That's how I feel about Julius Jones. He's one of the bright spots on the Cowgirls roster for sure. His stats don't look as good as Parker's after one game, but the Chargers have a great 3-4 run defense and the 'girls beat them mostly with the passing game. But the Cowgirls use a 3-4 defense as well, and they held the best running back in the NFL (LaDainian Tomlinson) to 72 yards so...heh.

And with that you become my sworn enemy, sanjuro. I'm from NJ and I'm a Giants fan. There are five things that I cannot stand. Eagles fans. Red Skins fans. Cowboy fans. Cowboys fans. Cowboys fans. Cowboys fans get mentioned three times because there seem to be so many of you all over the place.

:D (god, I hate using that new smiley)

The Giants also had a very good win. There were a few surprising upsets like the Dolphins beating the Broncos, the Saints beating the Panthers (my pick to go to the Super Bawl from NFC), the 49ers beating the Rams and the Bucs beating the Vikings. Very interesting first weak of the season.

gilly, you forget arguably the most surprising upset. Cowboys over Chargers. Whoo hoo! :P And yeah, there are a lot of Dallas fans everywhere because somehow they have the reputation of being "America's Team". Maybe it's because of the 5 Super Bowls or Tom Landry back in the day, I dunno. He invented the shotgun as a passing formation (before that it was running only, and died out after two years).

You're confusing definitions in my opinion. Of course it's a violent act, you'd be using great force to bring me down.
There is a clear difference, if you grab someone and by using your strength and weight bring them down, that's not violence under this definition. If you punch someone to bring them down, you're trying to knock them out, which implies your trying to damage them. That's why in these kinds of sports, atleast Rugby, you don't kick, or punch people to being them down, that would be bringing someone down through damage. American Football is different, and I believe this is why padding and helmets are used, because some of the moves in that sport aren't considered tackling in Rugby. In Rugby if you don't use your arms, and just fly at them with your chest to impact them, that's against the rules.

I think it's exactly like accidently hurting someone through bumping into them, or where running towards them and pushing them down to impact the floor to damage them is violence. Atleast in Rugby that's a big difference, as I said, American Football is a different game, I don't know that much about it.
I don't think anyone should hold opinion that they're undeniably right, there are always people that can argue with you, and they're going to have valid opinions. As far as I'm concerned I've got a valid point that as far as language goes, when you say Computer Game Violence, even though it's simulated, you're talking about intentionally hurting or killing people. When you talk about Sport, with acceptions, you're not talking about violence at all, regardless of the force used. In my honest opinion it's all about intent.
Aggression can be very valuable in sports, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll act on that aggression and commit acts of violence. Violence is a tactic in sport, I'm not naive, I've seen it in real life, and on TV, but I don't believe it's in the spirit of sport, or is sport.

If you're trying to say that violence is a part of sport and that the same people that try to fuel violence in sport denounce violence in video games, then I'm sure there are people who do that. Little Timmy gets called killer by his dad and gets encouraged to cowardly hit his opponant in the back to win the match, but then comes home and can't play GTA3.

I think there is a difference between simulated violence and real violence. Some people don't think so, and I guess one of there points is that it glorifies violence, and that's just as bad as a real act of violence, but I don't think so. In some views, simulated acts of murder, or severe injury, is worse than real life acts of less severe violence. I believe I have much more faith in people than they do.

There has been violence involved in driving, and probably everything else, I think sport is more of an activity where violence can occur, than a place where it is encouraged.

Don't hate the Cowboys. The Cowboys were broken long ago. You should focus that hatred on the Patriots.

Damn, I hate the Patriots. And that was before they beat the Steelers in last year's playoff game. They're so God damn arrogant. They're like the opposing team in any football movie you've ever seen.


I thought it was the other way around--they're called America's Team because they have fans everywhere.

Anyway, the Steelers are actually kind of the same way, with the having fans all over the place. After the steel mills here closed, a lot of Pittsburghers started moving to other parts of the country. Very few people actually stay in Pittsburgh their whole lives any more. It's basically a city of old people. Well, what happened is that now there are all these Pittsburghers all over the country, and they're still rooting for the Steelers. It's like a Pittsburgh diaspora.

Only the Steelers don't get to be called "America's Team." But that's okay. We don't need that kind of PR gimmick to win. :P


No, I'm just trying to stop you from moving forward. I don't give a shit about whether or not you feel pain. According to your definition, that's not violent. So it's okay for me to punch you in the face.

