Freedomain Radio

Episode 115 (Video): Violent Video Games – What Does the Research Say? [www.thepsychfiles.com]

http://www.thepsychfiles.com/2010/01/episode-115-video-violent-video-games-what-does-the-research-say/

"Recent research on violent video games is pretty conclusive and you’re not going to like it..."

I just finished watching the video and it was fairly interesting although i was more interested in the questions that it arose in me rather than what the particular studies etc had to say.

And certainly the "Recent research on violent video games is pretty conclusive and you’re not going to like it..."  Quote is a bit misleading, it's not very conclusive at all, all he even drove to prove was that one study was done better than another . . .

One thought that occurred to me, is the "real life violence" that was a large factor in the first paper wasn't real life violence, it was a recorded TV show/movie of real life violence, high def- audio and video is all good, but can that really compete with seeing someone get raped in real life? or watching somebody get shot? smelling the blood/sweat, hearing someone 5 feet away from you scream in terror, hearing that bone crunch, feeling blood on your skin. Actually SEEing REAL blood etc?

Watching on TV, its very hard to tell what is scripted / hollywood magic violance and what is real. .  in real life, its a lot more serious and personal. I can't help but think that no amount of violent video games can prepare/dammpen the effects of REAL violance.

Interesting video.

I was a big martial arts and horror movies fan, but my tolerance of violence decreased dramatically when I found philosophy.

I still enjoy violent video games though.

It's not gone far enough methinks.  I say we make the sickest, most twisted and disgustingly violent games ever; "Federal Government 2010",  "IRS Agent: The Collector", "ATF", "Run For President", and "Politician Simulator"!

Excultist:

I never had much interest in First Person Shooters. I found those that wanted to play them whilst playing them became obnoxious. I however have a weakness for epic real time strategy and turn based strategy/real time tactics games. I love Age of Empires, Empire Earth, Rise of Nations, Empire: Total War, etc... I love the historicity and research and development and somehow makes my brain run smoothly (ie is therapuetic, like splitting wood or something like that).

Dude, check this out (I'm a huge RTS fan). This video is an older/alpha build (the rendering/engine has been improved/refined since). Supreme Commander 2 is out in March:

nathanm:

It's not gone far enough methinks.  I say we make the sickest, most twisted and disgustingly violent games ever; "Federal Government 2010",  "IRS Agent: The Collector", "ATF", "Run For President", and "Politician Simulator"!

I actually had an idea just like this a few years back and blogged about it. See the thing is, you can't really simulate any kind of realistic 'free market' within a game or by one (or even many) player/s alone. But you can have the player do central planning because it's essentially dumb, crude, violent and hyper-simplistic. Take Sim City for example. It's basically how a fascist state works, everything is centrally planned and has to go through some local/national authority (represented by 'you' or your ministers/minions in the game). Now, if someone just inverted this...

So, perhaps you'd start off with a city/system which builds itself happily, prospering by nature and evolves quite rapidly, and the idea is that you have to limit this growth, start propaganda/information wars, set-up taxation or central banks and cartels and eventually a full-scale government mafia. If you let the city/system grow for too long in a 'free society' mode however, it becomes more resistant to state/religious control, so you have to act fast, basically against simplified free market forces which the AI can model 'spontaneously' in a representative way. Also, it'd be an interesting balance between letting markets grow to fund parasitic state programs, and gaining more power.

Starcraft > *

I know the guy in the video discouraged using the "I played violent games and I turned out fine!" argument, but man is that ever the case.  I really think you would have to have a serious mental illness for a violent video game to be THE main factor in your decision to commit real world physical violence.  If our brains were not able to figure out what horrible, violent input our senses may be experiencing with actual threats to our safety, we would be in real trouble.  As long as you know something is not real you can start to have fun with it.  You may not be able to see ANY kind of simulated violence and be okay with it, but the door is open.  

When you see people in real life getting hurt, or you see people on screen getting hurt which you know to be real, it's a horrible feeling, not fun at all. There's movies and games which might churn my stomach with the most extreme fantasy violence, but nothing is more upsetting to me than seeing footage of cops beating people, tasering people...any kind of situation where you know real people are experiencing real trauma; that's a whole other level of disgust that no game could ever touch.  I don't think the study has no merit, but man, there are SO many other factors involved which affect how people relate to violence.

If you think about it, games are just about objects interacting.  It's about aiming.  Lines and points.  It's mathematic.  In a way all video games are just fancy versions of Pong with different paint.

nathanm:

It's not gone far enough methinks.  I say we make the sickest, most twisted and disgustingly violent games ever; "Federal Government 2010",  "IRS Agent: The Collector", "ATF", "Run For President", and "Politician Simulator"!

"Politician Simulator"??

You truly have a twisted mind!

It's a pretty nasty game.  You can also buy the "Politician STimulator" expansion pack and play as Monica Lewinsky.  Get some sex in with your violence too!

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/cv2.cfm

Interesting correlation in the graph.

I personally do not play games at all. There were few, that I liked, but I am not into that kind of thing. Though, I like violent/horror movies. I don't know if simulated violence (movies included) has bad effects on humans, but I believe it could have some "boost" of anger to a person who is psychotic already. To healthy human? I doubt it and I will only trust good scientific research.

But there is no doubt that in future games will become more and more realistic and more interactive (has anyone seen The Lawnmower Man for instance?), so then it could have more effect to undeveloped human brains (children).