The Effects of Violent Video Games

[philipj]

I've been working on a paper for this class I'm taking called "Research Methods" studying the effects of violent video games. I could’ve picked any project, but this one is very relevant to the kind of work I do as an artist that I really haven't dived right into simply because I haven't made the time to do so until now. I decided to use "Survey Monkey" because I'll be asking a lot of people from various walks of video game forums to participate. It would be the first time I used this so my thumbs are crossed, but the teacher recommended it so I'm going to use it plus I can keep all responses consolidated to one website.

 

If you have any opinions or any comments to the survey or the nature of the survey, by all means express your thoughts here. The survey is multiple choices as your final answer, but only one answer can be chosen, plus you can add your own thoughts and opinions if you feel the need to do so on a survey question; it's purely optional. There are about 10 questions to the survey so it shouldn't take long to fill out... It is a very important subject that I've taken personal concerns as I've been planning to make video games and would like to know what people think about this issue.

 

 

Click on the link below to take the Survey.

The effects of "Violent Video Games."

[famicommander]

There are quite a few typos in your questions.

[fiddlepaddle]

I conscientiously object to the questioning of innocent classic video game aficionados, and vehemently object to violent questioning. I, like every other like-minded objectionist, question the legitimacy of a public interest in personal violence. In addition, the act of peppering any self-described objectionist with multiple choice questions dealing exclusively with violence is, in itself, an implied act of violence! Then there is the pretension of an implication of invitation. Ten questions, TEN?!? Well, @#$%^&*!

[jerseystyle]

Not to sound mean, but what grade level is this class for? There are many errors in grammar and the questions are not worded very well. If you want us to take the time to do the survey you could've taken the time to go through and edit it, right? First of all, it's affect, not effect. Second of all:

 

In 1999 two students went into “Columbine Highschool” and open fire on other students before turning the gun on themselves. It’s noted that both perpetrators of this act played and even customized a version of “DOOM” before the incident took place. Would you agree that Doom had an effect on the Columbine gunmen?

 

Why is Columbine High School in quotes? Are you disputing the location? There is no need to put that in quotes. And again with the effect thing. And in all the questions you keep saying "does this have an affect on (you, others, friends, etc)- what do you mean by affect? Me drinking coffee has an affect on me. Maybe be more specific.

 

That said, I did do the survey, so I hope the class works out for you.

[Lendorien]

Hm. As a side thought, I don't think violent video games necessarily make people violent.

 

I do think that games like FPS's make people who do become killers more effective killers. School shootings become like video games to the people doing them because they've trained their minds to keep shooting until "all the bad guys drop."

 

There have been some studies about this. Why do you think the military does similar training, so when in combat, soldiers go into autopilot and do what they were trained to do.

[Devbinks]

And I suddenly have a flashback of Penn & Teller's Bull*&^%! episode where they focused on this very subject

[philipj]

I made the neccessary corrections... I have about 3 weeks of quarter left so I did rush the survey a little bit, but all grammical erros should be corrected. Thanks a lot for the heads, I think the questions are still relevant to the topic on the affects (not effects ) of violent video game. The purpose of the questions are to gather information on other peoples perspective on the topic at hand. The paper is still in the works but there have been studies that show that violent video games does cause aggressive behaviors when a hand full of children, I think about 500 of them if I remember, were put in a lab to play Doom and after playing they showed aggressive behaviors... But then in the same experiment, they also let the kids play an RPG 3d game (I forget the name of the game)that has violence in it with a midevil them, but wasn't like Doom in game play. With RPGs it's usually a cause and affect situation were violence is provoked (depending on the player and situation,) but not as repetitively violent as Doom.

 

The survey will be up until "March 4th, 2010" so feel free to continue in filling out the survey for those who haven't done so yet. And leave plenty of comments if you want. Thanks a bunch.

Edited February 11, 2010 by philipj

[+Random Terrain]

I do think that games like FPS's make people who do become killers more effective killers. School shootings become like video games to the people doing them because they've trained their minds to keep shooting until "all the bad guys drop."

Long before video games, movies and TV shows taught me that the bad guy always gets back up and attacks when you turn your back on him. So never punch out a bad guy or shoot him in the hand, arm, leg, or shoulder, then walk away. Once the bad guy is on the ground, shoot him in the head until he has no head. It's almost impossible for a headless bad guy to attack you later.

[shadow460]

I think I'll stop playing Pac-Man. It makes me want to eat everything in sight.

[Shawn]

Took the survey. Hope it helps you out

[zylon]

If we ever do get invaded by organized waves of synchronized invaders you'll be very thankful for those effects!

[Jack_Quinn_UK]

I play Manhunt 2 for the Wii and Saw the video game for the 360 all the time and those games never do me any harm.

[Herbarius]

Okay, I just completed the survey. I've added my own comments to (almost) every question - with some questions I felt it's a little unclear as to what exactly is asked for. In these cases I've noted that in my comment...

So, for example, I answered question 2 "Have violent video games affected you?" with "Yes". However, when reading the comment I added, you may come to the conclusion the answer I really should have ticked was "No", depending on how you actually meant the question...

 

 

For the curious ones, here my comment to question 2:

I did never have aggressive feelings after playing violent games.

 

Except maybe feelings towards the game itself, like "This is too hard! It's unfair, makes me mad!" but those never extend to other subjects apart from the game, and also they tend to wear off quickly.

