***WARNING: THE VIDEO LINK CONTAINED IN THIS POST DEPICTS AN ACT OF REAL LIFE VIOLENCE, PLEASE FOLLOW THE VIDEO'S DESCRIPTION AND SKIP TO 1:50 IN THE VIDEO IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO MATERIAL CONCERNING A VIOLENT AND/OR TRAUMATIZING NATURE***

In the wake of things like sandy hook incident many people are trying to find meaning behind the madness, and video games regularly become the center of things like this calling them "murder simulators" and saying they blur the lines between reality and fiction. I am going to post a video that is a rebuttal to this argument, but please I must reiterate again that this video contains a graphic depiction of violence to help contextualize the argument. I will put one more Warning here, but the video itself has it's own age-gate and warning to prevent you from unintentionally seeing this footage.

***WARNING 2: THE VIDEO LINKED CONTAINS MATERIAL OF A GRAPHIC NATURE. IT CONTAINS AN ACT OF REAL LIFE VIOLENCE. PLEASE FOLLOW THE VIDEO'S DESCRIPTION AND SKIP TO 1:50 OF THE VIDEO TO SKIP THE SENSITIVE MATERIAL***
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6692-Desensitized-to-Violence
***SENSITIVE MATERIAL***

I know that this thread will probably be locked within a few minutes or hours of this post, and that might prove this video's point perfectly, but I felt that this video should be shared as much as possible to try and help bring to light the problems with laying blame at the easiest thing possible when a tragedy like the sandy hook incident happens. My true hope for posting this video is that more people will try and look beyond the surface emotions and reactions they have to tragedies like this, and will help show that video gamers and other media consumers understand or can be made to understand the difference between fictional violence and real violence.

I truly hope that this thread can stay open and that a respectful and civil discussion can be made from the ideas that this video presents. So, I ask you, Bethesda Community, real gamers, real people, do you believe that Video games or other media are a direct connection to violence in the real world? Please do not bring religious/political arguments into this thread. Let's try and focus on solely on the correlation (or lack thereof) between simulated violence and real life violence. Also as a further disclaimer I had no hand in the production of this video and am only posting it because I believe that this is a pretty important topic concerning our specific media.

With that all said, I have to say that I mostly agree with the points in the video. I do believe that video games can affect a person, but I dont think they can really affect who a person is at their core. What I mean by this is that video games can have an emotional effect on people and most people would agree that the best games evoke real emotions in them, but what I do not believe is that these emotions that games evoke in us are enough to actually change our moral view. I believe that if you are predisposed to real life violence, then videogames might influence you negatively, but I do not believe that videogames can implant something that was not already there.

Please discuss this for as long as it can stay open, but also try and be respectful and openminded. I would like this to stay open as long as it provokes critical and thoughtful discussion. Again please try not to bring religion/politics/gun control into this topic, so we can focus on the topic at hand and that is the correlation between violent media and real life violence. Let's be respectful and cognizant because this kind of discussion can have a huge effect on our favorite mediums.

Not going to go into a long winded statement. I will only say this: NO, I do not believe violence in video games in any way, shape, or form, has bearing on a tendency, or proclivity towards violence, in real life. I see more violent things on the freaking news(case in point, the Sandy Hook shooting), then I do on most video games(with the exception of CoD or other FPS, which I don't play, but still don't believe they have any bearing on someone becoming more violent). I will not go any further into this discussion because I am very strongly opinionated on this subject, and I know I would go very far out of hand belittling people who believe that video games do cause violence, and don't wish to get a lifetime ban from these forums that I've been a part of for over a decade.

My understanding of the scientific literature (ie. not armchair speculation) is that some meta-anolyses have shown that violent video games have some tendency to "prime" aggressive moods and fairly low-level anti-social behaviour; other meta-anolyses find no such link.

I think the bottom line is that even if violent video games cause aggressive behaviour, it's a pretty weak cause, and the aggressive behaviour caused is pretty mild.

To see a man blow his brains out.... it's just....