Do videogames make you want to steal cars? (games/violence)

[leroybrown]

Time for another angry face:
"Grand Theft Auto, it's time to ban it" - literally as I typed the above paragraph, yet another talkshow host is making himself sound like an ignorant halfwit (what is it with this subject that makes fairly reasonable people degenerate into reactionary tabloid-isms??).

The day O'reilly rants on this is the day i go postal.

[The Dog Whisperer]

Grand Theft Auto games being banned is nothing new Guy. I think 3 was banned when it came out in Australia because it didn't go through the proper rating system to be released.

No one was letting the argument get heated King, just pointing out facts that are either in agreement with or contradictory to a point in someone else's post, just like every other thread on this forum. So we can't really be "copying" Dogmantra, some people will agreewith you, but only because they believe that too. As for me, I wasn't 100% agreeing with Tourist, just one point of his post, and then kinda built up on it...

Drop the dagger, change the wings and add a motto, and you'd be right there. But no, it's the Rainbow 6 ELITE badge.

I thought this was an SAS symbol? And it has a dagger...

I think I've already posted my view on this thing. So I won't repeat.

[The Most Unholy]

Yes by dropping the dagger, it can be interpreted by raising the wings up.

[Vesna]

Funny... I was listening to Eminem's "Who Knew" while reading this.

[apploud]

[ King; no one was argueing, and it never got heated. there are simply differences of opinion, but we all more or less have the same concerns. ]

I'd agree with Dogmantra's summation mosty, and I think everyone's seeing different aspects of the problem. But if there's one moderately valuable thing - or at least an observation - that's come from the various responses, is that practically none of these nuances are being acknowledged in the half-arsed debate going on in the mainstream.

Time for another angry face:
"Grand Theft Auto, it's time to ban it" - literally as I typed the above paragraph, yet another talkshow host is making himself sound like an ignorant halfwit (what is it with this subject that makes fairly reasonable people degenerate into reactionary tabloid-isms??).

The game's come up again thanks to the apparent fact that it's been banned in Thailand, after a supposed copycat killing of a taxi driver.

Grand Theft Auto IV is pulled from Thai shops after killing of taxi driver

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent [The Independent]
Tuesday, 5 August 2008

One of Thailand's top video games distributors is pulling Grand Theft Auto IV off the shelves after a teenager allegedly robbed and stabbed to death a Bangkok taxi driver in an apparent attempt to recreate a scene from the controversial video game.

Thai police said Polwat Chinno, 18, told them that he was angry his parents could not afford to buy him a copy of the game. "He said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game," said a Bangkok police spokesman, Captain Veerarit Pipatanasak. Mr Polwat was arrested on Saturday night as he tried to steer the taxi backwards down a street with the fatally wounded driver in the back seat. The student allegedly told police he had not intended to kill the cabbie and only wanted to rob him but the driver had fought back with a metal bar. The student, described by his parents as polite and diligent, was said to have stabbed the driver 10 times.

Sakchai Chotikachinda, a spokesman for New Era Interactive Media, said the company was halting sales and recalling Grand Theft Auto IV from its outlets following the crime. The game allows the player to take the role of a criminal, tasked with various missions such as murder and robbery.

A senior official at the Thai Culture Ministry said the murder was a wake-up call for authorities to address the issues of violent video games. The ministry has been calling for tighter restrictions on the sale of the games and the establishment of a rating system. "This time-bomb has already exploded and the situation could get worse," Ladda Thangsupachai, director of the ministry's cultural surveillance centre, told Reuters.

The driver's son, Manon Pohkang, said his father was the family's bread-winner and that he was trying to repay several loans. He added: "He was a nice man, who harmed no one."

Mr Polwat faces the death penalty if convicted of the driver's murder.

[edit: Guy 2 - yes, I quoted the same story. But I did it after you, because the site's temporarily been 'broke' for me, as in pages not loading or giving up before they do. so this post took an absolute age to actually submit successfully, so i didn't see your link ]

That kid was trying to get himself out of trouble by blaming a video game. Hes just some retard.

[Jeff]

How much trouble do you think he is in, when a whole Country is blaming him for having a Video Game Pulled off of the shelves???

He's not in America, he can't hire O.J.'s legal team. He's still going to jail, and facing the Death Penalty. Which would probably be better than being known as the person who caused the Game to be Pulled off of the Shelves.

[leroybrown]

The problem there was he wanted to see if it really was as easy as it is in the game.

Call me a softy but i dont care how easy it is, i still wouldnt rob anyone.

So you see the game didnt effect his morals. I guess if anything it showed his low life cowardly traits. It was only a matter of time till he saw "Gone In Sixty Seconds" or something similar.

[Farson]

I've always felt that someone who would kill someone in the same way you can in GTA is wrong in the head anyway, the games simply give them a senario to follow. They would have done something just as bad anyway. Blaming games diverts attention from the real problems these people obviously have.