 

However, I checked "Yes" because of one other effect I noticed when playing a game excessively. It's about the sounds. When I would hear a sound in real life that sounds like one from the game, I immediately feel reminded of the game. But this too doesn't affect me any further, I hear the sound, it causes me to frown for a moment, then shrug, and continue minding my own business.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Herbarius

[Reaperman]

Many of the questions were unclear. For example the only reason I can think to expose myself to entertainment in general is because it has an 'effect' on me. If I'm unmoved, I can hardly be entertained. Maybe some more specific wording would be helpful--or a total reworking of the approach.

 

If you want to know if people believe that the violence in video games promotes violence in people, come out and really ask them. And don't just ask around video game forums.

-------------

I play a lot of racing games on a fairly elaborate setup--I've noticed that my driving afterwards is *significantly* more aggressive. It is probably a lot easier to get people to confess to that than for example harboring additional violent thoughts. Just another thought.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Reaperman

[+Random Terrain]

Another thing to remember is that you can become irritable or violent even if a game contains no violence:

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-game-design-guidelines.html#resist_frustration

[Herbarius]

I thought a little about the thing with the sounds... You propably all know Half-Life 2, like the guy from Classic Game Room said it reall has "excellent sound design"... He focuses mainly on the ambient sounds, but there's one other thing everyone who has played the game propably knows:

 

The poison headcrabs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J_6IPc2YFM

I don't know how they managed to do that, but while playing the game you'll soon find yourself almost jumping out of your chair every time you hear that sound... I read somewhere that they had observed during beta-testing that some players would incinerate the whole room (in-game!) when hearing it.

 

I have never heard a real-life animal making a sound like this... I guess I would perhaps be startled if I suddenly heard it, but I can't be certain...

 

 

Well, this is rather off-topic, but anyone has any ideas how they managed to create this genuinely menacing sound/s? Maybe they combined and altered some sounds from real-world poisonous animals - and such triggering some kind of genetical survival instinct? (E.g. Apart from that high-pitched shriek, it does some kind of rattle, which could remind of rattlesnakes...)

 

 

The irony is, a single poison headcrab, or even a whole bunch of them, can never kill you, unless there are other kinds of enemies or environmental hazards around. (It's because they only deal a kind of "virtual damage" (you are poisoned and your suit administers an antidote which raises your Health back to the previous level), but never reduce your Health below 1 HP. This could have been easily solved by making them deal just 1 real point of damage before applying the poison damage... Then a single poison headcrab could kill you with two quick attacks, but maybe they thought that'd be too hard. However, most of the time when you encounter those there are other kinds of headcrabs around as well, and then they ARE really dangerous).

Edited February 11, 2010 by Herbarius

[jeremysart]

Before Columbine happened, I was just the kid in HS that loved Doom and wore a trench coat. After Columbine, I was the kid everyone was afraid of. But I never though about killing anyone. Thought it was funny. I love games where I can blow stuff up, damage, or be head it, but it has no effect on me. The only sort of effect from a game I get is being more sucked into it if you are isolated in the game, like system shock 2 or Quake II.

[BDW]

Sorry, I dont blame video games for destroying our youth. I blame the original "destroyer of youth and culture"; BOOKS!!!! C'mon people, who wants to burn some books with me? Huh, HUH!?!!!?

[Herbarius]

Before Columbine happened, I was just the kid in HS that loved Doom and wore a trench coat. After Columbine, I was the kid everyone was afraid of. But I never though about killing anyone. Thought it was funny. I love games where I can blow stuff up, damage, or be head it, but it has no effect on me. The only sort of effect from a game I get is being more sucked into it if you are isolated in the game, like system shock 2 or Quake II.

 

Yeah, we had some school shootings in the recent years as well. In the "aftermath" of one of those, there was in the media that he and some friends did recreate their school as FPS level (I don't know if that turned out to be true or not).

Well, suddenly it wasn't such a great idea anymore to recreate our own school in UnrealEd... well it's not like I would have gotten around doing it anyway, with all my laziness

Some time later there were even stories of young people who had their homes searched by the police and were interrogated because they did make a level of their school anyway.

 

Such paranoia... I think it's perfectly reasonable that someone who tries to learn FPS Level Design might choose some big building they know well to practice, but well, no, now you're psychotic if you do that.

Edited February 16, 2010 by Herbarius

[Jack_Quinn_UK]

My verdict is unless you are 3 years old or smoking pot, violent games aint gonna have a effect on you.

[Reaperman]

My verdict is unless you are 3 years old or smoking pot, violent games aint gonna have a effect on you.

why bother to play them then?

[philipj]

So far 77 individuals have taken the survey with only one person who didn't one answer since the last time I posted it. The response has exceeded my expectations and I'm so thankful for all participants... Thank you so much for taking time out to do the survey.

 

For those who are still insterested in taking the survey, the website is still posted and as promised the survey will still be there until March 3, 2010. Hopefully by then I can post the results of the servey here for those who are curious about it. I've almost completed my paper, I'll probably be cleaning it up over the weekend where I'll be checking the survey and adding the results to my paper to make sure everything is squared away. Once again thanks so much for your participation.

 

 

The Affects of Violent Video Games

[Mord]

It's almost impossible for a headless bad guy to attack you later.

 

You've obviously never watched a few halloween specials about a headless horseman.

[Austin]

My verdict is unless you are 3 years old or smoking pot, violent games aint gonna have a effect on you.

 

Smoking pot makes one violent? errm.. yeeaaaaaaaaaaaaah, riiigggghhhhht....

[jeremysart]

My verdict is unless you are 3 years old or smoking pot, violent games aint gonna have a effect on you.

 

Smoking pot makes one violent? errm.. yeeaaaaaaaaaaaaah, riiigggghhhhht....

 

Heh, it makes me want to clean my house. It also helps me focus on a piece of art I am working on..