven't seen the sequel yet.

            • Jack Thompson says : "buy me BONESTORM or GO TO HELL!"
            • John Wick kill Count graphic: http://imgur.com/gallery/xAzze... [imgur.com]
            • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

              How many movies made you care about the enemy bodycount?

              Maybe John Wick? I remember that being a selling point. Great movie, too. Haven't seen the sequel yet.

              Shoot 'em Up. Largest body count since Saving Private Ryan, but so over the top it's actually pretty good. 4 words: sky diving gun fight. Also, you'll never look at carrots the same way ever again, and Paul Giamotti makes a pretty good evil assassin.

        • by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

          For example, good movies make you care about the characters, and care when they get injured or die.

          For the "good guys" perhaps. How many of the dudes who got their brains clawed out in Logan did you care about? Or the guys who died in Mad Max: Fury Road? How about all those Death Stars in the various Star Wars flicks? They all had a small planet's worth of people on them when they were destroyed. John Wick, Deadpool... I think I just went through most of IMDB's current top 10 action movies. [imdb.com]

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            I'm not saying movies are ideal, just that they are slightly better than most games at this point.

            I say that because I like games and want to see them improve. Good story telling makes good games.

      • by dfm3 ( 830843 )

        And why the hell would you just single out video games.

        Probably because they were posting to a /. discussion about... video games?

        I do agree that our popular media tend to take death more lightly than they should at times (images of 90's action movies in which gun-wielding heroes mow down streams of bad guys come to mind) but I can say that I've seen proportionally more movies than video games that treat death as a serious subject with a broad range of implications for the surviving characters.

        • but I can say that I've seen proportionally more movies...

          Of course you have. It would be excruciating to run through a game more than one time having to invest emotionally in all the characters. Total defeat of the escapism that a game is at its core.

    • by Maritz ( 1829006 )

      But why again do we have to simulate and fetishize real war as close as possible?

      There's a market out there. Some of the games are realistic. Some are not. Both exist, which invalidates your false premise here.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Go play Spec Ops: The Line. The entire game is a criticism of glorification of war and the people who play games that do so.

      • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Thursday April 06, 2017 @07:09AM (#54184415)

        Go play Spec Ops: The Line. The entire game is a criticism of glorification of war and the people who play games that do so.

        The entire game is literally a Middle East-set Apocalypse Now, which is itself an adaptation of Heart of Darkness. Those stories aren't about war, they're about the depravity and inhumanity that can live inside all of us.

        • Those stories aren't about war

          Of course they are. Don't be silly.

          they're about the depravity and inhumanity that can live inside all of us.

          Yup. And war.

        • Those stories aren't about war, they're about the depravity and inhumanity that can live inside all of us.

          Yes, but adaptations can add themes to varying effect. As it turns out, it's pretty easy to set a story about "the depravity and inhumanity that can live inside all of us" in a war.

          • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

            Those stories aren't about war, they're about the depravity and inhumanity that can live inside all of us.

            Yes, but adaptations can add themes to varying effect. As it turns out, it's pretty easy to set a story about "the depravity and inhumanity that can live inside all of us" in a war.

            That's true, but let's go back to the source material. Heart of Darkness takes place not during war, but during European colonization and exploitation of Africa (which was certainly violent and had plenty of wars-and the boat is attacked in Heart of Darkness). It attempts to show what can happen to people when societal norms are stripped away, where a person has absolute freedom and control over life and death of others. No societal pressure to conform to any sort of moral view, no one to reproach you or

            • Sorry - are you trying to contradict the AC you replied to or not? Because the game can tackle both of those things, but it read like you were trying to disagree.
        • I think that, in the case of Spec Ops, it is also about war. The fact that you spend 98% of the game killing American soldiers is not about the depths of human cruelty. As much as the inspiration is apparent, Spec Ops strays quite far from Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now.

    • Well for teens and preteen they are strong and smart enough to survive without their help there is an urge to prove one self. War/survival fantasy is very compelling to play out as it puts you in the ultimate test.
      Now this urge will get kids in trouble in real life putting themselves in dangerous situations, willing to fight people at a drop of a hat or performing other deviant behavior. Kids causing trouble has been going on for much longer than they were humans.
      Social norms now say we shouldn't be in th

      • This man needs positive moderation.

