Reply #117: No, there's a middle ground. It's called not playing them if you don't like them. [View All]

[Forkboy]

If virtual violence isn't solely responsible for real violence it plays no part at all, ever?

The only studies I've seen that made that connection are from people who actively work to censor video games. While it may effect someone who already has issues, so can anything else. Since banning all violence in games, movies, tv and music isn't going to happen (and shouldn't), the option you have is to not play them or not let your children play them. That's your choice. Mine is to play them, and so far, at 42 (in a week), I haven't killed anyone.

And what's with the super-kneejerk reactionary defensiveness to even suggesting that recreational violence isn't good for people?

Because games are a scapegoat, just like movies are, and comic books were, whenever anything violent happens involving someone who plays them, as if there aren't a host of other issues involved in the decision to commit violence, or as if there isn't a history of issues before the game was even played. It's a cop out by people too lazy, afraid or unintelligent to look deeper at the issues of what causes violence. Things like poverty, class, race, bullying, mental issues...all of which are so big that people can barely even wrap their heads around them, so they use games or movies or comics as a scapegoat instead so they can hurry up and get on with their day without exerting any real mental energy.