Absolute Wuss

[Cranky Old Man]

I've played M rated games since Halo 1. I was about 6-7 years old. I have played many other and played Doom 3 when I was about 10-11. (Scared the shit out of me but I loved it). I have played many horror games, war games, and have seen what is called "disturbing images" and I am perfectly normal. (in a human-behavior sense =P) I have never thought of shooting up places, I have never thought of stealing a car or becoming violent and saying "Well, I was playing this game and wanted to try it in real life."

No. It is the classic battle of Nature vs Nurture.

Violence is brought about by a mix of this. Nature because people may be born with an aggresive personality or an illness, such as psychotic behavior. Nurture comes in most IMO because many of the violent, uncaring kids are brought up in this pattern of uncaring and unfit parents. My parents have never went against my goals. They know I am an artistic guy and wanted to get into the game design business since I first played Super Mario 64. I am so calm and relaxed 99% of the time, that when a friend of mine sees me mad at someone, they ALWAYS say, "I had no idea you could get mad at a person. I don't see you as a violent person." Why? BECAUSE I'M NOT. I don't run around with a gun, trying to hijack cars.

Games do not bring about bad behavior. Parenting, or lack there of, does and I'm getting sick of those parents quickly pointing the gun at anything else they can before pointing it at themselves.

Hope this helps. =]

Unfortunately, the "I've never noticed any I'll effects." argument, doesn't go that far when the point is that players won't notice any ill effects. Statistically, influecing people through commercials is supposed to be very profitable, but I bet you've "never experienced any ill effects" from that either. Adults are "fair game", because they're expected to have developed enough critical thinking to resist media conditioning, but it's very hard to predict how kids will integrate violence into the early stages of development. Violent games are teaching kids how to kill people. That's the equivalent of shipping the kid off to a training camp for child soldiers.