        Competition and the desire to prove oneself are two of the defining characteristics of young adulthood. From puberty until mid-to-late 20s, those drives pop up in all aspects of life. This is true for both men and women, although their outlets vary.

        Men tend to be drawn toward violent entertainment because physical prowess has always been respected, and most violent work is perceived as masculine. There may be exceptions, but they are few and far between.

        Violence has been a

    • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Thursday April 06, 2017 @06:37AM (#54184343)

      I do think videogames are still too one-dimensional in dealing out death.

      Probably true. I find it particularly curious that violence in movies and games is more acceptable than sexuality. Decapitate someone in a movie and you might get a PG-13 rating. Show a breast and you go straight to rated R. Very odd.

      Also I really don't get why male teenie fantasies have to evolve around the closest approximation to real war we can produce.

      Because males tend to fantasize about being tough and dangerous and are willing to pay to indulge those fantasies. Jerry Seinfeld said it best that all men secretly regard themselves as sort of low level super heroes. This combined with hormones and physiology and societal expectations you get a tendency to glorify violence. Boys learn to play "war" from a very early age and at least in the US we have a gun culture that makes a fetish out of the idea of shooting the "bad guys". Whether you think all this is good or bad I leave up to you.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Decapitate someone in a movie and you might get a PG-13 rating. Show a breast and you go straight to rated R. Very odd.

        Not at all. If you kill somebody in a movie everybody knows it's not real. A breast, on the other hand, is quite real. See the difference?

        • by mjr167 ( 2477430 )
          Boobs are food and nice comfy pillows when you feel like snuggling with your Mommy. We don't get R ratings for showing oranges and pillows.
        • No. I don't.

          Kill someone in a movie and the hero is applauded. Show a boob and it's assumed that a boob is a dirty thing that should be hidden, and that you should feel shame at enjoying the sight of.

          One teaches that killing the "bad guy" is good. The other teaches that the human body and the entirely natural and necessary function of its parts is bad.
        • A breast, on the other hand, is quite real.

          In Hollywood? You truly are delusional.

      • by nedlohs ( 1335013 ) on Thursday April 06, 2017 @07:44AM (#54184523)

        Probably true. I find it particularly curious that violence in movies and games is more acceptable than sexuality. Decapitate someone in a movie and you might get a PG-13 rating. Show a breast and you go straight to rated R. Very odd.

        I don't think that's universal. Different societies have probably developed different views...

        But sexuality being considered worse for children to view than violence makes some sense. Violence is outside of the everyday experience for most people, while sex isn't.

        That makes violence more comfortable for parents - they can after all just say it's just fantasy in the real world you will be hurt or dead on the receiving end and in prison on the handing out end. Whereas, sex is uncomfortable to talk about for many people (the very people movie ratings are made for). Possibly because they don't want their child doing it now but do in fact want their child to do it later - so they don't want to call it "bad" but also don't want to call it "awesome".

        Most people are never going to find themselves using their very particular set of skills to hunt down and murder the kidnappers of their child. Most people will engage in sexual activity at some point in their lives. One is clearly fantasy (especially to the target of movie ratings), one is reality and thus,more difficult to deal with.

        At least that's the armchair analysis I pulled out of me ass...

        • by Anonymous Coward

          Most people will engage in sexual activity at some point in their lives.

          You must be new here.

        • But sexuality being considered worse for children to view than violence makes some sense. Violence is outside of the everyday experience for most people, while sex isn't.

          Sex is outside the every day experience of most people, particularly for children. If sex is not outside the daily experience of a child then that is a problem. Anyway the point is that repressing sexuality and glorifying violence results in some very weird social dynamics, many of them bad.

