Is Doom Responsible for Columbine?

[Achika]

I want honest opinions here. And I need everyones opinion too.

Is Doom responsible for the events that happened at Columbine in the spring of 1999?

If you think so, then say 'yes' without fear of retribution. If 'no' that's fine too. I want to know from REAL gamers, not from one sided news media. If you want to interject and say why, go ahead. This is all going in my report on videogames as 'Art & Politics'.

[cerex]

haha i think not,going to school everyday being beaten up,getting rocks thrown at you as you leave school,going to the principal and them doing nothin,getting turned down by the marines,having your girl friend dump you and doom caused someone to shoot these ppl up?

[portnoyd]

I blame lev. No wait, I blame the parents. Games and movies just draw the attention from where the true blame lies. Those kids were nuts, not Carmack's fault that they played his game.

dave

[Queen Of The Felines]

Doom is as responsible for Columbine as much as Marilyn Manson and "The Matrix" are.

In other words, not at all.

Kristine

[moycon]

Sick fucks with lack of respect for human life is what's responsible for Columbine.

[geelw]

absolutely not! that's like saying playboy is responsible for any sort of sex crime. the mental state of those kids (and anyone else who goes around shooting people for no reason) was f*#ked before they sat in front of that computer screen.

if this had happened 30 years ago, would people be blaming gunsmoke reruns? i don't think so. then again, the parents of the shooters didn't even have much of a clue as to what was going on in their own houses- a bad idea if you have kids and never look in their room or have a decent conversation every now and then, i say...=^P

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Doom had nothing to do with Columbine. Doom has nothing to do with the DC area sniper. In both cases, and any others you care to name, you have people who clearly slipped between the fingers of the half-assed travesty that passes for our country's mental health system, and whatever other support systems they had (friends, parents, a conscience) either kicked in too late or, in the Columbine kids' case, not at all.

On the other hand, I used to play Pac-Man all the time when I was young, and now I'm just a wee bit overweight, so maybe there's something to it...'cause I know that all those quarter pounders weren't responsible.

[lionforce]

I just bought Doom for the GBA, awesome little port, Wolfenstein is next, any questions :wink:

[kainemaxwell]

Doom and video game shave nothing to do with recent happenings. The government and media, in their great wisdom need something to use as a scapegoat, so they pick video games and what happens, people belive it and rally behind people like Liberman and we get stuck with ratings systems and people condemning video games.

[YoshiM]

Yep, everyone in the US of A is innocent. It's everything else that's to blame.

"It just COULDN'T be little Johnny, my baby would NEVER do anything like that on his own. He was influenced, that must be it. I mean, I saw him moping about for months, reading through a book called the Anarchist's Cookbook (I hope he makes us a meal from one of those recipes) and never coming out of his room. He DID ask me to get him some gasoline, soap, and Bisquick so maybe he's making a special project for Home Ec. What a special boy."

Um, ahem.

The ultimate blame falls on the people who pull the trigger. It's the simple thing that we've all been taught (or at least HOPE we were taught) from day 1: Right and Wrong.

[kainemaxwell]

It's the people themselves who do this who's to blame.

[punkoffgirl]

Sure that ONE game is to blame! Didn't you know about the subliminal messages? The kids were BRAINWASHED, I tell you :roll:
I can't ever understand how people have to tie the "blame" to ONE thing. ONE thing, video game or otherwise, is NOT going to take little Johnny-go-lucky over to the "darkside" in one giant leap.

[Kroogah]

David Cross said it quite well:

"Can someone remind me....um....what violent video games did Hitler play?"

[Arcade Antics]

Psychos are responsible for the massacre, not video games.

Seanbaby also put it quite well last year...

"The main game targeted by the lawsuit is Doom, where a space marine fights his way through hell. DeCamp claims it "is purely, 100 percent taken from the military and transferred over to the private sector."

If by "transferred over to the private sector," he means "transferred over to an alternate flaming dimension on a computer," then he's purely, 100 percent right. According to my dictionary, however; this is definition is not correct. Another misconception DeCamp had was about the exactitude of the game's representation of the military. The military kills communists and oil tycoons, not doomsday cyclopses. There are several other differences he missed such as how one is make-believe, but law school must take up all the time the rest of us use to not be dumbasses." (emphasis added)

[ventrra]

I can say, for myself, that I was playing Doom before any of this happend and I haven't shot anyone. I suspect that many of the people on this message board can say the same. I f video games REALLY made people crazy and go around killing people, then I think that I should have been put away a LONG time ago.

