After listening to today's discussion over video games I realized just how out of touch I was. I grew up playing video games with my brother and we had the old Nintendo and I remember my favorite game being Duck Hunt with the big orange gun. After we got a little older we both stopped playing video games and I guess I haven't really caught up with the times.
I'm in shock at how real the characters look. They have created characters that look so close to being human. I can't say that the way women or men are portrayed in these games are realistic at all. I'm sure any halfway intelligent person could figure out that most people don't look like the characters that are on the screen. However, there are people who try to immitate and look like what they see in the games. Girls will try to have the unattainable perfect body and guys will hit the gym lifting weights to look like their favorite character.
I think that's why the video clip of "How to Kill a Prostitute" bothered me so much. The whole game seemed way to real and really disturbed me. Maybe I'm just green to the new technology but I don't understand how it could be fun for somebody to chase a helpless woman down in a game and kill her in such a realistic manner.
I heard someone in class mention that they enjoy Grand Theft Auto but don't take it to that extreme. I think it's fine to play the game but what were the game makers thinking when they created these features? Clearly if they are making it there is a audience for it. What scares me even more than people actually wanting to live in this virtual world of violence is the parents that buy it for their young kids. I would almost bet that a large percentage of parents that buy these games have no clue what the content is.
I think for the most part sane people understand that what they are playing is fictional so I don't know that I agree that video games lead to violence all the time. I know plenty of people who play them on a regular basis and are completely normal. I'm sure there are the few isolated cases where the person can't figure out what reality is. If video games have advanced in violence from Super Mario Brothers to Grand Theft Auto it scares me to think of what the future holds for gaming.
yeah I have a feeling that parents are out of touch with exactly is going on in video games also. My dad was "blown away" by how real the sports games I play look. he said "I bought the original atari, and my sports game consisted of X's and O's to represent the players, now it's almost like you're there." I don't really know how to curb the possible effect of video games on kids. When I was a kid, and I have been playing video games for a really really long time, I would save every penny I had to buy the next big game. My brother followed suit, and my mom and dad kind of turned a blind eye to all the games I bought, being they were only 50 dollars tops I would use birthday and christmas money to get what I wanted, after buying so many my parents stopped caring about what they were about...so I don't know how to really sway this trend. I own the Grand Theft Auto game in question, my favorite thing to do is to intentionally get my "Wanted level" up and have the cops chase me. That in it self is still pretty bad. Considering how it permeates that the police are the bad guys.
ReplyDeleteWhat does Grand Theft Auto teach impressionable young people exactly? How to steal a car, use it to pick a prostitute, take her to a secluded area and perform a sex act in the car, pay her for her services, then chase her down with a baseball bat, kill her, take your money back and burn her to conceal the evidence?
ReplyDeleteGrisly stuff I must add. And, oh, the real thrill of the game, I was told is when your ‘wanted’ level is up and the cops come chasing after you and you perfect the art of evading law enforcement officers!
I watch a lot of these so-called reality shows on TV and my favorites are Crime 360 and The First 48. Both these shows are about homicide detectives and the cases they work. I am an addict to these shows and since I have been here, have lost count of episodes that seem taken straight out of Grand Theft Auto. The saddening, rather maddening, reality is that most of the suspects and eventual convicts of these homicides are young men. One I saw was a mere 17-year-old who had killed a prostitute he picked in a stolen car from a drug house!
The connection might not be easily proven between the games and how these young criminals behave, but like you all say, the characters are becoming so real in these games and that leaves I would presume an indelible mark on some young people.
As in all capitalist economies, the companies that make these video games will not stop for as long as there is a market for them—and surely the market will always be there. These companies are not driven by morals, but by profits so if anything, the games will even be more ghastly. Parents cannot always monitor what their kids are watching or playing and these kids, if they really want it, will find a way to get the most repugnant of these games.
I say, brace yourself for more violence America! Crime 360 and The First 48 will not run out of material anytime soon.
So where do the video games end and reality begin? Unfortunately, as Idris has pointed out, after a real world violent act has already been committed. Studies have not proven a link between violent video games and violent behavior, but as I mentioned before, the constant exposure to the same violent images, racial stereotypes, gentrification, and homosexual intolerance creates a general acceptance that should not be tolerated.
ReplyDeleteI would like to tell you when I talked to soldiers who had been in firefights with insurgents, with bombs exploding and body parts flying, that they were shocked by what they saw. But more often than not, these young soldiers compared their experiences to being in a video game, except for the smell. Fortunately, video games makers have not figured out how to create the smell of combat. If they did, it might actually lessen the popularity of these types of games.
Sure, these soldiers are likely to be traumatized by their experiences, like Walt in Grand Torino, but it makes you think. If they can be numbed to the realities of combat by the videogames they play, what other parts of the videogame are they numb to? Are the numb to the objectification of women, the stereotypes of different racial groups, and the intolerance of homosexuality that is also portrayed in games like Grant Theft Auto? I would venture to say, probably.
Are these observations going to change how videogames are developed? Probably not. I am seeing some change in market preference with Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and the sports games on the WII. Perhaps there will be some positive alternatives when I become a parent.
(See how realistic the Army thinks video games are http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20109659/ )
Stepping out of individual boxes?
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