Ethical question: Are games wrong?(for the masses)

Games for the masses, a buyable and legal drug to make humans feel better even though the feeling its fake and you are just psychologically fooled
What is your opinion about it?
Is it correct or wrong for you?

[Focker420]

Kids like this should not play video games...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[Darkfiber]

I don't think people should commit to gaming as a hobby unless they are responsible enough. It is a very expensive and time consuming hobby and if you don't have to time and money to balance it with a normal life you shouldn't do it. That goes for children as well as adults. Most small children though, the ones who are going to play 3DS for 10 hours a day and go blind from the 3D for example, don't know how to be responsible yet in their lives, therefore they shouldn't be playing at all. As for adults, I've known many who have ruined their lives, lost their jobs and ended their marriages/relationships because of gaming. They are also idiots who clearly don't know responsibility and shouldn't be doing it. If you have the time and the money to do it without ruining other aspects of your life, I say go for it.

[wolfy2449]

I would like to focus a little on the part where the Majority of people by games from a greedy publisher for FAKE entertainment.
Many games make you feel better and give u a sense of achievement or power you dont have in real world. That makes people feel better, but at the end, what they really get is a fake situation since what they just achieved required 0 skill and power like simple choices in a video game are nothing to do with real world power

[Zimmerman]

What about reading books? None of that is real, and when I play a game I have pretty much the same mindset as when I'm reading.

If something is entertaining, it cannot be fake entertainment. I go to school to make progress in the real world, and I play video games to immerse myself into a fictional characters world. <- It's just like reading a book.

I've never heard anyone say reading is bad haha

[wolfy2449]

books dont give u a fake feeling of success and a fake boost of self-confidence after you read them

[Zimmerman]

I agree with you, it's not exactly the same.

Though I do feel accomplished after I finish reading a book, I suppose that feeling presents itself more often in video games.

EDIT: I can't say that I receive a boost in confidence while playing games, personally. I do feel like I've accomplished something when I clear a difficult level though!

I guess it's possible for one person to view games differently than the next. I've never hunted after trophies because it felt like a waste of time to me. I guess others get a temporarily real sense of accomplishment from this.

[wolfy2449]

Like i said, it doesnt trick everyone, but the masses which is like 90% of the market...

Books could give u a sense of accomplishment because you either earned some knowledge that was useful and made you understand a few thinks or simple because it was so badly written its an achievement someone managed to understand it...

Games today are becoming more and more obvious on just being psychology buffs and not games that might actually have a difficult level that will require skill to pass, if they did that then most players would be disappointed and leave(not good business). There is rarely any real difficulty but it is portrait-ed as difficult to make people feel that they achieved something that requires 0 skill and just kills your time. People who have low self confidence subconsciously also believe that they are better simply because they believed they did something that was difficult inside a game. Especially when a game rewards you with flashy graphics when you "achieve" something its even more obvious trick

[Dsnyder]

That is what I think is really wrong with video games. People with no self control will play games so much that they dont get ay work done in real life. They will never go to college and then they become a burden on society. I went dont that path once and it nearly cost me my education but I woke up one day and realized that my "achievements" in games meant nothing. Its sad that video games seem to trigger that part of our brain that gives us that "relief" effect when we are normally supposed to get it from doing much more complex tasks. Its probably why this genration is so apathetic and uninspired compared to genrations before 1980. College droput rates have gone up and the number of males living in thier moms house at 25 has gone up as well. There is other factors as to why this is of course but video games play a big role in making us pretty lazy and apathetic.

[sandwiches]

The problem with your premise is the idea of 'fake entertainment.' Something is either entertaining to someone or it isn't.

[Kon]

Killing people is wrong.

[Kon]

WTF are this disagrees? I don't believe people think that killing is right!

[visualb]

just because they disagree with your comment doesn't mean they disagree with the statement itself.

remember, the disagree's aren't at the statement itself, they are at your "comment" - the active choice to write something incoherent with the article just for either shock value or otherwise.

thats what they disagree with, they disagree with your conduct

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

So we're comparing video games to drugs now? Should that mean that watching tv is comparable to drugs also?

No. One does directly bodily damage and is abuse of a substance. The other? The worst that can happen is you get a little to addicted to the game (WoW and other MMORPGS) or that you get a headache from staring at the screen too long.

