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CNN: "Video games get you in the mode to do the killing"

I think stuff like this just makes it clear once again how the 24hr news media is mostly geared to intrigue and terrify old people. Old people (as a general observation) don't play videogames, and don't understand anything past Pac-Man. So phrases like Murder Simulators are evocative, ear catching, and scary rather than completely ridiculous.
 
flabberghastly said:
CNN: "NeoGAF gets you in the mode to read the nothing"

A couple pages of whinging over what someone didn't really say.
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No, he did not directly say that games make people killers and I agree that clearly someone who is deranged can be influenced by any sort of media. In this particular case, the guy thinks he is the Joker and went on a kiling spree at the new Batman flick. So movies are where this guy obviously had issues discerning between fantasy and reality, yet this quack is pointing the finger at games. That is what has me shaking my head at this. I simply love games and hate to see the blame laid on gaming every time some nutjob flips out. Especially when there is no basis for it.
 
K.Jack said:
Every time I hold a real gun, the millions of times I've "fired" one in a video game are the experiences farthest which are farthest from my mind. The physical action of holding a weapon is not comparable to an analog stick or mouse with cross-hairs attached.

I'm also a psychopath, btw, so my opinion matters.
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But but but but but the CNN guy is the real psychopath expert!
 
Partial Gamification said:
I'm curious about the research you mention. I am skeptical of its validity. Here are a couple of studies to the contrary, the latter does call for more research and citing a lack thereof.

No strong-link between violence and video games

Violent Video Games Help Relieve Stress, Depression

There are studies that I came across that suggest gamers become more desensitized to violent images, but the methodology employed is questionable. Gamers play for long durations and then are shown violent images on a screen. Heart rates and blood pressure are monitored to gauge responses. The problem is that this indicates desensitization toward on-screen violence and not necessarily real-life violence. I find it a stretch to claim that someone becomes less empathetic toward a real person at the same rate that they would toward an image of one suffering, especially after hours of being in front of a monitor.
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From the first link:
But he and Skoric concede that other types of games and contexts might have negative impacts.

“This game featured fantasy violence, while others featuring outer space or even everyday urban violence may yield different outcomes.”

Williams and Skoric also concede that because their study didn’t concentrate solely on younger teenagers, “we cannot say that teenagers might not experience different effects.”

Still, and interestingly, older players in their study were “perhaps more strongly influenced by game play and argued with friends more than their younger counterparts.”
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Additionally, I'm looking at the actual study from the first article and it only measures college students, hence the article's authors even warn that "considerable caution should be used when applying results from the present study to noncollege populations."
 
ironcreed said:
No, he did not directly say that games make people killers and I agree that clearly someone who is deranged can be influenced by any sort of media. In this particular case, the guy thinks he is the Joker and went on a kiling spree at the new Batman flick. So movies are where this guy obviously had issues discerning between fantasy and reality, yet this quack is pointing the finger at games. That is what has me shaking my head at this. I simply love games and hate to see the blame laid on gaming every time some nutjob flips out. Especially when there is no basis for it.
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First of all, it's clear you didn't even watch the interview with the criminal profiler, because you would know it was a woman and not a man that made these claims. So, on that point, excellent job really digging into those details before tilting at windmills.

Second, she never blamed video games for anything. She says that video games don't make a person a killer (first key statement) or a "psycho" (second key statement). She merely speculates that video games could be a way that he prepared for something he had already decided on. (One important caveat: she does say that "teenaged psychopaths [...] do get inspired by this and want to make it real," but this statement does not necessarily include this guy nor does it automatically implicate video games as being the sole source of inspiration.)

Third, you're missing the point of profiling altogether, which is to model a certain personality archetype from which to begin to understand the suspect. In this case, not only his crime, but also his age, gender, ethnicity, location, etc, play into the profile, and — let's be honest with ourselves — the guy probably has played a fair few games based just on these elements of the profile outside of the alleged fact that he entered a crowded theatre and massacred people.
 
