You’ve stopped me from buying this, but I can’t say I was in any rush to grab it before I watched your review.

Concept = Respectable, Execution = Far from It

Frankly i think there should be more laws to deter parents from buying games with adult content for younger children, similar to the law on alcohol.

It’s unfair that an industry that generates a large amount of revenue for the country is crushed in the media over and over again.

Though much of the violence is graphic in the sense of illustrated, subliminal messages of “do what is necessary to destroy the enemy” are constantly being given and reinforced by the games, and this message is assimilated into many youngsters’ psyches. “What you experience, you learn. What you learn, you practice. What you practice, you become. What you become has consequences.”

It comes back to parental supervision. I’m sure if there was a means of determining if 4 year old Jonny was playing a 16+ game that Mum & Dad could get busted, fined and /or jailed, we’d see a lot less abuse of this nature, a lot less exposure of unsuitable material to young children.

Though in our society we like to blame external components a great deal, it comes back, in this case, to the integrity of the home which comes back to the integrity of the parents.

In the end of the day, this is a website for gamers, and few gamers are going to want to stick up for a media that is so anti-games.

Just a bit of quick Pop Psychology permeating this area from me; Social learning theory would argue that through vicarious reinforcement (watching the character massacre for money in GTA is a prime example) individuals learn to associate violent behaviour with pleasure, gratification or reward.
However, studies have shown that playing violent videogames only increases arousal, rather than specifically violence, and that violent behaviour ‘as a consequence of violent videogaming habits’ is usually preceded, as Jack said, by a predisposition or tendency to behave violently regardless of exposure to violent stimuli.

Also, you have to think about practical implications, ratings are there for a reason, and if they get circumvented, then the responsibility shifts to those that neglect them, rather than developers and publishers who (according to daily mail drones) seem to be pedalling title after title to turn children into psychopaths.

Anyway, better stop there, I could more than likely write a dissertation on this ‘debate’

C

Until actual evidence has been acquired, and I don’t mean speculation – actual evidence, there is no way to convince me that there is a direct link between the two aforementioend subjects.

Any person that plays a violent videogame and then thinks to themselves “Oh, I’m going to go and recreate that act in real life” (and actually goes on to do it) was inevitably going to find themselves in an equally violent, or perhaps more violent, situation at some point in their lives. So, at the very most violent videogames are just speeding up the inevitable.

Is that such a bad thing? It sucks if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, sure, but these people getting locked up sooner than later is no bad thing.