I'm de-sensitised by video game violence

Completely.

Whether or not the intent is to shock. Nothing does any more. I watch zombies being massacred by the million and just find myself studying incidental details and texture resolutions on the models.

If a game is trying to be gritty. It's doing it. But only because I'm gritting my teeth at the same old tedious cut scenes I've seen a million times of four young people standing around in some rubble with massive guns, and zombies.

I got what Manhunt was trying to do with it's crappy murder simulator based on another crappy b-movie about people paying to watch people be murdered. But the game was so bad it just looked funny.

But then I played Saw 2 on xbox 360 and nearly puked. It was not scary as much as it was excruciating and nauseating to watch as you have to manoeuvre a scalpel to remove a key from underneath your eyeball.

I did not go back to play it again quite simply because it was a horrible game. But now I've seen the gore I'm just playing a bad game with a gross and 'scary' theme.

That's not really violence though. It's shlock horror. But violence is so commonplace now it's completely lost it's ability to convey emotion which is what violence really is. It's always going to look crap if the character expressions don't match up with the pain being inflicted for instance, or limbs flail around all over the place and bodies hilariously fly 100's of feet into the air.

But what is going on now is kind of weird. Take the latest Doom. That game is so gruesome in it's depiction of violence. You stuff your fist down a monster's throat and literally pull his intestines out through it's mouth causing it to explode fantastically. I really don't know where you go from there. Violence wise. I think Doom (new) found the most violent scene possible for mankind to conceive of. Right there. iD found the most violent death animation ever. So where from here...?

PS. ...and I've seen Scanners where the guy's head explodes in a telepathy fight and that is pretty gross.

I'm the same way. It usually affects me more when there is an emotional tie to it. I was a paramedic for 6 years so I think that helped lol.

It's all about context for me.

I can handle it in entertainment because, no matter how realistic, I know it's not real.

However, at my job there are a lot of hazards. Part of my training involves forklift, assembly line, maintenance, and other certifications; our safety guy would show us videos of people being squashed by forklifts (literally; the forklift tipped over front a little bit due to elevated load, and some employee tried to balance it by jumping on the back; the forklift teetered back landed flat on the person, squashing her. The driver, of course, tried to drive off the woman but over course all this did was cram her body into the wheel wells of the forklift).

That shit disturbs me far more than any film or game ever has or will. Hell, just reading about how serial killers have murdered people upsets me. There's a certain finality to actually seeing someone die or get brutally maimed, versus pretending to see someone die or get maimed.

You know, one minute you're working, you see a forklift tip, you make a bad choice with the best intentions of helping, and suddenly you're dead. Poof, gone forever. No blood, no explosions, no diabolical scheme. Just...gone. Meat and bones being tossed around a forklift's undercarriage, that's all it is.

Disturbing. And dehumanizing, if you want me to be honest. It's almost insulting, I think, to die in certain fashions. Something just snatches your life away, this precious thing no matter how small your role is in the world, and all that's left is organic matter. Nothing truly human.

Man now I am really sad.

I had a medical professional as a roommate and he had some paramedic friends, man the stories they'd tell...disturbing. Mostly car accidents, but damn the human body can really take a beating.

@jackamomo:

Probably because it’s not real.

What do you want? PTSD? It’s when you suddenly can’t distinguish between fiction and reality that you’ll have problems.

You are aware that the majority of people aren’t affected by violence in video games yeh? People aren’t running off for a vom and you’re the outlier psychopath...you’re just like everyone else.

And Manhunt was a great game.

Doom, ha! You clearly haven't seen mortal kombat yet.

I have become desensitized to a lot of violence in video games as well but tbh its not real and I would not feel the same in a real violent situation. I do not like it when people say that playing violent video games will make you into a cold blooded murderer or something because when you kill things in a game they are AI coded with patterns to attack you and you are "supposed" to kill them or players in PVP who are there to have fun.

@mistervulpes: I think I already have PTSD. I have flashbacks I'm stuck playing Witcher 3 endlessly mashing A and doing pointless fetch quests and grimacing or worse, trying to smile. *shudders*

But no, I realise games are meant to be fun and not harrowing. Which leads me to the question, is more guts equatable to more fun? If your gunning down folks in Battlefield or something there only a little bit of blood and bodies fly around in a silly manner so it's not fetishising violence. This is my point.

