So I embarked on this study last year. The total results were from 7 parts published on my wordpress blog and the details are cited below... Part 6 is available here as well. (The first 5 out of 7 were deleted due to possible libel complaints down the road... I wanted to avoid that, but the specific comment types were recorded in another post online, but that was accidentally deleted last night)
"I am continuing my study into the nature of comments attacking violent games on articles in newspaper sites online. By definition the comments must fit these categories to be considered ‘attacking violent games’…
A) Spread lies about violent games
A2) Making up new lies about violent games .
B) Call for games to be banned outright
C) Call for games to be restricted to adults
D) Enforce negative gamer stereotypes
D2) Shows dislike, hate, or a grudge towards gamers.
E) A Bias towards gaming, such that the person commenting thinks games don’t deserve 1st amendment
protection, the industry is marketing “trash” to my kids, etc.
F) Not sure what violence effects on kids are a restriction might be in order…
G) Attacking the ESRB due to some flawed thing like the FTC study or the fact ‘my 9 year old’ could get bulletstorm.
H) Wants violent game manufacturers sued or games boycotted.
The Previous 6 parts of the study found that, out of 77 comments, 57% were spreading lies about violent games, 31% had a clear bias towards violent games, 7% wanted violent games banned, or violent game makers sued, and 4% wanted violent games restricted to adults.
Results:
Out of all 97 comments in parts 1-7, 64 are spreading lies about violent games. That’s 65%
Out of 97 comments in parts 1-7, 26 have clear bias towards violent games, violent gaming companies, or the industry. That’s 26%
Out of 97 comments, 5 wanted violent games banned, and 5 more wanted the companies that make these game sued. that’s dropped to 5% for each. 3% wanted violent games restricted to adults.
Out of 97 comments, 7 made up totally new lies about violent games. that’s 7%. It’s small but still significant that this is happening.
Out of 97 comments, 4 enforced negative gamer stereotypes. (4%)
Out of 97 comments, 4 showed a clear hate or dislike towards gamers. (4%).
Lies that are made up from the blue seem to be getting more popular in the last few articles. These lies are brand new, and are being spread by commenters. They are not from various news articles, or psychologists. These ones are troubling. Who would gain from complete nonsense being spread about a violent game by people who knowingly spread these lies that they know are not true? If you make up a total nonsense claim about a violent game you know you haven’t heard before, you have to know it’s a lie… Right? So who would gain?
Do anti-gamers sign up under fake names and spread more lies?
I can’t say. But these lies seem to hint at that. These aren’t the things I have heard from the so-called “experts” on media violence. These are totally new to me…. And they are false… But… Do we really have a generation of libeling right wing anti-violent games groups hiring members to sign up with fake names to make up BS claims about violent games and post them in comments? I think we do. But I can’t prove it. But if they ARE doing this… It is VERY alarming… I will keep track of these lies that seem to be made up by commenters to see if others repeat them in other articles. I have an idea to see how many people are gullible enough to believe nonsense that is spread. More on it later…."
Now to read the worst of the comments and my response (if I responded to it in the original surveys at all):
(A certain comment, quoted from part 6)
“And it games cause violence, so be it. If a gamer tries to be violent with you, remember this one rule of thumb, so to speak. Since gamers spend a lot of time inside playing games, they are physically weak. As long as you can avoid their powerful, unnaturally strong thumbs, you should be able to subdue them.”
Pitiful. Who in the hell actually thinks that “violent gamers” should be “subdued”. Someone who hates gamers who think gamers cause school shootings, like that idiot who threatened to kill me on the newspaper forum back in 1999 after Columbine. This goes beyond a mere perpetrating anti-gamer stereotypes and goes to wanting them physically hurt. Is this a trend? First we’re bullies, and now we need to be “Subdued”. Moronic.
Source : https://www.npr.org/templates/story/storyComments.php?storyId=137660609&pageNum=1
(source story DELELTED to cover it up?)
