Daily Dose of Violent Video Games Causes 'No Significant Changes' In Behavior, Study Finds (arstechnica.com) 192
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A new, longer-term study of video game play from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Germany's University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf recently published in Molecular Psychiatry found that adults showed "no significant changes" on a wide variety of behavioral measures after two straight months of daily violent game play. Most scientific studies on the effects of video game violence measure participants right after the completion of a gameplay session, when the adrenaline prompted by the on-screen action is likely still pumping. Researcher Simone Kuhn and her co-authors argue that "effects observed only for a few minutes after short sessions of video gaming are not representative of what society at large is actually interested in, namely how habitual violent video game play affects behavior on a more long-term basis." To correct for the "priming" effects inherent in these other studies, researchers had 90 adult participants play either Grand Theft Auto V or The Sims 3 for at least 30 minutes every day over eight weeks (a control group played no games during the testing period). The adults chosen, who ranged from 18 to 45 years old, reported little to no video game play in the previous six months and were screened for pre-existing psychological problems before the tests. Over 208 separate comparisons (52 tests; violent vs. non-violent and control groups; pre- vs. post- and two-months-later tests), only three subjects showed a statistically significant effect of the violent gameplay at a 95 percent confidence level. Pure chance would predict more than 10 of the 208 comparisons would be significant at that level, leading the researchers to conclude "that there were no detrimental effects of violent video game play."
Shocking (Score:5, Informative)
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Given the numbers of people that play COD and the like I think we would have noticed without a study :O
Despite playing 2000 hours of wrecking/demo derby my car is still in one piece so there's that also :)
18 to 45, you say... (Score:2)
From adolescence, it was clear to me on the order of crystal that Wile E. Coyote repeatedly surviving misadventure had no bearing on reality and my belief in my own survival of the cliff fall, the rocket malfunction, or the fake tunnel collision.
That said, when it wasn't clearly a cartoon, I noticed different levels of lingering behavior modification. Following the first couple of Rocky movies, every boy under 18 leaving the theater felt compelled to display their boxing skills whether they actually existed
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I like to play a destructible racing game, flat-out 2, I've never sideswiped someone into a tailspin in real life.
Re:Shocking (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't this the same thing gamers have been saying for years?
No. There has never been much evidence that video games have a harmful effect, and yet another study using "psychological tests" doesn't really add anything. It is more important to look at ACTUAL VIOLENCE. Video game players have significantly LOWER arrest rates for violent crimes than peers who spend little time playing. The most plausible explanation for this is that spending time gaming leaves less time out in the street getting in trouble, but gamers also have different social connections, and are less likely to join gangs and associate with criminals. Gamers are also less likely to use drugs or alcohol.
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Not all violent video games are equal. There is a noticeable difference in interaction and user choices based upon how realistic the game attempts to be, more cartoonish or closer to realistic visuals. I think you need to separate that out and redo the test and measure the psychological impact of playing the more realistic game versus the more cartoon based visuals game.
I do notice a difference playing those different styles of game the realistic being far more stressful than the cartoon based which can be
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It is more important to look at ACTUAL VIOLENCE. Video game players have significantly LOWER arrest rates for violent crimes than peers who spend little time playing.
Obviously.
They have no time harrassing other people and get arrested for it. They spent 8h or more playing, and if they have bad luck 4h - 8h at school or university.
On the other hand if playing any game is not mind altering for you, you likely have a mental probelm, too.
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By that logic, reading books, watching movies, listening to TV and staring blankly out the window are all mind altering. ANY sensory input alters your mind ever so subtly.
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Exactly :D
That was the point.
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The question is if violence being normalized in popular media makes us more violent or more accepting of violence.
That is indeed the question. And the answer, according to the evidence, is "No".
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Actually it is not.
First of all, a study is not evidence, it is a study with a result.
Secondly, everything is mind altering, otherwise you would be dead.
The study indicates that video games (violent video games?) don't cause people to run mad and shoot.
My point was: if you do something 8h a day it changes your thought processes, for the good or the bad.
If you don't agree, you probably never studied anything.
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Video game players have significantly LOWER arrest rates for violent crimes than peers who spend little time playing. The most plausible explanation for this is that spending time gaming leaves less time out in the street getting in trouble, but gamers also have different social connections, and are less likely to join gangs and associate with criminals. Gamers are also less likely to use drugs or alcohol.
