Big "duh".

If you go out and kill people, you have more issues then liking violent games/movies/pictures/books.

"So it’s not the video game’s fault for these school shootings. It’s the person’s fault for these school shootings."

In other news, oranges and apples are fruits!

@JB:

I actually disagree that it's unnecessary. Yes, many of us believe exactly what this report is saying and have for some time, but I think it's necessary to get as much good press out there as possible, simply because the amount of negative press is almost overwhelming to the majority of Americans. The more out there showing the truth of the story instead of what the mainstream media shows, the better.

"So it’s not the video game’s fault for these school shootings. It’s the person’s fault for these school shootings."

This is what we have been saying all along. If you take all of the school shootings that have been blamed on video games and compare them, one of the common denominators is aggression and a prediliction for violent imagery/media.

Some would say that violent video games are another common denominator but, how does that explain Seung-Hui Cho was not reported as playing any at all? The only thing he did on a computer at college apparently was read and write his disturbingly violent prose.

Angry violent people probably prefer to play violent games. But so do a lot of normal reasonable people. It is not the games that cause violence, rather the already violent people who play them.

The statistics say it all. With the massive sales of the GTA games, the widespread and continuing popularity of Counter-strike and Halo, if these games actually did make people violent and train them to kill then hardly a day would go by without some gamer going on a rampage. The fact a handful of the millions of people who bought the games were deranged and violent beforehand is no cause to condemn the games.

As an example, there are hundreds of millions of Christians in the world. The Westboro Baptist Church is a collection of roughly 150 disgusting bigots. Would you tar every Christian with the brush of being a bigot just because a miniscule fraction of their numbers acted that way? Or blame religion for the way they act? Of course not. In the same way, do not blame video games and insult gamers just because of a handful of violent and mentally unstable people have chosen to play them.

@Gisleburt

it actually has been for awhile (at least in the courts) the twinkie defense is out

He doesn't actually talk to us. As far as he's concerned, he only responds to Dennis and ONLY Dennis.

If nothing else, the report was right about one thing: video games are here to stay.

@Terminator44

You're misunderstanding the study... Essentially what they were doing was having a large group play video games, and then studying how different types of games affected individuals with different psychological profiles.

Tetris and PGR are non-voilent games, so they were control in terms of reaction to the games. Then the people in the study would've been scored on some psychological profile as to their emotional state going into the study.

You then have several possible outcomes... If violent games cause agression then a majority of the 167 people should become more aggressive after playing Doom 3. This would be evidence of a causal link.

However, if only those with a tendancy towards agression and anger get more agressive, while those whose are more normal don't, then it's not a causal link. The video game didn't *cause* the agression, it was already there. The video game just brought it out...

So they are releasing a wussed up version of Manhunt then? I was willing to "stand behind Manhunt" as Take-Two put it, but I will NOT stand behind this censored crap. And I invite others here to show this to Take-Two with their wallets by not buying this game.

[...] Villanova Research Video: Violent Games Only Make Angry People Aggressive [...]

I'd like to see the actual study, as I strongly disagree with him on the idea that games can't be used to alleviate aggression. When I still owned the game, there was nothing more satisfying after a particularly frustrating day than smashing things Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.

I would argue that this particular facet of the study is flawed. Mostly because I'm not convinced any increased aggression he saw was actually because of the violent content and not just from a frustrating game.

@cppcrusader

"I’d like to see the actual study, as I strongly disagree with him on the idea that games can’t be used to alleviate aggression. When I still owned the game, there was nothing more satisfying after a particularly frustrating day than smashing things Hulk: Ultimate Destruction."

He's debunking the idea of cathartic effect, not debunking the idea that you can feel better after gaming. Carthartic effect implies that doing the violent action in virtual allows you to "release your anger". On the other hand, having defeated many enemies on a particularly difficult level, you feel a sense of euphoria and accomplishment. THAT is what feels satisfying. The accomplishment.

This is why games like GTA are fun, but games where the whole purpose is just to gun down unarmed civilians are boring. GTA provides a challenge, because the gangsters/cops/etc can shoot back, or come to the rescue of any innocents you shoot. It's not the act of shooting that makes you feel good, it's the act of defeating a challenging enemy.

@cppcrusader

"I would argue that this particular facet of the study is flawed. Mostly because I’m not convinced any increased aggression he saw was actually because of the violent content and not just from a frustrating game."

