DayZ will be banned from Australia after it was refused a rating

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Link is 500 error atm btw.

 

Does the study show that it is more so than films? The same effects from violent films has been linked as well. It's very difficult to show if either is greater than the other, the differentiating factor is activity time. Games are played for longer and more often so it may be more accurate to reason that is the issue and not the medium itself.

 

It being more affecting than films is the premise for the entire article. However they claim quite solidly that it is a hard question to resolve because it isn't easy to create an interactive model that has the same level of violence.  It's like trying to work out how much you don't know by comparing it to what you do know.  However they point out that the very nature of the interaction in games and the observable diffeerences in education and memory and the unpublished studies that correlate tend to point toward it being more affecting than film.

 

Quote

There are a couple of unpublished correlational studies that have compared the effects of television and video game violence on aggression, using comparable measures of violence exposure. Both yielded results suggesting a larger effect of video game violence. But the issue is not settled.

 

They go on to quote this as a fact:

 

Quote

High levels of violent video game exposure have been linked to delinquency, fighting at school and during free play periods, and violent criminal behavior (e.g., self-reported assault, robbery).

 

Quote

However, experimental studies with college students have consistently found increased aggression after exposure to clearly unrealistic and fantasy violent video games. Indeed, at least one recent study found significant increases in aggression by college students after playing E-rated (suitable for everyone) violent video games.

 

 

It seems to me that if we are honest with ourselves we should look at all the data, even though it's tempting to jump on the last few words: I.E "the issue is not settled" and try and brush of all those other inconvenient facts.

[mr moose]

10 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Great movie, even if it's Australian 

 

Were you tougher in the 80's because you were actually allowed to watch things like that . I mean you can't now, boy the blow back today would be huge if you show Jaws or modern day equivalent of it primary school lol.

 

Not actually serious, I don't think showing Jaws back then was a good idea either. Not sure what year level it was but we watched Jurassic park, some opted out heh. It was only PG.

Not tougher in that way,  the resolve to not pander to minor issues meant that we just got on with things,     We didn't consider the effects of the movie on kids (grade 4), which is a huge turn around when you consider the reason this thread even exists.  Which to me highlights a dramatic shift in society as a whole.

 

I worry for many of the younger generations who come through because I wonder how many are genuinely in need of help and how many develop a need for help because they have been pandered to and not taught how to deal with life's difficulties instead.

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

However, experimental studies with college students have consistently found increased aggression after exposure to clearly unrealistic and fantasy violent video games. Indeed, at least one recent study found significant increases in aggression by college students after playing E-rated (suitable for everyone) violent video games.

Should do the same after them playing a game of Rugby or League, I'll bet all my money that they'll find "significant increases in aggression". Maybe we also need to ban contact sports because it has the same effect .

 

Silliness aside I lean far more toward interaction time being a larger issue than it being film or a video game.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Should do the same after them playing a game of Rugby or League, I'll bet all my money that they'll find "significant increases in aggression". Maybe we also need to ban contact sports because it has the same effect .

They riot more after soccer than any contact sport I know.  I put that down to 2 hours of game play and only 1 or 2 scoring shots.  Pent up Adrenalin needs to be spent.

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Silliness aside I lean far more toward interaction time being a larger issue than it being film or a video game.

From the earlier article:

Quote

In a large survey study distributed to over 2000 kindergarten, elementary school and junior high children in Japan, researchers observed that just 30 minutes of either computer use or gaming caused disturbed sleep and daytime fatigue, compared to 2 hours or more of TV required for similar effects.[1]

 

It seems all the other observable side effects of interactive screen has a much higher impact.

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

They riot more after soccer than any contact sport I know.  I put that down to 2 hours of game play and only 1 or 2 scoring shots.  Pent up Adrenalin needs to be spent.

Professional soccer games are boring AF, can't watch that crap. 1 day cricket is often more interesting......

 

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It seems all the other observable side effects of interactive screen has a much higher impact.

That is because it actually does require more energy. Human brain requires a lot of energy so anything that utilizes it more is more tiring, that's where the term mental exhaustion comes from for office workers especially in fields like accounting, IT and others like it due to that high demand.

 

Edit:

I can spend 12-14 hours building something but I can do far less hours doing my actual IT job and be much more tired and need rest.

[LAwLz]

22 minutes ago, mr moose said:

High levels of violent video game exposure have been linked to delinquency, fighting at school and during free play periods, and violent criminal behavior (e.g., self-reported assault, robbery).

I haven't read the study you linked, but does it establish that one leads to the other, and not the other way around? 