Games like Sniper Elite and Mortal Kombat fetishise violence, in a way which assumes, this is what you want. Because, you liked Mortal Kombat, right? It was violent wasn't it? So therefore, more violence = more fun!

Some game dev think that the more graphic the depiction of violence, the more fun. But look how far they've taken it with games like MK. I don't want to play that game because I am assaulted with sound effects and images of bodies being dismembered in so many differents ways I'm just a little bit overwhelmed. Not to mention that game is unplayable nowadays.

So I'm so overwhelmed by some games graphic depictions of violence, it causes my brain to disconnect from the imagery on an emotional level.

MK1-3 had funny violence. Maybe that was just because they were 16bit so limited in how realistic they could be bit but morbid violence just turns me off. With graphics being so advanced nowadays, I think you have to be careful just how much detail you include in your death animation and maybe just tone it down a touch.

PS. Is Manhunt actually good? The thing is, the theme did actually put me off. I don't want to think of myself as someone who takes pleasure from a murder simulator even if it is make believe.

And for the record, I don't think games make you different or more likely to act out actions in real life from a game. You may as well just read about something then go do it, or if movies which are far more realistic, would be far more likely to do that. Apparently the terrible Chuckie films were responsible for the Jamie Bulger (child) murder where there is a talking doll. Hmmmm to that. Some people are just a bit f*cked up and that market should not be catered for.

Really like gore in certain games, but must admit it doesn't have the same disgust it once had when first introduced to the Survival Horror genre, and has now become something to laugh about on how obscene it is.

I appreciate the tone and atmosphere in these kind of games now for emotional vibes, than sheer blood and body parts littering my screen.

With that stated, gore done right from both a visual and sound effect standpoint is still something I find very satisfying

Video game violence has no effect on me except enjoyment and sometime laughs.

Really good points.

I'm pretty sensitive to "entertainment" violence still but that's only when it has some semblance to real life. What's shown in, say, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is still wildly exaggerated but there's still some tie to "that could actually happen" so it's still fairly cringey at times. But then there's DOOM or Mortal Kombat and while it's gruesome, it has no effect at all because it's so far over the top.

So, @jackamomo, yes you are desensitized to video game violence but that doesn't necessarily mean you're desensitized to real violence. If you are desensitized to real violence, then that would be a concern.

@sirkibble2: Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik claims to have desensitised himself to human feelings and empathy by sitting around playing shooting games and WoW to prepare his mindscape for his ''trail'' so that he could be emotionless and effective in his plans implementation. I myself believes that his mindscape was hardned not by desensitisation through experiencing games of violence, but that he grew to be antisocial by living an isolantionist life. When humans are isolated from others, either by choice or being outcasts, they develop feelings of distain, hatred, or indifference towards their own kind, therefor people who spend a lot of time on their computers and as a consequence cut of their ties to society dont get emotionaly involved with other humans as their are evolved to, and as a result may be desensitised. Some people claim that for example school shooters do what they do because of seeing violence in video games or movies desensitises them for it in real life, while I think it more has do to with having an isolationist loner life, where video games in that situation are a convinient and avaliable past time. The thing is though you dont really know if you are desensitised to real life violence or not until you are there experiencing it.

I definitely not claiming playing video games desensitizes you to real life violence. I don't know of anyone or don't know of any evidence that claims as such. I'm saying being desensitized to video game violence isn't a concern.

I sure as heck know I'm sensitized to violence because I've seen real life of videos of violent moments and they are not something I can tolerate much. Heck, just the audio from the Florida shooting was terrifying.

@sirkibble2: I agree, and desensitation towards video game violence is not something to be concerned about, since it is not comparable to the real thing. I think seeing repeated violence in videogames and being desensitised to it after a while is the same thing as listening to the same kind of music over and over again stop to care about it.

I think getting desensitised to violence in games and movies is very different from getting desensitised to real violence.

I suspect a lot of people who wouldn't blink at someone getting stabbed or shot in a movie/game would have a very different reaction if they beheld something like that in real life.

I agree. Seeing a dead body period irl effects me completely different than video game violence. Which is why those news stories that seek to demonize violent games as effecting people are to me complete bs.

I think i might be desensitized with real life violence too.

I think there is too much violence in video games and entertainment media.

I also think (from personal experience) that many people (including myself in the past) felt like it would not be possible to have the thrill of a good game without combat. I have learned that is not true, you can

I don't think I'm talking so much about how it affects your real life responses to violence. I'm pretty desensitised to that from personal experience.

