Harris Interactive, an America-based marketing research firm, have released the first results from a recent poll which shows that 58% of American adults believe that violent games have a direct link to violent behaviour in teenagers.
2,278 Americans were surveyed, with 33% of them saying they allow their children to play anything they want, and 38% having no knowledge of the ESRB ratings system for games.
In essence, you can draw the conclusion that an element of parents believe that violent games have some detrimental effect on their children, but don’t do anything to ensure that their children are playing age appropriate games.
For anyone who has experienced games retail, it is probably unsurprising that a proportion of parents allow their children to play anything they like. There is still a prevalent viewpoint that gaming is a childish pastime, and therefore any games are appropriate for any age group, despite ESRB or BBFC certification.
The survey was run independently, and follows on from Barack Obama’s decision to study the effects of violent games in response to the tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Sadly the continued promotion of links between gaming and real-world violence, by both European and American media, has seemingly now contributed to a quantifiable perception that that is indeed the case.
The full findings of the poll are to be released tomorrow.
Source: Venturebeat.
leeroye
You have to love America. Violent games are responsible to gun violence, not that fact that you can pretty much walk into a supermaket and purchase a Fully Automatic assault rifle. Spot on!!!
Americans will do anything to divert attention away from the fact the constitution they leave by is horribly outdated and just plain wrong. “Right to bear arms” Im pretty sure that shouldn’t mean you have a right to own as many powerful guns as you like.
BlindMonkey
I was playing mass effect 3 co-op with my cousin this weekend, and every time I got a headshot that caused the head to pop right off, I couldn’t help but to laugh with delight.
I said to my cousin “it’s a damn good job violence in games has no direct influence on real life violence”
Nocure-fd
It’s weird. Canada and Sweden have similar levels of both gun and console ownership (thinking back to Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine) Yet the incidents of gun violence in those countries is a mere fraction of that of the USA.
Also, lest we forget. The most violent events in history have all happened a long ass time before the introduction of video games. Infact, many of those events provide the back-drop for most of todays games. So is there also a link between knowing some history and violent behaviour? “Race riot” and “ethnic clensing” incidents in recent history would suggest so. No video games required…
cc_star
There could be a link, it’s certainly worth impartially investigating…
For me it’s the omni-presence of violent & sexual content that’s a problem, so much so that as adults who’ve seen so much of it we become blind to it so it takes ever more violent & sexual imagery to get ‘through’
I’m not advocating a return to Victorian values, not even slightly. But we also can’t go on the way we are, where the only way to manage it is better parenting (which believe me, needs to happen) but that’s only part of the solution and lets those off who choose to sell (or whatever) their product with violence and sexuality.
CR8ZYH0RSE
It’s articles like this that are directly linked with violence,every time i see one of these headlines it makes me want to kick my dog in anger.
*Ok breathe 1.2.3 and relax.
It’s ok i’m fine now.
Klart
“Harris Survey prooves that 58% Of American Adults Are Idiots”
blast71
And the other 42% are Green Day fans ;)
xdarkmagician
How come video games only get blamed for gun violence? They never get blamed for rape, although theres alot of sex in some games. They don’t get blamed for knife and sword violence even though theres more knives in video games than guns, or at least the same amount. How come Grand Theft Auto gets blamed for everything except grand theft auto? Why dont we blame games for corruption, car chases, prostitution, gambling, racism, and drug use? More Americans use drugs than kill with a gun, but nobody blames video games for drug use even though alot of games have drug use. But as soon as someone brings up violence, they immediately associate that violence with gun control and violent video games.
Plus, surveys dont mean shit because people can skew the results.