IgorBird122 : The media has blamed violence on everything in its own turn. 30 years ago it was television and before that it was rock and roll. Before rock and roll it was sensational news articles and before that it was novels. There will always be something new that people don't understand and the unknown is an easy scapegoat for things that go wrong. That was not what this discussion was about.

The TC said that games are excessively violent for no reason. It is violence just for the sake of violence. It is gratuitous in every meaning of the word. Look at the Gears of War series or Mortal Kombat, I understand that you want to portray that these are serious and violent games, but is there no better way to portray violence without excessive amounts of blood and gore? Games like this use so much gore that it is almost comical, and it would be if they weren't portraying death.

Enough about gore, lets talk just outright violence of a higher magnitude. In Grand Theft Auto 5 there is a mission where you torture and murder a man who is tied to a chair. It is one thing to kill a man in the heat of battle, it is quite another to do so in a cold, cruel, methodical manner. This is different than watching a torture scene in a movie or reading it in a book because in a game format you actively participate in the murder whereas you are inherently separated from the act in other mediums.

If you say that games are no different than film or novels I can't agree with you because games like Flower or The Unfinished Swan only work because they are games. They would be hard pressed to tell the same stories or show the world from the perspectives they do in any other format because games put you into the position of an explorer rather than an observer that is inherently built into other mediums.

I am rather tired as I'm writing this if I'm not clear let me know and I'll clarify anything I can.

tiropat : I do have to agree with you, before video games, the media blames the deaths on movies, TV shows, and music (mostly Rock), and like you said, before that, it was novels. So in the harsh reality, the media wants to focus on a secondary source that has nothing to do with the killing. Because like I said, we don't know what the killer was playing, watching, listening, or reading before we went and goes on a killing spree.
Like you mention about the GTA V torture scene, a lot of "media" people didn't like a bit, and if you look at it, prior to this, we seen a lot of movies and TV shows that shows like the same thing and they got the same reaction.

Until we all are 100% sure, the media shouldn't be pointing the fingers at these things, they need to do a whole lot more research with their stories. Not all video games, movies, TV shows, music, and novels are bad

I noticed that in the original post, it says "there is a line". If I may ask, what is this line? What is the point at which violence is no longer necessary? Better yet, who has the right to decide what this point is? You can't legislate morality. Who is this hurting? Fake violence does not cause real violence. What's wrong with fake blood and killing in a video game?

Also, the original post makes the assumption that children who play violent video games will become more violent. There is no reason to believe this is true. You also bring up the number of shootings despite the fact that there are less violent crimes now than there have been any other time in the past hundred years.

FaithFighter : Riight...crossing a line...
What is this lone you speak of? I love watching guts and gore fly while playing MW3 or any other COD game. I don't want to actually kill PEOPLE though(unless we're talking about a certain few politicians in a certain few countries...)
And while children might like to copy what they see, they have enough common sense to not try to go web-slingin' after playing a Spider Man game, or to try to cut people after playing Wolverine, so why would they do that? Anyone who plays a first-person shooter understands "Hey, I'm not supposed to do this."
I grew up played Call of Duty, I don't want to go and shoot up the Germans or Russians. I won't say that Inlike the countries, but I won't say that I want to blow them off the map.
With no intent of insulting anyone, I just think you're overreacting.

This exact argument was used against the content in R rated movies, those late night TV shows, and the lyrics of that darn rock and roll music.

With every new medium, somehow people make it about the safety of the children.

It's the same with R rated movies and late night TV shows. There are already precautions in place so that children do not get their hands on these things. Kids are normally asleep by the time these shows come on, they won't get into an R rated movie, they won't be able to rent or buy an R rated movie, and they need to present ID before most stores even allow them to take M rated games out of the glass cases.

Video games are not exclusively made for children.

You could say that they were in the 1980s, but, like most medium, it has grown up with its audience.

People calling game consoles 'toys' are simply mislabeling them as if we still live in times 30 years ago.

You don't want your kids accessing M rated games? Then don't buy them M rated games. Just like how your parents didn't let you buy R rated movies until you were a certain age.

That's not even getting to the topic of causing violence, multiple scientific studies from the last few years have proven that there's no correlation between video games and violence.

People like the Columbine shooters or Adam Lanza playing Doom and Call of Duty has nothing to do with their actions. They were messed up enough to think of that stuff in the first place, and they would have done it no matter if their games, movies, and rock'n'roll were taken from them.

Games are too violent? Watch Rocky or that scene from Indiana Jones where the Nazi's face melts off. You don't see people on the news crying and in utter shock, you see them raving over it and praising the performances of people that can do a good death scene.

Games are still a new medium, and though they're the biggest medium on Earth, actually surpassing movies in total worth, people that play them are still shunned by society and called gross gamers or baby killers or woman haters. I know I've been called all of those things just because I play games.

People are always going to look for the scapegoat, they always want something to blame. This is just that new thing that they can pick on and scare people into thinking is evil.

Don't believe that statement? Watch the "Intimidation Game" episode of Law and Order SVU to see what people think gamers do.

Gaming never hurt anything but people's wallets and people's faces seeing the wrong end of a WiiMote, and it won't ever cause harm.

Have to disagree, there is no line for something like this.
Violence in video games has no negative effect, or very little.
When you try to limit something like video games, which is one of the things that should have no limits, such as books and movies, since it's Fantasy, you're limiting the entire creative process. It's not like every video game has intense violence, and even if they did, would there be any harm in it? Course not, it's video games.

And like Alex said, if you are worried about the children playing games like these, well, games like these are usually rated Mature, which kids shouldn't even play in the first game, and it's more of a fault in the parents fault for buying their kids a game that's rated Mature. (As in, it's going to have adult, mature themes.)

It's like blaming rap music when a kid hears a song that has explicit lyrics, since any songs with explicit lyrics have a warning for a reason.

Brain-Splattered : Good point. Love your arguements. Well said. But still, I'm not going to say I'll be running out to play call of duty. Just not my thing, but it is for some, and I guess as long as you keep things in perspective that there is nothing wrong with that.

I honestly don't see a problem with violence in video games. The media just lies to us and makes everyone think the violence in video games is what causes all these bad things to happen in real life. It's barbaric. I think game developers make these violent games for us, to let out our anger on, instead of actually hurting people like that.