If a person is so impressionable that videogames would bring him to commit murder, that person should not be playing videogames. Or watch movies. Or television. In fact, they should probably just stay in bed.
 
Damn, I wish I had the citation for this, but I recall a PCGamer article where a researcher presented evidence suggesting video games could not be cited as a source for youth violence. 95% of boys aged 14-21 had experience playing violent video games and never had a history of violence. More specifically, the man who committed the Virginia Tech massacre during the political rally was said to not play video games as recreation.
 
flabberghastly said:
First of all, it's clear you didn't even watch the interview with the criminal profiler, because you would know it was a woman and not a man that made these claims. So, on that point, excellent job really digging into those details before tilting at windmills.

Second, she never blamed video games for anything. She says that video games don't make a person a killer (first key statement) or a "psycho" (second key statement). She merely speculates that video games could be a way that he prepared for something he had already decided on. (One important caveat: she does say that "teenaged psychopaths [...] do get inspired by this and want to make it real," but this statement does not necessarily include this guy nor does it automatically implicate video games as being the sole source of inspiration.)

Third, you're missing the point of profiling altogether, which is to model a certain personality archetype from which to begin to understand the suspect. In this case, not only his crime, but also his age, gender, ethnicity, location, etc, play into the profile, and — let's be honest with ourselves — the guy probably has played a fair few games based just on these elements of the profile outside of the alleged fact that he entered a crowded theatre and massacred people.
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No, I just read the article at the Examiner (which does not specify gender, only the name 'Pat Brown') and it was enough for me. As I said previously, I know that games were not being blamed for making people killers. My gripe is that it was even brought up to begin with, when it is clearly a case of a psychopath that is obsessed with The Dark Knight adaption of Batman. Yet here the finger is being pointed at video games instead. Whether he played games or not is irrelevent and had nothing to do with what he did. However, being a psychopath who thinks he is the Joker clearly did. She might want to point the finger at movies first in this case. That is all I am saying.
 
CNN's criminal profiler Pat Brown who said on Friday morning video games gets a person in the mood to kill.

"[He] probably spent a lot of time in his apartment, playing one video game after the other—shooting, shooting, shooting—building up his courage and building up the excitement of when it’s going to be real for him.

"And now we’re going to find, probably on [Facebook] or anybody who knows him will say, ‘Yeah, he did have a lot of interest in that.'


"He was always playing the video games. And I’m not saying video games make you a killer. But if you’re a psychopath, video games help you get in the mode to do the killing," Brown said.
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Pat Brown seriously gets paid to be this dumb? If you are a psychopath a TV commercial, movie, music, rainy afternoon or a bad day at work can "help you get in the mood to do the killing".
 
When I play call of duty I don't think 'this is cool I'm gonna join the army'

When I play GTA I don't think 'I'm gonna go on a murderous rampage'

But when I play Lolipop chainsaw I do want to dress up as a cheerleader and chop zombies up.
 
J-Rock said:
Pat Brown seriously gets paid to be this dumb? If you are a psychopath a TV commercial, movie, music, rainy afternoon or a bad day at work can "help you get in the mood to do the killing".
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That has been my entire point. In this case, he is clearly obsessed with The Joker and Batman, yet she is blaming games. There is no basis for it here, whether the guy played games or not.
 
ironcreed said:
That has been my entire point. In this case, he is clearly obsessed with The Joker and Batman, yet she is blaming games. There is no basis for it here, whether the guy played games or not.
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The only game that he's been linked to so far is Guitar Hero. Which was one of the very few popular games that didn't involve any violence.
 
Got this on Tumblr this morning. It's Roger Ebert:
The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about Basketball Diaries?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it. The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

This is the same thing CNN is doing.
 
cuyahoga said:
From the first link:

Additionally, I'm looking at the actual study from the first article and it only measures college students, hence the article's authors even warn that "considerable caution should be used when applying results from the present study to noncollege populations."
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Thanks for the link. Many of the studies seem to keep it somewhat open-ended. The Discussion section from the paper you linked sums it up nicely:

"The fervor over violent video games which has become intensely politicized (we would argue this unfortunately extends to the scientific community) may be ‘‘much ado about nothing.’’ In the end, a game may simply be a game. Naturally it is quite acceptable and understandable for parents to monitor their children’s consumption of violent video games for moral reasons."
 
