Dr. Kimberly Thompson spoke before the Senate on the topic of video game violence. Herself and her team put together a method of judging violence in video games…a deeply, DEEPLY flawed method.

Dr. Thompson was taking 90 minutes of gameplay from a various game, and averaging that with the number of minutes within that time period that were spent completing or watching “violent acts”. Who determines these violent acts? Well Dr. Kimberly Thompson and her team of course!

Just take a look at this link to understand how flawed this gogic really is

http://nintendo.about.com/od/gamingpolitics/a/pacmanvszelda.htm

If you don't want to click on the link I'll sum it all up for you

In July of 2006, Dr. Kimberly Thompson testified before the U.S. Senate about the effectiveness of video game rating systems. In one of the chief studies she cited in her testimony, Thompson lists the classic arcade version of Pac-Man as being 62% violent. In the same study, Dig Dug is 67% violent, Ms. Pac-Man 54.3%, Q*bert 33.5%, and Centipede 92.6%.

The problem with trying to objectively identify violence in games is that violence is a subjective measure. For example, is shouting violent? Pushing each other in a game of tag? Accidentally breaking someone's leg in a game of football? Wrestling? Is realistic violence more violent than cartoon violence? Asking around you find quite a range of what is considered "violence". Thompson's study is not particularly note-worthy because it has a measurement of violence that doesn't match the average American family. If you were to label the arcade version of Pac-Man as 62% violent instead of the ESRB rating E it wouldn't be more informative for consumers. In fact, it would be using a scale that most consumers disagree with.

Yet this is the research being presented to our lawmakers as justification for revamping the ESRB rating system.

Kimberly Thompson defined violence as, "acts in which the aggressor causes or attempts to cause physical injury or death to another character." In the study, "character" was widely defined, which is how ghosts in Pac-Man can be considered characters, even though they don't technically ever die (they return to their home and put on new sheets). Also, the length of each violent act was recorded and compared to the total length of time each game was played, which was 90 minutes per game. So, the 62% violent Pac-Man means that, according to their standards of violence, you spend 56 minutes out of every 90 engaging in violence. In Mario, this includes jumping on the heads of enemies. In Lego Racers it involves attacking the other Lego players.





Edited by J_Hibiki on August 18, 2006 at 1:07:37.

Well who got the idea tha childrens games are violent? I think this violent scoring thing is plain gay. I hope the Senate does not give in to this crap.

Blah. The Senate, and the rest of the government, and in fact most of this country, is full of bleeding hearts. This sounds like that Hot Coffee crap happening all over again.

Basically, as you get better technology, you do less violent things in a game. Neato! So a GTA game for PS40 will have only 3 percent of violence. The rest is NIFTY, PRETTY PHOTOREALISM.

News flash, boys and girls. Don't decide any laws about a topic if you don't know jack shit about it.

Edited by The Helldragon on August 18, 2006 at 2:51:58.

It doesn't matter if games seem to be "less violent" as gaming technology continually upgrades. The system is flawed, no doubt about that, and this whole thing is just begging to be blown out of proportion by the beaurocrats and other government officials.

I just find it amusing that people are going about this very wrongly. If people can't keep fantasy and reality seperated-if people don't realize that injuring anyone in real life is wrong-then they do not deserve to indulge themselves in violent acts, fictional or otherwise.

Maybe the system is flawed, but if parents actually did some damn parenting we wouldn't have this problem. Mortal Kombat too violent? It's not allowed in this house! See your kid playing it? Pop him or cuss him out or whatever discipline method you want. Just DO YOUR JOB. Teach your kid that there is a fine line between fantasy and reality, a line that should not be crossed, and most of the time he will turn out fine.

Edited by The Helldragon on August 18, 2006 at 14:45:57.

"Games have violence in them."

O RLY?

That may be true to a certain extend, but you must also state how REALISTIC that violence is. GTA and Resident Evil are FAR more realistic looking that PAC-MAN, for God's sake.

And Duck Hunt get a 82% for gun use. and pokemon 73% for making them faint

seriously, this is the worst method of rating games.

OMG he's eating ghosts => 12+
OMG he's eating mushy's => 16+
OMFG he's jumping => 18+

there are a lot of factors in violence. how much violence, what kind of violence, blood and how much, and others.

in the older games blood was sometimes impossible, be happy if it were explosions.

but also censorchip has been softened, a funny example, Squaresoft.


Edited by Ray on August 18, 2006 at 15:50:51.

Maybe the ESRB should make a rating system geared towards the faculties of parents, and not their children. Some example ratings..
E - Explain: This game may be acceptable for your child, but explain to them that hurting people in real life is bad
R - Retarded: You are retarded if you buy your 12-year-old this game

Also, this woman should commit 100% violence.. on her face.

LOL GUYZ I TIHNK MAEGMEN IS TEH VILENT CZ HE BLOZ UP ROBUTS AND SHUTZ ALEBRT ENSTIN.

OK, I think my point was clear. This is a stupid rating system. In fact, nearly anything can be construed as violence if you try hard enough. In fact, you could even say my first sentence was verbally violent.

Not that you should or anything, but you could.

Edited by Mega X.exe on August 18, 2006 at 16:55:14.