[slapdash]

haha i think not,going to school everyday being beaten up,getting rocks thrown at you as you leave school,going to the principal and them doing nothin,getting turned down by the marines,having your girl friend dump you and doom caused someone to shoot these ppl up?

I remember reading an article written a couple months or so after Columbine that talked about what a soulless place the "strip-mall hell" of the area was, and how that leads to disenfranchisement etc... It was a pretty good article actually; wish I had the URL.

The point is that everything in your environment can affect you, but rather than blame Doom, why not ask what drove them to stay in their rooms playing Doom in the first place. Even many of us might have to admit that we are or were socially awkard and maybe that's why we were playing games instead of going to dances or hanging out at the old malt shop (heh).

But the fact that so many people can play games and not kill people indicates that even if Doom contributed to their particular madness in some way, there's no way you can actually blame it alone. That is sheer idiocy. I recognize that it is an attempt for an easy answer which many people are going to want, but there are no easy answers to something like this, so don't be fooled into taking it, or you've accepted idiocy rather than rationality.

[MankeyMan]

The only institution to blame for shootings is the government. Would there have been Columbine if these kids would've had such a hard time to get guns? I think not.
The most recent tragic shootings in Britain where in '96 when a psycho walked into a school in Dunblane and shot 6 kids, pretty soon guns were banned. Nothing like that has happened since.
Videogames weren't blamed then, they shouldn't be blamed now.

I doubt the DC sniper would have such easy access to weapons either, and you can go on about how its your constititution and me being a socialist all you want, it doesn't change a thing.

[congobongo]

Did you really need to ask that question to this board? Many things contributed to it. First and foremost ignorant kids disconnected from reality. Secondly, more guns than people. I know, I know, guns don't kill people; people do. Well by the same token, nukes don't kill people; people do so who cares how many nukes other countries have as long as everybody's happy right? uh, ya.

[Achika]

Yes I did have to ask that question. Who knows? Someone here might think it caused the incident. Like I said, I needed this for a paper, what better place to ask than here? I needed to ask REAL gamers as stated before, not the 'little-to-moderate' gamers that the 6 o clock news interviewed.

[Achika]

ugg....nm

[Captain Wrong]

Doom is not responsible, people are. To suggest otherwise begs the question "since Doom was a hugely popular game, why haven't more Columbine style shootings happened?" Reason: there is NO connection. Case closed.

[dsullo]

Being the father of two young children. I would have to say that parent's are responsiible for modeling and developing their children. The Columbine parents as well as many others today have no idea what goes on in their childs lives. Those kids planned the attacks and stored their weapons in their parents homes.

I see too many parents simply not parenting. They are too busy to spend time with their children. They would rather let a Nanny raise the child or better yet feel the school systems are responsible for raising children. If the parents took interest in their children they would of known what was going on in their house. Including what movies they watched, games (DOOM) they played, and plans they were making to kill innocent classmates.

Doom is not responsible.

Now I have to go , my 1 1/2 year old is sticking a metal object into an outlet. Just kidding , the kids are asleep!

[ManekiNeko]

"I doubt the DC sniper would have such easy access to weapons either, and you can go on about how its your constititution and me being a socialist all you want, it doesn't change a thing."

Here's something else that won't change... the huge amount of guns already in this country. You might as well ban blades of grass. Personally, I don't like guns, but revoking the second amendment isn't going to do us any good, since there are so many of them. If a criminal wants a gun, they'll get one, even if they shouldn't have one.
Even if you could make all the guns in the United States vanish with the snap of your fingers, it still doesn't change that the Columbine students were angry and desperate for revenge. They were going to get it any way they could, guns or no guns. Klebold and Harris could have taken the principal hostage with a knife, or planted bombs around the structural weak points of the school and detonated them once everyone had arrived. Removing guns from the equation would not necessarily have saved anyone. Guns certainly make killing easier, but murder is not impossible without them.

