The U.S supreme court is going to decide soon on Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association. In California it's illegal to sell a minor a violent video game. If you're curious what the bill defines a violent video game as one that one that allows âkilling, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being.â
In my opinion the law is complete bogus. The Bible contains large amounts of sex and violence but banning selling it to minors would create an uproar. We shouldn't treat video games differently.
The main problem I have with this is that official studies fail to confirm a positive correlation between increased violent activities and video gaming.
In fact, it has only produced a NEGATIVE correlation so far, meaning the direct opposite--video gaming has produced less amounts of violence! I will cite this later on in the day.
what about that kid that killed his dad because he wouldnt let him play halo
Im sure there are people who have killed for many reasons. This is not the same as killing because of the violence you see in a game and thinking "hey, master chief kills people, so why shouldnt I?"
Firstly there is no decisive connection between video game utilization and hostile activity. Secondly such laws are plain hypocritical when there is so much violence in the TV, ergo if they hate so much the depiction of killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting they should do something in general against it. Not just making hollow laws which can be easily circumvented.
Yeah, I read about this. I also saw an interesting study which indicates that youth violence has actually decreased as video game sales have increased.
So they plan on banning kids from buying almost everything rated Mature and a number of games rated Teen. Right... there's a thing called parents. This law is pointless.
Well at least you guys get some sort of violent video games, In our fall out 3 we couldnt kill kids! It makes sense that violence would go down as kids would take aggression out on there video games also they would also use them to de-stress like me.
I agree with Benthebozer, and to add to that: when do you play video games??? when you're bored right? well it's just giving 'dem younguns' better things to do than drugs, violence n ( i'm scared to say) alchohol. I mean, which do you think a parent would have their child do, the parent pays 50-60 bucks so they can play a game at home safely or be out doing god knows what???
Walt: "All of these violent video games are to blame for all of this violence!" Jeremy: "Right! It's also the fault of all those car companies for the hundreds of thousands of deaths per year because of car crashes!" Walt: "Righ.....wait" Connie: "Touche"
My point is that if you want to blame violent video games for violence, you might as well blame every other thing in the world that was "caused" deaths. Have guns killed people? Yes. Are they banned/regulated? Absolutely. Has water killed people? Rope? Gummy Bears? Yes yes and yes. Are we going to ban them? No no and (hopefully) no
but back to the topic: studies have shown that kids who play video games are often better in math, physics etc. than kids who don't play video games. And there is NO evidence that video games make people aggressive or violent (even if I'm sometimes aggressive if I play video games). Instead of finding real solutions to stop violence, politicians are looking for scapegoats like video games or music etc.
If anyone wants to get a glimpse at some of my violent tendencies go check out the crusade on bullying thread. I found violent video games to be a great release of those feelings after school. without that It could have ended up being someone who it got taken out on rather then in a fake simulated environment.
