An unbelievable editorial published this week joins in on resurrecting long-discredited claims that violent videogames can train you as an effective killer.
And when your only “documented” proof is the direct claim of a bonkers gunman himself… it makes me think you’re a massive fool.
I’ve played eight Fire Emblem games, therefore I must be a Grade A military tactician that can best even the greatest of powers despite not even being in my 20’s yet.
“Violence is fine in movies, Tv, and books, but video games ARE MURDER MAKERS!”
I guess if they’re trying to ban shooters then they might as well ban fighting games like Tekken and Street Fighter as well, cos y’know, those games provide a virtual training ground for throwing hadokens which is just unacceptable really.
Dont come to school tomorrow fellas, i packed my DIAMOND SWORD and BOW and ARROW!
You know what turns people into mass murderers? $60 games that only provide you with 40% of the content, pre-order bonuses, season passes that contain the other 40% of game, DLC with the remaining 20%, microtransactions, loot boxes, shameless plugs…
There was a research article done by Eurogamer a few years ago, documenting the relationship between gun manufacturers and modern military shooter publishers. It’s not as innocent as you might think and although I disagree with that this CNN guy is saying, there’s an argument to be made that MMS type games deliberately contribute to perpetuating gun culture.
The Eurogamer article in question is called “Shooters: How Video Games Fund Arms Manufacturers.” Worth a read
Here’s the thing though which really warps this discussion. I’ve known a lot of people with combat training, people from the military, from law enforcement, even people in military law enforcement. I’ve met Russian gangsters, I once interviewed a guy who had connections with the Hezbollah in Lebanon. I’ve known plenty of people who did for a fact know how to kill others.
And they didn’t. They didn’t kill me, or anyone else, they were just people. When these politicians and media people create a society so warped and self-destructive, so that merely the *knowledge* of how to do harm is a threat to everyone, then it stops being about video games, or gun control, or the ever so prejudiced ”mental health” discussion (protip: Neurotypicals do bad things too, mentally ill people aren’t just some moral scrap heap to pass the buck to all the time).
Point is, at this stage you probably need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. How, perhaps, there’s no small solutions. How we have a society that utterly and completely alienates us from our human needs, and how fucked that is. I don’t think it’s just one singular cause or factor that drives dozens of people to do this shit. We see the same thing happen in other societies with huge poverty, social inequality, lack of democratic representation, you name it. Russia was like that during the late stage Tsarist years before the October revolution. A time in which incredibly ruthless and tyrannical doctrine controlled people. Where Jews were killed in pogroms, and even the Russian police and military would participate. They lived in a reality of bigotry, and violence, and religious extremism, but their papers praised society, their schools said they lived in the best country in the world, the town criers constantly warned about the plotting Jew, while the royal family and the politicians were the only ones doing the plotting. People lived in constant contradiction, much like we do today. One thing a lot of spree killers do have in common, and serial killers too for that matter, is that when they’re asked why they did it, they really have no good answer. Because when life is utterly futile and hopeless and meaningless, then to some people the question isn’t ”Why kill all these people?”, instead, bitterness and cynicism drives one to ask oneself ”Why not?”
I doubt this shit is going anywhere until we begin to examine that reality and actually making life better for regular people, rather than just gradually ruining our lives for the sake of rich men and politicians. Misery and oppression is generally what drives people to act out, not that it justifies it, it’s just a common causality.
There was a time when video games, television, radio and rock-n-roll didn’t exist.
If history’s any indication, humanity was a lot MORE violent back then.
Did the 9/11 attackers ever use MS Flight Sim? If so, time for the ban hammer on flight sims!
“Grow up, you exceptionally tall infant!” has got to be one of the funniest, most ingenious burns I’ve ever heard. Thank you, Jim. Thank you so much. You now owe me new sides, because my old ones split.
As to the topic at hand – it’s disingenuous Jack Thompson nonsense. It’s a nontroversy, being dug out of its shallow grave to try and distract from an actual controversy – school shootings and gun regulation – by making lots of loud noise. “LALALALA! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!”
If the bad guys are playing these games we need to make sure the good guys are playing these games. A good guy gamer will always beat a bad guy gamer. We need more gaming in the schools and public places. Make our teachers gamers, make our police and public servents gamers. Basically more games will always be the answer. The bad guys will always find a way to game, we have to game harder than them so we’re ready. We need an eSport champion at every school gate.
You know? We had some really weird incident in my town once. It happened one week after GTA V’s release. A bunch of kids from our towns school (all around 12-14) got the idea to rob a bank that was literally next to their school. Later I was told from a friend of mine (his daughter went to this school) that these kids were talking for days about GTA and how fun it was to rob banks in this game.
I actually believe that they may have gotten the idea to try robbing a bank from this game. But this means nothing, some people are more easy influenced than others and they shouldn’t even have gotten the game in the first place. Oh, they haven’t been succesfull by the way. They went in there, with a toy gun, the staff called the police and.. well.. then they cried a lot.. :p Such things can happen, but I think this kind of stuff is kinda rare. And trying to rob a bank with a toy gun (softair) is still different from mass murdering people. You have to hate these people to be able to kill them. If you hate them, then you must have some sort of history with them or the place you chose for your shooting spree.
You don’t kill because of videogames. You don’t even learn how to kill from them. Otherwise I should be an expert driver, citybuilder, general, pilot and an expert in many other things as well. But I am probably pretty bad in most of these things in real life.. weird, isn’t it?
Wow. So typical CNN. Fake news
Well said Jim, I see more violence on the news! And this guy obviously has never played Arktika.1 becuase that VR game has curved bullets, and guess what, they still kill the demonic creatures!
“Irrelevant old man who has never touched a game nor viewed any existing research detailing a lack of supporting evidence between games and violent behavior makes erroneous and wild accusations out of fear and ignorance in an attempt to divert discussion away from other politically charged topics on an equally irrelevant company’s unread website.” That article name is too long. How about “Dumb old fuck vomits lies.”
2006 Jim ?..?… I’d wind back another few years. People have been blaming video games for one reason or another for years. Sick of it
Health = -7
They don’t want to upset the nra whats so ever dispite the fact that they are constantly blaiming them for this shooting.