Or so says Noel Gallagher :rolleyes:
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/the_p_word/newsid_7489000/7489988.stm)

I hear a lot of how computer games and TV violence contributes to violent crimes in the UK today.

I have played violent computer games in my early youth and one game that springs to mind is Grand Theft Auto.

This game involves shooting, stabbing, car jacking and a lot more. I first played this game at 16 but that is still a young age.

Now I know what is real life and a bit of fun on a games console and for anyone to blame their problems of violence on computer games, really needs to get a reality check.

I played games such as Mortal Kombat at the age of 9, which contains a lot of gore and violence, but I didn't go round kicking and fighting other children at school for this.

The problems lie within the family and the people who they associate with. Blaming computer games is a way of passing the buck and going away from the real underlying problems.

Better parenting and education is the way, not to remove these computer games, although it would be better for children to find more encouraging things to to with their energy than to sit infront of a games console.

At the same time as there are "claims" that computer games increase violence, there is also studies which disprove that it does. If anything it has been shown that computers decrease the sorts of violence found in the games.

As for increases in violent crime rates, I wouldn't blame that on computer games. I would blame that on parents not being "allowed" to discipline their children properly without fear of being prosecuted themselves for it. Leaving their children with little or no respect for others and consequently they'll do anything they want with only the police able to put a stop to it for a short time.

The problem that causes computer games to get the blame is coincidently there has been an increase in violent games at the same time that the younger generations have grown up with little to no respect for anyone else.

The problem that causes computer games to get the blame is coincidently there has been an increase in violent games at the same time that the younger generations have grown up with little to no respect for anyone else.

Well said Jobe. I don't want to drift away from the main point of this thread, but just to make a quick point on the Columbine High School massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre).

Many people wanted to blame anything they could think of, firstly they blamed the films and computer games the teenage boys had played. Then people found out they listened to Marilyn Manson and there were mass protests to boycott his music.

But these teenangers had also been to church on many occasions and the protesters had contradicted themselves on their claims that these boys' lifestyles were to blame.

There does seem to be a blame culture in society rather than actually looking at solutions to tackle such problems in violence.

What is frustrating for me is that you see in the news of another knife or gun related crime and we hear from Government sources that they'll make carrying a knife a 5 year minimum sentence but these guidelines are rarely implemented by judges.

Instead we hear judges saying that they are forced to make sentences more lenient because there is a lack of prison space but then we hear the Government that it is up to the Judges' discretion to set sentences that they feel is appropriate.

Until these problems are resolved, I can only see violent crime on the increase since the lack of tougher sentences is sending a message to violent offenders in that you'll do a short prison term and will be out in a matter of months on parole.

I think at the moment that parole is active once a third of a sentence is completed. This is something I totally disagree with.

I agree with El_Nino that it's the background the child comes from that is the driving force for behaviour, not a game.

Games are a past-time, much like movies, and that is why they have a BBFC or other age ranking system on them - least they have to in the UK. I still see kids, clearly under 18, being bought games marked as suitable for 18+. So who is to blame? Gaming is no longer a 'kid' thing, there has long been a market for the more mature gamer. The game makers should have the right to create games suitable for an adult market just as I, as an adult, should have the right to play them. Yet, whilst parents persist in ignoring these age restrictions and/or not monitoring what their little cherub plays, there is going to be the scapegoat of the games industry whenever a child goes a bit mental and starts doing things which may mirror what is in a game - regardless of whether the game itself was the cause of that behaviour or whether that child should have been playing it anyway. It's the parent's responsibility to monitor what their child plays, it is not their right to dictate what I, as a grown adult, has access to.

Do games influence children? Personally I don't think so, otherwise I'd have been out driving a vector drawn tank or running around a mansion, battling mad toasters. My childhood wasn't quite that weird.

As the comedian Marcus Brigstocke says, "If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music." :razz: