Ask the right question, get the right answer??? September 17, 2007
Posted by nutheadgreg in Online Gaming.Tags: ethics, research, video games, violence
add a comment
On a recent trawl through the BBC website, I stumbled across an article. It was predominantly based upon the moral debate of computer games and violence. This subject rears its head everytime the is a moral panic surrounding the release of a new videogame that has a negative stigmata attached to it.
However author the suggested that when such an event occurs, are we as morally grounded people, asking the right questions? I response to this the article is showing how people who play games on a regular basis suffer from flashbacks to moments of gameplay. The author identfies with some of the more extreme cases of this occurence. In one instance a gamer desribes that he has played Halo solidly for a weekend, and come monday morning when faced with a crowd of tourists, has a split-second wish to armed with a pistol.
Approaching my research, based upon questions surrounding the amount of time users spend on many hours of focused gaming can transfer an after image onto the brain, could provide an interesting angle upon my subject area.
Hardcore Uproar! June 10, 2007
Posted by nutheadgreg in Online Gaming.Tags: ethics, philosophy, religion, video games, violence
add a comment
On friday I was watching BBC news 24 when a story appeared about the use of Manchester Catherderal in a video game. This has cause an uproar within the Christian community, as there is a bloody gun battle in the naive in which hundreds of enimies are killed by the player. The Dean of the Catherderal explained that he was highly upset about this, and suggested that it is doing the city’s fight against gun crime no favours. The Church of England are getting ready to sue Sony creator of the million selling computer game, Resistance: Fall of Man. This game was released on the launch of the new Playstation 3 console. It is claimed that the game has recreated the inside of the Catherderal to almost photographic quality, thus creating a highly realistic feel to the game. Sony, however are defending the position that it is a game, and is not trying to portray reality.
From my point of view I do not agree with the hypodermic model that the Dean is referring to when he mentions about the game causing problems in gun crime. This is suggesting that the game is directly influencing people to commit acts of gun crime. As a result the audience are seen as passive, this cannot be the case as the audience is interacting and thus are active. However, from a religious perspective that this is upsetting for Christians, that a masacre is being carried out within the building in which the worship.
Gaming makes people violent??? May 31, 2007
Posted by nutheadgreg in Online Gaming.Tags: ethics, philosophy, values, video games, violence
add a comment
I spotted another piece of information relating to computer games being blamed for violence. This article was again on the Microsoft Network homepage http://www.msn.co.uk. The article suggests that the opinion some people share of games cause players to become killers, is somewhat misleading. The problem is considered to be much more complex societal issue, and cannot simply be pinned to one specific thing. The problem of blaming the game dates back to The Columbine Masacre, where it was found out that the shooters play Doom (first-person shooter game) extensively. As a result the media jumped on the opinion bandwagon, spreading this moral panic about the dangers of playing violent games. Blaming the media is just the same as blaming the problem on societal things such as gun culture, drugs or lack of value for life.