Odd

When I play Madden I don't have the sudden urge kill.

Tackle maybe, pass too.


However since playing minecraft I've been wanting to destroy trees and dirt mountains and ...

oh it's so criminal.

Mine granite
 
The Real Abed said:
Got this on Tumblr this morning. It's Roger Ebert:
The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about Basketball Diaries?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it. The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

This is the same thing CNN is doing.
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Ebert is a brilliant man. Even though his opinion on video games is not a debate I'd like to bring up, I'm certain he'd say the same thing in this case.
 
Hayvic said:
Hold your horses people. Direct quote from the article. It's not as bad as the thread title implies.
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If you're a psychopath the color blue the sky is that day could "get you in the mood" to kill a bunch of people, thats why they are called crazy. I guess that doesn't get him on CNN though....
 
Just to play devil's advocate, 'cause me and Devil are cool like that, videogames could give you ideas and expand your "violence vocabulary," so to speak. However, if you're not already prone to beating someone's ass, the games won't make you any more likely to do go out and do it.

I know if I ever get into a street fight, there's a bunch of heat moves from Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku I would try.

So many...
 
Spring-Loaded said:
Just to play devil's advocate, 'cause me and Devil are cool like that, videogames could give you ideas and expand your "violence vocabulary," so to speak. However, if you're not already prone to beating someone's ass, the games won't make you any more likely to do go out and do it.

I know if I ever get into a street fight, there's a bunch of heat moves from Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku I would try.

So many...
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Maybe if I was built like Saejima...
 
"Video games get you in the mood to do the killing"

This statement would be true for me if it were followed by "of a couple of beers".
 
Guys, the commentator is

A) simply speculating on the event
B) immediately follows with his gun obsession
C) is likely to be heavily influenced by the tactics used in the Anders Breivik trail (I spoke to a person the other day who knew absolutely nothing about games, but flawlessly reproduced the news with 'games' in it related to Breivik), as is everyone at this time
D) is nothing more than an external consultant speculating on events

This isn't news to begin with. Making it news for "outrage value" is even worse.


And the hypothesis of psychopaths (pre-existing condition!) being influenced differently by the medium is neither extreme nor untenable.

For one: the research on it is nowhere near based on recent games, with the very sudden spike in hyperrealism (or verisimmilitude ) being very, very recent.
Two would be that it is already very hard to tell if someone has psychopath characteristics and that their occurence rate is estimated at about 2%, meaning that they would not even register on most datacollections.

AFAIK, there is no research that actually does a comparison between known psychopaths (say inmates) and non-psychopaths. It would also be very hard to prove ANYTHING, since you can't look inside a person's mind. At best, survey+interview+fMRI will show you that 'some difference' might occur. But what that means would be anyone's guess.
 
If its not video games, it's hip hop. If it's not hip hop, it's playing 70's/80's heavy metal backwards and receiving instructions from Satan. If it's not that, it's recreational drug abuse. No-one in the history of the world has actually stood up and said after an atrocity "You know what, I did it because I'm a bit of a dick".
 
Qasiel said:
If its not video games, it's hip hop. If it's not hip hop, it's playing 70's/80's heavy metal backwards and receiving instructions from Satan. If it's not that, it's recreational drug abuse. No-one in the history of the world has actually stood up and said after an atrocity "You know what, I did it because I'm a bit of a dick".
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To be fair, of all the things you've listed, drugs are the only one with an ability to instantly make you lose control of yourself. Still, I agree it's the person who made the decision to do something that leads to a crime that should be punished and not necessarily the activity that they performed. If it can be proven that the activity has a high chance of inducing the state of mind to commit crimes then that's another story.
 
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