Games 'destigmatize' violence, says Connecticut governor

Democrat Dannel Malloy criticizes violent games, says society stands to make "great gains" by spending more time focusing on mental health treatment.

At the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors this weekend, Democratic Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy criticized violent games for "destigmatizing" violence in the United States. As reported by the Connecticut Post, Malloy called on his peers to focus their efforts on removing the stigma from mental health treatment.

"If we spent as much time and energy on destigmatizing mental health treatment as we do in the proliferation of these video games that destigmatize violence, we as a society would make great gains," Malloy said.

Malloy's comments came a month after the schoolhouse massacre in Newtown, Conn. that left 20 children and six adults dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He recalled this day, saying, "the day that Newtown happened, there were games available that actually allowed people to go into a school in the game and shoot 'em up."

"Why do we do that?" Malloy added. "When we're willing to destigmatize violence and willing to bring it home to your living room or your den and put it on a 50-inch screen [and play games that award points for] when you hit someone with your semiautomatic and more points depending on how many times you hit someone with your semiautomatic, where is the social value in that? Is this the kind of thing we want to be involved in as a nation?"

President Obama earlier this week announced a $500 million, 23-point plan to reduce gun violence in the United States that included directing the Centers for Disease Control to investigate the relationship between violent game consumption and real-world violence.

Responding to Obama's plan, the Entertainment Software Association (the group that represents the industry's interests in Washington, D.C.) said scientific studies have proven no link between entertainment and real-world violent behavior exists.

Eddie Makuch
By Eddie Makuch, News Editor

Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.

663 comments
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thenephariouson
thenephariouson

Such Hypocracy,

Hes questioning the "Destigmatizing" of Violence....

Is it any wonder given the amount of scare mongering and other fear inducing mechanisms used by the media, i'd say that more people are exposed to Violence contained in the local News and Documentaries than in Video Games

What about the demmick that shot up the Cinema dressed as the Joker,  I dont recall an outcry over Movies or Comic Books!

If this guy fell into a bucket of Tits, he'd come out sucking his thumb!

Only my opinion

DemiGenius24
DemiGenius24

Did the politicians forget maybe the gun violence has to do with the war we've been in for more than a decade? Maybe growing up in war has messed up kids heads. But I guess their war is good and simple video game entertainment is evil...or how about the news and media we see on a daily basis alwasy highlighting crime and murders instead of good news, this country is in the toilet, can someone grab a plunger?

PixelHunter
PixelHunter like.author.displayName 1 Like

How about all these politicians and media outlets (news) stop singling out video games. If they included all violent media, then I might take it seriously. Last I saw, movies, television, and even books and music depict violence in much the same way as games.

LesserAngel
LesserAngel

@PixelHunter Politicians don't have the balls to take on all forms of media, so they just aim for the youngest. Besides, they no they're wrong, they're either A: Trying to draw attention away from something else, or B: Just trying to get votes.

BladeTrinity114
BladeTrinity114

I'm sorry, but if you see things on a video game and think it's ok to re-enact these sequences in real life, then you should be in a mental health clinic getting yourself checked out. The games don't cause this, it's just more ammo for the government to fire. One of the reasons I'm glad I don't live in the US, although I know this kind of thing will eventually spread into our country too. 

yeah_28
yeah_28

Of course its the kind of thing you want to be involved in as a nation, thats why you buy it, because you like it.


Now, if you were to investigate why most people like to shoot people in games, wich causes them to buy them and thus making them succesful, then maybe you'd make a progress.

markthius
markthius

This argument never seems to go away. It seems that politicians have jumped on the band wagon to point fingers at the video game industry. Where are the politicians that fight for gamers? Anyone? Oh, I forgot, you can't have common sense AND be a politician.

ChiefFreeman
ChiefFreeman

Democrats and Republicans are both being idiots,  blaming games for real world violence.   I'm glad to be an independent.   I'll never vote for any of these people.

Benficafan_101
Benficafan_101

They need to stop thinking its all about video games and more about how easy it is to acquire guns.Lets also not forget, that majority of these school shootings etc those guys have mental issues. So how can that be video games' fault? Also, look at the numbers, how many gamers are murderers then compare that to the number of gamers who aren't. Sorry but you can't pin the blame to video games

HailHellfire
HailHellfire

all of these politicians need to stop talking as if they have a PhD & have proof & research that actually shows that we are all made into mental health patients after playing video games..

that we all have no sense of knowing right or wrong after playing a video game...

its fu-king insulting...

kryotech
kryotech

I've given up writing the logic of how video games are not the problem. They don't have any logic.

