There will have been lots of discussions on this, but anyway...

My Dad and I were talking about violence in movies and games and how they influence people yesterday, because i heard a news story about a two men who had killed a man by hacking him in the back with an axe and then burning his body. The lawyer later said that the video game Hitman was an influence. However, they had both said that they had fantasies about killing people.

This made me wonder whether its actually games and films that are influencing people as it apparently does to everyone to a massive degree, or whether people are already messed up to become so violent. Obviously, they affect everyone to a certain degree, but how much?

IMO, they have to be pretty messed up to begin with. If most people played Hitman, 99.9% (probably) wouldn' use their "new found skills on Hitman to kill people". For instance, i played the "truly horrific" game Manhunt 2 to its bloody, sadistic ending and i didn't exactly thing about killing people. Sure, its pretty damn violent and i shouldn't have played it at my age, but most critics seem to over-estimate how affected people will be by videogames.

For instance, take the film Hostel and compare it to something like GTA or whatever. Hostel would probably come out on top as being considerably more gory, sadistic etc, so therefore it should be banned right?

Wrong. Apparently, since we're controlling the character it makes it considerably worse. Hostel's plot involves sick killers who cut up tourists for fun, GTA has you killing people, but most of it is generally more cartoony than Hostel.

Hell, even 15 films have people being decapitated, mutilated and burnt to death in plain view (Watch Severance).

Anyway, to put a long winded, poorly expressed, repetitive and most probably biased view to an end, how much do you think games and movies affect people?

If 80% of teenagers play video games

and a teenager commits a violent crime

there is an 80% chance that that teenager played video games, thus inducing a mouth-frothing tirade by Jack Thompson, or whatever his name is.

NO!!! in no way will they have a serious effect on people unless they are fucked in the head already!!!

You're probably not gonna get any affirmatives from here, by the way.

Well then, I guess I'll make my inquisition ^_^

For starters, a person has to first me a little screwed in the head to even think of killing people for fun. That, coupled with mindless, gory, and greusome reinactions of it, COULD lead to the person doing it. But, to anwser your question, no, the person isn't caused to kill just because they play games that involve killing.

Now to go more in depth.


If said person had been screwed up already, they would first need to have thoughts of killing people for no reason, and feel good about it. Then, after that, they have to think of it at least for a while, and have it in their head occasionally. After that, if they still have thoughts of killing people for fun, then yes, they're screwed in the head.

Now we introduce videogames. Videogames have been prosecuted for years and years because people say they're too voilent, and they cause people to kill. I, myself, think that is complete bullshit. If a game showed killing, and it caused someone to want to kill, that doesn't nesecarally mean that said person would kill people. Now, if seeing it stimulated their sense to kill that was already present, then said person could think more indepth of it, and think of planning it out. Now, back on topic. Now, videogames, in themselves, are only simulations of desires, wants, and pure violence, occasionally. So, introduce it to a normal person, who is moderately intelligent, and doesn't have thoughts of killing people regularly, will most likely not be affected by videogames. But, if said person was homicidal and wanted to kill people, if you introduce simulations and ways of killing people greusomely, then said person could go above and beyond planning and thinking. So then, in that case, yes, it can cause people to kill.

But videogames in themselves, are harmless. It's people who are fucked up and do the killing. I mean, ahve you ever once seen a videogame take a gun and shoot someone? Stab someone? Beat someone? I rest my case.

Could the same principal, that video games themselves can't pick up a gun and shoot someone, be compared to gun control, I wonder?

Back on topic!

So yeah..... Jack Thompson.....

I've written a lot of short papers on media violence in my time as a student and I can say one thing.











Violence in video games and movies can absolutely never cause people to exhibit violent behavior. There are some very simple reasons for this...

1)Most media portrays antagonists to quickly resort to violence, and most protagonists to be reacting to the villian's violence. This creates moral dissonance that discourages violent behavior. Japan has used this practice for years to keep violence down.

2)There is no such thing as "monkey see, monkey do" behavior. Just because someone has viewed violent behavior doesn't mean they need to or wish to emulate it. Determination of behavior is far to complex to ever be derived from one single thing. Can someone be violent in more different ways from the wide exposure they get to video games, they sure can. However this never means that people are determined by this exposure to use violent means of behavior.

3)Exposure to less violent media doesn't decrease violent behavior. If violence in the media could make people more violent then the abscence of violence in the media should be able to make people less violent because they would need to emulate other means of behavior which are obviously not violent. It doesn't work this way, meaning there is no causal relationship between viewing media and behavior.

Uh huh..... so yeah..... what to talk about now....

i think its has some effect but not as much as people think... u gotta consider tht pretty much every country in the world has excess 2 violent movies n games but y do rates of violence differ in different countries... this means tht their is another factor tht has more of a critical impact on people minds....

ive seen stats tht show tht violent crime rates hve gone down since the existence of the GTA franchise... since GTA is the game tht most people target due to the amount of freedom to cause havoc...

People didn't start murdering when video games came out. It started when men were born and killing is part of the animal kingdom. Sad isn't it?