Biden meets with video game leaders to discuss violence

[Denivar]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/01/11/biden-meets-with-video-game-leaders-acknowledges-no-silver-bullet/

Why, oh why? There has been no credible link formed between video games and violence in society. This is like meeting with Hot Wheels to discuss vehicle safety.

[Koren]

Just so you know the link seems to be broken to me

And yes, but people just cant get that through their minds. There is a link, but its actually in reverse according to mathematicians

[RubySlippers]

My state already requires to get a mature game as in violent or something you must get a scan done of your ID in the store, so one must be eighteen or an adult buying the game for a minor. How much more do they want my state to do?

[Sabby]

We're still doing this? Not a single person on the planet has committed a violent act that was video game inspired... not one. Yes, some people are violent and do play games, but this is not a causal link :/ I've been playing mature rated games since the N64. 1997. When I was 8 years old. I've pretty much seen the evolution of three dimensionally rendered bullet wounds :/ And ya know what? If I ever saw a REAL bullet wound, I would probably start shaking and be very sick. Hell, my brother busted his thumb open on a skateboard a few years back, and I couldn't even look at it.

If there was some connection between violent media and desensitizing, then I must be very lucky to have not received the negative effects. But for that to be true, then there would be plenty of documented cases. Gaming has grown so much and entered so many homes that if there was even a tenuous link we would see it. Black Ops 2 sold millions of units in America in just a few weeks this Christmas. Wouldn't a rise in violent crime follow? There's millions of people out there right now aged 10 to 30 all getting onto the same game at once and have been doing so for weeks now, and the game encourages you to kill each other for points. If even one person in those millions went outside with a rifle and took the game to the next level, then you might have something... a minuscule something that would more then likely turn into a case of one disturbed individual who would have killed without the games influence.

But we don't see that, do we? Just like we don't see people stabbing each other in the cinema lobby after Expendables 2 because 'they got curious what it feels like'.

But it's interactive! They say. It's not like an action movie! You get to take part and this makes you envision the actions easily and comprehend them!

...yeah, and that's exactly why it's not nearly as damaging to you as an action movie, which isn't even damaging at all :/ Watching someone I don't know stab another person I don't know is something viewed impartially. I have almost no feelings towards the event, and thus there is no impact. But letting me take a personal role, even in a clunky simulation of real events, lets me associate with the people I'm hurting and understand what it is I'm doing. It doesn't make me want to stab a man any more or less then I already do (lets be clear, I don't) but it does give me slightly more perspective on the action.

I don't want to hurt people. I don't have it in me to cause serious harm and I cannot watch people suffer. Violent video games have not increased my aggression or desensitized me. They have actually made me LESS violent.

[Trieste]

... um... no, we're not 'still doing this'. If you read the article, Biden was actually pretty respectful and went in asking for help.

There was no real news made, as Biden avoided pointing fingers directly in his remarks.

“I come to this meeting with no judgement. You all know the judgement other people have made,” he said, likely referring to many who give video games some share of blame when it comes to tragedies like the Newton shooting.

He said the government is “looking for help” and that “we’re anxious to see if there is anything you can suggest to us.”

It looked like an olive branch to me, which the video game industry kinda does need.

[Sabby]

And that's awesome of him, but the fact he 'needs help' means we're still woefully lagging with the issue. And we're still under the impression it's an issue. An issue the VP needs to personally 'ask for help on', at that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad a positive step is being made, and I really hope more are as well. Just feels kind of like that recent announcement with the Mormon Church admitting that gay isn't a choice. Nice news to hear, but a half dozen years late at the least. I'll be interested to see what comes of it.

[Trieste]

When I read the remarks, I interpreted it as "We're looking for help, any help we can get, with stopping violence in schools. Do you have any suggestions? We're asking everybody."

It is the VP approaching video game companies and asking them to become recognized partners in the effort to reduce violence in schools. It's not an insult, it's not an affront. This is a step forward, in fact.

[vtboy]

Let's keep our eyes on the prize here -- the introduction of a small measure of sane limitation on firearm availability. By paying lip service to concerns about the suggested link between violent video games and real world violent behavior, the Administration is able to blunt, to some extent, criticism from the wing-nut right that its efforts to ban assault rifles and high capacity magazines proceed from knee-jerk liberal bias. Even if the Administration were inclined to impose legal restrictions on video game sales, it is well aware that its way would be blocked by the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, which held that First Amendment protection of speech extends to the most disgustingly violent of video games, and even bars government attempts to restrict their sale to minors. The Biden meeting was only political theater.

