Jonathan Blow Thinks Violent Video Games Cause Real-World Violence?

Jonathan Blow tells us his opinion on violent video games.

[ZBlacktt]

What about violent books, movies and violence on the daily news. What about countries going to war? The Internet has a lot of violence as well?

[Tapioca Cold]

is this moron author asking us or telling us? Horrible immature writing. Gee a title comprised of a question of rising inflection. God help us. The uneducated masses of today...

[ZBlacktt]

I think people just like to point fingers and say yeah, that's the reason. Meanwhile you cannot turn on your tv and watch the evening News without countless stories on violence and war.

[Rimeskeem]

you forgot politics that makes violence

[ZBlacktt]

They make wars which is all the same.

[HammadTheBeast]

Then Blow is an idiot.

ANYTHING can affect you when you have mental conditions from:

a) Neglected, isolated, childhood.

b) Physical or emotional trauma.

c) Depression, sociopathic-type qualities, where you don't realize what's right or wrong.

To blame it on games is stupid, and pretty much a scapegoat.

[Shadonic]

plus having irresponsible parents still give the kids want is also an issue. I actully ran into a kid who was about 6 cursing like a sailor and playing gears of war 3.

I know that retailers have to ask if the buysers 18 or not, you'd think that parents would think " Why does this matter ?" or they would see the ESRB rating for 18+ but nope.

[Kingthrash360]

somebody just got their "im an idiot" card.

[Chapter11]

It doesn't matter what profession you're in, if you're wrong you're wrong.

[GreenRanger]

In other words: "Damn! I've gone an entire week without drawing attention to myself. I'd better say something controversial before people forget about me."

[Tapani]

Well, to be honest, he's got a point. The interactivity (Oculus Rift + violent games + children = ??? = we have no data) has not yet been researched. Games approach a new level of realism, and the interactivity is becoming more and more gruesome.

I will always remember the moment when I cut my own finger in Heavy Rain. Maybe the active (vs. passive) nature of games create new sorts of cognitive processes and we learn in new, unexplored ways?

Sometimes, it's good to stop and think before we pioneer our future. A normal educated adult, who understands real scientific psychology, should be able to have a neutral stance on this one. We simply do not know enough about this multisense, multimotoric media...yet!

[theWB27]

Oculus Rift isn't in enough hands to conduct research on it yet.

I think most people concede in any type of media can affect the brain if that person is susceptible to it. Factors like mental illness(even kids show violent behavior in "normal" environments) should be considered heavily before they say games did it.

I'll put it like this...gauge the amount video game related tragedies to the amount of violent games released and sold. Far too many people don't react to games with violence in real life to say games did it.

When things like this happen, only the media wants to say someone did this after playing that, instead of looking into the persons mental state, environment etc.

The saying goes: guns don't kill people, stupid people with guns kill people.

I'm not saying these people are stupid, but there is something else going to to say "X" made them do it.

[Joe913]

He do not have a point basically this blame movies,video games, and music all come from the parents who do not want to take responsibility for what their kids have done. For example the columbine shooting could have been avoided if the parents would have just checked in on their kids I would never have been able to hide bombs and guns in my sock drawer. Then the sandy hook it would not have happened if the mother had not bought her mentally ill kid a bunch of guns.

[AAWELLS09]

What video games did the Romans play? What is there to blame for violence before video games?

[310dodo]

Blow is a design genius.
very far from an idiot.

with that said violence is a natural occurrence; that will go on forever.
" violent" media/entertainment can influence violence, this is just a fact of life.

we cannot blame the "violent" disc for the violent act though.

[Jamaicangmr]

I like you because you stepped up, for sometime you were voice of independent developers. However i think you been talking too much, you need to know when to quit bro.

I have been playing violent videogames all my life and i have never gone on a killing spree or been unnecessarily violent. The most i have done is tune cars and drive fast but i was into that way before GT so still not true.

[HalfNerdHalfAmazing]

Don't blame video games blame the parents you can't be surprised if your 8 yrs old son is into violence if u gonna allow him to play COD all day, if your kid is too young to understand the difference between right and wrong then he should be playing a game made by Nintendo not a game that reward u for head shots.

[wtopez]

Whenever Jonathan Blow speaks, I want to bash my head against a wall. Maybe he causes violence?

[CerealKiller]

Blowfish

[-Gespenst-]

I think you're all being a bit reactionary. He's using twitter for crying out loud. There's not a lot of room for elaboration. He hasn't written a big blog entry or article or something. In fact, by reacting like people with anger issues over such slight evidence, you're actually guilty of the same crime you impute to Blow himself- that is to say, you're denouncing the guy based on very thread-bare evidence.

Nevertheless, I suspect he shares a similar view to myself: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...

Let that ^^^ be me speaking on his behalf.

This user also made an important point: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...

It saddens me when people rail against someone genuinely progressive in the videogames industry (if you can even call Blow's outlook "industrial".) A person with a damn brain for once.

[Hicken]

If you're going to have your stance limited by something like Twitter, expect misunderstandings, and expect it to be "reactionary."

Thing is: there's no proven correlation between violence in games and violent actions.

That's kind of the end of the argument. Don't know why folks keep bringing it up.

[Discod99]

Jonathan Blow thanks for letting the world know how stupid you are

[JediDiah]

This article Blows.

[---stone---]

Religion has and still is influencing violence. Wait, disregard that... silly me there was no video games way back in biblical times.

[Loki86]

Blow me, Blowfish.

Never getting a penny from me.