Verbally violent?

No.

That was syntax genocide. The language you murdered left behind letters.

Letters to watch, Mega X, with their i's.

Hmm Kimberly Thompson, Jack Thompson, one's a stupid lawyer, one's a stupid doctor. I smell souls bonding.

Also, I have gas for you in the back of my room RisingDragon.

.....lol...Copywrite needed, kthx.

Anyway, video games....are VIOLENT....DEAL WITH IT!!!! I mean GEEZ! Make a big deal about violence and even "Barbie: Adventures" would be cincidered! Without violence, you have NOTHING!!!! Games might as well be banned altogether! Even sports games would be taken!

"OMFG HE TAKLED TEH DOODE!!!! YO BANNED MADDEN!!!! LOLZ!!!!!"

......I rest my case.

You're right. Let me go back and fix my spelling. MAEGAMAN should be MAEGMAN. Good catch.

You watch, Tetris is going be rated M for Mature because of "explicit sexual themes" indicating hot blocks-on-other blocks action.

^^ Owned.

WHOAMGWTFBBQ.

I read the thing and it said that through their logic, Oblivion is 16 times less violent than Centipede or some sh*t liek that.
ZOMG.
Frankly, Blazen said it best: every video game has violence. TEH DUH. Except for the 'games might as well be banned altogether' thing. (DON'T GIVE THEM IDEAZ!) This thing is my 'infuriating thing of the day'. Why do the games we get to play determined by a bunch of biased, stupid people being controlled by people like Jack Thompson? It's just...ugh, I can't even find an adjective for this behavior.

And now for my 'bad grammar bad logic' sentence:

'ROFLCOPTER DIS GAME IS TEH FUNZ! WAITz! TEH GUY POKED TEH OFER GUY OMGWTFBBQROFLLOLLERSKATESJAWIOERJRJGNGNKADGHFKLGJNBILRUEHGIAERGHAELRG! IT IS SO VIOLENT RAWRARAWRAAWWWRARAWARERAREWAREERRAAWRAR'

EDIT: Wait a minute...Kimberly Thompson and Jack Thompson? IT'S A F*CKING CONSPIRACY!!!! Holy crap!

Edited by rockmaniskool on August 19, 2006 at 2:16:28.

So... at least one of you got my joke... 10 points to Blazen!

Kimberly Thompson and Jack Thompson in a conspiracy? *gasps!* Say it ain't so!

And just how the heck is CENTIPEDE violent AT ALL?

I'm just going to have to point out something we all know and for some reason won't admit: most video games and some shows and jokes we think are funny are quite often violent. Centipede. It's a game about shooting lasers at a giant alien centipede, there is NOTHING ELSE to the game. Except the Centipede destroying your ship (and presumably killing you).

Don't get me wrong, I think the whole survey is crazy and that pure "violence" as they put it is a terrible method for rating a game. But trying to deny that games like Centipede, Mario, and Kirby 64 had no violence is stretching it.

Though that's true, Star Wars was just as Graphic as Centipede is with violence, but it wasn't rated R now, was it>

Pac-Man. Pac-Man is violent.

How the hell is a bulimic little pie that eats dots on a floor running from the hallucinations that follow him violent? HE EATS. Oh my god, eating is violent, please, stop eating everyone. Also breathing.

Dig Dug. He blows them up, I see no vital body parts raining from the sky. And it's violent because...? I fail to see it. He's a hero vanquishing demons from hell. That's a damned good job and it's very brave of him, if you ask me. And my logic tells me that whenever a hero does the violence, it's automatically OK. So everything should be OK.

You know what pisses me off the most? The fact that fairy tales can be as grim and violent as you want to tell your kids and they get off scott free, but video games somehow "Plant an alternate reality" within your skull. If you want your kid to be sterile, introduce him or her to Mr. or Mrs. Thompson. They'll quickly abandon any and all amount of imagination they've ever had and become a machine of the system.

Someone needs to punch these people in the face. HARD.

No, no, I think you're missing my point. There are tons of games more graphic than the old games this survey rates as violent. The point is that just because a person doesn't fly into an explosion of limbs and blood doesn't mean that many games we enjoy playing have objectives, goals, or at least humor that aren't based on violence at it's root, simply harming another creature. Maybe with things like Animal Crossing being an exception.

Again, I don't agree with the survey. Like I think we've decided, things like gore or nudity, etc., are much better indicators of game rating than violence. I'm just putting it out there that trying to deny that some of these games have violence is narrow-minded.

Blazen is right about this. If there going to rate Centipedie AO or something then games like Barbie Adventure are going to be at least M...this is pathetic...I hope that by the time I have kids that they don't have to come up to me and go..."Daddy, can you come with us to Wal*Mart and let us buy Pacman Adventure 10, we can't buy it ourselves sice it's rated 30+." That would suck...

Then at the store the lard check out loser says, "You do realize this game is rated AO and should be played by responsible adults only."

Then they're gonna pull this into board games.

Yahtzee!: AO - 89min. out of every 90 are violent - the whole game is rolling dice. They could get hurt.

Risk: M - 65 min. out of every 90 are violent - the pieces are supposed to be shooting each other, you roll five dice, and someone could get a paper cut from drawing a card!