What is the definition of "peers"? I would think that the most plausible explanation is that teenagers and young adults that spend a large amount of time playing these video games are more likely to be part of at least middle-class families.
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It's not a very powerful setup. They had 30 people in each group and 6 dropped out of two groups.
To see how lousy it is, consider that "Delay-discounting task delay" Was lowered in the control group from 0.76 before the study to 0.03 at the end of the study while the GTA group saw their level rise from 5.22 to 25.34 (see Table 1). The conclusion their methodology came to was that there was no difference between the two groups (p=0.26).
So, the authors conclude 0.03 is about equal to 25.34.
if you're seeing di
Definition of violent games (Score:3)
It was GTA5 vs Sims 3. Not exactly violent games.
Sims 3 is non violent on purpose (Gives a point of comparison)
On the other hand, GAT5 back at its time has been controversial [wikipedia.org] (as is the case with other games in the serie [wikipedia.org]).
Its just that, by the time the study gets designed approved financed and finally launched, the game technology has progressed.
They should be studying modern, violent & hyper competitive games.
Which again, by the time the study gets designed approved financed and finally launched, will have been forgotten.
It's almost a case of "{new technology that I haven't grown up with} will cause the end of civilisa
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My daughter said this to me once:
"My sim wouldn't listen to me so I set them on fire."
I've also heard plenty of accounts of walling sims into pools or other rooms where they will die.
The Sims... (Score:5, Funny)
participants play either Grand Theft Auto V or The Sims 3 for at least 30 minutes every day
I wouldn't be surprised if the people forced to play "the sims" exhibited slightly more violent tendencies immediately after playing compared to GTA... that game just pisses me off.
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Odd. I found Sims 3 to be a very relaxing experience, especially once I had World Adventures and started turning my mansion into a museum. It was almost zen-like finishing collections and getting everything to sit just right.
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Let them play Hatred and then measure their levels :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Hmm, I have played it. It was a pretty well done game.
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Is there anything else except running and gunning? Is there a plot?
From all the videos I have seen, it is so repetitive. You seem to just run into coffee shops, effortlessly gun down civilians, cops spawn, you shoot them, repeat.
I would be bored after about 20 minutes of this. That is the length of time before violence just stops being special. It's like takedown animations in games: At first they are sublime, but after seeing them three times it just becomes annoying delays in the gameplay. Like quicktime
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The police start hunting you in the sewers, for example.
I haven't played it for long, but I thought it was a welcome addition to gaming. Sort of a big Fuck You to SJW, positive discrimination and general flatness of current Western society.
Guns cause violence (Score:1, Informative)
Yes. It's guns. Access to guns. Also, not having proper mental health evaluation prior to allowing a person the privilege of buying a firearm to go form their militia.
Don't believe people who say that the purpose of guns is "intimidation". That's horseshit. The only purpose for guns is to kill or maim.
Q: How do you get a conservative to care about using proper pronouns? A: Call an AR-15 an "automatic".
Re:Guns cause violence (Score:4, Informative)
the privilege of buying a firearm
Owning and using guns is a right, not a privilege.
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the privilege of buying a firearm
Owning and using guns is a right, not a privilege.
With rights comes responsibility. Just as the right to free speech doesn't allow you to yell "fire" in a theater, the right to bear arms doesn't allow you to, well, open fire in a theater. Just as reasonable limits on speech can exist without affecting your freedom of speech, so too can reasonable limits on firearms. I say this as someone who owns multiple firearms, and also believe the Constitution was written very specifically, and that the 2nd Amendment is the second amendment for a reason, because it
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Which seems like a stupid nit picky point right? Well no. There are no barriers (yet) to me speaking. How about we make every take a free course outlining speaking safety, libel/slander laws, basic decency before being able to speak and/or exercising the use of the first amendmen
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How about we make every take a free course outlining speaking safety, libel/slander laws, basic decency before being able to speak and/or exercising the use of the first amendment along with recurrent training covering the same topics?
We do. It's called compulsory primary education. The US already mandates at least an 8th grade education, and pretty much all of those topics are generally covered.
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The argument as I understand is that one must ask the government permission (in this case via government approved training) to exercise their 2nd amendment right.