[wolfy2449]

I ll quote myself from my last comment: "books dont give u a fake feeling of success and a fake boost of self-confidence after you read them "

Here's an example
A kid is raised in a huge rich house and he gets everything he wants and everyone tells him he is right in every of his choices. This kid has huge self confidence and believes he never does any mistakes and anyone who will say different is simply wrong. He lives in his own fake world believing that his is god while he is nothing more than another typical human(this is an overexxagerated example)

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

Drugs are substances that you're supposed to intake. Depending on the situation, they harm or help. They are not entertainment.

Video games are purely entertainment.

[vickers500]

There's nothing wrong with having temporary (or fake) boost of self confidence every now and then. It helps us feel better about ourselves, if only for a short while. Can you honestly tell me that someone would feel more accomplished by heating up a frozen burger or cleaning shit off a floor or cleaning someones house, only to have half that burger actually being eaten, or somebody shitting on the floor the next day, or cleaning up the house yet again that some spoiled little brat effortlessly dirtied up the next day.

There aren't a lot of meaningful jobs out there that can actually give you a sense of accomplishment. And if you got lucky and got a better job because you knew someone, then you would probably feel accomplished, yet it would just be a false sense of accomplishment. The point being, is that not all work is meaningful. Someone who fries burgers to make the people of their country even bigger fatasses is no better than someone who sits at his house playing video games.

Also, reading a book isn't always better than playing a game. I don't see how reading a book about a crime/thriller murder mystery would make someone feel anymore accomplished than someone playing something such as Heavy Rain. Both are forms of entertainment, not intellectually stimulating experiences.

If this were a perfect world, we'd all be smart and read every single day and be able to enjoy it, but the times we live in now make things like that very hard and even in some cases, impossible. I personally would like to read books as a form of entertainment, but a book cannot hold my attention. I wish it could, but it can't, and I'm pretty sure nothing can/will change that, I just have to deal with it.

[wolfy2449]

By putting fake on a parenthesis you say you either dont believe it or you confuse it with a temporary

If a temporary boost comes from something that you did and required true skill to do then its real.

If someone else gave it to you its fake, and its even worse when that person asks for money

The problem is that its fake, its nothing more than a trick. It is not real. Its fake yet you pay for it

You gave an example of how games work yourself

"And if you got lucky and got a better job because you knew someone, then you would probably feel accomplished, yet it would just be a false sense of accomplishment"

Thats how it is, many people either cant and some dont want to see that this job they have just came from another person and not because they were worthy of it

The only real achievements are the ones that come through personal skill

About the book argument, i dont really believe someone can get a big sense of achievement from that, but i am not expert in books to say. Heavy rain simply is better for most people because they have the power of choice and the power of control. That feeling makes people feel better. Books do give u the chance to think and imagine thinks compared to games that give u the image ready

[Dsnyder]

As long as you're mentally sane then no violent video game will ever affect anyone. Some think that video games make people criminally insane but people who went and and killed someone because of a video game were mentally unstable and would have done it regardless of whether they played the game or not. Its pretty stupid when the actions of the extreme minority of people affect the majority but that is how this world is.

[Hozi89]

Heres what I think.

People who love games should learn better time management skills. Learn to manage between work,chores,Relationships,Scho ol, Homework...that's often a lot harder than you think. The key word is "Discipline"

Some people, especially those who are lazy to begin with tend to play games for too many hours. I know it's fun, but here's whats happening. You're hurting your eyes, your body isn't getting exercise or enough rest. People you know are not getting to spend much time with you and you're developing a habit that will not get you far in the real world when you're on your own.

We need to put whats important first. For me, It like this. God, Family, Chores, Part-Time Job, and then Games...(Don't have a g/f anymore) :)

Every so often I stay up late either gaming or on the computer, but as long as you get all other responsibilities done and out of the way, that's okay!

So please heed my advice because people's lives can be ruined from Video Game Addiction.

[visualb]

firstly: discussion forum comment an article?...seriously? wtf?

secondly:

videogames is a form of media entertainment

so is tv, and web browsing

can one be addicted to other media entertainment? yes

why? same receptors that fire off when addicted to a drug are the same as the receptors fired off when enjoying yourself with a specific task.

if you have an addictive personality, you will get hooked on the "EXPERIENCE", regardless if its media entertainment, drugs, sports, specific job, what ever

+ is it good or bad? everything enjoyable has that argument *smh*

oh well

[thebudgetgamer]

no more than movies books or music.

[HurstDarkStar]

Video games bad for you? why gentleman if you in your heart of hearts believe thatplease tell your consoles that you hate them -_-

Too much of anything can be bad for people reading for 12 hours a day could make one seem lazy...