Yes They have as many advantages as disadvantages No see voting resultssaving...
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80
User voted Yes.
5 votes
Oct 8, 2015

Yes.

Video games are like any other piece of art: They bring joy and excitement. Sometimes, they promote negative messages. But that's the fault of the people who make and consume it, not the medium.

Video games taught me that heroism matters. Final Fantasy IV taught me that a true Paladin, a truly good and heroic person, is defined at least as much by when they don't use violence as when they do. Terranigma reminded me that doing the right thing sometimes means standing up against your own people and often doesn't have great rewards. Illusion of Gaia taught me that a world of adventure is out there but there are real costs to exploring it, and what matters is how you protect your friends and respect the people you meet. Demon's Crest taught me that the most interesting people are the ones that have a passion, not those who want to be rich or powerful. Final Fantasy VI taught me that sometimes we let politics obscure the real enemies, and that war produces monsters that can end the world. Chrono Trigger taught me that what you do when you are vastly outmatched is what defines you. Chrono Cross taught me sometimes you have to stand up to everyone.

I think when Western games begin to really have stories that talk about the human condition ([i[Spec Ops: The Line being one of the rare examples) the way Eastern games have so often been able to do (even as they all too often sacrificed choice and agency on the altar of story) that we'll enter a great period of art.

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0
User voted No.
main reply
0 votes,
Oct 14, 2015

You make a decent point Fred, BUT video games are a form of entertainment, I believe we can agree upon this correct? Video games are basically no different then movies or television shows except for one factor they are rarely educational. When I speak of "educational" they often do not teach children accurate facts in fact they might even teach children falsified or fabricated information, which then in turn might harm the kid academically a good example of this are games such as Civilization in which you take upon a civilization to win vs your opponents in various ways, a kid could then take this information such as oh Russia conquered the world in 1926.

What about games they display violence like Mortal Kombat or Doom? Think about if a kid which didnt really see the purpose of a firearm or weapon just laying around their house you then introduce a violent game and they want to see the effect in real life thinking their victim will just "respawn". You are thinking of kids with a sane mind you have to view outside the box some of these kids are not sane or normal they might interpret violence which is rewarded in the game to real life thinking there is nothing wrong.

My next argument is the form of "achievements" in game. Games recently you can see on "Steam" ( a gigantic platform for purchasing games and hats ) create the illusion of satisfactions and rewards for playing a video game. This is not healthy its like when a parent rewards their kid for accomplishing the highest grades in his or her class versus a kid trying to get 100% achievement in a game to feel a sense of accomplishment. You can look at the example of World of Warcraft I grew up with that game and I literally seen it destroy kids with high potential in life, they were so consumed with the game they stopped attending classes and eventually dropped out, instead of going to a fitness center or participating in physical activities with their peers they immersed themselves in a fantasy world instead of the real world. How did the video game help in this case?

You make arguments that certain games taught you "heroism, costs, politics, against all odds, and courage", but did you really need to invest possibly hundreds maybe thousands of hours in a video game to learn those lessons in life? Lets put it this way later on in life, ( hopefully this does not happen ) due to putting a huge portion of your free time into various video games you did not focus on the important things in your life that mattered such as education, sports, relationships ( friends, dating, family ), hobbies would you have developed any regrets? Would you want the future of mankind to go through these regrets as well?

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50
User voted Yes.
2 votes,
Oct 14, 2015

There's multiple whole pages on TV Tropes about how entertainment miseducates. From the way that knight and cowboy stories present inaccurate ideas of the societies in question to the way medical shows routinely get basic facts about medicine and psychology wrong, people are constantly misled by entertainment. A tiny fraction of it is called "The CSI Effect", referring to the way police procedural shows have made juries misunderstand how law enforcement actually works. You're identifying a problem with all forms of entertainment throughout all of history.

All forms of entertainment also include violence. From horror films to war movies, violence is often portrayed and glamorized. Think about how often torture is actively celebrated in TV. Again, this is true of all forms of entertainment.

"Achievements" are sometimes an unethical form of behavior inducement. But everything from wages to grades to charitable programs can do the same thing. The ethics of behavioral control and incentives are tough to manage. Yet there are people who can play games responsibly just like there are people who can gamble responsibly.

If you think really learning how to be a hero is something that you can learn from one game once, one movie, one book, or even five years as a cop or a therapist or a soldier, you are demonstrating nothing less than the Dunning-Kruger effect. Learning how to cope with compassion fatigue, how to survive when helping others, takes everything you can get.