I cannot agree to any position that requires an adult US citizen in good standing
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Now there should always be consequences when those citizens exercise their rights in evil and bad ways (yelling fire in a theater where no fire exists, inciting violence, libel/slander, shooting people, keeping people as slaves, etc. etc.).
"Consequences", sure. People may choose not to listen to you (or even associate with you) in the future. That is their right. But if the law says that you can be punished (e.g. with loss of property, liberty, or other legal rights) based on the content of your speech, your freedom of speech is being infringed.
This includes libel/slander laws, "incitement" laws, and yes, yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Personally, I really wish people would stop putting forward this "yelling 'fire'" line in support of r
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the privilege of buying a firearm
Owning and using guns is a right, not a privilege.
With rights comes responsibility. Just as the right to free speech doesn't allow you to yell "fire" in a theater
Stop right there. You absolutely can do that. Go back to the drawing board and come back when you're not fundamentally wrong.
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Show me the stats!
I would expect to see this: the presence of guns increases the degree to which guns are involved in violent encounters, but DECREASES the overall number of violent encounters, resulting in a net reduction of fatalities and injuries overall.
If you want to challenge that, you need to show more than an increase in "gun violence." You need to show an increase in "overall violence." Every single stat that comes out of anti-gun groups shows "gun violence" without any representation of "overall
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Poverty causes violence. Google the phrase "Chicago crime gap." The cliff notes version is that some Chicago zip codes have dozens of shootings per year, and some have none. The gun laws are the same. The difference is the average income in those zip codes. People with money don't usually go around shooting each other. Poor people seem to do so much more often.
But as to access to guns, just look to history for a negative example. Back a few decades ago you could MAIL ORDER guns without a background c
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I've come across articles/studies that point to income inequality more than outright poverty.
When everyone around you is doing about as well as you, for good or ill, there seems to be less crime, overall. When there's clearly some people drawing more from the pool than others, crime increases. Add guns and you see more gun crime.
WRT the 50s;
I'm not certain that there was less poverty, or less inequality (consider racial rights), but there was less mobility, less ubiquitous communication and more homogeneous
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Guns have become more accurate, lower recoil, and easier to use.
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Some truth in what you say, but let's look further.
More accurate. Some truth, but a lot of that is optics. However, the typical "mass shooting" distance is a few feet, so that is not really an issue. Even with the Las Vegas shooting, they guy was shooting at a giant crowd, so accuracy was not really the issue -- just aim for the middle of the crowd.
Lower recoil. Yes, but by using WEAKER BULLETS. The stock AR-15 is not legal to hunt deer wi
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I would rather be shot with a
I doubt anybody is confused by a gun, then or now. They are pretty simple to use. I would prefer someone be able to carry less ammo and have a harder time readjusting after aiming, if they are shooting at me.
I personally think we should limit high capacity magazines (require additional licensing or tax stamps), severely limit hand guns, and outlaw the carry of loaded weapons, especially in a ready-to-f
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Well, you forget one small thing about the .30-06. Hunting (aka hollow-point) rounds are VERY common. Those expand and do a LOT more damage. So, yeah, I would still go with the 5.56 for being less lethal.
So, you want the victims unarmed? Yeah, that makes them much safer for sure. Guns are used to PREVENT crime much more often that you think. A friend of mine had to pull his gun out for times so far. Each time, demonstrating that he was armed was enough to cause the attackers to flee, no shots fired, n
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But stuff like this never happens, right?
https://www.statesman.com/news... [statesman.com]
http://www.philly.com/philly/n... [philly.com]
https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/01... [cnn.com]
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I'm also bulletproof, so I've got that going for me.
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So, I am the one "immersed in the fear culture" but you are the one so terrified of guns that the thought of being near a loaded one makes you pee your panties. Riiiiight.
I really don't care what lies you have to tell yourself to justify your position. Just don't lie to me. Have a great day. I am done.
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One final bit of information. Concealed carry permit holders are MORE HONEST than the average person -- by far.
The methodology was to look at the states that publish this data (admittedly not a lot), but if they say how many concealed carry permits are revoked for committing a crime, you just divide that by the total number of permits in that state. That is pretty unambiguous and not subject to skewing the numbers.
https://www.dailywire.com/news... [dailywire.com]
Yeah, it could also be that the concealed carry permit hold
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Anonymous Coward said:
First, wouldn't it be better to have a stronger economy so that the poor could just get jobs instead of having to rely on social programs? That way they can pull themselves out of poverty and get the satisfaction of doing it themselves rather than relying on the government.