 

What I mean is, does the study verify that it is because of violent video games people become aggressive, rather than aggressive people being attracted to violent video games because they appeal to their natural personalities? 

[mr moose]

22 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I haven't read the study you linked, but does it establish that one leads to the other, and not the other way around? 

 

What I mean is, does the study verify that it is because of violent video games people become aggressive, rather than aggressive people being attracted to violent video games because they appeal to their natural personalities? 

It's not a study in itself, it's a presentation of many studies.   They have this to say:

 

Quote

There is some evidence that highly aggressive individuals are more affected than nonaggressive individuals, but this finding does not consistently occur. Even nonaggressive individuals are consistently affected by brief exposures. Further research will likely find some significant moderators of violent video game effects, because the much larger research literature on television violence has found such effects and the underlying processes are the same. However, even that larger literature has not identified a sizeable population that is totally immune to negative effects of media violence.

 

Which means the effects are stronger in people who are already more aggressive by nature, but because non aggressive individuals are also affected and no sizable population is immune, it can't be effectively written off as a correlation rather than a causation. 

 

It is pretty clear by their writing that while they are careful to qualify when more data is needed, they are effectively saying don't be foolish as to dismiss the vast data sets we have that all independently point toward the same conclusion.   -

 

Also I am very aware this information is going to cause a lot of people in this forum some cognitive dissonance, it is very hard to read especially when so many gaming magazines and online forums have been publishing the opposite for sometime.  Unfortunately a lot of that is just one or two studies that are sometimes taken out of context.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ravenshrike]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

nope, although I have to say I was very tempted, did I dodge a bullet?

Very much so. At least DayZ had the excuse of being the product of an indie studio.

[Thaldor]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I haven't read the study you linked, but does it establish that one leads to the other, and not the other way around? 

 

What I mean is, does the study verify that it is because of violent video games people become aggressive, rather than aggressive people being attracted to violent video games because they appeal to their natural personalities? 

Studies about aggressivity have always been quite hard to make. The legendary Bobo doll study that is kept as some kind of corner stone in behaviorism studies is even questioned on many levels through the years (Kids see a video where adult hits and is aggressive towards Bobo doll -> kids are more likely to be aggressive towards Bobo doll, kids see adult being friendly/neutral towards Bobo doll -> kids are less likely to be aggressive towards Bobo doll; Study never disclosed do the children really know that the Bobo doll is actually made to be a punching bag or have they ever earlier played with Bobo doll which is actually quite a huge hole in the study, like think about never seen a fishing jig and you see a video where it is just thrown to the water without attaching it to the fishing line, what is the possibility that you just throw it to the water without attaching it to the fishing line? And then someone calls it waterproof study about how XX% of people are too stupid and trust YT videos and act like in them. Show a video how to use a punching bag, leave a kid in a room with exactly the same punching bag -> kid uses the punching bag as a punching bag -> kid is more aggressive because didn't hug the punching bag).

[Andreas Lilja]

10 hours ago, mr moose said:

It seems the APA disagree.

 

https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2003/10/anderson.

Might give it more thought once psychology's scientific credibility goes up.

 

Saying increased aggression is rather mild. Yeah you can be highly frustrated because Great Grey Wolf Sif whopped your ass for the 39th time, but will it last or lead to actually assaulting someone?

 

 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

i thought india had it worse, but i digress. 

[ravenshrike]

27 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

 

Saying increased aggression is rather mild. Yeah you can be highly frustrated because Great Grey Wolf Sif whopped your ass for the 39th time, but will it last or lead to actually assaulting someone?

 

The measures of aggression are largely crap, and more importantly there have been no studies that properly break down types of games. For example, no study has attempted to divide games solely between competitive and non-competitive.  Or taken a single player 'violent' game and put it on it's easiest difficulty and hardest difficulty and checked to see if there is any difference in aggression levels

[Dabombinable]

11 hours ago, mr moose said:

Are you old enough to remember before they had pg13 and M ratings?  tits, swearing and people being eaten by sharks (PG).   Mind you, we were a lot tougher in the 80's.  We watched Galipoli and jaws in primary school.   Take home lesson: stay away from sharks and respect war veterans. 

No, though I have watched movies from then. Kids were less sheltered back then/there were less lawnmower parents.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Might give it more thought once psychology's scientific credibility goes up.

 

 

 

 

It's very easy to dismiss that which we are not educated about.

 

When I want to know about space science I listen to NASA

When I need to know about general health I speak to a doctor

When my car breaks down I go to a mechanic

When I have network issue I talk to an IT specialist

When a social issue becomes a problem I won't listen to anyone in psychology because it's too inconvenient. 