[Rassilon42]

I personally think everyone should make a gaint protest to ban those people who say video games as a problem

[The Dog Whisperer]

Ban them from what? Speaking?
You can't do that, there's such a thing as 'Freedom of Speech'.
They're allowed to have their own opinion, and express it.

[Vesna]

I personally think everyone should make a gaint protest to ban those people who say video games as a problem

*Raises her hand*

I say video games are a problem if you play more than 2 hours a day average.

[The Dog Whisperer]

I don't think games are the kind of thing you can base off of averages...
Because one day I may not play at all, and then the next play 6 hours, and then the next none again.
Which makes my average 2 hours a day.

And I also think that's a little strict, I'd guess the "average" time played by most gamers is more than that, and most of them are perfectly normal.
At least... I think I am.

[The Raven]

Uhmm..There's only really one game that has changed me, and that is Assassins Creed.

It's visible when i try to assassinate my friends with a Wristblade(I dont have one, i just pretend i assassinate them with one).

[leroybrown]

I say video games are a problem if you play more than 2 hours a day average.

While i agree that kids (especially in the US) should spend more time outside i doubt that games will ever be reduced to a couple hours a day. I wouldnt really call it a problem so much as a concern.

I understand reading or something is better than sitting behind the computer for hours upon hours i still think there should be some form of physical activity.

Luckily my parents made me do chores to get money to buy games when i was a kid. I was too lazy, so i played sand lot football, joined martial arts etc.

[Dogmantra]

I understand reading or something is better than sitting behind the computer for hours upon hours i still think there should be some form of physical activity

But if it's morrowind, it's both! There's lots of reading involved too.

[leroybrown]

Ill admit i havent read any of those "books" in morrowind and ive read very few of them in oblivion. However im willing to bet that they are a far cry from the average book in, well, real life.

I cant speak for vesna, but i was stressing the physical activity more than the reading. Still, in my opinion, i wouldnt count "in game books" as reading. Again, thats just me.

EDIT: Its not just all about reading and physical activity either. Getting out and being social is (again in my opinion) far better than countless hours behind the computer screen.

[Dogmantra]

That was a semi-joke about how much dialogue everyone has...

And I do (sort of) agree with you... I mean, I spend most of my time behind a 'puter screen, and I've not been harmed in any way.

[Guy No. 2]

Because Dogs are People Too!

.....and I've not been harmed in any way.

Whoever said that the books in Ob arent of the same standard (well thats what I understood from it) of books IRL musnt have read many IMO.

EDIT: Duh they said as much

I found books very.........different granted, but they were still very much like Shakespeare a bit IMHO. By that I mean the prose the books are written in and the themes of Good and Evil reminded me very much of Shakespeare. There are even some books written entirely in the form of a poem or song and others written in very old English aswell as another containing very complicated English (see Arcana Restored and Liminal Bridges for example).
Though I do agree with Leroy's point about Social interaction being more important than countless hours behind the computer screen. But again it comes down to parents to set restrictions on how many hours a day their children can play games in relation to physical activity and games.

[Vesna]

...And I do (sort of) agree with you... I mean, I spend most of my time behind a 'puter screen, and I've not been harmed in any way.

I think I have. I suffer from antisocialness. I've been away from people my age for so long, I've got no idea how to communicate with them in person.

Now the internet, where you can get a new identity if you become generally hated, it ain't a problem.

[Doctor Meaticus]

This poll should be screened in public. Every voter is obviously a gamer, so here we have some cast iron evidence that video games are NOT inspiring people to do... bad crap. Apart from the five that voted for any option other than the last one. And even then I'm pretty sure they were just messing around.

[Dark Lord Cam]

i am a little anti social too.................though its not because of games its mostly because i dont have anything in common with people around me. they play sports i dont. they read magazines i read a 657 paged book in two days................no joke................and then some how i find a way to draw and play games and write on these forums. games dont affect me........books do however............a teacher once said i read too much and that it was interfering with my school work..............i m like ........no joke..it really happened...i still dont really understand it.

[Dogmantra]

i read a 657 paged book in two days................no joke................

It took you two days to read a 657 paged book? that's ages...

Someone did once say "You need to stop playing Morrowind" to me, but that was because of a deliberate joke about my Personality going above 70.

[leroybrown]

You two are crazy. 657 pages would take me forever. Im a very slow reader though. Im reading a book right now on american history and im doing a chapter a night which is about 40-60 pages. I wish i could read faster. I also have the attention span of a [&@%!] which dosnt help.

[The Dog Whisperer]

If I read that fast I'd get bored. I'd have nothing to read seeing as I read every night...
I'm like leroy, a chapter a night, although if it's near the end of the book, leading up to a climax, I can't help reading the last 2 or 3 chapters.

Err... I think I'll steal something I seen Guy do before...

/off-topicness

[Dark Lord Cam]

i read a 657 paged book in two days................no joke................

It took you two days to read a 657 paged book? that's ages...

Someone did once say "You need to stop playing Morrowind" to me, but that was because of a deliberate joke about my Personality going above 70.

oh come on now......i had school i couldnt read every hour.....if in had the time it would have been one day maybe less.