Cougar Draven
My opponent has said that researchers at the University of Rochester found suggestions that video games could be used to train soldiers for combat. For combat! I ask you, if we wish to use certain video games to build our armies, why are we surprised when children playing the same games become violent? It's merely natural. Of course, so is doing my own research.
Actually, to set the record straight, the article said the skills that video games give people are helpful for soldiers, specifically increased visual processing of data/circumstances. There was no mention of violence as a reason that the games were useful for training soldiers. Please reread the article if you don't believe me, as it never mentions what you said to be the case.
Cougar Draven
In preparation for my refutation, I had an idea that it might help to know certain video game genres, that perhaps not all of them incite violent tendencies in youth. What I found is shocking. Wikipedia lists twenty-four genres of games, nine "major", ten "notable", and five "superseded" genres. Out of these twenty-four, seven include some type of violent activity. Eight, if one is to include the highly debatable "Adu|t" genre. That's one third of all game genres. Perhaps even more, if you consider certain role-playing and real-time strategy games, such as Warcraft and the like. Also, some sports games are very violent.
Wikipedia: Computer and video game genresFirst, let me point out that your source for this is an online encylopedia that is changed by individual people to fit what they see as accurate. The website itself acknowledges their own inability to give any guarantee that the information on the website is accurate, or factual.
That asside, I would like to know which of the 24 genres you are identifying as being violent, specifc names please.
Second, the genres you identified as also being violent (such as sports and the adult genre) are bad examples of violence. Sports especially. While some of these games are violent, they are no more so than the real life sports they represent. Therefore, they are not advocating any more violence than our society in general supports. As for games which fall into the "Adult" genre, these are clearly not played by very many children for several reasons. It is illegal to play them if you are under age 18 without a parent there. Whats more they are rated adult not because of violence, but because of pervasive nudity, sexual demonstrations, and other inappropriate acts, none of which are necessarily violent anyway. If these are being viewed by children at the permission of their parents, then the parents are obviously not to concerned with the upbringing of their children, a point of some significance which I will repproach in just a moment.
Cougar Draven
One-third of all game genres. Of course, that's not saying that one-third of all games played is a first-person shooter or other violent game. No, I believe it to be much more. So I decided to go to my favorite gaming website, GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com). I looked at the top ten FAQ pages for July 21st, because that's the latest they have, and what I found was this: Eight of the top ten were violent games, and three of them were the same game, on different platforms! Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the most popular game, by far, on GameFAQs, despite being released almost ten months ago. I tried to view a few reviews of San Andreas to cite them here, but for some reason, my web blocker won't let me view them. I wonder why.
You believe it to be much more, based on the fact that the most popular collections of game walkthroughs on a single website, are violent? Do you have no more than that hunch? No studies to support this claim? In that case, I am saying that your evidence or point in this case is hardly of substance. GameFAQs, by the same token, is only one of many game websites, magazines, and television channels which deal with video games, almost all of which have different opinions as to what the best/most popular games are/should be. Unless you have a survey of all the people who play games, it is unlikely that you or anyone else would be able to get a truly accurate reading of results.
As for why your web blocker failed to get any of the reviews, you said yourself it tends to censor strange things. But I degress...
There are other games that are far more popular than San Andreas besides which For instance, there are over 10 million subsribers worldwide who play World of WarCraft, which is an MMORPG style game.
The underlying point I am trying to make is this though. You are acknowleding many a game genre and the popularity of violent video games, and I have acknoweledged games are becoming more violent and more graphic (
Doom 3 screenshots) in their abilities to depict violence. But violent games are so popular, why has the number of violent crimes commited by juveniles decreased in the last five years? (PhD. Dewey Cornell).