 

People who pick and choose when a specialist has the right to be a specialist based on the how  much they want to hear the information is when you know the problem isn't with the specialists.

 

 

[mr moose]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

No, though I have watched movies from then. Kids were less sheltered back then/there were less lawnmower parents.

That's a fair conclusion,  My old girl's advice when I was being bullied at school was to hide a bat in the bushes then if this kids does it again cave his head in.   She knew back then that there is nothing the authoritarian system can do about bullies.

[Andreas Lilja]

33 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It's very easy to dismiss that which we are not educated about.

Psychology (or any other social "science") has a replication crisis. There's very high chance that the study is a dummy, or it's weakly statistically supported.

 

Even then the APA's current stance is seemingly contentious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversies#Primary_studies

 

Also I believe we have a grey hair problem. The really controversial games started appearing in the early 1990s, contemporary influential Ph.Ds have never dabbled.

 

[mr moose]

Just now, Andreas Lilja said:

Psychology (or any other social "science") has a replication crisis. There's very high chance that the study is a dummy, or it's weakly statistically supported.

 

Even then the APA's current stance is seemingly contentious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversies#Primary_studies

 

Also I believe we have a grey hair problem. The really controversial games started appearing in the early 1990s, contemporary influential Ph.Ds have never dabbled.

 

Ahh, yes. that time when an entire field of study was undermined by an internet post.  So I am guessing the psychologists that called for a review are to be trusted as credible but the psychologists who found data you didn't like are part of a profession than hasn't got any credibility? 

 

 

Also with regard to your "grey hair problem" they have this to say:

 

Quote

the arrival of a new generation of ultraviolent video games beginning in the early 1990s and continuing unabated to the present resulted in large numbers of children and youths actively participating in entertainment violence that went way beyond anything available to them on television or in movies.

 

Which I am guessing had you read it you would have noted that they have taken it into account and understand a lot more about it than you think they do. The APA is not a single person with a vendetta but an entire organization of professionals who actually understand.  If you think you have found a flaw in 40 years of research that an entire body of researchers has overlooked then feel free to get your discovery published and earn yourself some of that credibility.     

[ravenshrike]

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

It's very easy to dismiss that which we are not educated about.

For those of us who have actually looked over the relevant literature, we know the metrics are poor, the methodology poor, and the replicability atrocious.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, ravenshrike said:

For those of us who have actually looked over the relevant literature, we know the metrics are poor, the methodology poor, and the replicability atrocious.

So are you trained in the field or just dismissing an entire association of psychologists and 40 years of research because you disagree?    You know this yet you think an entire field of professionals have somehow missed it?

As I said earlier:

17 hours ago, mr moose said:

Also I am very aware this information is going to cause a lot of people in this forum some cognitive dissonance, it is very hard to read especially when so many gaming magazines and online forums have been publishing the opposite for sometime.  Unfortunately a lot of that is just one or two studies that are sometimes taken out of context.

 

 

 

And:

 

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

 If you think you have found a flaw in 40 years of research that an entire body of researchers has overlooked then feel free to get your discovery published and earn yourself some of that credibility.     

 

[mr moose]

Here's another one that cites 11 published research articles (some of it is even reassessment, even though people think this field has some sort of repeatability issue).

 

https://www.apa.org/action/resources/research-in-action/protect

 

It seems to me that there is an ongoing trend that is born out in the research that people are really scared of accepting.

 

And to be Honest I don't know why,  the research doesn't say you'll become a murderer or rapist, it doesn't say you can't deal with the effects of said games.  It just says this effect is being observed so don't kid yourself into thinking its all sunshine and roses.    Play the games,  just be mindful of the effects, just like in the 80s our parents told us to not to watch too much tv and go do something physical. 

 

 

[ravenshrike]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

Here's another one that cites 11 published research articles (some of it is even reassessment, even though people think this field has some sort of repeatability issue).

 

https://www.apa.org/action/resources/research-in-action/protect

 

It seems to me that there is an ongoing trend that is born out in the research that people are really scared of accepting.

 

And to be Honest I don't know why,  the research doesn't say you'll become a murderer or rapist, it doesn't say you can't deal with the effects of said games.  It just says this effect is being observed so don't kid yourself into thinking its all sunshine and roses.    Play the games,  just be mindful of the effects, just like in the 80s our parents told us to not to watch too much tv and go do something physical. 

 

 

How about you read you own blithering link, yes?

