Friday, 9 May 2008
killing monsters
Friday, 18 April 2008
Email to rockstar games
Friday, 14 March 2008
History of effects of violent games
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
Email to Rockstar Games
I am currently studying the effect of violent video games on children as part of my A2 media studies course. I am researching into the different views within this subject and thought that as you are a successful creator of such games you would be able to answer a few quick questions for me.
Argument 1.
Do you believe that your video games such as your Manhunt product could affect children in a negative way, such as provoking aggression and violent behaviour?
Argument 2.
Do you believe that your products such as Manhunt and Grand Theft could be used as a way of
bonding and their audiences can learn skills such as problem-solving abilities, perseverance, memory, quick thinking, and reasoned judgments? If so why?
General questions
Why do you create such games which involve violence?
Have you had many (any) complaints about the content of your video games?
Are you concerned about the fact that children have access to these games in their households?
Thank you for your time,
Helene WrightThe Independent
Wednesday, 8 January 2003
On http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/lethal-recreations-how-violent-computer-games-can-affect-the-teenage-brain-612799.html April 1999 two American teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and shot 13 people dead, leaving another 23 wounded. Three years later, a German teenager, Robert Steinhaueser, murdered 16 people as he walked through Gutenberg school in Erfurt brandishing a pump-action shotgun.
On 20 April 1999 two American teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and shot 13 people dead, leaving another 23 wounded. Three years later, a German teenager, Robert Steinhaueser, murdered 16 people as he walked through Gutenberg school in Erfurt brandishing a pump-action shotgun.
Both incidents have been linked to violent video games. Harris and Klebold enjoyed playing a game called Doom, which is licensed to the US military to train soldiers in lethal combat. Steinhaueser is reported to have spent hours playing some of the most brutal computer games money can buy. "It may be that these helped him to lose his grip on reality," said a former schoolmate.
What really drove these young men to such extreme acts of violence will never be fully explained – all three ended their shooting sprees by turning their guns on themselves. But could violent videos have played a role in fomenting the type of aggression that can, at least in some people, lead to real violence against others?
Harris is known to have made a customised version of Doom with two gunmen carrying extra weapons and unlimited ammunition to shoot at unarmed victims who cannot fight back. For a class project Harris and Klebold had made a videotape that was similar to their customised version of Doom. In the tape, they are seen dressed in trench coats, they carry guns and they shoot school athletes. One investigator said that when Harris and Klebold shot people for real, they were "playing out their game in God mode".
Studies into the effects of violent video games, and before them research into the effects of violent films and television, have never been unequivocally clear-cut. For every Harris and Klebold there are thousands of other boys who have been fed a diet of violent videos from a very early age without showing any pathological tendencies.
Doug Lowenstein, president of the International Digital Software Association, is an outspoken critic of those who suggest a link between violent computer games and real-life aggressiveness. "I think the issue has been vastly overblown and overstated, often by politicians and others who don't fully understand, frankly, this industry. There is absolutely no evidence, none, that playing a violent video game leads to aggressive behaviour," he said.
In recent years, though, a number of studies have begun to show that violent video games might indeed increase the risk of some young men committing real acts of aggression. A few researchers have gone as far as to suggest that the evidence could be used as the basis for legal controls on the sort of computer games that can be sold.
"The active nature of the learning environment of the video game suggests that this medium is potentially more dangerous than the more heavily investigated TV and movie media," says Craig Anderson of the University of Missouri-Columbia and Karen Dill of Iowa State University in a study published last year. "With the recent trend toward greater realism and more graphic violence in video games, consumers and parents of consumers should be aware of these potential risks," they say.
Games such as The Getaway and Grand Theft Auto, involving high-speed car chases, have become bestsellers in Britain in recent months.
The research by Anderson and Dill used games such as Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and Mortal Kombat on two sets of college students. "One study reveals that young men who are habitually aggressive may be especially vulnerable to the aggression-enhancing effects of repeated exposure to violent games," the researchers say.
"The other study reveals that even a brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behaviour in all types of participants," they say.
The first study involved 227 students who were interviewed about their general attitudes to aggression and any past involvement in violent behaviour. Those who played more violent video games in the past were also more likely to be aggressive.
During the second study, involving 210 students who played either a violent video game or a non-violent game, the researchers investigated the likelihood that the players would "punish" an opponent with a noisy blast of varying intensity. Those who had just finished the violent game were more likely to be more aggressive in their punishment.
"In the short run, playing a violent video game appears to affect aggression by priming aggressive thoughts. Longer-term effects are likely to be longer lasting as well, as the player learns and practises new aggression-related scripts that can become more and more accessible for use when real-life conflict situations arise," say Anderson and Dill.