Mario_VS_DK
Mario_VS_DK

Oh come on, if violent video games were the problem, what about all those old cartoons like Bugs Bunny and The Pink Panther where all they did was drop anvils or something else on people. 

Those didn't cause violence, neither do video games.

LesserAngel
LesserAngel

Yeah, because it's video games that destigmatize violence. It couldn't possibly be the news painting the people that commit these crimes as celebrities, or the politicians deciding to go to war at the drop of a hat.

raweewat
raweewat

Violence can be destigmatized or people can be desensitized to it for all they want but as long as the fail-safe mechanism in our head telling us not to do violent things still functions properly then we should be fine.

I mean it's probably true that the social attitude towards violence media consumption has changed somewhat, no more stigma or whatever. But the important thing is that the attitude towards actually committing acts of violence hasn't changed. What used to be wrong is still wrong as time goes by.


Actually, I think we've progressed quite a bit as a species of refined taste. We used to go see public executions in town squares for entertainment. We would bring our kids with us and these things weren't rated 18 and above. You can't do that these days without being stigmatized, unless you live in Iran or something.

limakokba
limakokba

Hmmm..... well this is what happens when guns are available freely, and some politician try to divert the main issue and make video game the scapegoat.


tsk tsk tsk..... Why?

Senior_Rosa
Senior_Rosa like.author.displayName 1 Like

Restrict the sell of weapons. This is the problem. Don't be stupid with games, because these massacres only happen in USA. I am spanish and it is super hard to get weapons here. Hence, nobody has access to them, neither mental ill people.

Valdomer0
Valdomer0

@Senior_Rosa THAT is the main reason, in a place where people have easy access to guns, make this massacres more likely to happen, I don't know of other countries, but in my country, guns are highly restricted to be sold (age restriction 21+, also a permit from the government, a mental sanity paper and of course no criminal records), in USA I believe is just the money and an ID -.-

nigelholden
nigelholden

@Valdomer0 @Senior_Rosa At gun shows and private sales, it's pretty much just money.  Gun retailers require a background check but that only accounts for about 60% of gun sales and the checks are pretty weak. 

neogeta8
neogeta8

Why do people always seem to miss the fact that most of these violent video games have an 18 certificate yet parents are still happy to buy them for their children who are sometimes not even in their teens? 


I have pointed out to the shop assistant selling a parent with their child an 18 rated game before (was obviously buying the game for the kid) that he wasn't old enough to play the game, parents response was "It's only a game".

Until retailers take these ratings seriously and parents learn that the age ratings aren't there just for fun this arguement will go on and on. Parents can't blame violent video games that are age restricted until they stop buying them for their underage kids.

nigelholden
nigelholden like.author.displayName 1 Like

@neogeta8 I worked as a clerk at a video game store for years.  When GTA3 came out, you wouldn't believe the number of parents and such trying to buy it for their kids, as young as 8 sometimes.  I'd explain the rating system we have here and how to see what content was in the game.  Most adults would look shock and refuse to buy the game.  The kid always glared at me with a death stare.  What was disheartening were the parents who gladly bought their  8 year old kid GTA3 knowing the content. 

grokh
grokh

what about the news ? its terrorists, and war and suicide attacks and hostage, and fundamentalist groups destroying relics from the old world nonstop.
poverty, exploitation etc etc etc....

and news does it as a form of entertainment to try and keep ppl interested so they keep getting advertisers so... 

after the columbine school massacre everyone blamed music... now its videogame, next time it will be some other scape goat, or maybe music again. But if they are going to blame something then make sure it involves all of its aspects and go blame newschannels aswell.

TBoneTony
TBoneTony

At least he wants to focus more on mental illnesses, but he sadly had to be like most politicians and mention about violent videogames even though they have NO CONNECTION TO THE SHOOTING!!!


Sometimes everyone in politics sadly does not deserve to be involved in congress except for the Vice President who at least is the only one who has said that violent games were not part of the shootings.


I wish we had gamer politicians who can at least put in some reasonable comments in contrast to the rest of the politicians and people who are only there to make news. 

BraollusBeBack
BraollusBeBack

People are violent in nature, either that or all media influence us towards violence, I mean all of it, books, magazines, education(history had a lot of violence), TV, video games, music. But we all know that's bullshit, violence has been present throughout the history of man, people were much more violent in medieval times than they are know and they did not have video games. Video games don't drive people to commit crimes, lack of morality does, and it is our parent's and teachers duty to teach us morality, what's wrong and what's right, even most video games encourages morally "right" choices. People who say that video games increase violent behaviour are usually the ones who haven't played much or any violent video games

Triton
Triton like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 4 Like

Wonder how long he has been waiting to use the word destigmatize...