 

A 2010 review by psychologist Craig A. Anderson and others concluded that “the evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior.” Anderson’s earlier research showed that playing violent video games can increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior both in laboratory settings and in daily life. "One major conclusion from this and other research on violent entertainment media is that content matters," says Anderson.

Other researchers, including psychologist Christopher J. Ferguson, have challenged the position that video game violence harms children. While his own 2009 meta–analytic review reported results similar to Anderson’s, Ferguson contends that laboratory results have not translated into real world, meaningful effects. He also claims that much of the research into video game violence has failed to control for other variables such as mental health and family life, which may have impacted the results. His work has found that children who are already at risk may be more likely to choose to play violent video games. According to Ferguson, these other risk factors, as opposed to the games, cause aggressive and violent behavior.

 

No only does your own cite show direct opposing opinion, but none of the studies mentioned in the first review that purports to show a link in any way properly controlled for type of game.

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

How about you read you own blithering link, yes?

 

Getting personal?  Maybe try to be objective rather than base this on emotions.  After all half the problem with this topic is that people get too emotional about it and start to ignore half the work out there.

 

4 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

 

 

No only does your own cite show direct opposing opinion, but none of the studies mentioned in the first review that purports to show a link in any way properly controlled for type of game.

Did you read what you just posted?

 

I don't think you did, because that is all addressed in the very first article I linked.    The APA have been very good at qualifying all the data and taking into account uncontrolled variables.  They make that very clear from the start.  Do you honestly think these guys have no idea what they are doing?

 

 

 

 

[ravenshrike]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

The APA have been very good at qualifying all the data and taking into account uncontrolled variables.

Orly? Show me one study that delineates between violent games and competitive ones. Or has taken violent only games and changed the difficulty to see if their was any change in aggression patterns.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, ravenshrike said:

Orly? Show me one study that delineates between violent games and competitive ones. Or has taken violent only games and changed the difficulty to see if their was any change in aggression patterns.

 

I don't need to, I just linked two articles explaining it all (with citations).  If you don't want to take the word of a professional association,  instead preferring your own interpretation of something you are not educated to evaluate then that is your problem.   As I said right back at the start, when I need general health advice I listen to my doctor, when I need mechanical advice I ask a mechanic, when I want to understand a psychological component of society I will ask a clinical psychologist who works in that field.   They know more than you and me.

[Thaldor]

23 hours ago, mr moose said:

The classification system specifically treats games differently.  Games are interactive and thus considered to have a larger impact than a movie.    The interactivity of games has been well established to be more stimulating than movies (both positive and negative).  Many articles illustrate that an interactive video game stimulates the brain a lot more than an equivalent video which is why some math and strategy games educate and help develop academic functioning more than just watching a video. But the flip side is also true, there are studies out there that show video games also have a negative effect that is much more pronounced than just movie watching.  So a video game with an M15 rating could be just as affecting on someone as a movie with an R18.

-snip-

Leaving psychology behind, that is still a huge rift in scales of Grand Canyon. DayZ isn't even close to be violent game and it gets banned while I haven't heard Australia banning any movies in years. Like I can name a lot of games that are way more violent and harmful than DayZ in seconds but with movies Saws go quite a lot to the top category with gore, there is movies with a lot more gore than in Saws but they start to go silly with their content.

I just would like to imagine IARC meeting about Dayz going like:

"Is there violence?"
"Yes, but it's mostly against zombies and it's not really that bad"

"Anything else?"

"There's mention that there might be cannabis that can be used as medicine"
"BAN THAT SHIT RIGHT NOW!!!  BAN IT!!!"

"It's not really that bad, we gave American Psycho and Saw movies just R18+ rating and they are much worse"
"IT'S A VIDEO GAME! BAN THAT SHIT FROM THIS ISLAND LIKE ISLAND BANS TRAVELING WHEN SOMEONE SNEEZES IN AFRICA!"

 

And apparently that is quite close what really happened... Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom isn't currently banned in Australia because "extra content on the DVD/BR release gives it context", like what? You literally allow selling pedo-scat-sadistic-porn movie and then ban a game that isn't even in the same realms than that movie (in sense that if I would need to choose between letting my kid play DayZ or watch Saló, I would fucking glue my kid to the PC chair, force feed it RedBull and Doritos and make it the youngest ever to pull out weekender playing only bad games than let him watch Saló because that's how "bad" Saló is). Cannibal Holocaust is also not banned in Australia today, and not really that many movies are banned in Australia today no matter how brutal, offensive, violent or just lewd they are, but games, tsk tsk tsk, better not hit that zombie with an axe, you might get banned.