I mean, let's be reasonable about this. If I tackle you in a football game, causing physical pain may not be my main objective. But we're adults here. We all know that that's going to hurt. It's not like I "accidentally" tackled you. I hurt you, and I did on purpose. That's violence.


I didn't say that. I'm just saying that I can't think of any way to logically argue that sports aren't violent at all. And usually I can think of a way the other side could potentially argue its point, even if I believe that point to be wrong. But as I said, I'm perfectly open to the possibility that I could be mistaken.

Also, here's some food for thought for the other side of the argument, since we all seem to be defending video games here. In every medium, there's some idea that the author is communicating to the audience. Now in most media, the audience is a passive recipient of the creator's message. With video games, it's a little different. The player is actually interacting with the environment. This gives the creator a new method of communicating their ideas, rewarding players for certain behaviors and punishing them for others. It's classic conditioning. Is it really that crazy to suggest that a game that constantly rewards players for aggressive behavior might be teaching those players to behave more aggressively in general?

mag

I'm sooooo with you on this. The Patriots are like the Roger Federer of the NFL. They are good compared to today's teams, they can hold their own with any of them and win Super Bowls. But you put them against the Cowboys or 49ers of the early 90's (or quite a few past Steelers teams), and they'd be FINISHED. Period. Just like Roger Federer if he was to face Pete Sampras in his prime. The arrogance of the Pats isn't really earned.

"Is it really that crazy to suggest that a game that constantly rewards players for aggressive behavior might be teaching those players to behave more aggressively in general?"

It would be hard to prove that the aggression it's teaching goes beyond the video environment, though. Another extension of the video games cause violence issue, I guess - do more violent kids seem more drawn to this or does it make them more violent? My feeling is not! It makes them more couch potato-like, since in order to get good at the games, you have to put in many hours of play time, and this engenders a less physical minded individual, rather than a violent active one.

This is an issue that can't go both ways - either get the kids to shut off the TV and games and go do something active, or they get fat playing games and watching TV. Our health consultants need to get their priorities straight. I know that not all kids that play games are fat, and sometimes fat kids can be bullies, even, but fat kids are less apt to be active enough to be violent.

Lynsie

If you stop someone through violence, that's violence. It's not "just" trying to stop you moving forward, it's damaging you to make you stop.
American Football is not the best example for me. I have already said that violence is a tactic in some sports, but I'd like to make it clear, it is not essential to sport. I also think saying that if you don't intend to hurt someone on purpose, then say it is on purpose, that's a contradiction.
Well that's not my experience of you. You might not be able to think of anyway to logically argue sports aren't violent at all, that's not exactly what I was arguing, but I digress, whether you can or can't shouldn't matter. If in your experience you can usually understand the reasoning to opposite opinions, would have no bearing at all on whether you are able to understand my reasoning, the only person who needs to understand it is me, although others understanding it would be helpful for the discussion. I find stating so really unimportant unless you have another meaning entirely. It's kind of like saying that because you have the majority opinion all the time.

Doubt I'm going to post about sport in this thread again, don't think it's on topic. I will reply on topic from now on.

I think it's true that adults tend to be more emotionally developed, and less easily influenced. Culture can modify our views and actions, this is clear to me. The government doesn't know how fast children are going to develope in different ways, they probably used some statistics to make an average, or maybe they just plucked a number out of their collective arse, and said to everyone when they turn a certain age, you are an adult... wait for it... NOW!
Can you give some games as examples? I play games with violence, some RPGs have the ability to kill people for money, usually no consequences accept for a few games where characters are aligned to factions. Not that I would want them to make the game so that when I do something they're going to punish me. I played a good character in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2, Fable, and Jade Empire first, then an evil character, I found the incentives to go evil not that strong, although sometimes it was more interesting. Most of the other games the character is forced into violence, like in Half-Life, everything is trying to kill you, and they will, unless you kill them first. People get different things out of games, or any media that the author might no intend.
I'm sure violent people like to watch violence and do violent things, but I can also see how video games can influence people. I'd like to think that the majority of people wouldn't be influenced enough to go around hurting people though. While maybe obese people would be less likelyto perform an act of violence, as you say not all people who play games are, and its also just as important a factor, what is the potential of the victim in defending themself.

You don't need to be particularly active to be violent. Especially if you have a gun. Besides, aggression isn't necessarily the same as violence. You can be aggressive without being violent, and just that aggression alone will its own set of problems.


How about every action game ever made? In any shooter, you're immediately rewarded for killing your opponents with points, with items, or with being able to progress to the next level. So in these games you have a particular action. When you perform that action, you're rewarded. If you don't perform it, you're punished. That's a pretty basic conditioning situation.