What I am saying is there are alternative causes to violence in juveniles than simply blaming it on the seemingly obvious and frankly easy target of video game violence. Were games truly the cause, the number of violent crimes would logically increase as more and more violent/graphic games come out. YET THEY HAVE GONE DOWN, which suggests a different cause for the burst of violence we had in schools and in communities in general a number of years ago. I now return the significance of parental role in the life of the child law-breaker who does somehow tip over the edge to kill, attack, or even merely threaten others. PhD. Cornell, as I said in my last post, divided those who commit said crimes into three groups: the mentally ill who suffer from psychoses which disallow them to tell the difference between right and wrong (~5% of juvenile crimes), the anti-social/depressed (~66% of juvenile crimes), and those who are "emotionally troubled and conflicted-alienated, angry, and depressed."(~29%).
The third group is the only one that you could even begin to argue that video games are the motive for violence, as the other two clearly have alterior causes of the violent acts they commit beside video games. This third group, again as I stated earlier, is composed of people who "may be intelligent and capable, but they are not satisfied with their achievements and
often feel unfairly treated by others. Although they may have some friends,
they feel lonely and isolated. They
are highly sensitive to teasing and bullying, are deeply resentful, ruminating over perceived injustices."
It is this group that are involved most in the school shootings, and I give you that fac; simultaneously I admit that video games are becoming more violent. Yet, you must also admit that the number of crimes has dropped over five years despite that, and those which remain are possibily the cause of their parents not paying enough attention to them. For instance, I fit everything on this list of warnings until only the last two years when I made quite a few new friends. But I had my parents and family very close at my side, and they did not teach me to go out and solve my problems with violence, but rather to solve problems with discussion or other methods. Did I mention I play extremely violent video games like GTA: San Andreas almost daily? Yet I am not about to go out and kill someone. Those who do, are likely not well looked after by their parents or are taught morals/virutes that would suggest what is in the games to be how one solves things in the real world. Or there is also the person at the check out counter who we can say sold this game when they maybe shouldn't have, or a parent who wasn't there to monitor the playing of such a game as Doom 3 by someone who shouldn't.
There are many people who play games, and the number is actually increasing according to recent studies by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Yet, the number of crimes has decreased. So is there a correlation between video games and violence in juveniles? Sure, just as there could be to anything just about anything else. But are the games the cause of these violent crimes? No, and since you did not quesiton that claim I made from my last post, it is reasonable to suggest that you agree with me.
Cougar Draven
To top that off, a hardcoder with quite a bit of time on his hands created the "HOt Coffee" mod for the PC version of San Andreas, which shows the intricate details of the seedier side of life in the Grand Theft Auto world, specifically what happens when the van's a-rockin', and this author went a-knockin'. Do we really need our children viewing this?
Where did you find this information? I failed to see this on either websites you game me as sources (Wilkipedia or GameFAQs). If you can give me a direct link to where you found this information I would be happy to read it and respond to it. But until then, I don't know if this is just a story you made up or something you heard from someone else, in which case it might not even exist. We will treat it as such until you find that source. Just the adress or you can give me directions as to how to access this information.
Besides which, even if this person did do this, it is hard to believe that many people have the time or interest to do such things. Meaning this person is probably more of the exception than the rule. Even so, what significance does that have? So he/she is a pervert. Does that mean the games did it to him? No. Or is it perhaps more likely that he spends a lot of playing games and looking at that sort of thing since he has no other outlet for it, such as a girlfriend/boyfriend?
Cougar Draven
Of course, I know that it is illegal for people to sell or rent M-rated video games, or even movies that have been rated R, to minors under the age of 17. But what stops the parents from buying the games for their children?
My point exactly. But does that mean that violent video games are the cause of violence in minors? The overall picture I am painting is one of uncertainty that allows us to conclude only that there are enumberable other causes beside violent video games that lead to violence in juveniles. My opponent did not acknowledge anything against that fact, save that children have access to video games when they shouldn't, and that games are becoming more violent, further that violent games are becoming more ever-present in the world of the technology age home. But he failed to acknowledge any proof contrary to this fact, and therefore we can see that the debate is going in my favor thus far, as my points stand essentially unrefuted.
That said, I again return the floor to my opponent's line of refutation.