JR

[Aswald]

The entire "controversy" is really an incredible example of out-and-out hypocrisy.

I'm 36 years of age. So, I was around during the Reagan years, and fully aware of what was going on. During that time, there was a little something called "Rambo: First Blood, Part Two." This was the most violent and bloodiest movie made (at the time). Our own President Reagan praised it, mentioning that NOW he knew how to deal with the "communists" (i.e. the Soviets). It has also been recently proven that many of those anti-Arab movies were made with the "assistance" of the U.S. Government, most of them EXTREMELY violent.

Then came the ugly 1990s. After the election of Bill Clinton, various right-wing talk show hosts, Rush Limbaugh being a perfect example, launched into their endless tirades about the "evils of the govenment," often supporting the insane rhetoric of those militia groups.

Then Timothy McVeigh committed what was the worst act of domestic terrorism, until 2001.

You'll notice that the very people who condemn "Doom" are the very ones who insist that there wasn't any sort of connection. You'll notice that all of the violent, right-wing movies (Timothy McVeigh and the militias loved "Red Dawn") in no way made people violent, yet, somehow, Doom does. And of course, the worship of guns in real life also isn't a factor, but a make-believe video game world with (often) make-believe weapons and monsters is. And don't even get me started on the Dungeons and Dragons "controversy."

The people who blame Doom are a bunch of vicious, hypocritical conservatives, along with pathetic liberals who are trying to hide their own role in the social breakdown, with both sides trying to LOOK like thy're "doing something." It's come to this. Pathetic.

[kainemaxwell]

Those who blame DOOM and video games are jus tlooking for something that cannot defend itself to lay the blame on instead of taking a look at themselves...and that's sad.

[Nature Boy]

Do violent people like violent games or do violent games cause violent people. Unless you can isolate all other factors you'll never be certain one way or the other. Asking the question this way implies that no other factors were the cause and this is simply ludicrous.

[Kid Fenris]

I would be able to provide a more concise response if you clarified what you mean by "responsible," Achika. If you're asking if Doom was the direct catalyst for Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's killing spree at their high school, my answer is simply "No." However, if you're inquiring as to whether or not Doom contributed to their murderous rampage, my reply isn't as succinct.

The Columbine massacre was the result of Harris and Klebold acting out a gruesome fantasy of retribution on their classmates. For inspiration, the two teenagers looked to all available violent entertainment, which included movies, books, and, of course, video games.

It has been pointed out that those who are driven by delusion to commit violence often suffer from an innate failure to separate fantasy-world actions from their real-world counterparts and the consequences thereof. And that, in my opinion, is what ultimately made Harris and Klebold take shotguns to their fellow students. They lost the ability to distinguish between their vindictive imaginings and the reality of committing murder. Whether it was due to inherent psychological flaws or the bullying they supposedly endured, they became sociopaths.

And for a sociopath bent on destruction, any aggressive imagery serves to fuel their desire, and preventing their exposure to such subject matter only delays the inevitable. Doom was not the origin of the killers' motivation --it was simply another tool appropriated by them, and it has since become a target appropriated by those seeking a simple (and thus incomplete) explanation for what happened at Columbine.

Did Doom contribute to the Columbine shootings? Yes, but in a manner for which it cannot logically be held responsible.

[nesman85]

fuck no, doom isn't responsible for columbine. look how many people play that game, including me, and that's the only case i've heard of, of people going crazy and murdering people because of it. and i'm sure their killing spree didn't have anything to do with them being made fun of everyday by the "jocks"(which is why the killed all people mainly wearing sport attire) i hate the fuckin news people who have never even played a game and they talk shit about it.

[Aswald]

Video games did not exist during the time of two of the worst mass murderers of the 20th Century: Adolph Hitler of Nazi Germany and Stalin, who was no better.

Enough said.

[Arcade Antics]

The Columbine massacre was the result of Harris and Klebold acting out a gruesome fantasy of retribution on their classmates. For inspiration, the two teenagers looked to all available violent entertainment, which included movies, books, and, of course, video games...

Did Doom contribute to the Columbine shootings? Yes, but in a manner for which it cannot logically be held responsible.

I completely disagree.

Those two loons are long gone, and there's no way of ever knowing what made them do what they did, or how they arrived at the conclusion that it was a good idea for them to go massacre people at their school. Everyone can speculate all they like, but nobody will ever know.

