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jwarrenw13 -> RE: Opting Out of Playing the Bad Guys (8/11/2019 2:52:51 PM)
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Okay, I got the impression that the video was more about first person shooter type online games. Those present many more questions than the type of abstract and more complex computer games played here. There is the whole layer, as mentioned above, about the question of whether those type games promote violence or desensitize young people especially regarding gun violence, and whether they might trigger young people who are mentally unstable. That is a legitimate question for discussion. There is a huge difference between Fortnite and War in the East.
Then there is the question of the interaction in online games. I have no firsthand experience there because I have purposely avoided online games since they came into existence and have just never played them, including playing an online opponent in a more sophisticated game. However, as an American high school (grades 9-12 in the US system, and I teach English to students in grade 12) teacher, I know that many of my students play online games like Fortnite and others. They talk about them a lot and try to play them on their phones in class when they can. Some are quite addicted.
On the other hand, I played real life make believe battles with my buddies as a child using toy guns, getting "shot" and dying multiple times a day. We also had easy access to BB guns and real guns and went out in the wood with them in rural Louisiana. During that whole time I never saw an incident in which one kid pointed a weapon at another kid even jokingly, and I only heard of one such incident in school, an argument in which one kid briefly pointed a rifle at another kid. We were all horrified and that kid was socially ostracized for some time. Yet I think there is something fundamentally different about the make believe culture we created and the current video game Fortnite type culture of today. And I do think that culture is harmful to kids. I just don't know how harmful.
Where am I going with this ramble. I don't think the question of which side you play is as important as the question of the overall effect on violent multi-player video games on young people. I think that is a legit question.
I don't think which side is played in a Matrix type game matters, and I don't think it has any negative effect on anyone. I guess people who already glorify Nazi Germany, for example, might enjoy playing Nazi Germany more, but I don't think playing Nazi Germany has any effect on an adult player. In my own WWII games, I tend to play Germany on the East Front. Anything on the West front I tend to play the Allies. Games like Strategic Command I will take either side. In Cold War hypotheticals I always take the NATO side. I spent five years in Germany in the US Army during the Cold War. I'm not going to play the Warsaw Pact. I agree with others that I am just not going to play AQ in a modern game.
Bottom line, I think which side you play is a much smaller matter than the overall effect of modern youth-oriented multi-player first person shooter type games, and that their effect on young people needs to be more closely studied.
Edit -- This could lead to game censorship that might even affect Matrix type games if taken to its end.
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