Rather the lack of impact the image of a man shooting another man has at this point. You might as well swap the men out with watermelons for all the emotional impact it has.

The point is, why is Nathan Drake and Lara Croft, who are supposed to be pretty much affable civilians, murdering by the hundreds then go on and have witty exchanges 3 seconds later.

It's dislocating from the immersiveness of a story based game like Uncharted to ignore the emotional impact on the character of killing so many dudes.

I get that shooting games needs lots of targets so killing loads of dudes is just convenient game design but in a game with a story and a character, that killing needs proper justification.

The only way death is going to have an emotional impact within a game, over the excitement of tallying up head counts is to convey the emotions the characters have in that moment using facial animations and sound even musical cues.

In short have less human (or animal) targets in general if you want to maintain more cohesion in your game and hero narrative.

Exactly! It's a video game. Nothing more. Nothing less. These are only computer animations, not real human beings.

I can play violent games and watch violent movies and not feel much emotion or empathy. Same thing with horror films, I don't enjoy them b/c I am always aware that it's just a movie and I don't get the "scare" response from it, so they come off as cheesy to me. But if I happen to watch a real video of someone getting severely hurt, there is still an emotional connection and I feel empathy. I might compare it to how many of us process pop-up ads or spam emails, they just become so common place and annoying, your brain filters out what they are saying out most of the time anyway.

I still think, having said I'm desensitised to violence I would change that to I'm normalised to graphic violence.

I think I realised it when I was watching the intro to Witcher 3 and some guy is hacking some other guy in two and blood is flying everywhere and I was think, hmm, passable blood effect, quite nice spray pattern, that any sense of awe or wonder I was obviously meant to be feeling had been completely spent at this point maybe 10 years ago. I saw Lord of the Rings already.

The cut scenes in Warcraft 3 were the absolute best though. Epic giant battles and the key to Blizzards success, the inclusion of humanity to the orc and other races.

What is so compelling and so often copied about Blizzard's universe is the inclusion of complex lore in a dark fantasy world which gives human's and monsters almost equal footing on the moral high ground. The various factions are given relatable personalities with individuals often changing sides in the story. Practically no other game has ever done this. Most Tolkien inspired games pit good against evil in a much more binary way.

It's this lack of empathy for your victims that's just makes your character feel like a psychopath in most modern shooters and I end up not liking the character.

This doesn't apply to older games where the bullets are as big as the baddies but a game with full 3d gives a much fuller impression of the scene. In the 90's games like Alone in the Dark focused on puzzle solving with occasional monsters to beat off with a stick or slower paced shooters like Headhunter.

When action adventure turned more towards action and away from puzzles the body counts have just kept rising.

I would say the same for just straight action games too. When is the body count ever going to be high enough? Valve put a good amount of dudes to kill in Half Life 2 and they acted very realistically. It's not a coincidence they are all wearing face masks and have robot voices. A game with that level of realism would put you off having to kill people who are so lifelike. This is why bad guys are always 2 dimensional, it's to make them easier to kill.

I don't know about you, but when I see a thing I have to consider it, even if it's for the hundredth time and just question, is this still entertaining for me? Sometimes, just the same old game over and over really starts to just put me off gaming altogether. Nothing is original. Men just turn round and start shooting you wherever you go.

Even the environments don't interest me much, why so much rubble? More effort needs to be put into ai in baddies, with more complex behaviour patterns than just shoot and come straight at you.

@standingbear22: humans LOVE fear, heck we base our entire life off of fear.. One example being the big one, death, we spend our lives so worried about dying that we forget to live!

No. My life is about defeating fear. Fear is the mind killer. I live for love and I don't fear death. There is nothing to fear but fear itself.

Agree, without going to far, the movie "Irreversible" is still much more violent than any videogame, worse if its real life gore.

It bothers me that the default check mark on Steam for 'Violence' is checked but the default for sexual content is unchecked.

@bermudo: Try practicing Astral Projection

Bloody hell. If I wanna get high I pay a visit to Mary Jane. That's quite enough for me.

I find I can stomach videogame violence a lot better than movie violence. I was playing Friday the 13th over the weekend and impaling people on a harpoon as Jason, no problem, but would struggle to sit through a movie like Saw.

its boring.

sex scenes and the violence scenes are boring. its always done for effect and not for story, its always putting the actual story on pause and its boring.

simple as that, not morally offensive, just boring...this is what happens when you get older, you get bored with that shit

I can remember feeling physically ill from a few of the different ways you could die on the original Prince of Persia. I was really young, and getting chopped in half, and seeing the pool of blood really bothered me until I had died dozens of times and became desensitized to it.

