This is for a high school paper, I know the issued has been hashed out a lot, but I would appreciate some responses. 1. Is the public being told that violent video games negatively affect youth? And if so, how? 2. What is being done by manufacturers of video games to address the problem of violence i.e. more warning labels etc.? 3. How is the government helping to resolve this issue? If not, why not? 4. Do you think the problem of violence in video games can be resolved and if so, in what kind of time frame? And if you are actually working in the game industry in some capacity, could you also post your background so I know what type of people are contributing thoughts on these questions. Thanks

It seems as though the last question is the only one that requires our opinion. All the other questions appear to be topics you should be researching yourself.

1. isn't it like daily in the news somewhere when a kid or two has freaked out and shot fellow students again and blamed it on the weatherman resp. video games? ;)

2. warning labels. lol, nice joke. No, seriously, they wanna sell their product. they don't wanna tell you it's dangerous unless it spikes even more interest which it usually does so make your own rhyme out of this.

3. Ever heard of lobbyists? I hope so. Other than that, I don't live in your country so do a deep research on the matter using newspaper articles and government and related NGO-websites would be in order I think.

4. That's a tough one. First, each human is different. That means that the impact of virtual violence on his or her own violence affiliation is different. That means you will hear a lot of people saying contrary things about this matter and all are right a bit or should I say, all are wrong in the end. You need to find studies first - a high school student mostly don't know much about statistics and the math behind it, but you need to know that a good study features "good math", i.e. low p-values and high correlation factors and confidence intervals (>95%). You don't need to know what that is right now. Just when you take such studies and read the cover site, be sure to have a look if there's something written there about these things somewhere in the document. If not, then it's probably bs.

So, after having established if violence is a problem (if not, then dismiss the question and save a lot of work ;)), you can answer it. If you found that is not clear whether it has an effect and what the effect is like in detail, just write that and give your personal assumptions based on what you read. Don't try to get assumptions and opinions from us here by asking that question directly towards us. You will only end up with that mix of opinions worth nothing that I mentioned above (and of course guys working in the industry questioning your implications which is their right of course).

Of course, that's only my rather academic opinion on the whole issue of writing an essay on this rather delicate subject or any subject in general. It's just that I can' think of any industry guy like Warren Buffett or someone showing up here and telling you that he got the cure for every financial trouble we might be in today and it's gonna heal in 20 years from now on or something like that. I think you get what I mean don't you ;).

I did a big research paper for this in my ethics class last semester. Check out the APA. They have research papers on a lot of non bias studies they have done over the years. One article I read discuses aggressive behavior is greatly increased based on the types of video games you expose yourself to and the situations you are comforted with either after playing a aggressive game or during play. Another research paper (not APA) I read came to the conclusion that hard core FPS gamers can shoot a gun to 80% the same percentage of what they can do in a game. Also some people (not APA) think that FPS players that are constantly around the rush of killing their opponent's will have a low heart rates when committing a violent act (like shooting a gun). I thought that this was just BS, so guess what I did... I have never fired a gun before at all, so I got my girlfriend to ask her dad (a detective) if he could let me fire a gun for the first time for research and monitor my heart rate. I really didn't think that he would let me, but he did. He let me shoot of one round. It was funny how they where laughing at me for me calling it a round, when its technically called a mag. I was a complete newbie when it comes to guns, but why would I want to be anything but a newbie with guns. The first shot was 3 inches from bullseye standing at about 30-35 feet. The freaky part about it was that my heart rate was low and stayed low threw out the whole experiment. The only part that sucked was that I now have a cut on my hand, still have the scar from it, from holding the gun wrong even when they told me how to properly hold a gun.

With all the non bias research papers you can find from psychological associations, one thing that you have to remember is that it should never be a mediums fault for someone doing an action. If someone is going to do wrong, they are going to do wrong even if they play with barbie. Good luck on your research paper.

Oh, one last thing. If you really want to get into the topic of violence and video games. Do a search on Google from manifestos of some the school shooters. Those people care nothing about video games. I felt really dirty after watching them, I even took a shower. But sometimes researching data is that way.

Quote:Original post by ApochPiQ
3. In the US, they are not doing anything, and this is exactly as it should be - the free market should regulate itself. The situation is different in other parts of the world, though, although I myself am not familiar with the details.

The situation is indeed different in other parts of the world, so the answer to this depends on which government you're referring to. Unlike in the US, in Australia the government handles the classification of video games (same as it does with films and television programs). Due to the fact that we have no equivalent of an R rating for games, anything that goes beyond an MA 15+ classification is banned here - although there have been murmurings about fixing that by introducing a higher rating recently.

I also agree that those appear to be very leading questions. They heavily imply that there is a problem with violence in video games, which is still a matter very much open for debate.

to get back to serious talking, I think the point about violence-featuring video game players being somewhat "trained" by those video games and afterwards more capable of hitting more victims with deadlier shots can't be denied. Of course training can be achieved in real-life too but there are papers to sign before you get a real weapon and not just dollars over the table of the local game store at least in my country.

It's easy physics law of inertia, don't be exposed to something having a force-like effect on you and you rest unmoved (rephrase this in better english, sorry ;)).

In other words, no violence shown, no effect from that exposure of on-screen violence. As easy as that. Now it's just to prove that this exposure has among its various effects like fun for example, also negative effects ultimately leading to killing or hurting somebody. Tough one. Though one thing is clear, without exposure of something, people generally tend to forget about that thing and sure that is the case with violence in video games. Of course, with the same argument you'd need to close every liquor store and weapon factory in the country since ultimately, exposure to bad things spark interest in bad things with some people (different with each person's character and will) that otherwise would never do such bad things or at least not at that time.

It's a bit academic at best. If people would find fishing more interesting than hurting somebody, there might be a discussion about if fishing online harms the fish population in the rivers and creeks at home since people are exposed so much to the act of fishing that they need to fish in real life afterwards..how did I get here anyway lol. Right, the problem here is that it ain't about fishing, it's about violence and that one is inherently worse than the other.