          That makes violence more comfortable for parents - they can after all just say it's just fantasy in the real world you will be hurt or dead on the receiving end and in prison on the handing out end. Whereas, sex is uncomfortable to talk about for many people

          Sex is only uncomfortable to talk about because they are told not to talk about it. There are plenty of places in the world that are much more sexually liberated than the US. Most sexual repression is religious in or

          • Sex is outside the everyday experience of most people, particularly for children. If sex is not outside the daily experience of a child then that is a problem. Anyway the point is that repressing sexuality and glorifying violence results in some very weird social dynamics, many of them bad.

            You may not have noticed but "want their child to do it later" isn't talking about the present.

            That is not the point, you said you found it curious and odd not that you found it "bad". I only presented some reasons I cons

        • by Feyshtey ( 1523799 ) on Thursday April 06, 2017 @10:54AM (#54185579)
          So on the one hand you are normalizing violence beginning at a young age. It's just something that everyone should expect and accept. On the other hand you're teaching kids that sexuality is shameful , and hide it from them until they are older and need to start figuring it out without any context or guidance.

          How is it logical to give a pass to violence with kids by saying it's "outside the normal experience" while also saying it's perfectly acceptable in society to glorify it, and telling kids at the same time that sexuality which is nearly universally something that will be part of their "normal experience" is something that they should feel ashamed of?

          People seem to think it makes perfect sense to glorify the thing that we do not want people to engage in, while demonizing the thing we know they will engage in as an entirely natural and healthy part of human existence.
          • I made no claim about it being "ok" or "logical". Just that there's a potential world view in which it is internally consistent.

            I also made no mention of sexuality being "something that they should feel ashamed of". There are many things that make me uncomfortable about which I feel no shame.

        • That explanation seems kind of tortuous. There's lots of things kids can't do when they're young, like driving cars, but nobody bats an eye talking about those, so that can't be the reason sex is treated so differently. And violence is a significantly bigger factor in kids' lives than in most adults - any parent knows kids that have to be taught to restrain their impulses and not hurt others. Providing counter- examples on the screen where violence is rewarded instead makes little sense outside of male fant

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      Link or not, I do think videogames are still too one-dimensional in dealing out death. Also I really don't get why male teenie fantasies have to evolve around the closest approximation to real war we can produce. Battlefield 1 was the pinnacle: Celebrating the massakre that WW1 war as something enjoyable left an awkward taste behind.

      The problem is BF1, which I enjoy playing, doesn't even show the horrors of that war. I was really disappointed that the single player missions did not have a single instance of actual trench warfare. No "over the top" type charge where you are literally walking through a storm of bullets, seeing people all around you just drop dead, trekking over a pockmarked and muddy landscape littered with dismembered and decaying corpses. No setting in a dugout weathering an artillery bombardment and subsequent gas

    • by nitehawk214 ( 222219 ) on Thursday April 06, 2017 @07:08AM (#54184413)

      Playing paintball is a more realistic war simulation than Battlefield 1.

      Maybe it's the anti-gaming people that are the ones that need to get out of their basements.

      • Besides being good fun, paintball also teaches you how easy it is to get hurt in a firefight. Think you're under good cover with a buddy having your back, and still get hit in the head, shoulder or ankle. Now think what that would be like if those were real bullets...
        • Though it does teach you things like:
          I can dodge bullets?
          No, Neo, when they are at long range, you won't have to. Their shots will not have enough energy left and bounce harmless off of you.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      As a kid(I'm 49) I use to play with GI Joe dolls and army men. In fact I still have my original GI Joe toys packed away somewhere at my parents house. There were no video game systems then yet we still played war. The bad guys were Nazis and my friends and I got to be heroes. I use to build tanks and airplanes out of Lego and play space battles and crazy adventures where things would "blow up". As a father I use to take my boys out twice a month and go play military simulations using Airsoft guns before I b

      • I wish I had all my GI Joe action figures still. They'd be worth a lot. But alas, we blew them all to hell on a regular basis with the Blackcats, Ladyfingers and bottle rockets we bought at the nearest convenience store with our allowance.

        By today's standards I'd be assumed to have grown up to be a crack-addled homicidal maniac.
      • . As a father I use to take my boys out twice a month and go play military simulations using Airsoft guns before I became disabled.

