Thursday, July 05, 2007

Unsociable Gamers, Violence and M rated Games


Video gamers it appears lead healthy social lives and gaming itself is a highly social activity, according to none other than the American Medical Association.

"Contrary to the stereotype of the solitary gamer with no social skills, we found that children who play M-rated games are actually more likely to play in groups - in the same room, or over the internet," says Olson. "Boys' friendships in particular often centre around video games."

A second survey of young gamers by Massachusetts Centre for Mental Health found two-thirds of boys and one in four girls played at least one M-rated game "a lot in the past six months." even though the rating should restrict their access to such games. The Grand Theft Auto franchise was the most popular game with boys, and the second-most popular with girls.

"Violent game play is so common, and youth crime has actually declined, so most kids who play these games occasionally are probably doing fine.

more details on technology.sympatico

Mike from Fpsrantings.com
led me to an interesting article from the Economist.com, suggesting that all that negativity we gamers face is nothing more than a fear of a new culture.

photo (conan from nihilistic software's) as featured on Destructoid.Com

Now what about the great gaming taboo, nudity?

Clickable inkies

16 comments:

fatherkrishna said...

Sterling work Elderly! So video games are not responsible for all the evils of the 21st Century?

An amazing revelation!

And I thought every pixel, sprite and polygon was the work of Beelzebub himself!

Still yer live an' learn doncha?

NSonic79 said...

Indeed. Just take a look at me. Videogames are what made me the man I am today.

...

Why is everyone looking at me oddly?

Anonymous said...

Great article! Let me help spread the word around in my blog. :)

I encountered a related article in the Economist the other year (when Hot Coffee was scalding), so let me fan the flames a little more:

http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?Story_ID=4247084

It's a great follow up to anyone who calls FPS games "murder simulators."

Anonymous said...

Odd, the link is incomplete. Let me try again, this time in separate parts:

Paste this first as is
http://www.economist.com/printedition/

Then paste this next, with no spaces in between
displaystory.cfm?Story_ID=4247084

Then press enter when the two are combined.

Anonymous said...

Some studies in UK suggested that videogamers are stronger at survial instead.

gnome said...

Well said Mr. Elderly and a most excellent post, but I'm afraid all those ridiculous people will keep blaming video games for every social ill they help create. Same thing with movies, music, you name it...

NSonic79 said...

and gnomes!

Unknown said...

Looks like art to me...! :)

Anonymous said...

Now if I can just get someone to do a study to take the blame off of D&D, heavy metal music, and ritual sacri- whoops. Shoulda stopped after the music part.

Unknown said...

you live and learn FK indood you dee....

..? indeed you do... sorry

(elderly stops staring oddly at Timerunner... moves away slowly...)

Ahhh the vagaries of blogger comment interesting article, added to post, quite an informative website you've got there mike

Greetings Kunoichi Terminator, well i can attest my reflexes are a lot quicker than they should be for a man my age... (accidentally knocks tea cup to floor)... my memory is still gyp though!!!!

Sadly Gnome your right... the basta....

Fortunately Gnomes have been getting a lot of good press lately Timerunner, it's not like those mass Gnome kidnappings of old...

Lol, nothing wrong with ritual sacrifice Kishi, leastways if it only involves chickens, preferrably prepacked and skinned.... thanks for the comment

gnome said...

Ah, yes, the kidnappings. Dark days, dark days. Thank god for web 2.0 though!

Unknown said...

(elderly hides his complete ignorance of Web 2.0)

ah yes web 2.0, much more secure.. none of your terrorist activity either....

Unknown said...

To tell you the truth I wish this crap was left outta games... I can handle violence and some language, but this will keep it from my son being able to see a good monster hackin' game.... and this is looking better than expected so far...

Unknown said...

a trend i fear, developers believing that brutality adds more drawing power to a game. Personally i can take it or leave it, though i'm long overdue a heart warming monster hacking adventure which may be lying in wait in "Blue Dragon"

gnome said...

So you know all about Web 2 Mr. Elderly? Great! I could use some help in setting up Joomla tags... Thanks in advancce my friend!

Unknown said...

ah yes (elderly starts sweating) those drasted Joomla tags... i can well understand your frustration with them... brutal little beasties... but where would you be on web 2 without them I ask, where indeed.... aye so what you need is the ability to tag content and to produce tag links, keyword clouds and pages within your Joomla Website... aye it's clear to me.....

well yes... (now panicking)
we'll have a cup of tea first...