Not sure what game he is "playing" that lets you shoot up kids in a school, anyone have a clue on that one?

 

DarkReign2552
DarkReign2552

@Triton well earlier today I was playing Fallout 3 and I almost could've sworn one of the slaves that got his head blown off by a slave collar was a kid. My friend insists it was his father though, so I'm disappointingly mistaken. At least it has children forced into slavery. That's a push toward what you're looking for, eh?

Deadly_Nemesis
Deadly_Nemesis

*rolls eyes* Fuck off(I'm just worn down at this point). Next politician to use the shooting (for shame by the way)to take a swing at video games?

Decapod_10
Decapod_10

So what games were there that allowed you to go into a virtual school and 'shoot em up'? I've been a gamer for years and I've never come across a proper game that allows you to shoot kids in a school.

This is just another thing to blame for the violent behavior of a small minority of disturbed people, just like the 'video nasties' of the 1980s and rock/rap music with 'dangerous lyrics' of the 90s. I'm pretty sure that in a few years time someone will start blaming social media for violent behavior and will want to regulate that too.

Xstreak
Xstreak like.author.displayName 1 Like

What would they rather have? People killing people in real life, or shooting lots of innocent NPC's and fellow gamers in a VIRTUAL world. Gaming is a positive force that keeps kids off the streets. The politicians are only going after games because it is easier to ban games than to tackle the root causes of crime and violence (e.g. poverty, social collapse, failing economy etc.)

kavadias1981
kavadias1981

More research does need to be carried out in this area. Violence in video games isn't new, but REALISTIC and CONTEXTUAL violence is. It is important we understand whether or not this is starting to affect the way empathy and conscience develop in young minds. 

Because let's face it. Until something is done to severely punish irresponsible parents, children and teenagers will continue to have access to inappropriate material. And this needs to change.  

Perhaps new laws backed up by research can truly make a difference. But doing something is better than nothing.

DarkReign2552
DarkReign2552 like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

Banning weapons wouldn't solve anything any more than banning videogames. America is too deeply rooted in Crime. America is a capitalist nation driven by Consumerism and the concept of money = power. And since criminals have all of the money and therefore all of the power, they ultimately call the shots in all decision making. Corruption is everywhere from the Drug dealers to the Politicians. Politicans and Law Officials are in the pockets of the people with the power and wouldn't be willing to cut off the heads of their largest employers. So if a weapon ban were put in place, the only people that would be deprived of weapons are those that don't break the law and therefore don't have intent for the ill use of said weapons to begin with.

While it works in other nations, this is only because it  was that way to begin with. America is too deeply-rooted in it's corruption and nothing short of a complete overhaul of the Government and it's politicians and law Enforcement would be able to realistically fix the problem. And even than, you're talking about taking weapons away from a nation largely consisting of conspiracy freaks, rednecks, and people that otherwise feel self-entitled to everything they want just because they're Americans.

SapientShell
SapientShell like.author.displayName 1 Like

@DarkReign2552 I would like to see your statistics on the power/money ratio of which you speak. It sounds to me that you have been fed with the same scare-tactics that the guy in the article is spewing out. As for your argument that gun ban wouldn't solve anything, let's have a look at the school shootings. It seems relevant since they are what has flamed the topic once again. How were those guns aquired? By a far-stretching crime syndicate that then gave it to the children that committed the acts? or were they bought legally by the childrens parents or by the children themselves (see Newtown and Columbine)? 


The corruption that is at play here is only the one that keeps gun regulation the way it is. A ban is justified, and would help resolve a lot of the problems.

Justinps2hero
Justinps2hero like.author.displayName 1 Like

How about destigmatizing the damage fast food is doing to millions of uneducated young people in the US of A each year? But, theres probably more tax the keep the guys in suits happy, so they target other things & kinda miss the point in general.

What a sad case of affairs.

joju_australia
joju_australia

whether you like it or not, this is a link that needs to be explored and hopefully solved to minimize violence behaviour within the community. If this is political stunt, who give a shit, dont you want to have a means to correct some behaviour. People opposing to this school of thought (Violent behaviour influenced by violent games) are ignorant and immature. Lets support the research, lets support the means we as a society might get answers. I for one think the Mental Health section needs to answer a lot of questions and improve the way they monitor mental health patients. 

ag_04
ag_04 like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

How about banning your beloved weapons so your people can no longer massacre each other?

luke1889
luke1889 like.author.displayName 1 Like

@ag_04 

As a fellow non-American (I'm assuming that you are too), this does seem to be the rather obvious option. A tad tricky though when almost everyone owns a whole armoury of firearms.