@jackamomo: You are probably not desensitised at all. You are describing your reaction to violent entertainment, video games and films; not real violence.

@sirkibble2: So, @jackamomo, yes you are desensitized to video game violence but that doesn't necessarily mean you're desensitized to real violence. If you are desensitized to real violence, then that would be a concern.

Actually having witnessed quite a few real life fights (this is the UK you know) and been in a few probably from being quite tall.

But when the adrenalin does shoot up when you see it, you quickly refer to past experiences and even control the body chemistry to a degree.

A soldier would have the same response. You recognise the danger but react in a more considered way to where your discomfort would be reduced over repeated experience.

I remember watching Blade Runner and Aliens and finding the experiences profoundly disturbing on first sight.

As to whether or not watching, reading about or thinking about violence would prepare you for or reduce the emotional impact of real violence is debatable.

But they do train aircraft pilots in flight simulators so you could argue that is a precedent for simulated experiences preparing you for real life encounters.

This is a very important part of professional sport training in visualising your goals to improve on the pitch performance.

I can watch video game violence all day. But I still get grossed out by real life violence.

Videogame violence is always way too over the top and so unrealistic.

Shooter, Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Dead rising, Dead Space, Parasite Eve etc the list goes on and on. They are very violent but at the same time, no human being can splat so much blood or take so much punishment before dying.

Like the Mortal Kombat serie, always trying to be more violent that its predecessor and it is so much over the top that it becomes funny... on top of that Mortal Kombat was a joke for a while during the PS1 days as it violence was ridiculous.

But seeing real violence done by real people ... now this is something.

@clefdefa: But seeing real violence done by real people ... now this is something.

I disagree. I think just by seeing things portrayed in a graphic manner does actually prepare you for the real life experience.

Your brain is quite capable of taking a realistically portrayed scene from a video and placing that depiction of reality into a real life setting so if the same scene was to play out in real life you would automatically be more mentally prepared for it.

@jackamomo:

I played Mortalk Kombat since it came out on the SNES and I was 8 years old. I find it funny because it is always so over the top and unrealistic that it is more funny and goofy than the real thing. Way too much blood and stuff.

I have a hard time during an horror movie because it is realistic and they make sure it is super realistic. Even the first time I saw the first Terminator as a teen it was a little too much when he removes one of his eyes even though he is a robot ...

A video games or cartoon never going to be realistic in our life time and so the violence isn't realistic to make it cool. The reality is less cool.

@clefdefa: I think gore and ultraviolence like Mortal Kombat are quite removed from reality in a way a game like The Division isn't and is actually quite realistic.

So comedy gore is different to realistic gore. Even so if you were to see someone tear someone's head off leaving the spinal cord attached, I think, having seen MK, you still might be a bit more prepared having seen that already in 90's digitised sprites.

Guess explains why so many like their movie games.

For me it all depends on who or what the violence is directed towards. If it's just a bunch of grunts I have no emotional investment in I could not care any less but if it's a character that I have spent hours bonding with (like A Way Out) or a group of enemies with an understandable cause I might be more aware of the acts of violence I am virtually comitting.

My virtual gaming body count is probably in the millions but even watching stuffs like "Top 10 Serial Killers" in Youtube upsets me deeply.

When watching real footage of horrific accidents, I generally skip the parts where they show the bloody messes. I really do not want to see that.

So I can say that gaming did nothing to desensitize me. Now excuse me as I gleefully get back to mowing down hordes of zombies in the new COD game.

OTOH, a close friend of mine doesnt play games of any sort BESIDES Train Simulator. Yes and he is an avid fan of the gore stuffs you can find on the net. Like he takes great enjoyment watching it. He however is a real chill dude, very non-violent person and a great buddy to just hang out and talk stuffs.

Join the club. I was desensitized at an early age when dinner meant catching it first (usually domesticated chickens or fish). I saw my mom gut and clean out a pig (prep for roasting) a few times. Blood, guts, organs, and other messy stuff. We weren't suburb folks back then.

Wasn't the idea of violent video games making people violent debunked thoroughly?

If you feel like you're lacking empathy to fellow human beings read fiction and do meditation. Two things that are proven to improve empathy.