You're still being rewarded for violent behavior, though. And the fact that you'll be killed yourself unless you kill your opponent means that you're being punished for not behaving violently.

Besides, if people feel that a violent act portrayed in the media is justified, that will actually make them more aggressive than if they believe the violent act is unjustified.

mag

In some shooters you get punished for shooting indiscriminately, minus points, not being able to progress etc... There is also the case that in some well designed games, trying to kill somethings is going to likely get you killed, but a lot of RPGs, and some shooters like Farcry have something like this.

Items are obvious rewards, but if they're in context, like a villain drops the weapon he was carrying, then I'm hoping people take that as a consequence, not a reward. Power ups aren't even disguised as anything but rewards sometimes.

Not every action game, sometimes you fail your mission and get punished for being violent. This isn't for every game, but I think that far too many games don't have nonviolent routes to complete games. The only ones I can think of are RPGs, and MMORPGS.
Let's be realistic here, the game is based on survival, if your put into the situation that you have to be killed or be killed, and you choose be killed, that's hardly a punishment on the developers part. You've chosen to end your game a lil' early. Non-violent routes would be nice, and maybe someone should make that game.

Obviously, there's a lot of variation among games. That's not really the point, though. The point is that there's a huge chunk of gaming out there that, in some way or another, rewards violent behavior.

And even in those games that punish players for violent behavior, it's only certain violent behavior that's punished, while other kinds of violent behavior are still rewarded. Besides, those also tend to be the more realistic, tactical shooters, which I don't think are the main culprit here anyway.


That's the whole point, though! Refusing to engage in violent behavior ends the game early--a punishment. Now most of us know about this punishment before we even start the game and do our best to avoid it. But it's still a punishment. It's simply a punishment that we've learned through experience how to avoid. The same way that if you repeatedly shock a lab rat for performing a behavior, that behavior will eventually be extinguished. That shock isn't any less of a punishment just because the rat knows to avoid it.

In reality, it's very rare that not being violent will result in punishment. What the game does is set up a situation in which you have only two options. Fighting, the "correct" option, will result in reward. Not fighting, the "incorrect" option, will result in punishment. The lesson, essentially, is that aggressive behavior is an acceptable method of dealing with problems.

Also, as I mentioned before, justified violence in the media actually makes audiences more aggressive than unjustified violence. So a game in which the player's violent behavior is justified ("you have to kill or be killed") would likely do even more to increase the player's aggression than just general violence.

The overwhelming consensus among media psychologists today is that violence in the media, including video games, increases aggression. Now I may have certain problems with certain studies, but for now I'm going to assume that they generally know what they're talking about.

But I think what we really need to ask is whether or not we're asking the right question. Right now everyone is focusing on whether violent video games make people more aggressive. But this is essentially a red herring. What we should be asking is whether or not it matters if video games make people more aggressive.

Our society is incredibly dualistic in a number of ways. One of those ways is that there is a tendency to believe that we can neatly divide all of our feelings into "good" feelings and "bad" feelings. So love is "good," but hate is "bad." Courage is "good." Fear is "bad." Calmness is "good." Aggressiveness is "bad." In fact, this depends very much on the situation. Hate can be bad, but it can also motivate us to avoid or to preempt people who mean us harm. Fear can be bad, but it's also the thing that tells us to run away when we're in danger.

Aggression, too, has a place in our lives. If you look at the people at the highest levels of our society--executives, politicians, lawyers, doctors, etc.--they didn't get to be where they are without being aggressive at times. That doesn't mean they all become murderers. It just means that there are times when aggressive behavior is the best way to get things done. Throughout history, people have played games that increase aggression: sparring, physical sports, etc. I see video games as simply another step in this progression. In fact, it would be far stranger for somebody in the kind of competitive situation given in most video games to NOT feel any kind of aggression than it would be for him to experience increased aggression. Aggressive feelings give us that competitive edge.

So given that a certain level of aggression is perfectly normal in a healthy society, what does it really mean that video games increase aggression? Without any context as to what a normal level of aggression is, simply claiming that video games make people more aggressive is meaningless. How much more aggressive do video games make people? More than their usual state of aggressiveness? More than other people? More than is healthy? More than is socially acceptable? These are the questions that really need to be asked.

mag

I really don't accept that the game ending early because you choose not to use violence in a game is a punishment. It's like saying a game without violence is teaching non-violence because you're rewarded for not using violence. You haven't got a choice in a lot of games, if you did have a choice, and the more favourable option was always violence, then I would accept that games are teaching a lesson. Then again, it would be a great leap, for me, to propose that stable people wouldn't differentiate from games and reality.

