The Shrine

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.capwiz.com/now/issues/alert/ ... type=CU</a>

It was only a matter of time.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Game have been promoting these types of images, just as Hollywood has done in the past. And Hollywood got into trouble for that too.

We have always known that by showing the same stuff over and over again it desensitizes people to the event. That's clearly not a good influence. For those of who say it's parent or whoever's problem, that's just a stupid escape. Environment has always shaped people's behavior. Living in the slums is just not the same as living in typical suburbia. Like the Stanford jail experiment, if you put people in a bad environment they tend to get shaped by it even if they started out as good people.

Now, like one guy I saw before that summed this up very well, we know people do get desensitized and effected by environment, but we don't know how much, so it's not fair to put the blame on environment or anyone else. But then, the game companies are certainly not innocent. They're actively encouraging these kind of environment. We don't know how much they effect the people who play. I'm guessing not very much (and better not be), but it's certainly not a positive influence, either.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>Heh....Bugs Bunny cartoons had far more violent acts than GTA3. Guns, explosives, stabbings, beat downs, cliff drops, anvil drops, cross dressing....(Bugs looked hot in a dress!)</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>But this group clearly stated that "...in a movie or TV show, the view is detached from the on-screen action, in a video-game, they're the ones committing the violence". I don't agree it makes a difference in the end, but you really can't compare games to TV shows, it's different interaction</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>I like the descriptions they have about the prostitutes.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>Sorry...forgot to state my point. Back in the 80's, people were concerned about the violence on cartoons. I'm hearing the ~same~ argument today about games.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>And I'm not violent! =8^D</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>People who watched the Sept. 11th attacks unfold on CNN (like I did) didn't shrug off the horrific sight of those airplanes crashing into the WTC towers, even though most of us have seen equally (in a theoretical sense, at least) disturbing images in scores of films. No matter how horrible the apocalyptic events portrayed in television, games, books, etc are, they really have little to no bearing upon how we react to real-life tragedies, whether those on the scale of September 11th or just the every-day, garden variety events that affect millions of people's lives. With games, movies, and books, depending on how well the material is presented, there's generally very little personal connection or comprehension of just what is taking place, just a vague sense, like the abstract reaction most of us had to the impending apocalyptic doom scenario presented in the film Armageddon, the-oh-I-can't-believe-that-meteor-wiped-out-Hong-Kong-gee- that's-sorta-sad feeling. The only person I could conceive as having an intense reaction to that sort of thing would be someone who lost his entire family to a meteor shower.

About the only thing I'll grant in favor of the desensitization argument is that it's possible for an event to lose its meaning if the images pertaining to it are smashed in our face over and over and over again. You'll recall shortly after September 11th the controversy about the media replaying the images of the planes slamming into the WTC towers as "brackets" to every commercial break (one of the major networks even had the images looping repeatedly in the background as a backdrop for their newscasts). People rightly complained of the meaningless repetition of those images, and for the most part, the media stopped them. There was a legitimate complaint there, that seeing those images nonstop would eventually numb ourselves to them.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Besides, yeah, it desensitizes us... to violent video games. But to actual violence?

Like Zeus said, you can't compare cartoons and video games, it's an entirely differenct interface. But could not the same be said of real life and video games? Shooting a mass of polygons and shoving a gun barrel into an actual person's face is a very different type of interface with even less parallels between them than cartoons and video games.

As I said, wake up, we're violent, period. That's how we are. Of course, it is important that we don't go running around indulging in violent massacres, but there's a difference between curbing our nature and eliminating it outright. We're violent, each to varing degrees, but violent nonetheless... and we can't change that.

And considering the difference between a digital interface and real life, I'd think playing GTA3 to be fairly harmless, especially since the target demographic happens to be adults... you know, people who have their shit figured out enough to not be so easily influenced by a video game.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>If you want non-violance go live in San Angeles in Demolision man. :P</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Of course, lazy, uneducated parents needs some form of entertainment to bitch about. Games are the new whipping boy due to their unweilding popularity. The industry makes more than the movie industry (box-office only)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; padding: 0% 0% 0% 8%; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04 ... ">Click</a>

Reminds me of this</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Given that the only version I ever played of Maniac Mansion was the NES one, I now feel pretty damn gipped.</div>