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"Is Violence caused by games"

Well not just games but by most forms of media, for example games, movies, television, music and books. To a certain degree it can be, some encourage violence in games or through lyrics in songs. Children are very easily lead astray and can see some games, films, artists as role models and want to be just like them, do as they do so to speak.
Lets take games first.

There are many games that encourage violence and most of these have a 15 or 18 rating to prevent young children from playing them. Still this dosn't totally stop the problem as many parents still buy thses type of games as well they are only "games" they can't be that bad. Such games like GTA, silent hill, doom first showed that games can also be unsuitable for children and since then alot more have appeared. This is a genre that is becoming more and more popular with games like GTA3, silent hill2, resident evil code veronica and many more due for release. Graphically games are improving very quickly and get close to looking like tv or real life. This is why games need to be taken more seriously as they can be just as harmful if not more than films. With games the user controls what happens, who to kill, what to shoot that kind of thing. Not the kind of actions that you want young children to play.

So what about films. Films seem to get away with anything and again films that aren't suitable for children get a 15 or 18 certificate, parents seem to stick to these as some films contain alot of gore and scenes not for young eyes. Still alot of children see watching an 18 films as a kind of thrill, trying to sneek past parents without them knowing what you are up to, but some films may cause children to do violent things or some may scare and frighten them for some time.

Music and particlarly artists like Marylin Manson and Eminem have been in the news alot about there lyrics and what effects they could have on children. Personaly I can't stand Marylin Manson and can't see why anyone enjoys his music. Alot of his lyrics involve suicide and killing people which some people could take too serious. There was a tv program on about people who killed themselves after listening to his songs and others who murdered someone after listening to his songs. I quite like Eminem and think he gets a fair amount of undeserved hasstle from the media. People can write songs about what ever they want and they can have many meanings. People shouldn't take what the lyrics mean too serious, that seems to be where the problem is.

Again some music CD's have a Parental Advisory sticker. Children can still buy it but some parents may not wish their child to listen to it.

Finaly television, it is ilegal to broadcast a program unsuitable for children before 9pm (the watershed) after that you can show just about anything you want (as channel 5 showed us) again it all comes down to parents making sure their child dosn't let their child watch something they find unsuitable. Some programs are cut, this removes bad language and violent gorey scenes.

Without all these life would probably be very boring but would violence disappear? I don't think it would. As fighting and wars happened before most of these were around. I personaly think that although some of these forms of media do encourage violence most of the time people are educated enought to be able to tell right from wrong and to know not to copy what they have seen. The small percentage that do wrong and blame some form of media are the ones whos parents haven't been careful enought to monitor what they watch or play.

I think a large part of the responsibility lies with the parents, they shouldn't allow their child to view or play such material but they do. Take some of the shootings in America, parents are trying to sue some game developers and webpages. I find this wrong as if the games were to violent then they shouldn't be playing them. Maybe if their parents took more care in what there children did then some of these serious accidents could have been avoided.

Now I am not having a go at everyone as there are alot of kids who know right from wrong and can watch or play violent material and have no effects from it but there is a small group that can't and there parents don't do enough to educate them. I would also like to see stricter laws for selling films and game that have 18 ratings as there are alot of places that sell them to kids. Fair enough if they have to get there parents to buy it for them as long as the parent approves and knows what the film or game contains. Then we can all get back to playing games, watching films or listening to music without all those people protesting about them being bad for us and trying to ban certain releases.

I had a similar topic to this in chat a few days ago, and what came out was this:

Murder and violence IS more graphic in films and on TV.

Killers existed BEFORE games were invented- should we stop violence in TV, Films and books aswell?

It's not a case of someone seeing a death scene in a game and thinking "cool, let's do it." If people do take game acts into reality, then they have something wrong, and would have done it anyway.

Appologies if I repeated any of you.

If only people with violent tendencies only fought and killed each other, then there would be none left and at least no innocent lives would be lost. I mean that they both have to agree of course. I think the problem may be that they say they are going to kill someone and a younger person is more likely to take this literally and if the music is high in the charts then it couldn't be wrong could it.

I don't think the music industry influences violence that much. Its all down to how you interpret he lyrics. Manson and Eminem are no different, they moth express their feelings through their own lyrics. I think its Mansons image that gets him more stick and the fact that Eminem is more well known maybe gives people the chance to see the real side to him and listen to what he has to say whereas Manson is rarely seen on tv or in magazines getting his side over.

The problem I think is that some of the more offensive songs get into the charts that are shown early in the day and before the watershed. It's ridiculous that songs with swearing are said to be big things to the children at home watching a chart show, they may be censored but if the child gets their hands on the unedited version then it could affect them. It's quite likely that young people are influenced by things on TV showing what clothes they should be wearing, what music they should be listening to and so forth so why do they show these things that are certainly not suitable for young people when young people will be watching. If Eminem did a song about his garden and how lovely and flowery it was then I don't see a problem in showing it on pre-watershed chart shows, but if he goes on to say things about killing all the gay flowers and all the flowers that aren't roses (or just outright said that certain people should die) then even if this is cut out, it still promotes an unsuitable song that shouldn't be on so early. While people always have free will, and any murder they do is their own intention but young children develop a moral structure based on what they see and hear, not just things their parents tell them. So my only concern is that the media is willingly and recklessly showing things that parents would not want their children to see (hence the higher rated certification of the product in the stores).