I think the scope is the major factor, and I also think that the reason games have focused on one approach is that the other options aren't as easy or fun.

Take a Counter-Terrorism themed game for an example, like Rainbow Six (the original), they have more than one negotiator, they also have semi non-lethal means to potentially incapacitate instead of kill. Negotiating isn't impossible to reproduce in a game, it's not visual, it's not intense, it's slow, and it's a lot harder to model behaviour in negotiating than strategy, or panic. Non-lethal measures are present, but it's still violence, and since they were attempting some realism, those measures aren't as effective or safe for the law enforcement/military personnel.

Civilization games have had non violent outlets, RPGs, and MMORPGs too, they are sometimes criticized for not being as developed as the violent parts.
I have two problems with this:
1) I've never seen a study on the bias of the psychologist community, or read anywhere that this is the case. I've certainly seen a bias in coverage of this view by the media, a lot not involving psychologists at all.
2) I'm assuming you're saying aggression generally, meaning games make people more aggressive in everyday actions.

I agree that aggression is perfectly natural, and healthy. Having aggression at times, and learning how to control that aggression can be desirable IMO.

Presumably, this is a game that you have an interest in continuing to play, which is why you're playing it in the first place. If you die, you are unable, or at least hindered, in continuing to play. Since continuing the game is something you want to do, not being able to do so is a punishment. And it's a punishment that is incurred for not being violent enough. You didn't shoot fast enough, you didn't move enough, whatever.


But you do have a choice. You can choose not to behave violently in an action game. However, that choice won't get you very far. You either won't be able to progress through the game, thus receiving no reward (extinction), or you will die (punishment).

It may not seem like a choice because most of us recognize what we need to do in order to play the game. I don't think anyone in their right mind just sits around waiting to be shot in a FPS. But the choice is still there. And the rewards and punishments are still there. And violent behavior is clearly portrayed as the more favorable option. The fact that that option is so obvious that we don't even think of it as a choice shows just how well this behavior has been learned.


Remember, though, that we're not talking about learning in the same sense as learning something in a classroom. It's not like when a person has to decide whether or not to behave aggressively he thinks to himself, "Well, what did I learn from playing video games?"

We're talking about conditioning, which isn't always conscious or rational. For instance, say I take you into a lab and show you a white rat. And every time I show you the rat, I also do something really unpleasant to you, like administering an electric shock. After a while, you'll start to fear just the rat without the shock. And so if you see a white rat outside of the lab, you'll experience a fear reaction. Even though "stable people" can differentiate from laboratory environments and reality, it doesn't matter. The reaction has already been learned.


I understand the technical reasons. But that doesn't really lessen the point any.


I didn't say "bias." I said "consensus." For instance, there's a general consensus among physicists that gravity exists. That's not a "bias." It's simply that most physicists, after studying the data, come to the conclusion that gravity exists. Now you're correct that the news media is biased. And it could be argued that the psychological community is also biased, but not nearly to the same extent.

So, how do we know that this consensus exists among media psychologists? Well, one way would be to go through all the research that's been done on the subject, and see what each and every one of them has to say. Now media psychology is one of the smaller fields of study in science, but that would still be a fairly time consuming task. I'm assuming you don't want to do that. So another way might be to look at meta-analyses, which are analyses of a number of studies. One such meta-analytic review was published in September 2001 in Psychological Science:

Finally, there are certain sources you can look at to keep track of the trends in certain fields. For instance, this is from the American Psychological Association's website:

Judging by the data that is available, as well as what I've personally been told by psychologists who have studied this data, I think it's safe to say that the majority of media psychologists would agree that violent video games increase aggression.


That's the question, isn't it? How much of the aggression that's taught through video games gets carried over into everyday life? Playing a few rounds of Unreal Tournament my get may blood pumping, but how long does that aggression linger after I've turned off the computer? And will that aggression manifest itself in significantly more aggressive behavior?

mag

I don't think you can call it a punishment, or negative, just because you can't do what you want. If the game gives you points for murder, like in Carmageddon, then that's rewarding virtual violence. Not being able to sneak past them isn't punishment for trying to, there is no choice. Outside the game, you have a choice to play a certain game or not to.
You do realise that the pain is very real? Of course, people can develope irrational fears without the help of a laboratory. The problem here, as I see it, is that you're associating something with pain, and it doesn't even have to be a real rat, it could be a virtual one, but the pain is very much real.
It can be proven with certainty that Gravity exists, it has been observed, experiments have been devised, and it has been proven. You won't find a physicist that doesn't believe that there is a phenomenon named gravity. The modern consensus is in supporting Einstein's theory of relativity, but further more quantum mechanics and string theory. None of these theories are that strong IMO, but they are the best for now, like previous theories by Newton and Einstein were before them. Some say the very nature of these theories make them unprovable.

