I'm not making this thread to prove any sort of point; I legitimately want to hear what you guys think.
I always hear the argument that violent games with guns in them do not teach us to be murderers. They don't teach us to be evil, short tempered, or aggressive towards other people.
Yet at the same time I hear people say that games can be used to teach us the importance of friendship, to improve our social ability, and to teach us all sorts of wonderful things that help us become better people.
How is it that these two arguments can co-exist? How can games teach us to be better, but not to be worse?
There's also the recent topic of sexism in games. Are games sexist? Are they teaching us to be misogynistic? Do we have less respect for women because of the games we play?
So what is it? Do games affect us, or do they not? Are they mere expressions of art, or do they have an impact on our behavior (or both?). Or is there something else underneath all of these arguments that make some of them true and others not? (I.E. games don't make us aggressive but they can educate us positively or can reinforce our misogynistic ways. How does that work?).