I have not seen ANYBODY
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I'm glad you're not in charge, because you are dangerously stupid and naive.
The Second amendment is not a grant of permission for people to own guns, it's a restriction on the US government that it can never keep us from having them. It is our only guarantee of freedom from oppression by that government. It means that if they want to take freedom away, they will have to kill us to do it.
You want to make it possible for them to round us up at their leisure. You are a suicidal idiot. Its a common malady among
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No, you find people who don't want their karma shot to hell because people will mod them down just because they don't agree with what they have to say.
I have seen this myself first hand. If you aren't part of the political group-think, you are modded into oblivion.
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dangerously stupid and naive
and
You are a suicidal idiot
would get this modded down for being flamebait.
I've seen unpopular opinions presented in reasonable and well argued fashion modded quite highly. When I have mod points I pay particular attention to comments I disagree with that are well presented to try to make sure I'm not contributing to an echo chamber. I'd say that there are more mods that do this than negatively mod due to disagreement. I'm not saying '-1 Disagree' doesn't happen, but that it happens more rarely than is claimed, and is often reverse
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Every time a shooting event comes up it's reported in the media and people go into an irrational frothing rage demanding action to prevent an event that they are statistically unlikely to ever experience or have someone that they know or tangentially related to experience. For the sake of comparison, your are more likely to be killed by a lightning strike than killed in a mass shooting incident. There's a fixation on longarm rifles when the statistics show that longarm rifles are not anything close to a maj
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You want to make it possible for them to round us up at their leisure. You are a suicidal idiot. Its a common malady among your kind.
Guns don't stop this, they usually act as an excuse.
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So instead I'll just mention that Defense Distributed and their Ghost Gunner project are important ideas-- no matter which side you're on, no matter what your opinion of the people involved, they're still an important thing to consider in all this.
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A hilarious situation (Score:3, Insightful)
As we see some of the far left "journalists" in the gaming scene having become so puritanical the past 3 or 4 years, that they themselves have been claiming violence in video games does or can cause violence, now they're having mental breakdowns because they are arguably in agreement with Trump, causing all kinds of problems.
If you're looking to be offended, all the damn time, this is what you get.
Or maybe, just maybe, many of them were only offended because it got them more retweets, youtube videos watched and patreon bucks?
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It's a lot longer than 3 or 4 years. Remember Tipper Gore in the 1980s?
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I don't think the idea that violent games = gun violence has ever been part of the "far left" ideology. There's always exceptions, but I think by 2010 or so we'd pretty much proven out that crime and violent crime in particular has continued to drop despite the meteoric rise in violent video games. An entire generation of kids that grew up with Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II, Smash Brothers, Doom, Quake, Call of Duty all made it to adulthood and we're busy having babies while still playing those same f
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Video games causing violence isn't a left/right issue. It's more of an old vs young issue.
We need to stop scapegoating (Score:2)
Now that that's cleared up, we can get back to blaming the NRA and scary looking guns.
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Now that that's cleared up, we can get back to blaming the NRA and scary looking guns.
Nobody blame the murder machines for people being murdered by them! That's just scapegoating! The real problem (humans) can never be fixed so we should never try!
Wounding patterns of military rifle bullets [ar15.com] (spoiler alert: they cause massive damage compared to regular bullets)
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Thanks for the link to wounding patterns. However, if I were told that I were going to be shot and I got to choose any common rifle, I would prefer to be shot with an AR-15. That is because it uses one of the WEAKEST of any center-fire bullets.
Case in point. I live in Colorado. The standard 5.56 AR-15 is ILLEGAL to use for deer hunting because it is not powerful enough. Yes, there are ways to modify the AR-15 to use different ammo to make it legal for use on larger game, but that is not terribly common
Wait a minute (Score:1, Interesting)
Daily grinding for hours on violent video game doesn't affect people but 30 second adverts go for thousands of dollars and a few posts on Faceplant can change the outcome of an election? Something doesn't add up.
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Most videogames don't present themselves as conveying factual information, excluding some simulation-based and educational games, and they're usually more concerned with being fun (from the developer) or profitable (to the publisher) than acting as political propaganda.
We already know this (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, if we are talking about infringing on one constitutional right, why not another? As long as we are attacking freedom, let's do it big!
