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."
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Micro, Macro and Hypothesis
Notes for my critical research
- Internet
- Print Publications
- Visual Materials
- Original Research
- Secondary textual anaylsis
- Biographical information
- contextual information
- Institutional Detail
- Audience related research
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Man Hunt and the murder of Stefan Pakeerah
The murder of Stefan Pakeerah
In the UK, the game was linked to the murder of Stefan Pakeerah, 14, by his friend Warren Leblanc, 17, on the 27th of February, 2004. Giselle Pakeerah, the victim's mother, claimed[10] that Leblanc had been 'obsessed' with the game after the former pleaded guilty in court. During the subsequent media frenzy, the game was removed from sale by some vendors, such as the UK and international branches of GAMEand Dixons, leading to "significantly increased" demand[11] both from retailers and on Internet auction sites. The police denied any such link between the game and the murder, citing drug-related robbery as the motive. The presiding judge also placed sole responsibility with Leblanc in his summing up after sentencing him to life. Oddly, the victim, not the killer was found to be the one in possession of the game.
Considerations for Future Research
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/kooijmans.html
Considerations for Future Research
Therapy
Although the majority of video games are violent in nature, there are many emerging that take an intellectual standpoint. These include puzzle games such as the wildly popular Tetris. These types of games stimulate the mind by presenting challenges and puzzles to the player rather than enemies and worlds. Many play them just to keep the mind active and alert. This type of game-play has brought about the idea that video games can be used as a form of therapy. Some of them are relaxing and soothing, and they can be specifically altered to meet an individual patient's needs. A video game can be created to help a specific type of person, whether it is to help connect certain memory cells in the brain, or just help stimulate brain activity in general. Due to the programmatic nature in which video games are created, their possibilities of creation are endless. Gardner (1991) attempted the first research on this issue. He successfully used video games as a form of psychotherapy in children. This success has stimulated much research on this issue, but mostly dealing with mentally-ill or brain-damaged patients.Eye-Hand Coordination
Playing many of the modern video games requires some sort of skill. The player is required to do quite a bit to "win." There are many things going on in the game at once. For example, the character may be running and shooting at the same time. This requires the real-world player to keep track of the position of the character, where he/she is heading, their speed, where the gun is aiming, if the gunfire is hitting the enemy, and so on. All these factors need to be taken into account, and then the player must then coordinate the brain's interpretation and reaction with the movement in their hands and fingertips. This process requires a great deal of eye-hand coordination and visual-spatial ability to be successful. A relationship has been shown between increased videogame playing and improvements to eye-hand coordination, as well as manual dexterity, and reaction time (Drew & Waters, 1986). Some true experiments would greatly help to support this claim.Simulations
A simulation is interactive multimedia used to try to simulate some real world phenomenon. Many video games are nothing more than simulations. They are very closely related, and much research that refers to simulations could most likely apply to video games as well. The most well known simulations are flight simulators, which attempt to mimic the reality of flying a plane. All of the controls, including airspeed, wing angles, altimeter, and so on, are displayed for the player, as well as a visual representation of the world, and are updated in real time. For many years large corporations have used simulations to help train and better their employees. However, simulations have so much more possibilities. The United States government has released a game entitled America's Army, which simulates a real war-time experience. The government hopes to use it to help train the next generation of recruits.Another use for simulations is to mimic the effects of nature. Many modern games use particle systems, thousands of tiny particles in three-dimensional space, which mimic natural phenomena such as rain, fire and smoke. Another popular use is to simulate flocking birds and schooling fish. An excellent example of this is seen in Pixar's Finding Nemo. With deeper research, these simulations can give us a better understanding of our world and our selves.
Positive Effects of Video Games on Development
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/kooijmans.html
Positive Effects of Video Games on Development
Noah J. StupakRochester Institute of Technology 2004
The idea that video games have a detrimental effect on children who play them is widely contested. Though providing excellent coverage of these effects, Kooijmans' "Effects of Video Games on Aggressive Thoughts and Behaviors During Development" leaves out many of the positive aspects of video games. The paper does mention their use for therapy, hand-eye coordination training, and simulations, but it does not cover any actual developmental effects. Video games teach many skills to the developing child. Examples of these skills include problem-solving abilities, perseverence, pattern recognition, hypothesis testing, estimating skills, inductive reasoning, resource management, logistics, mapping, memory, quick thinking, and reasoned judgments (Sheff, 1994). Many of these skills are abstract and require higher-level thinking, which schools do not often teach children. By including a way to choose one's own level of difficulty in most, if not all, video games, one can tailor the degree of intricacy of the tasks in the game to meet one's own skills. After the tasks are completed at an easy level, a child will feel motivated to attempt a higher degree of difficulty. By slowly ramping up the difficulty, the child is able to accomplish goals and learn while increasing his or her self-efficacy.
Although the typical video game child is seen as a loner and anti-social, video games may very well teach the child social skills. If the parents are attentive of thier child, video games can be a good bonding activity. Most likely the child will be more proficient at the game than the parent, which allows the child to teach the parents for once. This reversal of roles allows the parent to better understand the child's skills and talents, and allows the child to learn to help others and share knowledge. In addition, many games that involve multiple players encourage children to work cooperatively to achieve their goals. The children learn to listen to the ideas of others, formulate plans together, and distribute tasks based on skills. Video games create hierarchies of skills and abilities, creating a setting that benefits the development of leadership. A child who is able to manage the tasks necessary to succeed would be more apt at leading work-groups at school. Recently, gaming online with other people has created entirely new types of vast, intricate social networks. Children consider people they have never met to be close friends. By knowing someone strictly through a game, the child learns of the person without any superficiality. By not seeing the their friends, children do not take into account race, gender, or nationality. It is a truly open friendship based on common interest.
Finally, violent video games may act as a release of pent-up aggression and frustration. There is no harm in a child's shooting another person in a video game, but there would be serious repercussions if that act was committed in real life. By allowing the child to channel his or her anger in a constructive way, video games are able to reduce the child's stress and act as a positive outlet. Children no longer throw tantrums or fight with siblings but passively act out their frustrations in a virtual world. Many parents advocate sports such as football as an aggression outlet, which is much more brutal than playing a game. In sports, children are encouraged to physically hurt someone. As Tapscott (1998) noted, "Engaging the child in an interactive experience, developing hand-eye motor skills, giving the child a sense of accomplishment, keeping the child off the streets, and just encouraging having fun are all judged by many parents to be valuable or, at worst, benign"
Monday, 25 February 2008
Does game violence make teens aggressive?
In a recent research study, adolescents played two different types of video games for 30 minutes. Teens that played the violent game (right) showed increased activity in the amygdala, which is involved in emotional arousal.
“Based on our results, I think parents should be aware of the relationship between violent video-game playing and brain function.” Mathews and his colleagues chose two action games to include in their research -- one violent the other not. The first game was the high-octane but non-violent racing game “Need for Speed: Underground.” The other was the ultra-violent first-person shooter “Medal of Honor: Frontline.” The team divided a group of 44 adolescents into two groups, and randomly assigned the kids to play one of the two games. Immediately after the play sessions, the children were given MRIs of their brains. The scans showed a negative effect on the brains of the teens who played “Medal of Honor” for 30 minutes. That same effect was not present in the kids who played “Need for Speed.” The only difference? Violent content. What’s not clear is whether the activity picked up by the MRIs indicates a lingering — or worse, permanent — effect on the kids’ brains. And it’s also not known what effect longer play times might have. The scope of this study was 30 minutes of play, and one brain scan per kid, although further research is in the works. |