Any entertainment can cost us time doing something else. But people need fun. A man who tries to work his whole life without some relaxation is sprinting. He will burnout and fail. A man who works with appropriate time spent on play and relaxation is running a marathon. You need a break on a hike, or in a boxing match. You need breaks in life. And if that break means you get to play as a paladin, even better. You are ignoring the value of entertainment. I suggest you spend some time working with people recovering from trauma. See how often they mention a story, a fairy tale.

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-1
User voted No.
1 vote,
Oct 15, 2015

"You're identifying a problem with all forms of entertainment throughout all of history."

I agree with this, I am not disagreeing I am just stating that we should lessen the misinformation that is drilled in our society. Its one thing to make entertainment interesting so it appeals to viewers, but to actively display it on screen it can make individuals take it as fact, an example backing this claim is the creationist museum in Kentucky youtube.com/watch?v=3yUhISY1czI here is a link they interweave the bible into history and call themselves a museum.

""Achievements" are sometimes an unethical form of behavior inducement. But everything from wages to grades to charitable programs can do the same thing"

Yes this is true achievements in game can create a false sense of accomplishment. But lets analyze a second on one side you have a video game which gives you a quest with a clear cut reward shown on the screen on the other you have charity programs which can take hours, volunteer work which can consume days away from your life, the game is more appealing because it offers immediate gratification. You cannot deny there are hundreds and thousands of people who suffer from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori "Hikikomori" I dont know if you are aware of this term i posted the link to better explain it. I currently have a sister who suffers from this ever since I have never touched and video game console.

"If you think really learning how to be a hero is something that you can learn from one game once, one movie, one book, or even five years as a cop or a therapist or a soldier"

I am not saying that you can learn you can be a hero from playing a game once I am simply stating there are alternative ways to learning how to be a hero instead of sitting in front of a screen playing a video game. You can be inspired through other forms such as serving in the military, taking action when you see someone suffering from bullying, etc. If anything video games show a illusion to reality in what a human being can do practically imagine a kid seeing a image of his favorite video game hero displaying a hidden power and relying on his own "hidden power" to display itself only to find out the harsh reality.

"Any entertainment can cost us time doing something else. But people need fun."

I agree with this its just that there are more alternatives which are more highly beneficial then sitting in front of a tv screen with a controller at hand.

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100
User voted Yes.
2 votes,
Nov 18, 2015

I hope you can see the disanalogy between the creationist museum and an entire art form. The creationist museum is spreading specifically false misinformation. It's a matter of objective falsehood. Our discussion has not been about the objective: It's been a matter of the subjective, the value of going outside and militarism and violence.

Video game addiction is a serious problem. People get addicted to exercise: Is exercise bad for our society as a result? Even the Wikipedia page makes clear that video games are only a tiny part of the problem. Autism-spectrum disorders, Japanese culture, and a host of other causes are at play.

I have lots of friends who have at various points retreated into anime, or video games, or movies, or tabletop roleplaying, or comic cons, or comic books, to get through the day. If video games did not exist, I doubt your sister would be the belle of the ball. She would be socially awkward and introverted in new ways.

Video games can actually be a way for those people, who will always exist, to have at leat some connection to the real world, some shared experience. Autistic children playing video games can spend time with others. In the competitive fighting game community and the MOBA community, it's so common as to be cliche to see people who didn't like school, didn't like their peers, felt distant from everyone, but found a community through video games and came out of their shell.

Your analysis is one-sided. It looks only at the costs and never at the benefits.

As for heroism: So what if there are other places to learn about heroism? By that logic, we wouldn't need the Bible, or movies, or mythology, or books, or any art either. The fact is that by having the messages of heroism in as many media as possible, we get more heroic individuals who sacrifice for the greater good.

And again, you ignore what makes video games so unique. Unlike other art, video games can make moral dilemmas visceral. From Papers Please which makes you figure out how much you're willing to work to let someone in who deserves to come in even at cost to you to Mass Effect's moral challenges, only video games make a person have to choose for themselves and explore the moral consequences of their actions.

The idea that video games show an illusion is as silly as saying that Socrates shows us an illusion. If someone's grip on reality is so tenuous that they believe that they can be like Superman literally from watching Superman, they have other, much deeper problems. But in any instance, they're learning the wrong lesson. What makes Superman admirable isn't power: It's courage, gentleness, integrity, leadership.

So parents need to make sure that kids learn the right lessons from video games... just like they have to make sure that they learn the right lessons from school, movies, TV shows, jogging, Dodgeball, painting... By your reasoning, we should just lock children into a hermetic chamber because they might learn a bad lesson somewhere.