That said, I don't agree with the "it's a contributing factor" line of reasoning at all. In fact, quite the opposite theory could in fact be true. They could have just as easily bought every single Smurf and Hello Kitty item/book/movie and believed that those items "told them" to massacre people. Sounds ridiculous for sure, but to me, no more ridiculous than blaming Doom as any kind of contributing factor.

[Kid Fenris]

I suppose that I'm just theorizing about what made Harris and Klebold go on their shooting spree, but from their statements made about Tarantino movies, gun control, and whatnot before the rampage, it's safe to say that violent imagery was in their thoughts to a mild extent, at least.

As you (and I) point out, however, a product can't be held responsible for something that it affects in a completely unintentional way. Psychotics can become fond of violent entertainment, but it's their disturbed mental state that draws them to such things, and not the opposite process.

Because of this, one can't "blame" Doom for Columbine, and I certainly don't. I still think that it was an inadvertent influence, though that isn't the same as citing the game as being "responsible" for the incident.

[Savedman]

Ok...so I'm a little late getting in on this. Didn't anyone notice the name on the side of the box that all of thier wares came in??? It was ACME!!!! Doom is not to blame...it was none other than WILE E. COYOTE!!!! Let's get real. For anyone to blame any type of outside source like movies or games for causing them to act the way that they did is to say that they put thier own kids in a plastic bubble and hide them away from the world (only to release them into the world as adults without clue one!) or that they blame the parents for not telling thier kids from day one that you don't go around dropping anvils and pianos on peoples heads nor do you walk into your school and blow your classmates just because they stole your milk money. I think DSULLO is right on but I think Kid Fenris is a little off. Cerex is on the right track but I think YoshiM said it the best. "Not my little Johnny"

I'm sure a lot of readers will stop reading once I use the "G" word but if the parents would have kept GOD in the lessons mentioned above and lived what they preached then the odds would have been SIGNIFICANTLY reduced.

GAME ON!!

[Pressure Cooker]

" WHY ARE THE IMPS THROWING SCHOOL BOOKS AT ME... WASN'T IT FIREBALLS?!?!"

On a more serious note, video games don't cause violence. It my influence some people to a degree but not much unless you are a sick S.O.B.

Other than yelling at myself and the T.V. screen, I can think of only one violent act I commited while playing a video game. Years ago when Contra came out for N.E.S., me and a friend were playing it and got to the last level. I got a little too far ahead on the screen and his character fell off a cliff and he had no more lives left. Seconds later, we were cursing at each other and kicking the shit out of one another because he died. Well, 5 minutes later, we both sat down all bloody and bruised and started laughing at how petty that was. Damn Contra.

[Roagie]

If doom were responsible or helped contribute then we would see a lot more of these kinds of events. Since we don't one can draw a logical conclusion that doom did not cause Columbine. Case closed.

[Aswald]

Look, people will draw conclusions based on what they want.
When militia-crazy Timothy McVeigh bombed that government building in Oklahoma City, naturally the first thing people asked the self-rightous "neo-conservatives" of the ugly 1990s was if maybe the anti-government rantings of those such as Rush Limbaugh might have had something to do with it? "Why, OF COURSE NOT!" said the very people who were so fond of blaming the media for sex and drugs. Suddenly, there wasn't a connection.
You'll find that those who blame Columbine on Doom were those who had condemned the game all along.

[stevec1636]

i am tired of hearing how video games cause violence in people, It's just a game people!!! the kids at columbine were crazy!!! It wasn't the video games, music, movies, TV shows or whatever else you can think of. There are people in this world that are violent all by themselves, without any outside media help.

[stevec1636]

i am tired of hearing how video games cause violence in people, It's just a game people!!! the kids at columbine were crazy!!! It wasn't the video games, music, movies, TV shows or whatever else you can think of. There are people in this world that are violent all by themselves, without any outside media help.

[link1110]

What's responsible for Columbine is the class system inherent in high school. How the jocks are popular and crap on the "nerds," which is apparently what the shooters were considered. The constant mockery is what pushed them over the edge. People want to blame doom because it's an easy target, and stores can take it off their shelves fairly easier. Fixing people's attitudes is much tougher.

