Video gaming has always been a subject of controversy and debate. Is it teaching our children to be more violent? Does it encourage reckless driving? Has there been a drastic rise in children armed with catapults firing sparrows at pig sties? All right maybe that is a bit far fetched but the argument has remained for years that children who play violent games at a young age become violent teenagers.
Now, I will not outright disagree with the sentiment the anti-violent-video-game-committee (not an actual committee) are putting across; there is some evidence that some of the most violent teenagers in the world played violent games prior to comitting their crimes, but does this mean games are bad?
In short, no. People are bad. It is all dependent on how someone plays a game: for example, I have always preferred having someone sitting physically next to me to shout at and berate when I mow down their character with a burst of machine gun fire, incinerate them with a flamethrower, or shoot them through the head with a sniper rifle. However I kill them, it is always more fun to have them there to taunt afterwards. Likewise, if they were to kill me, they would have the brief satisfaction of a similar taunt before I exacted my REVENGE! *MWA HAHAHAHAHA* ahem.
For me, gaming is a social enterprise. In some games it can mean competition with the person sitting next to me, and later in the same game it can mean us working together. And occasionally we'll be working together on a greater objective while hitting each other just for the sake of it. Either way, a social enterprise which at once encourages a healthy amount of competition and teamwork.
As Eddie Izzard says, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. And monkeys do too, if they've got a gun."
This post has gone unpublished for some time, as I have been trying to think of a more appropriate ending. It would seem that this post is now especially poignant in the light of recent events.
Nobody is going to argue that the Batman films taught this man to open fire on a small-town cinema in Colorado, nobody is going to point the finger of blame at Christian Bale or the late Heath Ledger. He did not view the Joker as an example, as the papers say he emulated the Joker. He literally decided to be the Joker. This was the act of one man, one likely mentally disturbed man. There is nothing and no-one to blame except for him.
My thoughts go out to the families of the deceased and all others affected by the tragic events that have taken place.
Now, I will not outright disagree with the sentiment the anti-violent-video-game-committee (not an actual committee) are putting across; there is some evidence that some of the most violent teenagers in the world played violent games prior to comitting their crimes, but does this mean games are bad?
In short, no. People are bad. It is all dependent on how someone plays a game: for example, I have always preferred having someone sitting physically next to me to shout at and berate when I mow down their character with a burst of machine gun fire, incinerate them with a flamethrower, or shoot them through the head with a sniper rifle. However I kill them, it is always more fun to have them there to taunt afterwards. Likewise, if they were to kill me, they would have the brief satisfaction of a similar taunt before I exacted my REVENGE! *MWA HAHAHAHAHA* ahem.
For me, gaming is a social enterprise. In some games it can mean competition with the person sitting next to me, and later in the same game it can mean us working together. And occasionally we'll be working together on a greater objective while hitting each other just for the sake of it. Either way, a social enterprise which at once encourages a healthy amount of competition and teamwork.
As Eddie Izzard says, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. And monkeys do too, if they've got a gun."
This post has gone unpublished for some time, as I have been trying to think of a more appropriate ending. It would seem that this post is now especially poignant in the light of recent events.
Nobody is going to argue that the Batman films taught this man to open fire on a small-town cinema in Colorado, nobody is going to point the finger of blame at Christian Bale or the late Heath Ledger. He did not view the Joker as an example, as the papers say he emulated the Joker. He literally decided to be the Joker. This was the act of one man, one likely mentally disturbed man. There is nothing and no-one to blame except for him.
My thoughts go out to the families of the deceased and all others affected by the tragic events that have taken place.
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