[BCdan]

Its going to be interesting when a 'breaking point' is reached and game developers feel they need to start lobbying to protect their industry more.  Suddenly a multi-billion dollar behemoth emerges in the lobbying world with money to burn and scores to settle. 

It could go really bad though if a company like EA trys to impose regulations to benefit itself.  Nothing like thousands of dollars in regulatory fees to silence competition.  That would be horrible, though unlikely in the face of the first amendment.

[Moraline]

I wish I could find the article but I read an article that was linked to several different studies showing how because youths have taken to being inside playing video games that young gang bangers are less likely to be on the streets fighting with one another. Also, fewer children per capita in gang areas are being recruited into many of the gangs. They are just inside instead of hanging on street corners now. It's hard to talk a kid into running drugs for you or rolling a convenience store when they are inside all the time doing something they'd rather be doing. No contact with gangers = no chance to get turned.

It's nice that Biden met with them but it's still a waste of time. Their focus is wrong. The focus should be on how the Video game industry can promote the studies that show they aren't to blame. Like the other corporate lobby groups do for their products, only without all the lies.

I agree with the earlier assessment that meeting with them is like meeting with Mattel toys about their Hot Wheels cars in order to reduce motor vehicle accidents. Those poor children developing all those awful driving habits at such an early age - zipping around in loop de loops and speeding. For shame. See the sort of impact that playing with Hot Wheels in that awful 3d environment can do to warp their young minds.

Gun Violence = A uniquely American problem.
Other counties have all the same things that Americans do... and significantly less of an issue with gun deaths. The issue isn't games or guns.

(Ex: Canada. 1/10 the size of the US population. Living a nearly identical lifestyle and very similar governmental systems. Our cultures are almost completely intertwined.

Per Capita has as many, if not more guns.
Logically we should have 1/10 the number of gun deaths. We don't.
We have about 1/100 the number of gun deaths.
That means that per capita the US has *10x as many violent gun deaths.)
*Although it should be noted that in some figures I've seen it is closer to 2-3x as many instead of 10x. It seems dependent on if hunting accidents are included in the total. Many of the gun deaths in Canada are not criminal homicides.

[Denivar]

When I read the remarks, I interpreted it as "We're looking for help, any help we can get, with stopping violence in schools. Do you have any suggestions? We're asking everybody."

It is the VP approaching video game companies and asking them to become recognized partners in the effort to reduce violence in schools. It's not an insult, it's not an affront. This is a step forward, in fact.

When I read the remarks, I interpreted it as something more like, "You are some of the guys who people are inclined to blame for all this gun violence. But I know that's ridiculous. I guess I should meet with you anyway just so we can look like we're doing .... something."

Sure, it's not near as bad as if the meeting was angled around actually trying to force some new arbitrary regulations down the game industry's throat as a knee-jerk reaction. It's mostly just bizarre. I don't understand what actionable results can come from such a meeting.

[CallMeCheesecake]

I, personally, have never really believed that video-games caused violence. Because if things like that were true, I'd be a millionaire from playing monopoly.
I believe that if a kid wants to go do violent things, they are going to do it whether they play COD or something like that or not. But I do praise him for
trying to get the video game companies involved in this situation. Perhaps if I am wrong and video games do cause violence, they can help fix it.

[ShadowFox89]

Its going to be interesting when a 'breaking point' is reached and game developers feel they need to start lobbying to protect their industry more.  Suddenly a multi-billion dollar behemoth emerges in the lobbying world with money to burn and scores to settle. 

It could go really bad though if a company like EA trys to impose regulations to benefit itself.  Nothing like thousands of dollars in regulatory fees to silence competition.  That would be horrible, though unlikely in the face of the first amendment.

You say that like morals have ever stopped EA before.

But, as others have said, it sounds more like Biden is casting nets in every direction. Get ideas from all sides and sort out the mess.

A more coherent post would have come if I weren't awake for the past nearly 24hrs.

[Skynet]

Conservative groups in the US regularly blame works of violence in fiction for real violence, and video games are the new thing among young people, so they make an easy target.  Lots of FPS games are violent, with blood and gore, and lots of players are under 18.  It's just begging for ultraconservative evangelicals to pick it apart.

It's sad to say, but it makes a great political issue because scared parents are an easy demographic to appeal to.  And there's the fact that a lot of older politicians are just out of touch with the lives of many Americans.  Some time ago the Maine GOP attacked the Democrat candidate for playing World of Warcraft ("she's a treacherous Assassin in-game who cusses!  Terrible!")

[Koren]

Its a little unrelated to the discussion of Biden and the video game leaders but its related to the over all point of violence, games and politics

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