• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Grand Theft Auto Five

I think there is something particularly sinister about a piece of entertainment that invites people to partake in simulated glamourised violence.

I recognise it's a long standing tradition in the Video Game format and there are certainly some cases out there that are much worse. I don't however believe it's a major direct cause of real world violence, but I still think it tells us something really rather disturbing about humanity.

Perhaps it acts a pressure gauge, but there just seems something wrong about encouraging people to enjoy taking an active role in the simulation of inflicting suffering.
 
51002.jpg


(I know it is GTA IV, but this still applies)
 
The difference being all those other scenarios are asking the player to take roles that would generally be considered desirable.

I don't understand why somebody would want to take the role of a murderer in a game. I think it's not uncontroversial to at least say that this phenomenon is rather disturbing.

Whether or not it is the product of external harmful societal influences is a matter that this is up for debate. I'm not at all sure. However the act of simulated reward for simulated violence is something that I have always found concerning.
 
Meat Pie said:
I don't understand why somebody would want to take the role of a murderer in a game.

Probably because they think that playing that game is fun.
 
It's a fair point MP makes. When you think about it even similarly violent games like Call of Duty you aren't fantasying about being a mass murderer but a hero (despite mass murder being the way to complete your objective). While Grand Theft Auto is a celebration of criminal lifestyle. But then again it also satires it.

It's something worth thinking about.
 
Thanks Tim for taking it in the tone that I had intended.

I wasn't attacking fans of this game, it was more trying to raise an interesting thought. That's why I also mentioned the pressure gauge theory.

Bertrand Russell, a philosopher that I am massive admirer of, suggested that due to natural selection, humans had evolved an inherently competitive nature which is the explanation for greed and the use of violence to attain whatever it is that is required to satisfy the greed of an individual. Russell hypothesised that sport and non-violent competition was the future of satisfying this evolutionary need to compete without causing genuine harm. It's possible, if that theory is true, that gaming could be the most modern development in satisfying our need for violent competition, therefore making GTA an aid to world peace. :p

I not necessarily convinced that competitiveness is inherent in humans as I think cooperativeness also has evolutionary value, but it could explain a lot.

Either way, I think its not unfair to describe the compulsion to simulate violence as sinister, even if it is just a reflection of residual evolutionary competition in our DNA.
 
Re: Grand Theft Auto Five

Video games do not cause violence.

It has never been proven that they do, countless experiments have been done and none have come up with any reasonable evidence. In fact I detest any point of view that believes this is real as it does harm the games industry, or more likely the creative development of the games industry, its difficult to be taken as a legit media form when people who do not understand this media form try to destroy it because they do not understand. it happens with every time something new comes along, rock n roll, television, radio, even books back in the day.

secondly

You won't enjoy games like GTA because you are over analyzing everything, just chill.

There's plenty of movies with worse content, plenty of books and plenty of tv shows, just because the viewer has direct control of the protagonist/antagonist people believe this form of media to be worse.

You are not murdering, they are just pixels, the game has not given any real emotion into the killing, the sandbox nature of the game provides an almost stress relief that we all enjoy at some point, destruction. Killing AI characters in GTA is like smacking a box with a smiley face, or more accurately a sculpture.

Edit: also, from what you have said to Tim, games have plenty of cooperative elements some games make it impossible to progress unless you are working as a team.

They are not all competitive, in fact GTA isn't at all, mainly because it is focused as a single player experience.
 
Meat Pie said:
Bertrand Russell, a philosopher that I am massive admirer of, suggested that due to natural selection, humans had evolved an inherently competitive nature which is the explanation for greed and the use of violence to attain whatever it is that is required to satisfy the greed of an individual. Russell hypothesised that sport and non-violent competition was the future of satisfying this evolutionary need to compete without causing genuine harm. It's possible, if that theory is true, that gaming could be the most modern development in satisfying our need for violent competition, therefore making GTA an aid to world peace. :p

I not necessarily convinced that competitiveness is inherent in humans as I think cooperativeness also has evolutionary value, but it could explain a lot.

Either way, I think its not unfair to describe the compulsion to simulate violence as sinister, even if it is just a reflection of residual evolutionary competition in our DNA.

From GTA 5 to Bertrand Russell - classic Meat Pie. ;)

I do agree with you in part though - it is slightly unsettling knowing that there are people out there that will play it and then seek to enact what they've done in the game in real life; a prime example being Anders Breivik.
 
Alastair said:
Meat Pie said:
Bertrand Russell, a philosopher that I am massive admirer of, suggested that due to natural selection, humans had evolved an inherently competitive nature which is the explanation for greed and the use of violence to attain whatever it is that is required to satisfy the greed of an individual. Russell hypothesised that sport and non-violent competition was the future of satisfying this evolutionary need to compete without causing genuine harm. It's possible, if that theory is true, that gaming could be the most modern development in satisfying our need for violent competition, therefore making GTA an aid to world peace. :p

I not necessarily convinced that competitiveness is inherent in humans as I think cooperativeness also has evolutionary value, but it could explain a lot.

Either way, I think its not unfair to describe the compulsion to simulate violence as sinister, even if it is just a reflection of residual evolutionary competition in our DNA.

From GTA 5 to Bertrand Russell - classic Meat Pie. ;)

I do agree with you in part though - it is slightly unsettling knowing that there are people out there that will play it and then seek to enact what they've done in the game in real life; a prime example being Anders Breivik.

Its not just the games industry that can be blamed for people doing 'bad' things - Film, TV, Books, etc can do the same - hell even thinking using ones mind could possible make someone pursue into doing something 'bad'. Its the stability of peoples minds that is the problem. Some people can take the media and accept its wrong/bad to do but others can't.

The mind is the thing to blame. It all comes down to individuals mind processing and some people lack the deficiency to do the right thing.

On the subject of GTA V, I am currently 45.90% through it and loving ever moment! I have yet to fully just go out into the GTA world and do stupid stuff because I can (rather than injure myself or others) but will do that once I have played a little more. Can't wait till GTA Online goes, well...online on the 1st October, should make some great play between clans.

Oh and don't worry fellow humans, I don't feel the need to go out and mow people down with a car/guns/explosives...yet...;)
 
Top