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A Straw man post on a post critical of straw men (Score:2)
Also you're sig is dumb. Given immortality those millions could find what to do
Uhhhh puh-leeze (Score:1)
Violence in games are the same as violence in saturday morning cartoons. Watch tha wascal wabbit get creamed.
Fucktards.
Tough to apply to all ends of the spectrum (Score:4, Interesting)
If we look at truly disturbed people (such as those committing mass shootings or school shootings, etc), there are very very few of these people in a country of 350,000,000. Now this research could be entirely accurate when applying conclusions to your average 18-34 year old. But that doesn't necessarily mean that mentally disturbed people (if given the same daily exposure to video games as the test subjects) wouldn't be negatively impacted.
It's very possible that there is an effect, it's just a broad effect. Most people who try drugs don't get addicted to them: But those who are genetically predisposed to addiction will are much more likely to get addicted. (This is backed up by seeing that alcoholism is partially inherited).
I'm not proposing a policy change, or any changes in video games. But what would be interesting is to identify at-risk individuals (broken homes, lower IQ, prone to violence, lack of self-control) and measure the effects of daily violent game play vs what this test did, and measured average individuals.
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Agreed. Another thing I wonder about is if there are in fact effects, just not effects that the studies are trying to measure. For example, does extreme violence in video games and movies have any sort of impact on how people value life or desensitize people to those things in some ways? (and if so, what is the impact of that?)
And to your point, it may be that 99.999% of the population isn't affected in any significant way, but that remaining 0.001% is, and unfortunately that still translates into thousands
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Extremely valid point since e.g. mass shootings are done by 0.000001% of the population, yet the study was explicitly designed to NOT include people who would likely be part of that:
were screened for pre-existing psychological problems before the tests
The study's saying that healthy people were studied and found to be basically healthy. Wow! I'd have never guessed.
Imagine a "study" declaring that peanut allergies don't exist because 99 out of 100 people were fine after eating peanuts, and that rose to 99.9% when you screened out people with any other ("co-morbid") allergy.
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Not Violent Games (Score:1)
If your going to make a study about violent video games, then use violent video games. (The Sims 3?)
While GTA V is a bit violent, it's not the same as a Call of Duty game, which is where you will find more representative base of people trending towards violence.
As it'a really kill another person game.
I think the study is correct, as I have been playing all video games all my life and I am not prone to any violent behavior, but i'm older and have been playing and developing them for a long time, I do play C
Adults only (Score:3)
Look at schools, not video games (Score:3)
These types of studies do little to actually tell us anything. Behavior is a very difficult thing to study. So difficult, I would argue, that the vast majority of psychological studies cannot be taken seriously. What would be more interesting is to see how video games affect neurology. I'm willing to bet that neurologically there are many similarities between heavy video game players and gambling addicts.
When it comes to violence and trying to prevent it, I think we should be asking cultural questions rather than psychological ones. We call these mass shooters "disturbed" and assume their crimes are proof of psychological disease, but this probably isn't true. How many of these shooters have disorders that can be traced back to the neurological level, such as the various diseases we call "schizophrenia?" When it comes to depression, there's always a chicken and egg problem. Is the depression the cause of the neurological symptoms or is a neurological imbalance the cause of the depression. The answer isn't the same for all people.
I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of mass shooters are technically sane (both in the clinical and legal sense). The fact that these shootings occur disproportionately in the United States seems to confirm that culture, not psychology or video games, is the main culprit. It's not possible to make wholesale cultural changes, but it is possible to restructure schools. Our schools, with the K-12 structure, shuffles kids along and organizes them by age rather than ability. Schools are primarily a social structure where we allow the kids to create their own social hierarchies and cliques and we need to radically restructure schools. We bitch and moan about bullying and shootings, but we never address that it's the archaic school systems that most likely drive the very problems that plague them.
Other countries have video games and don't have mass shootings. What they don't have is a school system that was designed over a hundred years ago and has never really changed. Our schools are culturally toxic and need to be radically modified.
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"Other countries have video games and don't have mass shootings. What they don't have is a school system that was designed over a hundred years ago and has never really changed. Our schools are culturally toxic and need to be radically modified."
"What they don't have is guns fucking everywhere and a culture that values them more highly than children."
Fixed that for you.