        Sorry to hear that bro. All the best wishes. Be strong.

        Also, I agree with your point of view.
        I've played violent video games, starting with the classic Doom, since I was a young teenager, and I haven't turned out a crazy, violent maniac. Quite the contrary. I catch insects and arachnids I find at home and bring them outside instead of crushing them.

        Having said that, I wouldn't let my young kids play violent videogames until they reach a certain age (13+). And I do think that if you have a certain predisposi

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      You don't get it mostly because you're an idiot. :P

      You know what men like? COMPETITION. You know what those games represent? COMPETITION. They have "hunting". They have gathering resources.

      Quake 3 isn't about killing people. It's about winning a game. (Notice I said "Game" and not "Video game".) An abstract game where people don't actually die. It's NO different than playing tag. No different than playing cops and robbers. The robbers "compete" to FLEE, and cops "compete" to CATCH.

      When someone in Quake 3 di

    • Link or not, I do think videogames are still too one-dimensional in dealing out death. Also I really don't get why male teenie fantasies have to evolve around the closest approximation to real war we can produce. Battlefield 1 was the pinnacle: Celebrating the massakre that WW1 war as something enjoyable left an awkward taste behind. Yes, the GFX were aweseome and I'm sure the leveldesign and the gameplay were top notch. ... But why again do we have to simulate and fetishize real war as close as possible?

      I read an article about a scandinavian dad who had exact same discussion with his teenage boys. He made an agreement with them: They would travel to israel and talk with israeli and hamas veterans and visit the places where they hang out and tell their stories. After that, the boys could play whatever they chose to. ... Smart dad. I don't know how that turned out though.

      I do get Unreal Tournament CTF, Tribes CTF, Xonotic CTF and Quake 3 Arena CTF. Bouncing around through space with teleporters, strange gaming levels and respawning instantly once your fragged and shooting bizar weapons that don't exist in the real world is all-out fun. And the direkt link to violence I don't see in both cases. ... I do get stress and anxiety issues when playing these games for an extended period of time though.

      Very noble argument of you however I'm shocked at your blindness to our basic human nature. We are a violent species. It's hard to undo millions (or billions, depending on how you want to look at it) of years of evolution. No matter how much nurturing we do to overcome our nature, it comes as prepackaged as a built-in feature. We all have our genetic variations, and certainly some people are more violent than others. Regardless, it's better to be aware, accept, and control it than to deny its existenc

    • by yendor ( 4311 )

      Have you seen these?
      "This War of Mine"
      "Beholder"
      "Papers, Please"
      "Valiant Hearts"
      etc etc

      A lot of people like the war games in game and real life. Paintball and laser shooting games being a good example. There's a lot of them just like there is a massive group that like football (european and egg-hand-ball type) who play the repeated EA releases.
      Playing realistic war is about as old as war itself and has too many explanations to be worth testing. Most people like realism because they can suspend belief.
      Vetera

    • by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      I totally agree with you.
      It seems to be that at least 90% of all AAA video games are just small variations on moving round a map, using weapons to kill opponents.

      I personally don't believe that there are significant negative psychological effects, I'm just depressed that there isn't more creativity or choice in the entire gaming industry than just repeatedly banging out the same formulaic crap with different graphics. It seems almost as as bad as Hollywood and their use of about 4 templates for literally ev

    • Well, to be fair the games you mention aren't realistic war simulators at all, the only halfway realistic FPS-style simulator is ArmA. However, I generally agree, even ArmA is not realistic. In reality people are screaming like hell when they're hit, the guts of civilian casualties are splattered around or buried under buildings, almost everything is done with airstrikes from a safe location, and otherwise you're sitting around doing nothing or being occupied with chickenshit maintenance tasks 95% of the t
    • "Celebrating the massakre that WW1 war as something enjoyable left an awkward taste behind. Yes, the GFX were aweseome and I'm sure the leveldesign and the gameplay were top notch." So from this quote we can assume that you haven't even played BF1. Your comment seems quite similar to the studies that were pulled, in that there is not enough quality data collection.
    • I like about Battlefield 1 because it's at least as much about the horrors of the first world war as it is about infantry and vehicle combat.