This part I agree with. I would like to see how the "aggressive/non-aggressive" players fared in the "non-violent" games. How did those predisposed to aggression fare when the non-violent game was extremely challenging and frustrating?

3 words:
No




Shit




Sherlock

@Majestic

You forgot F. All of the Above.

@ jabrwock

"This part I agree with. I would like to see how the "aggressive/non-aggressive” players fared in the “non-violent” games. How did those predisposed to aggression fare when the non-violent game was extremely challenging and frustrating?"

Since I have the article, to answer your question there were no significant differences between high, moderate and low anger groups on non-violent video games. However, the study did not address the issue of game frustration/challenge and would merit further study and funding. For further detail check my blog.

Heck, even better, use the same game, but have "randomness" put into the controls. Delays and so forth, to see how the same game with clunky controls affects frustration.

The Painstation?

this is an old joke (probably ill be yelled at for it but i gotta do it)

video games do not cause violence and ill kill anyone who disagrees with me!

(im a huge fan of absurdist humor)

@ Jabrwock

"He’s debunking the idea of cathartic effect, not debunking the idea that you can feel better after gaming. Carthartic effect implies that doing the violent action in virtual allows you to “release your anger”. On the other hand, having defeated many enemies on a particularly difficult level, you feel a sense of euphoria and accomplishment. THAT is what feels satisfying. The accomplishment."

Actually that's exactly what I'm talking about. In my example of Hulk, it was absolutely a cathartic effect, not defeating difficult enemies. If I was working on a frustrating piece of code, or if something else had me twisted in a knot I would fire that up and then it was just "CPPCRUSADER SMASH!" The satisfaction came from just smashing anything and everything that was in front of me. I would just play until I felt the anger or frustration had been vented, then get back to work.

That fact, coupled with the flaw I pointed out earlier just makes it hard for me to fully take this study seriously. I think with some more research and adjustments to the study like the questions and a better selection of games, this study could actually yield some useful info, but its not quite there yet.

"janarius Says:
August 24th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
@ Jabrwock
Actually, I think there’s a game that actually makes itself impossible to play. I don’t remember the details but i think I read it on joystiq or kotaku. Anyone knows or remember that game?"


Umm, Superman for N64

lol!!!

This method pretty much ripped the opposing side's argument to shreds.

Ok where do I go to e-mail these people about my thoughts on violent video games, I went to the site but i can't find a link.

I've been wanting a study like this. Lots of studies have shown an increase in agression after playing violent games for soem number of people. It wasn't everyone though. Besides the point that agression isn't necessarily bad, I've been wanting a study on what made the peopel who were affected different from the rest. I'd like to see the details, though.

I've been angry before, really angry, and used video games to calm down and get rid of some aggression. I've never attempted to kill or even harm anyone, so I don't understand how this works. No one person is the same.

I've also used games to blow off steam as well.

Im glad to see a report in the media that isnt completely biased. Thank god! We need more news reports like this

Since everyone else beat me to the important points I'll just add my "IT'S ABOUT TIME!" to the rest of the crowd.

No study is perfect, but I'd love to read it. I especially want to know if they had their own drfinition of aggression and anger, or if the used pre-defined values in the psychology literature. I'll have to find it later.
-Mike Schwinger

Whilst I agree with the findings, what kind of sample is 167 people though?

I'm sick of ALL these crap surveys. They are NEVER peer reviewed, making them unscientific, and furthermore the whole (pseudo) science behind it is fundamentally flawed.

100 or even 1000 people can NEVER be a proper sample group. It is simply statistically too small.

There are billions on people on the planet, millions of whom play games. A study of 167 people is only going to show you how those 167 people react in that very narrow experimental situation.

And I'm not even going to get into the issues behind what is "aggression", and what are normal levels in humans are. The whole normalisation of human activity is also a flawed measure.

[...] High Anger & High Aggression: Video Game Violence October 2, 2007 on 12:41 am | In Uncategorized | Yesterday GamePolitics.com just featured a research study I blogged about back in April. [...]

[...] Therefore, figure 1 is what needs to look at, but I haven’t been taught on how to read logistical regressions. so i’m just reading from the text. So controlling all these variables, they found that playing multiple video games influence kids concept of aggression as a normal thing and will see things in aggressive terms, so with an aggressive cognition, which would result in more aggressive behaviours. Unfortunately, I do know they have a significant effect, but how large is the effect? Well, i don’t know. Maybe it’s small like Patrick Markey said? [...]

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