DarkReign2552
DarkReign2552 like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 5 Like

Uh oh. Another politician spouting violent videogame anti-propaganda? Must be coming up on re-elections. Gotta look good for the cameras. None of them gave two shits about violent videogames until it became a social hot topic. They don't care about the videogames, they definitely don't care about the children that were killed, and they obviously don't care about the shootings occurring around the country (otherwise a bigger fuss would've been raised during the Holmes' theater shooting and even Virginia Tech.


This entire "blame the videogame" ploy is pointless because the tendencies Adam Lanza displayed aren't even consistent to those of a standard videogamer. Adam Lanza was a military-obsessed tech freak. He had posters and documentaries and Internet Links all teaching him about different military technologies. Videogames that use real-world weapons (like Call of Duty) don't teach you a damn thing about the weapons themselves. They don't teach you how to aim a gun, strip a gun, clean a gun, reload a gun, and typically don't even tell you anything more accurate than maybe a clip size. 

 You can blame games all you want for fostering an interest in videogames (just as much as you can blame them for making people interested in farming, racing, learning martial arts, programming, or any other activity you can think of) but Adam Lanza deserves to be saddled with the credit that he consciously went out of his way to become adept with these weapons, something that would ultimately require him to spend less time playing said videogames in order to have the time to learn all of these things to begin with.

That said, when was the decision made that being desensitized to violence is a bad thing? In a world full of drug dealers, car jackers, rapists, pedophiles, killers, woman abuse, child abuse, & politicians, maybe being desensitized is what it takes to get by in the world. Being desensitized doesn't mean being unsympathetic toward the world.  It just means you get past it quicker and shouldn't let the world come screeching to a halt over every little thing.


I'm a videogamer and sure, I can say I'm desensitized. If a family member or good friend of mine dies, would I be sad? Sure. Would I let it affect my daily routine? Hell no. Why should I let the death of somebody change what I have planned. They're dead. They're no longer aware and therefore can't and don't care what you think, say or do.


As for this Sandy Hook shooting, do I think it's wrong. Of course I do, but should I let it affect my life? Of course not. I wasn't one of the people killed, I'm not a family member related to a victim, I'm not a friend of any of those families, I don't go to the same school, live in the same city or even the same state. So I did what any smart person is supposed to do. Get over it and move on.

You're argument might be that getting over it and ignoring it is the problem, but it's not. Being desensitized allows a person to think on a more intellectually rational level instead of being emotionally-driven (which ironically more murders occur due to emotionally-driven responses and lack of control than being planned-out. People act like killing a dozen people in one room is somehow magically worse than killing 100 people across the planet in the same time span. It's not.) It's emotions such as anger and depression that drive a person to kill. Rationale is what oftentimes tells that same person that what they're planning is stupid and not worth it.


So maybe instead of raising our children to be emotionally unstable idiots, we should try desensitizing (or more accurately, familiarizing) them with death and murder and parents should actually take responsibility and teach their children about the rights and wrongs of such acts.

shahab102
shahab102

@DarkReign2552 Jesus christ dude.... you should be a lawyer or something but i agree with practically all of this 

luke1889
luke1889

@DarkReign2552 

I completely agree with this. Politicians rarely seem to care for others, but only for themselves and their own meager gain. Sure, tell the people what they want to hear; that'll win you votes and brownie points. Morons.

Falru
Falru like.author.displayName 1 Like

Rated M for YOUR MOM WON'T FUCKING PAY ATTENTION TO THIS LABEL AND WILL BUY YOU THIS GAME ANYWAY.


:|

arcangelgold
arcangelgold like.author.displayName 1 Like

I think if we sent the politicians to the psychiatrists more often we wouldn't have to listen to garbage on a stick and our second amendment rights wouldn't constantly be under attack.

TrueGB
TrueGB like.author.displayName 1 Like

@arcangelgold No kidding. You'd think people would realize by now to take anything a politician says with a grain of salt. Make that a spoon. Two spoons. Hell, just eat the whole damn bag. Still not as bad for you as what the average politician dips his/her toes in every day.

thenephariouson
thenephariouson like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 5 Like

"If we spent as much time and energy on destigmatizing mental health treatment as we do in the proliferation of these video games that destigmatize violence, we as a society would make great gains," Malloy said.

Then rather than spout some self righteous dribble in order to further your own career and attempt to gain the favour of the masses, why dont you actually try and make a difference.

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