      BF1 includes a mechanic where the player can initiate a bayonet charge, assuming they have a weapon with a bayonet attached. The player can sprint at faster-than-full speed for about thirty meters before losing his steam (and being penalized with much slower movement for a short period). If during that charge he makes physical contact with an enemy player, the enemy pl

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The US mil looked at that from everything they learned from how weapons got used and who did what in ww1,2, Korea and Vietnam.
      How to move from a draft system to a way of pre sorting professional soldiers who would always obey orders.
      GPU and CPU work also cost a lot in the 1980's To surround a tank crew with "West Germany" in real time, moving 3d was not going to be something an average person at home could do.
      People at home got good physics in games but very simple line art over a war zone.
      As the GPU
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I can in all certainty say that living out those dreams on-line was one of the few things that kept me from living them out in real life. The stress and bullying were severe for several years, including two suspensions for attempting to stand up for myself (oddly zero tolerance was not applied to my tormentors however).

    Violent videogames are cathartic.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    There actually is a link between violence and games. However, it is nothing to do with violent content at all. The link is caused by competition. I've seen people get angry, aggressive, and even turning to rape threats, death threats, and even actual acts of violence over competitive games. What do the most toxic, hostile, and disgusting online gaming communities have in common? They're all PvP or competition focused. Any game that has competition and keeps score will result in people having an irrational f

    • I would pay to see people losing control at a Chess match.

      So what are you saying? Stop keeping score, bring our participation trophies for all?

      I find your competition = violence theory just as stupid as anything Jack Thompson has said.

      • AC does have a bit of a point, but it's not necessarily the score-keeping that's the problem.

        If anything, this "everybody gets a ribbon" bullshit is training people to always expect to 'win' or get something out of the competition. When that expectation is broken, they act out. Combine that with the constant praise for mediocrity ("Look at how fast he's eating that sand!" "well, my kid ate 2 bottles of glue...") and we have a people that treat that one unique thing they have way too seriously. I've seen gro

    • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

      You're equating words with action, which is a common result of political indoctrination these days. Your generalizations and stereotyping are also incorrect. The stats are what keep the peace. They provide a quantifiable record of performance across different metrics so that player skill can be compared objectively. Only insecure sore losers create drama over that.

      The communities of competitive games that purposely don't keep score end up with the weakest players. The better ones move on to others which a

  • by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Thursday April 06, 2017 @06:18AM (#54184279)
    i love to play GTA 5 on my PS3, but i know if i tried to do that sort of thing in the real world i would be either killed by the police or put in prison for the rest of my life, it is just an amusing game for entertainment and stress relief (i get to do stuff in that game i could never get away with in the real world)

    i get killed by the Liberty City Police a lot in the game but at least i get to re-spawn, the real world dont work like that
    • by timftbf ( 48204 )

      i love to play GTA 5 on my PS3, but i know if i tried to do that sort of thing in the real world i would be either killed by the police or put in prison for the rest of my life, it is just an amusing game for entertainment and stress relief (i get to do stuff in that game i could never get away with in the real world)

      If fear of being caught and the idea that you wouldn't get away with it are what stops you stealing cars, mowing down pedestrians and beating up hookers, we have a problem.

      Doing those things b

      • it is NOT "the fear of being caught" it is because those things are WRONG and i have empathy for humanity so i dont do things things because it is just FUCKING WRONG to do thing
  • by AntronArgaiv ( 4043705 ) on Thursday April 06, 2017 @06:19AM (#54184281)

    Sounds like something Lisa Simpson would subscribe to... :-)

  • There are millions of people playing these games, but not going around committing actual violent acts. No causation; Study complete.
  • Please, please tell someone took FPSDave seriously.

  • If there's any link, I would say that an off-the-rocker a-hole in real-life is probably not going to be pleasantly adjusted and friendly in-game. I've played with some people who - between trolling and tantrums - I'm pretty sure should be on some form of medication or therapy IRL.

  • Or at least screaming "Fake News"

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

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