[Jasoco]

Three words.

NO. FUCKING. WAY.

DOOM is not responsible for that. Whatever someone on the first page said about Lack of respect for Human life is correct. These kids were troubled. And it's the parents fault for not noticing it sooner.

[Turns to his DOOM shrine.]

It's okay.. I won't let them blame you anymore.

If DOOM is responsible for the killings. I need to go back to school and fill everyone with lead, because I seem to be late.

I played DOOM all the time. I KNOW the difference between reality and fantasy. Between a digitized demon and a flesh and blood human. If you blame DOOM, blame Wolfenstein which is more realistic than DOOM. Nazi's were real. Demons are not.. at least not in the physical sense. Blame Commander Keen. Blame Canada. Blame everything.

Placing blame on a fall guy because you don't want to realize it's your own fault is stupid. Irresponsibility had part in it too. Who let the kids have the guns? They shouldn't even have had access to weapons like that and it shows someone wasn't doing what they should have been.

I'm done.

[Goes back to playing DOOM.]

[ReaXan]

Listen to a asian person say Doom,you will thank me later

[mezrabad]

I think what needs to be asked is why these two kids were playing Doom in 1999?

It's because their parents didn't love them enough to buy them a decent computer that could play Quake 2.

We really should be blaming their anger and frustration on the never ending increase in computer hardware requirements, in short, Moore's Law. Knowing ahead of time that there will be hardware that can run a hardware-intensive game only encourages developers to go ahead and actually make the game. When the game comes out and only runs on the most expensive machines, unloved children are forced to play previous generation software on their pathetic previous generation machines. Lives are shattered. And don't make the mistake of thinking they were just retro gamers, no, my friends, no, they had lame PCs that were probably three, mabe even four years old.

So, don't blame Doom. Blame Moore's Law, and lame PCs. Oh, and expensive PCs, indirectly. Oh and we could also blame the fact that there hadn't been a new console released since 1996, so that must've been frustrating, too. Oh, and you should also blame the high altitude in Colorado, because it makes it harder to breathe there and those people wouldn't have died so quickly from being shot if they could've breathed better.

[eolsen]

These guys were crazy. Video games had nothing to do with it

[MaRiNe]

The words total and bullshit come to mind here.

Whoever made this connection in the first place is crazy. Now if you'll excuse me, I've just put in the all guns cheat, and I'm off to pick up some hookers in my tank.

[Starcade]

Was the our faultfor not holding them...no...we can't say that..or ..or wait..maybe it was TV..no wait..DOOM, yeah...I saw him playing that once...it was that damn game!

Cmon people, did you ever stop to think, you have dumbass fuckups for kids?

[Starcade]

Was the our faultfor not holding them...no...we can't say that..or ..or wait..maybe it was TV..no wait..DOOM, yeah...I saw him playing that once...it was that damn game!

Cmon people, did you ever stop to think, you have fuckups for kids?

[Neonsolid]

Gone.

[Jasoco]

[Counts the months...]

1..2..3... Wow.. over 8 months...

[FOXXX]

I read that the Nazis used to play Doom 2, That's why they did some of the most hanus crimes know to man. Yes Doom one was more about genocide than Doom 2.

Fuck up people do fucked up things, get rid of assult weapons and pistols and you will have a lot less porblems. :(

[captain nintendo]

This must be "Rise from your grave" day for old threads :o


Anyhow , to chime in on this classic thread myself since its up here.

Video games are not the root of evil. -_-

[MegaDrive20XX]

Nope, look at the date, 1999, why would kids be playing DOOM when they could have Quake 3 instead lol

Seriously, blaming something that isn't even real. When the kids can't tell reality from a video game, they have some serious issues.

Like I'm gonna say, Mario makes me want to kill mushrooms and turtles...it ain't gonna happen....

my 2 cents, the Media will blame anything that is related to teenage activity, and since they were white as well, that made it worse. Blaming Metal, Rock, etc. then attacking violent video games, then Movies/TV...everything that normal white teenagers would do is what I saw in all this. Racial profiling thanks to CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, yada yada.

Either this is a cry for attention or the media needs a big bottle to quit their baby bitching ways.