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I agree that access for guns increases school shootings, but I still think restricting gun access addresses a symptom, not the root problem. Even if these kids didn't have access to guns, we don't want to send them to a school system that causes them to hate their fellow peers and teachers so much that they would suicidally attack it given the opportunity.
It's similar to the abortion debate: making abortion illegal doesn't address the problem of unwanted pregnancies. Unwanted pregnancies, especially those t
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I'm not sure about abortion being most common among the poor. I know when I went to school the abortion clinic in the rich area that had 10% of the population did a lot more business than the clinics in the area. Maybe it just meant everyone preferred that clinic regardless of where they lived. I expect though that it had a lot more to do with who could afford to get an abortion.
I think the violence problem is baked into a culture more deeply than just how our schools work. The US is very culturally diverse
Who plays for just 30 minutes? (Score:2)
30 minutes is hardly enough to be called an addiction ergo at addiction levels, behavior changes.
Long term social impact? (Score:2)
Tldr but my personal (therefore potentially worthless) impression is the main impact of violent video games are likely:
- Immediate term: potential physical impact on preexisting heart or epileptic condition and psychological stress for those without militaristic mindset who mightbe forced to play. Combined with euphoeia / self actualization for most players.
- Long term: Reinforcement of militaristic outlook and interest in violent resolution scenarios. Combined with heightened or maintained support for mili
I love killing nazis (Score:2)
I live in Germany and I love killing Nazis. Not every day, but often.
Of course, I need to use a VPN service to play these games, as Nazi symbolism and likeness is illegal here for.. reasons.
There are still really Nazis here and amazingly, it has never occurred to me to go on a real life killing spree.
Obviously... (Score:2)
no one conducting the study is old enough to know that road rage and incredibly aggressive and stupid driving is not normal.
Misses the point entirely (Score:2)
Not True (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Accurate sample ages? (Score:2)
What about the 10-18 age range? Since brains are under their most rapid developmental phases between those ages, shouldn't those be the focus of these kinds of studies?
Rain is wet... (Score:2)
The fact that we even need studies like this to show to some politicians and people is just ridiculous, but it does show the ignorant age we're living in...
Dude, it's been at least a couple of decades now that we have violent games, and not only several of the most successful franchises in existence could be considered violent games, the gaming industry itself has been the biggest among entertainment industries for quite a while now.
We're talking about hundreds of millions of gamers in the US alone, going w
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
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That idea is too complicated for this AC, obvious as it is.
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The broad with the sword tried to kill her gamer boyfriend, partially because she thought he spent too much time gaming. She was not a gamer.
Which proves that excessive gaming can be bad (or even fatal) to your health.
QED.
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50 years ago it was acting out cowboys and indians. in the old soviet union it was playing WW2 and no one wanted to be the germans
Re:I used to believe games have no effect (Score:5, Informative)
violent crime committed by kids is way up
No it isn't.
correlated almost exactly with the rise in popularity of video games
You mean it started in the 70s, crashed, then went nuts in the 80s?
and it's leading to school shootings
No it isn't.
Re:I used to believe games have no effect (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not in the "games have no affect on kids" camp, but I'm also not a fan of "saying violent crimes committed by kids is way up" with no evidence camp.
Because they're actually way down from their height in 1994.
https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb... [ojjdp.gov]
https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb... [ojjdp.gov]
https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb... [ojjdp.gov]
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Unleaded fuel.
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I'm inclined to believe that's a big factor, but short of reading Freakonomics I haven't done any research on the matter.
Though I do notice a lot less mohawk gangs as depicted in late 80s early 90s movies.
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No, ADD and ADHD are real disorders. Thing is, the majority of kids diagnosed with either one of them and given drugs don't have it.
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If it helps any, I've managed close to that 10 hours/day for years and I still haven't killed anybody.
I haven't even physically assaulted anybody in decades. Last two times I was attacked I defused the situation instead of putting the idiot in hospital too.
Still, feel free to cause distress to your kids.
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They're trying to correlation violent activity on part of the player with violent activity in real life. While there are violent demises for sim, there is very little direct violence that the player can engage in and instead the player must engage in Jigsaw-like psychopathic behaviors and design environments which can induce death in a sim. In GTAV you choose how you torture a poor sod (battery, toothpulling, groin smashing with a wrench, and others) and then dump him at an airport afterwards.
Re: (Score:2)
Because the spikes on their backs hurt when you jump on them.