Quote from duke_toaster :

If video games influenced people, we would have people that would be sitting in darkened rooms taking drugs. End of story.

Yea, people don't sit around :/ they dance and its not dark! lots of lights flashing and stuff :X.

Quote from fragile_dog :

Yea, people don't sit around :/ they dance and its not dark! lots of lights flashing and stuff :X.

Nightclubs - acceptable.
Pacman impersonation - not acceptable.

Actually, of course videogames influence people. Rather ask yourself: What doesn't influence people?

After that you can discuss what exact influence things have.

Vain

Well, I have to say that these EU guys are looking at it in a good way but theres a better solution. Also consider this, all those dudes who play games like CS, Quake, HL for over 12 hours a day, if the games were banned, think about how'd they react without their teddy bear , they'd go bloddy ballistic and may cause more violence in large numbers. What I suggest is that like that kid who killed a student and injured 37 others, sure thats definitely bad and my deepest sympathies go to the family of the boy who died and I hope the 37 people who were injured get well soon, but its the kid who is the idiot. I mean, recently, I never knew it existed but it does. If you want to go out Counter-Striking in RL, there is such thing as Paintball championships or just go to a Paintball arena. Something which could also be done is maybe like in the recent NFS games is add a little warning message before the game starts like saying that "Counter-Strike: Source is strictly virtual and all actions within this game shouldn't be attempted to be done in RL". Thats how I look at it.

Quote from Vain :

Actually, of course videogames influence people. Rather ask yourself: What doesn't influence people?

After that you can discuss what exact influence things have.

Vain

Aclohol has not influence on me. Though it took me three login attemps just to poast this.

One thing I once heard, which is so true: There is a huge difference between handling a shooter and handling a real gun (compulsory military service anyone?) AND there shouldn't have been access to firearms in the first place, which is the most crucial thing...

Thing is: There IS a conditioning going on while playing games (as is for anything else), there is no denying that... But (and that's a big "but") what the politicians and the media conveniently ignore is, conditioning doesn't mean brainwashing... So a normal person is able to see the difference between the game and the reality and can draw a line between the two, as they would with a film, a book and so on...

So while it surely is convenient to have a universal scapegoat for everything that is wrong with todays society, it's never that easy... And while I'm all for enforcing those ratings, banning inconvenient things is no solution... It just makes things more desireable than they already are... Plus, as I said earlier, I don't think the general public has realised how big gaming has grown and that they might shoot in their own foot...

Quote from Bean0 :

"Videogames don't affect kids. If Pacman affected us as kids we'd spend all our time running around in darkened rooms munching magic pills and listening to repetative electronic music."

I'm told its attributed to the VP of Capcom's Marketing Department circa 1989.

I have always loved that quote!

Banning video games and violent movies is an interesting idea, but so is the idea that violent kids have a greater tendency to watch violent movies and play violent games which was coined some years ago by researches.

So it then becomes a what came first, the hen or the egg sort of question.

If we compare the number of deaths caused by video games, versus the number of deaths caused by politicians starting wars, isn't it odd we don't hear a call to ban politicians?

Serp.

im not usually up this l8

Quote from Leprekaun :

add a little warning message before the game starts like saying that "Counter-Strike: Source is strictly virtual and all actions within this game shouldn't be attempted to be done in RL". Thats how I look at it.

like "You shouldn't put your cat in the microwave"

Quote from Bean0 :

"Videogames don't affect kids. If Pacman affected us as kids we'd spend all our time running around in darkened rooms munching magic pills and listening to repetative electronic music."

I'm told its attributed to the VP of Capcom's Marketing Department circa 1989.

LMFAO!!! .that is too funny..!!