What pure entertainment alternatives are BETTER than video games? Video games are cheaper per hour of entertainment than other options from movies onward. They can teach a host of skills and lead one to actually spend time with others in competitive or cooperative contexts.

I suspect you mean that people could have fun jogging, or volunteering at a homeless shelter. All you are saying by repeating that argument is that you don't understand people. People need something that is easy, fun, empowering and lets them take time off. Video games do that as well as any other entertainment.

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100
1 vote
Nov 4, 2015

To me, video games are not good or bad. They don't even have advantages or disadvantages. They're just a media. It's like saying "Are books good ?" or "are movies good ?". The media itself changes nothing. The important thing is the ideas spreading through it.

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0
User voted Yes.
main reply
0 votes,
Nov 23, 2015

Media are very strong factor in creating society. You are practically admitting that, but contradicting yourself, because the idea of media is to spread information, ideas included. Personally, my worldview is based on books that I've read, films I've watched, events that I've experienced and, partially, games I've played. In short: stories and ideas inside them. What is creating society is people. And what define a person is his/her worldview. Answering the question, I think they are, because they help relaxing after a hard day, you can have fun while slashing some orcs with your friends or even you can improve your intellect and tactics abilities. Also, lot of games have deep plot that can be compared to very good books.

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100
1 vote
Nov 4, 2015

A very short answer would be - it's undefined. It depends.
I've learned a lot from games - I've learned English, Ethics & morals, and I've learned school topics before I even had to. They can be both harmful or beneficial to your knowledge. It all depends on what game, when, and all these kind of things.
They can be for pure enjoyment & fun, or for teaching and learning. I myself like playing Multiplayer games similar to DayZ and other kinds of games in which ALL choices matter - and nothing is ever the same. This way, even if it's through a game or not - I deal with several situations and many ways different people can act - whether they say "I'm friendly!" or they just instantly try to kill you. People lie, people say the truth - in the end everyone's different - some people the same in reality & the computer, some different. I've learned English and some Russian & Japanese from games. I've learned many words, I've learned to illustrate and lots of other things. It just depends on how you use them and how you look at them - how you play them, and how they're meant to be played. Many ideas can flow in and out of a game, but they will always be variety, lots of variety. It depends on the age and on your knowledge & behaviour prior to these games aswell.

It's kind of a difficult topic but - to me, it all depends; on the game, yourself as a person, and at -what- time you play(ed) such game(s).
Some often do some behaviour inducements with what we'd call "achievements" but as long as these stay within the lines I believe it's OK. Some people've got to understand some games are a joke and that some are real.

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100
1 vote
Jan 2, 2016

Video games are a slice of real problems we might want to encounter. In your life you may never be a general leading an army, but with video games you can try and broaden your perspective and experience with that. From this perspective hte games are good. When they become just milking the people and providing no real challenges - they are just dull.

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33
User voted No.
3 votes
Oct 14, 2015

How have video games been good for society?
Please do explain.

There have been hundreds of reports possibly even thousands if more closely analyzed of kids imitating video games and causing harm or even killing their peers.

gamepolitics.com/2007/12/20/colorado-teens-held-for-mu...g-mortal-kombat/

Just one example, yet 70 percent of you argue that its good for kids, kids killing other kids is good?

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60
User voted Yes.
main reply
5 votes,
Oct 14, 2015

In actuality, the correlation between video games and violence is hugely complicated. People have engaged in mass violence without video games for all of humanity. Beavis and Butthead also spawned imitators. Even Looney Tunes did. The evidence about video games and violence shows that the correlation is at best subtle, and video games can actually help people cope with stress and challenges. Should all the joy that games have brought, all the soldiers who have joined the military because of a first person shooter, all the cops inspired by games, be ignored too?

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100
User voted No.
1 vote,
Oct 15, 2015

Fred BC I agree the influence of video games on society is quite subtle.
But it is most certainly a factor think about it there are many individuals in society which are influenced by tiny factors, one might look at a kid as an example he sees the new call of duty for the first time and thinks its "cool" to shoot people thereby changing his path in life.

I mean if your asking for evidence its very hard to come by as we do not yet have the technology to display ones thoughts, dreams and emotions into a carbon copy yet. Its the same as asking you for evidence that video games do not promote violence can you give me evidence of that? But let me ask you on a side note how do you explain the military continually creating video games which are FPS shooters an interesting article backing what i am conveying.

theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/playing-war...eo-games/280486/

I am interested in your thoughts.

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