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Phendrana on 23 March 2008
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HappySqurriel said:
Legend11 said:
HappySqurriel said:

At the same time, I think there is some reason to be worried about the influence of violent videogames; in particular the influence of violent videogames on younger gamers. It is believed that a vividly imagined event can be as powerful as actually being part of that event, and this is used in several types of therapy (and sports psychology) in order to get results out of people. As videogames become more realistic (and potentially immersive) what kind of impact does performing violent acts really have on a person? I'm not saying these games should be banned, but I don't think it is wrong for people to question their impact.


You mean like movies are now? Movies like Hostel seem to be far more realistic than games out now and likely even for the foreseeable forture.


A movie is fairly brief in duration compared to a videogame though ...

I don't know if you remember the release of Soldier of Fortune for the PC several years ago. Even though (by today's standards) the graphics were cheezy, the game allowed for fully "deformable" human bodies. 5 years from now, hardware will be powerful enough to offer very realistic damage to people's bodies. If you take this to the ultimate sadistic level, and give people "rewards" in multiplayer depending on how violent they are, a teenager could virtually perform more ultra-violent acts in 1 week then the most violent people in histroy have performed in their lifetime.

What kind of impact does this have?

Once again, I'm not saying violent videogames should be banned, but I think people are right for being concerned.


None. It's been shown that while violent games may lead to a very short term increase in aggression, no long term effects have ever been proven to occur. Teenagers have no trouble distinguishing between real and fictional violence unless there's already something wrong with them. If they're already violent they'll obviously be drawn to more violent video games. This doesn't mean that the game caused it though.