Music and particlarly
> artists like Marylin Manson and Eminem have been in the news alot
> about there lyrics and what effects they could have on children.
> Personaly I can't stand Marylin Manson and can't see why anyone
> enjoys his music. Alot of his lyrics involve suicide and killing
> people which some people could take too serious. There was a tv
> program on about people who killed themselves after listening to his
> songs and others who murdered someone after listening to his songs.
> I quite like Eminem and think he gets a fair amount of undeserved
> hasstle from the media. People can write songs about what ever they
> want and they can have many meanings. People shouldn't take what the
> lyrics mean too serious, that seems to be where the problem
> is.

Hmmm, I read you post and found it very informative, an all round good read, but im not sure i agree with this bit.

You seem to compare manson and eminem, and state emiem as the lesser of two evils. Have you heard Kim, by eminem. In this song he threatens to kill kim, shouts abuse, swears like a madman and finally you hear kim chocking and coughing as her throat is slit.

Now dont get me wrong I like both artists, but to say one is a greater influence than the other is, in my opinion at least, not true. If any thing, because of Eminems larger audiance, the bleech blond rapper is a greater influence. Im sure there are many examples like this that can be made. for exaple "Raping Lesbians" comment in My name is, and pretty much the whole song and video for Stan.

It is my view that stuff like this has very little effect, and films and music are scapegoated. If some one is a killer in there heart and mind, they will kill weather they see these kind of things or not.

Well, remember that it might not be the parents fault. School friends, for example, can have an influence on each other. Who knows, there may even be a genetic disposition towards killing. It's just about how you deal with things, directly or by killing some innocent person who knew nothing of your problems (yes these are the only two options).

Ah, infact there's something I read recently that may be relevant. There was a psychiatrist who wrote that enemies are an essential part of life, they are someone who you can direct all your anger onto and they can be somewhere to dump your unpleasant emotions on. Those weren't the exact words (or maybe they were I forget) but that's what she said and she apparently wrote a book on it. It's ridiculous I say! Imagine you meet someone at work and they start hating you because they blame you for their feelings. Say they feel that they are overweight, or they have recently broke up from a relationship. Why should you have to suffer the unpleasantness of being blamed for something you had nothing to do with? Worse still, you don't even know what they have against you. I must say that if this is the sort of things psychiatrists of today believe, then they could only make problems worse.

This has a lot of meanings to do with the topic really. For example, computer games are like the enemy that parents put all their sadness over the loss of a child onto. More than this the child may feel unhappy about something at home or at school and they transfer it onto someone else, who in the end becomes a victim for absolutely no reason at all. It truly is worrying to think that anyone believes having enemies is a good thing and that blaming them for things they know nothing about is a good way to deal with these things. I thought psychiatrists were supposed to help you discuss and express your feelings, not bottle them up and throw them at innocent bystanders.

So really, is it the way society is going that causes these unnecessary deaths? Is our morallity changing? Do the youth of today see that a lot of people will only do good for their own personal benefit and are more than willing to be evil or stand back and let evil happen to benefit themselves? Do they believe that these are the people who are most likely to have control? So first we must turn our attention away from innocent scapegoats, and look closely at ourselves.

I'm not going to write a long and decent post on this, because my face will explode.

"Do games cause violence"

No.
And if you think they do, you probably can't even work out how to turn the console on.

YES YES YES haha only kidding, Violence in games and films can trigger some people into violent behavior but I get headache's from some of the music my parents listen to and it makes me a bit on edge but does that mean that other people can't listen to it just incase it annoys them. Nope now make a ps2 version of texas chainsaw and halloween on PS2 hehe

Violence caused by games?

My quick and easy answer (which is all you are going to get as I'm going to bed) is this:

Violence was around before computer games and it will be around if (which I doubt) computer games became extinct.

People who blame their violence on video games, films, etc are merely not capable of accepting the responsibility for their actions and therefore pawn it off on something like video games.

There is obviously something wrong with someone mentally if they cannot tell the difference between playing a game on a monitor/tv and actually carrying out these actions. People should know whether they are doing right or wrong and should be punished accordingly. Why should gamers all over the world be punished just because a minority of people are blaming computer games for THEIR violence.

Computer games don't hurt people, people hurt people.

Many debates are around this little comment "Do games cause violence"

They all have their reasons for and against but I think no. This is my comment

"Killers play games, games dont make killers"

Remember that folks, especially when im playing on my 1st GAD win, heh heh heh.