[MegaDrive20XX]

Forgot to add the fact, if it was Hispanic or Black kids, they would target Rap in a heart beat.

Just the way the media feeds off sterotypes I feel.

[FOXXX]

I am sure the new GTA is going to be a media hay day!

[The Manimal]

I voted for the third but should have voted for the last. I suck at being a smartass.. LOL

[Necrosaro420]

I want honest opinions here. And I need everyones opinion too.

Is Doom responsible for the events that happened at Columbine in the spring of 1999?

If you think so, then say 'yes' without fear of retribution. If 'no' that's fine too. I want to know from REAL gamers, not from one sided news media. If you want to interject and say why, go ahead. This is all going in my report on videogames as 'Art & Politics'.


Well heres my honest opinion. Games, Movies, TV is not responsible for jack. Bad Parenting is. I started playing games around 1982ish (since I was 5). Ive never been in jail, ive never been in trouble with the law. I had good parents. Games are not responsible for jack.

[Promophile]

If anything is to blame it is our countries high schools. They reward the jocks while pretty much pissing in the faces of everyone else. I was on the debate team in high school, was a straight A student, and took the hardest classes avaliable. Yet I get NO recognition or respect, but a 250 pound dumbass who sleeps with 5 whores a night gets honored every semester in a "pep rally" that I am FORCED to attend. Sorry if I sound bitter, but I am :angry: .

Anyways, the TRUE thing that should be blamed are the parents and mental illness, as has already been said.

On a sidenote I had an old debate friend that was from Colombine. He was stopped by one of the shooters in the hallway who asked him "do you believe in god?" He said no and the shooter let him go.

[XJR15]

I know Adrienne got an A on her report.. but hey heres what I say:

Is Atari "combat" resposible for every war since the 1980's?


I think not.

[Necrosaro420]

I know Adrienne got an A on her report.. but hey heres what I say:

Is Atari "combat" resposible for every war since the 1980's?


I think not.


YES IT IS, ITS SO LIFELIKE, IT MADE MY BRAIN GO CRAZY, AND I JUMPED OUT THE WINDOW AND STARTED SHOOTING PEOPLE

[SS-EatBeast]

How is this even a thread topic. Because the way i 've always seen it everyone is responsible for them selves and any one trying to place th blame is just trying to rid themselves of guilt. end of story. Even more so, there is absollutely no cennection between doom and colimbine (sorry for the spelling).

[Pedro Lambrini]

I haven't sat down and read this whole thread (got work to do...) but I still can't beleive 5 people answered Yes to this question, joking or otherwise...

[Achika]

2 years too late guys. Research has been long over. Yes I did get an A, but at 14 pages I don't think the teacher read the paper, just watched the presentation. LOL

Take Art & Politics if you have room for it, XJR15. It's a blast and the teacher is a sweetheart.

[slip81]

Doom is definately not at fault. The probelm was those kids were being tortured relentlessly and no one did anything about it. Now whether or not those kids weren't right to begin with, or if they even attempted to go to their parents/teachers/police beforehand to try and stop the bullying is another story.

The only way I could see Doom (or any violent game) at fault for people comming violent crimes is if someone who does not have a firm grip on reality and is mentally incompetant plays a violent game they could, due to their mental state, be influenced by the game, or any other form of violent media. But I doubt that was the case with Columbine.

[max 330 mega]

I BLAME CANADA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lendelin]

Of course Doom is responsible for Columbine; but don't forget Michael Jackson songs, Rock nRoll, Elvis Presley, the sexual revolution of the 70s and porn, Heavy Metal, the Hippie movement, the student rebellion of the 60s, and last but not least the first nude woman shown on TV.

I have to make a long forgotten point here. A. C. Doyle is responsible also. His Sherlock Holmes novels made crime fashionable and admirable. This fool described crime in an entertaining way. Criminals were intelligent, sometimes even likeable, and the murder plots were intriguing. How dare he to distort reality in such a way when we all know that criminals are brute, unshaved, brutal looking animals. He is the one who seduced our children and undermined the core values of our society. His novels bred murderers and criminals. Concerned educators like we tried to prohibit his novels, but to no avail.

Young people read that stuff, and then they do what they read. Everyone who assumes differently is a fool.