“others are using pseudo facts to support their bias towards games in the guise of anti-censorship”.
Source : http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10430358-17.html
"games have 'passive and casual avatar rape and murder' in them"
2 Words : Custer’s Revenge. 1989! Stop making this damn fake claim of rape simulators up… It’s idiotic. These people read biased articles that keep putting that lie in the game and everyone believes this tripe. It’s ridiculous.
Source : The same link that was deleted above
“Remember when the cigarette companies kept saying that no one had “proven” that cigarettes CAUSE cancer? So we continued to let the ads run where all the kids could see them. Lots of people died. Has it yet been scientifically proven that cigarettes cause cancer? Do you believe they do anyway?
Here’s the future of gaming: TVs as big as your entire living room wall. Life size enemies. Realistic wireless game guns with a loud bang and a huge kick. Maybe actual gun makers will make a wireless game clip that you can pop in the real gun where the bullet clip goes. Maybe someone will make an accessory that throws fake blood all over you when you shoot a game enemy at close range.
That’s OK, because no one has scientifically proven that violent games make the players more prone to violence. Until they do, let the carnage continue! “
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10430358-17.html
Now you can see the idiocy being spread by commenters and how many comments attacking violent games are filled with anti-gamer stereotypes, hate towards gamers, games, the industry, etc, and how much they spread complete lies, fabrications, all designed to make violent games look bad after a school shooting. Every time I heard the media using fake claims like "violent games make kids violent/aggressive", "violent games are used in the military to break down the inhibition to kill", "violent games link to real life violence is greater than cigarettes link to cancer", "Violent games are being marketed to kids", "violent games are recruitment tools", "violent games that allow you to rape and pee on people", "violent games that allow you to stalk virtual women and rape them", "violent games are training tools", etc, I always here at least 1 commenter per article respreading them, and in some of the claims, you get "special anonymous advertisers" repeatedly and maliciously advertising the book for the author who made up the "video games are being used in the military to break down the inhibition to kill" BS claim, on talk shows after Columbine, a Hack Psychologist. You also get TONS of comments, on how gamers are psychopaths, sociopaths, how gamers should be subdued, how we're "gamer shitheads", how we are "gamer druggies", how gamers are all potential school shooters, and much worse. It's a real problem, because the exact same claims made about gamers being sociopaths/potential school shooters/violent people were also made by certain anti-gaming fundies on newspapers as well, after 1 or 2 immature gamers threatened their lives.... Being a death threat victim myself from similar people to the people who claim they are being threatened (and multiple ones claim they did, without proof of course), it makes them look like complete hypocrites, because they unknowingly (or knowingly) support people who intentionally make other peoples lives miserable on message boards just to prove "gamers get violent", as the moron troll on the message board of a newspaper did to multiple gamers 24/7 for 3 months, and said "I have enough evidence that gamers get violent" (the responses to their death threats probably), has been swept under the rug and covered up. It's pathetic. The fact that there are people out there that think all gamers are sociopath's because of people like Eric Harris, or any other damn reason, I don't give a fuck, is sick in itself.... I know at least 10 guys who have played video games before, 5 were serious gamers, NONE were sociopaths. Maybe 1 or 2 gamers are "sociopaths" but that's just a goddamn coincidence, not proof that games take completely normal children and turn them into sociopaths... Sheesh..
Now to show off comments making complete NEW lies up, all completely false, but apparently some people besides wackos in anti-gamer right wing religious groups like to make up false claims about violent games...
“But the videos in question, which the court ruled that kids can see, allows them to virtually stalk, beat, rape, and defile virtual women in a range of perverse and degrading ways. That is purely sick”
THERE ARE NO GAMES THAT ALLOW PEOPLE TO DO THESE THINGS….
Source : http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/sex-and-the-supremes/
“It’s offensive and embarrassing the Supreme Court will afford murder in all its contexts—self-defense, revenge, military mission, zombie killer, mobster—and variety–disembowelment, decapitation, abassination, guns, chainsaws—more protection that sex.”
