Well no, its more the other way around, where gaming started out as a pure testosterone scene nowadays you see the o from omega turning up more and more, of course the young boys scene is filled with action packed killing and probably will remain to be such but the other side has been growing and growing on a same level

so i do feel you are quite on the right track with thinking about your actions in video games.

maybe you should not only get stuck on the , i kill people because i want some land but find other reasons, and see if you can achieve goals by other means ...

you would not say so , but Gladius for example, which is only about war even includes an achievement where you don't kill any military combat unit throughout your playthrough ( you do need to kill their civillians by the billions to achieve such a feat since you demolish only the capitals belonging to the enemy but there is no actual killing of people involved in the numbers )

furthermore expand on those thoughts you know, don't register only , i kill people register also , i don't kill people

and in the end if your not able to distinct between virtual and reality you might consider some retreatment from gaming

If you're actually serious about the discussions you start, how about partaking in them for a change? And I don't mean by posting some random defensive one-sentence replies to specific posts only, but expand on what you mean, on what others said, on why you think this is a topic worth discussing, instead of wandering off to create the next thread already. I actually agree with Lifthrasil that this behaviour is very much in line of what forum trolls do, whether you're trying to be one or not. And I believe you have been told so many times before. But if you're serious, don't get defensive, engage in the discussion in order to prove us wrong.

For what it's worth, and giving you the benefit of the doubt for now despite all: I think the fact that you - or any general "you" - are aware of these patterns in games and question them actually makes you seem sensitized to it. I think you can enjoy videogames and at the same time be critically aware of what they make you do and how you feel about it. You might even learn a thing or two about yourself and become a better person. Or not. Just saying, it isn't as clear cut that the effect will be bad for you. Some games are better at making you think critically than others, and of course it always depends on what you make of it, but I believe playing is actually a learning and coping mechanism for children already, their games aren't always happy and nice, and art is also meant to explore the ugly places of the human mind and experience.

have you worked at netto?

And you still haven't answered my counter question: do you feel desensitized?

Kind of.

But i was thinking more in terms of societal change. Nowadays, it's normal for us to play games where we slaughter hundreds of enemies, but if we showed that to a person 100 years ago they would be outraged

Similar to womens bathing suits. If we showed modern womens bathing suits to people 150 year ago they would be outraged

So perhaps i may have expressed myself the wrong way. Perhaps games aren't desensitizing, but they are a reflection of the desensitization of society.


BUT that doesn't mean my title was wrong. Think of it as greenhouse gasses. The earth receives warmth, deflects it, and the grenhouse gases reflect it back.


Then again, it maybe that game ARE the first source of desensitization. It's diffcult to pinpoint

I'm going to disagree with most gamers and say I do think it has an effect. Same with "adult videos" and other things that used to be somewhat controlled but are everywhere now. I don't know the extent of the effect, how detrimental it is, but I do think it has an effect on behavior. My job involves a lot of interaction with teens and college aged kids and I notice little things, but have I done a full blown research study across decades on it? Of course not.

So far the studies I have read show minimal effects with violence, but more obvious effects with sex, drugs and similar things. I don't think you can put the internet genie back in the box though, so the only thing to do is learn as a society to deal with these images more effectively. We also have to learn how to handle rabid disinformation, extremism and negativity online as well. I fear it will take a long, long time.

... and sometimes find beauty in them, even if it's weird and disturbing beauty. I guess confronting oneself and admitting the darkness is pretty hard for many people.

GeraltOfRivia_PL sometimes asks interesting questions, or at least questions that lead to interesting discussions. A shame he doesn't really partake, or is even incapable of grasping the implications - his one-liners certainly lack depth.

This is, to be honest, IMO one of the more silly questions. Of course violence in video games dulls your senses - to violence in video games. It's increasingly hard to create something with shock value for gamers, because they've seen so much - but confronted with real world violence most of them will react in a healthy way - as many here already stated.
Now it's interesting to discuss how that happens - why people growing up with splatter games and torture porn movies still find it hard to keep their breakfast inside when confronted with real violence. Not even live - but also RL footage. A field day for neurologists and psychologists alike.
That's actually themes and topics that I would be really happy to discuss and talk shop about... Sadly it's a bit de-valued by the ADHD-like hopping from one topic to the next - not bad topics, as seen from the discussion that spring from it.
Or people 2000 years ago... "Why are they wearing clothes? That's insane!"

Not so long ago public executions (like a nice quartering, or a witch burning) where festivities for the whole family... And that were real people suffering real horrible death right in front of you.

They would have been outraged about people wasting their time in front of a screen instead of going to war and slaughtering hundreds of enemies in RL like real men did at the time. ;P

But yes, games that caused outrage in the 80's and 90's are considered relatively tame nowadays compared to what we are used to.

uhhh, don't play DEFCON, for your own sake, friend :D

If anything, the more realistic graphics of many modern games makes me more sensitive. A space marine being gibbed in low-res 320 x 240 sprite is whatever, but now you can see all the flesh and bone structure being crushed (with crisp cracking/squishing sounds) in high def. Squint and I feel like watching a real life execution video from Liveleaks circa 2003.

sweating in Stellaris,

OK. I agree that videogames show a certain desenzitation of society. Just like movies and news. What is shown today in the news would have been unthinkable to show a few decades ago. So yes, games are a symptom and maybe a slight contribution to societal change.

But if you want to look for a real source or at least strong amplifier of desenzitation, just look at the internet. Social media platforms offer 'wonderful' bubbles where hate can freely spread and grow and everyone with any mind-set, no matter how depraved, can find a peer group that confirms and even strengthens his views. So if games are equivalent to a candle-flame of desenzitation, Facebook, Twitter and co. are each a global forest fire.

We're coming up to the 30th anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D, rated PG for profound carnage.

If there was a statistical correlation between video game playing and indiscriminate massacre, wouldn't someone have noticed by now?

In a similar vein, did GTA3 start a popular movement for running over hookers after procuring their services, so you could get your money back?

I think people can understand the difference between fiction and reality.