Our children do what they hear, read, see, and play; and then we wonder why our jails are full?

I say, terminate the Terminator movies, and we'll live in a better world.

[soniko_karuto]

-spoiler:too much f'words-

i would say that not only doom.

the question i have for you, why the f**k did games had to become 3d and had to became all blood baths?


Also all those games become crap after the year it came out. just look at mortal kombat. We all know it sucks, but we did played it. then we got bored, and we got back to yoshis island and cartoonish 2d games.

Also they say that they want to appeal an older market with that type of games. They arent looking at the older people, they are looking at the casual gamer who will buy a videogame because it's rad to have it, and people will look at you like if you were cool just for playing it. (to all the people who play games and think that, too late, you already are a fucking geek for them for just playing videogames).

shit i don't remember what i wanted to say, but fuck yeah, it was doom, and rock music. hell trow in movies and gay bars too. i don't give a fuck, they are just trying to make some noise about videogames some time a year.

I just wanted to ask you something:

Will you be my neighbor?

[RockyRaccoon]

Sure. Doom was to blame. I mean...it's SO LIFE LIKE fighting.... brown..monsters...with...at the time severly outdated graphics and pixelated sprites , that it was SOOOOO LIFE LIKE, it HAD TO BE TO BLAME!

I just love soccer moms. "OMG TEH BAD SHTUFF, I DON"TZ WANT MYZ KIDZ SEEINGZ THAT SO, NOZ KIDZ SHOULDZ".

I need to agree with everyone here. It's parenting. It's SPEAKING to your dammed kids..maybe, showing intrest...be there to describe the difference between reality and fiction?. I mean... my dad would watch me play games...keep a tab on what I did when I did play 'em. He bothered to SPEAK to me. Sure it was a pain in the butt sometimes having dad up your butt, asking about EVERYTHING...but at least I turnt out okay thanks to it.

I can say one thing though:

Did Doom Make me go off and kill everyone in High School?

No. Not at all. Because my PARENTS taught me better.

~Rocky

[Jasoco]

Ditto what the raccoon said. I played DOOM all through High School. I was a freaking DOOM hacker! Duke Nukem too. Did I kill all my friends? No. At least not that I remember. Actually, everyone in my school was friends with most everyone else. I befriended the bullies in 7th grade (High School went from 7-12 there.) and we'd been friends to the end. I can';t even imagine a school shooting back then. In fact, the Columbine shooting happened right after I graduated. I'd hate to think what would have changed had it happened halfway through my term there. At my school, the biggest rule was "No hats in school". Seriously. Some kids protested and wore their hats and got chased into the courtyard. It was funny. No hats. School was fun. I hate what's happened since then.

[Gamereviewgod]

Though not completely on topic, this ed I wrote awhile back is pretty much close enough to fit in. This was when the sports games were attacked because they were violent. Enjoy...

The topic of video game violence has been beaten to death. The public is sick of it, gamers are sick of it, and I'm sick of it. However, the accusers are not. Running out of ammo from games like Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt, parental groups have turned their eyes elsewhere: sports games. As seen here, Midway's "MLB Slugfest" and "NBA Ballers" have come under fire for not showing kids true sportsmanship and turning women into objects.

This is a truly low blow. The story that ran on ABC failed to make many points, most of which is that Slugfest is not the only baseball game on the market nor is Ballers the only basketball game. The other games are not only played by millions of gamers around the world, but by the players themselves. The uncanny realism this generation of consoles has brought to the table is most likely what sent the industry spiraling upward and brought forth billions of dollars in revenue for the companies.

Slugfest and Ballers are what is considered, in the industry, "fantasy sports games." These are not the only games the genre has seen and it goes all the way back to Midway's arcade game called Arch Rivals. Since then, they have released games like NHL 2-on-2 Open Ice Challenge, NBA Hangtime, NFL Blitz, NHL Hitz, and the classic NBA Jam. All of these games are completely over the top with viscous checks, no fouls, and penalties are an after-thought. Funny how no one managed to figure all of this out almost 15 years ago.

The story has multiple quotes that are so off base and ridiculous, it's a wonder how anyone can keep a straight face while reading/watching it. The best quote is:

"Now that I've seen what's in MLB Slugfest, I'm shocked," she says. "I haven't watched the game before and it really is a slugfest."