I only said there was a bias in the media. I said that I have not seen a consensus among psychologists supporting this view. I understand what the word means, and I don't think I have read satisfactory evidence that this is the case.
From a meta-analytical study of studies in the APA database published in one year? With no links to the actual study, no method, no data, from a pool of 150,000 professionals no less all belonging to one association.

But most people don't play video games in a vacuum. Whatever amount of conditioning may or may not be going on while they play the game, they do still have the conditioning regarding social behavior and aggression they receive from their parents, their friends, from schooling, etc...

Well, it is a punishment.


There's something real when you're playing video games too. The joy you get from receiving rewards from the game is real. The disappointment and frustration of not being able to get past a certain part of the game is also real. I used the rat example for its clarity--it's easy to understand how pain can lead to fear. The point is that what people learn through conditioning can manifest itself in real life, even if it's learned in an environment that is completely unrelated to reality. It doesn't mean that that person isn't stable. That's just the way conditioning works. It's not a conscious process.

In fact, the rat example I described was a real experiment that was done in 1920 (by today's standards, it would be considered horribly unethical). Dr. John Watson performed the study at John Hopkins University. He took a 9 month old boy, known as Little Albert, and conditioned him to fear white rats. And that fear was even generalized to pretty much anything that was white and furry.

In my opinion, saying that people know the difference between reality and video games misses the point. You can have the strongest grasp on reality in the world, and that's not going to help you any more than it would help you in a laboratory setting.


Okay, "consensus" may not have been the most accurate word to use. But I will say that the majority of media psychologists agree that violent video games increase aggression.


Well, most of these studies are published in academic journals. They're not online where you can simply link to them. If you're really interested in learning more about the study, you can look it up for yourself. I'm not going to sit here and explain every study that's ever been done on video game violence. I'm just telling you about some of the trends in this area. You can either choose to believe me or not. That's up to you.

As for them all belonging to one association, I don't see how that's relevent. The APA isn't like the Republican Party. It's not like it has a platform that all of its members have to agree to. It's a professional scientific organization. Most psychologists in the United States belong to the American Psychological Association. It's not a biased organization.

mag

*stepping in briefly*

This was a post of mine early on in this thread:

http://forums.adventuregamers.com/sh...1&postcount=16

If you click on the 'this article' link it will take you a 2004 article also by Craig Anderson updating the metaanalysis (and also discussing its shortcomings).

Also when you talk of bias I'm not sure whether you are referring to definition #2 or #3. In the case of these studies, I would worry about definition #3.

Also you can go to PubMed to search for articles in this area. You would likely only get abstracts but if you're interested in any full length articles, I can see if I can get them.

*Steps out now*

:) :) :)

There are a few differences between our opinions that seem to be going no where:
1. I don't consider non-progression a punishment for nonviolence. This is because nonviolent means is not an option in most games. It's like saying that dying in a game is punishment for not being invincible. It's the parameters of the game, and in my experience people know those parameters.

2. Using the study on conditioning as an example is wrong. I'm not saying the study was wrong, I'm saying that you are trying to apply the same logic to fundamentally different things.

The physiological pain is obviously the trigger, and the associating of pain and a white rat. The emotional response is the consequence, that being fear. This is called classical conditioning and requires stimuli to trigger a response, not the other way around.

Whether the joy and fustration(anger) of playing a game are real or not, is of no matter, because you're not associating that with the act of violence. There is another type of conditioning that could be applied, but there is two problems, a) I don't think violence is rewarded as much as you say, and as far as I'm concerned nonviolence is not punished, and b) I don't think, and have not read anything that would suggest that a stable person would try to recreate their actions in reallife, from the actions they have been conditioned to do in a virtual world.
I'm pretty sure, that also, cannot be determined accurately by means of a meta-analytical study of studies in one year, from members of one association.
I'd like to believe you have read the study yourself. I'm not sure you could possibly have the time to read every study on the subject, and I don't know whether you'd be able to give me qualified explanations either.
Well they do, but I wasn't accusing the organisation of having agendas in this case. It's a society for gods sake, it's run by people, and not every study gets published. Of course only using one society to sample studies on the media is not desirable.

word up, money rules fools.