Most of these things aren’t even murder…… Only assassination, mobster are… The rest are either military combat, “self-defense”, or combat…. how is “zombie killer” murder? Idiots like this astound me. Especially when they bring up disembowelment, and and decapitation, which are rare in most violent games!
Source : http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/sex-and-the-supremes/
"1 comment of type A2) Making up new lies about violent games – Claims violent games as training tools to recruit military at young age, says violent games ‘permanently burn memories’ into the minds of children, blah-blah blah… Common. Back up your crap. You can’t therefore it’s a lie."
Source : http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10430358-17.html
1 Comment of type A2) Making up new lies about violent games – Claims violent games and action movies have too much things happening at once, overloading the brain, causing ‘anti-social behavior’ in kids. WTF?
Source : http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10430358-17.html
“But the videos in question, which the court ruled that kids can see, allows them to virtually stalk, beat, rape, and defile virtual women in a range of perverse and degrading ways. That is purely sick”
Source : http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/sex-and-the-supremes/
"The Commenter Claims just because he drove around for days and because of the length, he was forced to automatically do things without knowing he did them, the ‘kids that play games 18,20,24 hours a day will go into kill mode!’ Is this another hack psychologist worshipper unknowingly or knowingly advertising his best seller?"
Now they are making up utter crap about games in comments.... Some of these comments seem like something a moron in a right wing pro-censorship group would say, like the "perminantly burn memories", and "overloading the brain", and the "going into kill mode" ones... In my honest opinion we have a bunch of pro-censorship morons both saying things like this, all completely made up to the media, especially after school shootings, and also on forums with fake names. I can't prove it, but those 3 comments are too suspicious to ignore, in light of all the very similar nonsense made up claims anti-gamers keep on making on talk shows, newspapers, etc after a school shooting. I have heard every single goddamned fake claim being made up about violent games by the anti-gamer right wing morons. I know them all by heart... These ones are new to me... What actual gain would a normal person have to actually post some claim they made up to make games look bad on a message board? None. Now what gain would a right wing anti-gaming moron from one of those anti-gaming groups that keep spreading crap about violent games in the media, have to post something like this on forums? More people could believe the lies they post, and their claims could be spread to other forums. It all spirals out of control when one person online says one fake claim, others repost it quite quickly, everyone believes it because people today have been brainwashed to believe everything they hear. This effect, greatly aids such right wing violent game censors, trust me it does..
This whole spread of lies is, IMHO, part of a much bigger scheme to get violent games banned for 1 reason, they offend religious right nutjobs. There is evidence to suggest in many places that the media makes up utter crap about violent games, and the politicians believe it. But that isn't enough to get a ban to happen, because they need faked evidence to sway the supreme court, to fight against a claim of unconstitutionality. Faked evidence in the form of hoaxes were spread in April/May 1999 and in an Amicus Brief done by a right wing pro-family group, these hoaxes were cited as evidence to prove violent games make people violent.... This group has been known to recycle 2 very false claims about violent games over and over again, the claims that games have "decapitation of prostitutes" and "sodomizing victims with broomsticks". This groups claims cannot be true, because research done by me on my wordpress blog revealed how fake these 2 claims are.
This whole spread of lies is, IMHO, part of a much bigger scheme to get violent games banned for 1 reason, they offend religious right nutjobs. There is evidence to suggest in many places that the media makes up utter crap about violent games, and the politicians believe it. But that isn't enough to get a ban to happen, because they need faked evidence to sway the supreme court, to fight against a claim of unconstitutionality. Faked evidence in the form of hoaxes were spread in April/May 1999 and in an Amicus Brief done by a right wing pro-family group, these hoaxes were cited as evidence to prove violent games make people violent.... This group has been known to recycle 2 very false claims about violent games over and over again, the claims that games have "decapitation of prostitutes" and "sodomizing victims with broomsticks". This groups claims cannot be true, because research done by me on my wordpress blog revealed how fake these 2 claims are.