Hmm...You couldn't figure out it was a "slugfest" from the title? Maybe if you were a decent parent and paid more attention to what your child is playing, you wouldn't have needed a nationally televised news program to tell you. Yes, the game is rated "E" for everyone, but the back of the case clearly states that the game contains violence. I'm sure your 9 year old bought the game in your presence. Maybe you should have asked questions before buying it (or even do some research), but that would mean you were you doing your job as a parent. Her next comment seals her fate:

Amy Safar is "concerned that he might mimic the behavior that he sees."

Maybe if you established some morals in your child and taught him the difference between right and wrong, this wouldn't be something you would NEED to worry about. Even asking your child if he knows that what is happening in the game is wrong would settle this issue. But, as I've said, that would make you a good parent.

Next we have Kimberly Thompson, a Harvard graduate:

"I think the message that kids take away from NBA Ballers is, it's all about money," Thompson argues. "Women are objects in this game. They are like the other things that you can acquire a house, a car, a woman."

Not only is she completely misled (women, just like men, are added to your "posse," and in no way do you OWN the women nor do you do anything else with them), but what aspiring NBA star isn't thinking about the money? Why did Lebron James jump from high school to the NBA? The money. This is how professional sports operate now. Yes, it's a sad state of affairs, but this is the real world and it will not take long for any kid to figure this out, video games or not.

Finally, we have Phil Mushnick. Though not in the story I have linked to, Mushnick appeared on the ESPN show "Behind the Lines" last night and argued this very same issue against the editor of Game Informer magazine. This is a man who has been in gamers lives since 1993 when he first blasted Sega, EA Sports, and Nintendo saying they "can go straight to hell." Don't believe me? Check out the January 13th, 1993 issue of the New York Post.

He also claimed that they "peddled nothing but violence" to children in their hockey games and feature "none of the beauty and skill of hockey" even though the games were praised by every major gaming outlet as being the most realistic sports games ever created (at the time of course). The article was reprinted in the April 1993 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly as well. Most people thought it was one of the magazines infamous April Fools jokes.

Now he's back, bashing video games without a clue. At one point on the show, Mushnick had to fall back on the 1991 release of Mario Lemieux Hockey since he had no other arguments. I'd hate to say this, but hockey is a brutal game. Instead of bashing the game companies who work day and night to make their games as realistic as possible, how about trying to censor the sports themselves? Maybe having the NHL replace sticks with pillows or something would make you happy?

If there is anything left to say, it's this: I've grown up with games like Arch Rivals, NBA Jam, and will certainly indulge in games of Slugfest when I have the chance. I played basketball for years and I can say that never once did I ever step over the line and toss a player to the ground like I saw in the game. Why? Because I had parents. Parents who had the common sense to teach their child the difference between reality and fantasy, not to mention right from wrong.

We've been looking in the wrong place for far too long. The parents of America have become stupid, lazy, ignorant, and unwilling to take a minute out of their day to read the back of a video game box (or even watch their children play). The average age of the gamer today is somewhere around 18-20 years old. If your going to let your younger child play video games in today's society, learn to get off the couch and ask questions before ABC Nightly News knocks on your door. The again, maybe that is too much to ask. You are ONLY a parent after all.

[FOXXX]

I BLAME CANADA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes we sell all the Hand guns and automatic weapons to the US. We also sell all the crack too.

LOL

[rbudrick]

My Room of Doom is responsible for Columbine.

-Rob

[FOXXX]

Mine is going to be responsible for a divorce.... :(



LOL

[izret101]

100% no.
Actually i wrote a report for school about videogame violence and if it effects people. I wonder if i still have it on my compter. I got a C+ or a B-on it.
People who say Doom was the reason should not have children.

[Dr. Morbis]

I voted no. Obviously one violent video game was not responsible. However, I do believe in the 'slippery slope' philosophy. Did things like this happen in the '50's? Society has changed. Morals have changed. When censorship boards first started allowing mainstream movies to have nudity in them do you think they meant for movies like Deep Throat to have major theatrical releases?

[nesman85]

-

[nesman85]

oops, didn't mean to do that.

[Jorpho]

oops, didn't mean to do that.

That must mean videogames were responsible!