Other studies have suggested that violent video games might affect some children more than others. One study, for instance, has shown that the brains of youths with disruptive behaviour disorders react differently to violent scenes than normal youngsters.
Brain scans of disruptive adolescents have revealed that the part behind the forehead controlling inhibitions is less active than that of their peers when viewing a violent video. "Scans show less brain activity in the frontal lobe while the youths with disruptive behaviour disorders watch violent video games," said Vincent Mathews of Indiana University, who led the investigation.
The researchers also found that among sub-groups of the non-aggressive adolescents, there were differences in brain function dependent upon the amount of violent media exposure that they reported experiencing on television and in violent video games during the past year.
"There appears to be a difference in the way the brain responds, depending on the amount of past violent media exposure through video games, movies and television," Dr Mathews said. "These early findings confirm there is a difference in the brain-activation patterns of youths with disruptive behaviour disorders and those without when exposed to a specific stimulus. There also may be a relationship between violent media exposure and brain activity in normal subjects," he said.
An underlying theme in this research is whether children are born with aggressive tendencies or whether they learn to be aggressive during their upbringing.
Robert DuRant, a paediatrics researcher at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, is adamant that aggression is learnt.
"Children learn violent behaviours in primary social groups, such as the family and peer groups, as well as observe it in their neighbourhoods and in the community at large," Professor DuRant said.
"These behaviours are reinforced by what children and adolescents see on television, on the internet and in video games and movies, observe in music videos and hear in their music," he said.
A study published in 2000 found that children with aggressive tendencies were more likely to choose violent video games but the reason for their choice was unclear. One possibility could be simply that an aggressive child likes to work off his or her aggression playing a violent video. Another possibility is that children who routinely play violent computer games for long periods develop aggressive tendencies as a result.
Whatever the relationship, one thing is clear – that video games are becoming more violent, more graphic and more prevalent. And the debate over their role in fostering adolescent violence is becoming more intense.
FACING THE FACTS
There have been about 25 studies on the impact of violent video games on behaviour. None has studied a group over a sustained period. The results have been varied although young children consistently imitated what they had seen in the short term.
BT forced Sony to re-edit The Getaway which sold 250,000 on the day of its release because it featured a man dressed as a BT engineer. The anti-hero of the game stole a BT van and overalls before going on a rampage.
A $330m (£200m) lawsuit filed against several entertainment companies by the families of three victims of a high-school shooting in Paducah, Kentucky, was dismissed, based on findings that the video game makers could not have foreseen what the killer would do and that games were not subject to product-liability law. A decade earlier, the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals held that the makers of the popular role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons were not liable for a teenager's suicide.
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Anderson V Buckinham
Desensitization?
Violent games 'affect behaviour'But a team from the University of Missouri-Columbia said their study which monitored the brain activity of 39 game players suggests a causal link.
The findings were published on the New Scientist website.
The researchers measured a type of brain activity called the P300 response which reflects the emotional impact of an image.
 |  The truth is there are many factors that can lead to violence, such as being withdrawn and isolated, so it is hard to say it is because of one thing  Professor David Buckingham, of the Institute of Education |
When shown images of real-life violence, people who played violent video games were found to have a diminished response.
However, when the same group were shown other disturbing images such as dead animals or ill children they had a much more natural response.
When the game players were given the opportunity to punish a pretend opponent those with the greatest reduction in P300 meted out the severest punishments.
Psychologist Bruce Bartholow, the lead researcher of the study which will be published in full in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology later this year, said: "As far as I'm aware, this is the first study to show that exposure to violent games has effects on the brain that predict aggressive behaviour.
"People who play a lot of violent video games didn't see them as much different from neutral.
"They become desensitised. However, their responses are still normal for the non-violent negative scenes."
The findings will back up what many have argued over recent years with the growth in games with scenes of graphic violence.
Killer
But some experts still remain unconvinced of a link.
Jonathan Freedman, a psychologist from the University of Toronto in Canada, said: "All we are really getting is desensitisation to images. There's no way to show that this relates to real-life aggression."
And Professor David Buckingham, an expert on the media and children at the Institute of Education, added there was still no consensus on whether violent games caused aggressive behaviour or were just played by violent people.
"The debate we are seeing is very similar to the one that has raged for years about TV. The truth is there are many factors that can lead to violence, such as being withdrawn and isolated, so it is hard to say it is because of one thing.
"In the absence of any proof, I think we have to be agnostic about it. However, I think there is an argument about the morality of some games.
"Some actually encourage amoral behaviour to win the game and I think parents should be talking to their children to make sure they realise this is a joke. Children are generally good at telling fantasy from reality, but parents should be discussing this."