Video Games Get Blamed

[BlueWolf72]

With 2009 almost over each year I do a article on the positive side of things for video games since so much media on TV and print is about how video games cause drama.

So this year I will ask the same question but use this forum instead of others. If I like what you have to say I will use you in my article.

1. What are the negatives about playing video games. Do you feel if you play a killing video game you could kill on a easier level.

2. What are some positives to playing video games. List some examples on how you think playing video games can help

 

[Raziaar]

The only negatives I've really seen about video games are their ability to compromise your social life if you devote too much time to them, and they can negatively impact your work. This includes school work. One of the reasons I failed school... my mind was always on video games and couldn't focus on anything else. In addition to that, I just didn't want to do my homework.

 

[13LACKBISHOP]

With 2009 almost over each year I do a article on the positive side of things for video games since so much media on TV and print is about how video games cause drama.

So this year I will ask the same question but use this forum instead of others. If I like what you have to say I will use you in my article.

1. What are the negatives about playing video games. Do you feel if you play a killing video game you could kill on a easier level.

2. What are some positives to playing video games. List some examples on how you think playing video games can help

Not really. Just more creative ways to do it.

 

[jet_porkins]

Yeah, I'm already planning for next year's '09 end-of-the-year celebration. How many 2009s have you done this for?

Negatives? There are these things I have, called morals, and some games I just cannot pick up because the interactions that the game would have the player character involved in are just too sickening to me. Also--and I do not know this out of certain fact--, I believe that violent video games have the potential to cheapen a person's reaction to a real death in life.

Positives-- The physical perception developments could go without saying, such as hand-eye coordination. They've put me around computers a lot, which increased my typing skill, which vastly helped give me the job I have today (typing lectures for deaf students at my university). Online, they can be great social networking devices. I will always have my fond memories of Deathmatch Classic, going into the only server I would join, every day, because the people were very fun to be around. Same goes for several others: Jedi Academy, MOHAA, Star Wars Galaxies. Others have given me a more historical edge than an average high school student, as a result of the many WWII shooters, Vietnam shooters, and classic Medieval RTS (Age of Empires, etc).

Those are weak arguments on behalf of video games, but there is certainly far more to them besides the non-outdoorsy, socially deficient stereotypes that are flung around at a lot of video gamers.

 

[Tyguy]

1. Negatives from video games can include extensive time consumption as well as physiological addiction. However, this is the case with many activities that prove to entertain an individual. Playing a first person shooter will not affect my understanding of right and wrong under any circumstances. Video games are not the "training programs" which many people suggest they are.

2. Video games can increase hand eye coordination and problem solving. Games such as tetris have been proven to be affective at increasing mental capacity in teenagers. Source

 

[Sledgehammer]

Video games are exactly like other kinds of art, including both the good and the bad things.

Though video games may be far more addicting to the user, rather than the performer/creator, than other kinds of art.

 

[Tyguy]

YNegatives? There are these things I have, called morals, and some games I just cannot pick up because the interactions that the game would have the player character involved in are just too sickening to me.

Are people that play the games that sicken you immoral? What kinds of games fall under this category? (my guess is Postal and the fact that you can pee on people...but that's awesome!)

 

[Viperidae]

If I like what you have to say I will use you in my article.

Hahahahahaha. Ah, journalism.

 

[jet_porkins]

Are people that play the games that sicken you immoral? What kinds of games fall under this category? (my guess is Postal and the fact that you can pee on people...but that's awesome!)

I try to stay away from games like Saints Row or Grand Theft Auto. They're fun, yes, but I have a personal problem with assuming the role of a gang-banging, prostitute-visiting, baseball-batting-old-women-doing, malicious criminal at the tips of my fingers. It's the same reason why whenever I purchase a game that involves two walks of life ("light side/dark side"), I always play as the "good guy" the first time through, and sometimes even the second time through, before I begin to play with the evil stuff. I only play as an evil character because of the obligation to turn over every rock that the game has to offer. I hate buying games with a lot of depth, and only seeing a portion of it.

Even Fallout 3: I have yet to pursue the evil karma alignment, and I'm on my second file of 70+ hours.

EDIT: Oh, and NO. People who play those games do not sicken me, and I do not use them as criteria for a person's morality. Who am I to judge?

 

[No Limit]

I try to stay away from games like Saints Row or Grand Theft Auto. They're fun, yes, but I have a personal problem with assuming the role of a gang-banging, prostitute-visiting, baseball-batting-old-women-doing, malicious criminal at the tips of my fingers.

I'm curious if you have the same attitude toward movies. For example where a bad guy sort of plays the protagonist; take the sopranos or plenty of other mob movies as an example. And I'm not saying you're wrong for not wanting to play those games, everyone has a right to their likes and dislikes. I'm just curious if you also apply the same to other entertainment.

 

[Darkside55]

each year I do a article on the positive side of things for video games since so much media on TV and print is about how video games cause drama.

How does it feel to know that your article will never be read by the majority of the public, only viewed by gamers, thus every year you're simply preaching to the choir and you'll never change the public's ideas on gaming no matter what you write or how many people you poll? Meanwhile, once another psycho inevitably shoots up another school the media will draw out the ol' video games whipping boy and the public's negative opinion will become even worse? How does it feel to know that every year you're simply wasting your time?

 

[Tyguy]

I'm the other way around usually, I always play the bad guy. I play enough of the good guy in real life, I like to know that for every old lady I help across the street I get to run over 10 in GTA

 

[Sheepo]

I killed my entire family because Gabe Newell told me to.

 

[jet_porkins]

I'm curious if you have the same attitude toward movies. For example where a bad guy sort of plays the protagonist; take the sopranos or plenty of other mob movies as an example. And I'm not saying you're wrong for not wanting to play those games, everyone has a right to their likes and dislikes. I'm just curious if you also apply the same to other entertainment.

Movies aren't as direct of an issue as games. It's one thing watching something appalling happening; it's another thing entirely if you're the one who caused it to happen in the first place. I don't abstain from movies with horrible scenes for a variety of reasons: A) There's a moral/theme that the movie wants to teach to the audience at the end of the day, B) More often than not, the scenes are used to amplify how bad the bad guy is, or C) It's trying to portray what reality is.

I can also appreciate the aesthetics of a movie like The Godfather. I've seen Scarface, and I was overall entertained by it. But now that I'm slightly more grown than I was when I first saw it, I'm not entirely sure how I would react. I imagine I would probably be turned off by some of it.

In any case, as far as movies I'd refuse to see? Pretty much any horror movie. I'll only watch them if I'm with a group of friends huddled around a wide-screen TV, and the consensus is to watch "My Bloody Valentine 3d." Which sucked, by the way.

I'm the other way around usually, I always play the bad guy. I play enough of the good guy in real life, I like to know that for every old lady I help across the street I get to run over 10 in GTA

I lol'd. Makes sense to me!

 

[Reflex]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTbYUd1jUc4

 

[Dinnesch]

Positive:
-A good way to spend time, pretty much the only thing I do aside from playing guitar
-Sandbox games like GTA are great to lose frustration

Negative: -May make your social life worse
-Harder to concentrate on things like homework cause you want to finish one more level/want to see how the story goes further
-Makes you fat and ugly

 

[Skaadi]

Speaking as a person about to join the army reserves, I've often wondered to myself that if by some stretch, I end up on a deployment and see someone killed, would I be thinking "PRESS THE GODDAMN RESET BUTTON"?

And I honestly don't get why people buy into this "games are teaching kids to use guns" nonsense, when the workings of an actual gun are as far removed from reality as my backside is from the moon.

On topic: I was thinking of social network as a positive, but Jet got there before me.

 

[VirusType2]

I hadn't played a video game in about a year. Someone gave me a cheap video card and I became hooked on an old strategy game. I was playing it nearly every day for a few hours a day, for several months until I got bored of it. My work piled up very bad, though I managed to get back on track and keep my job.

If I won the game, I would be very pleased and energetic for many hours. I would leave the room and clean up the house and do all kinds of things that had been getting backed up. It really picked me up.

If I lost the game, it would put me in a foul mood. Sometimes I would be very angry for several hours.

 

[flamingdts]

Video games to a degree can be influencial, but we all know nowadays every single kid and parent will blame video games for any crime committed. Not only are they exonerated, they might even get a hefty amount of cash by filing a law suit.

Pathetic society in my opinion. If only people were more responsible with their own child.

 

[Danimal]

1. Video Games Distract Me

2. Video Games Distract Me