Talk:Nonviolent video game/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Horror

Games such as Portal are mentioned, and Portal does contain violence, in the passive form of being shot at by turrets, and even the aggressive form of eventually destroying GladOS. I am new to editing articles, and I don't really want to get my hands dirty with this one. However, the horror or survival horror game genre has had some games even from its very early years that could easily qualify as, "Non-violent," in the sense that violence is committed by the player rarely if ever. Clock Tower (1995) was based around finding cupboards and closets to hide in while an enemy armed with garden shears hunted the player character down. Even recently, there has been the Penumbra series, which is an adventure game that also focuses on tense and frightening environments where the few enemies that are encountered must be ran away from; and the installment in the Silent Hill franchise, Shattered Memories, where not once does the player get to hold a weapon, and the majority of gameplay time is dominated by threatless exploration. It might be particularly remarkable that a genre most noted for such intense gore and violence would also contain games where the player is not allowed to commit violent acts.ForestRock (talk) 17:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree to the extent that if it can be sourced, it would be interesting to add to the article. Caution must be taken to phrase the issue neutrally, however. As this talk page demonstrates, the idea that video games can be called non-violent simply based on the restrictions against violence in the main character is an idea that many people find repugnant. Unless care is taken to properly source these claims (i.e. with citations to articles that describe such games as "nonviolent") then they are likely to be removed by sensitive editors. -Thibbs (talk) 19:32, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Scope

"Non-violent video games" seems like an awful wide scope, no? It also seems to make the presumption that video games are by definition violent... I would recommend trying to restrict it somehow to video games that are normally violent. –xeno (talk) 16:51, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Here is a list of the articles that were in the category: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=20081014051800&limit=18&target=Cydebot&month=&year= –xeno (talk) 13:14, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The scope is a bit large, but I think it may limit itself as the areas editors will be more likely to edit will be those that concern the more controversial designations. -Thibbs (talk) 17:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts for the future

It may be worth creating a subsection on age-linked non-violence marketing (such as nonviolent games aimed specifically at children/youth) and also a subsection on anti-violence marketing as with Food Force and other serious games. -Thibbs (talk) 17:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Might want to work in some kind of mention of websites such as http://whattheyplay.com which are parent-focused and discuss the levels of violence in video games. –xeno (talk) 13:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

section on research

Killology is never used in any academic settings or by professionals beyond Dave Grossman (maybe in public statements by Dr. Walsh, but no one else to my knowledge). So associating killology with all studies on violent video game effects is misleading. Frankly, most of Grossman's claims are never tested or proven by third parties (Kirsh, 2006) and most of his research is based on his field within the military or police work, but not in psychology as a whole[1].

While I feel a bit appreciative, but dismayed that some of my blog posts are linked to this article. Blog posts and any self-published materials are not acceptable sources. You may use my blog as reference materials to more reliable sources.

You should give a source on that final sentence, I don't recall if there was a surge of nonviolent games in response to scientific publications.

--Janarius (talk) 16:21, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I see that you have removed citations to your blog and have replaced them with {{fact}} tags. I apparently missed the fact that it was a blog in my haste and for this I apologize. Considering that it was from your blog, however, perhaps you would be in the best position to provide the sources you based your claims upon in the interest of clearing up the citations needed. I'm not sure I agree with the removal of the material on Dave Grossman as it was properly cited and represents a non-academic viewpoint on the topic of the article (a topic that goes beyond academic circles), however I'll let it stand as is and see if any other editors think it fit to re-add (or move to another section). Anyway If you see anything else that could be improved, please don't hesitate to be BOLD. -Thibbs (talk) 19:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Mirrors Edge

I think this game should be mentioned somewhere in this article.Its designed not to have much violence in it.The developers said that you can finish the whole game without shooting a single gun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.191.39.41 (talk) 21:55, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Good point. This game is also somewhat unique in that you can choose not to fire a gun, but have the option to. Definitely deserves a mention somewhere in here. By the way, have you considered creating an account? –xeno (talk) 21:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Spritual warfare.PNG

The image Image:Spritual warfare.PNG is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --07:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

OK. I think I fixed this problem. -Thibbs (talk) 19:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Fixed for all files except "Left Behind - Eternal Forces" (based on valid argument by User:Salavat). -Thibbs (talk) 18:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Subject

This article talk more about violence in games rather than non-violent games. Diego_pmc ^Talk 09:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The nonviolent video game genre is defined in opposition to violence. Thus, understanding nonviolence necessarily requires an understanding of the violence to which it stands in opposition. The reason that many (if not most) people play nonviolent games is due to the development of moral, scientific, and genetic reactions to violence. Thus the religious and political views of violence, the scientific studies of violence in video games, and the gender studies relating to violence are critical to understanding why the genre exists. Perhaps the article could be improved by reducing the extent of the coverage of these doctrines/studies/reports, however I believe a better way to improve things is to add to the coverage of the specific nonviolence. If you are interested in improving the article, by all means be BOLD. -Thibbs (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

What about...

Sim City, Sim [whatever] for that matter. But not a single one of the games gets a mentioning. Its a big article, so maybe it has been discussed and you have good reason. but if not, some of them definitely need a mentioning. Sim City and The Sims at least, well known good selling non violent games. --84.227.149.160 (talk) 18:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Because Construction and management simulation games tend to be naturally non-violent, Sim City is intended to be subsumed under the Traditionally non-violent games subsection. If you think it requires more prominent/specific mention, please feel free to add it. -Thibbs (talk) 18:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

In "Jewish games"

NOWHERE does it say in Wolfenstein 3D that B. J. Blazkowicz is a Jew! That is completely unfounded, all the sources I have seen say that he is a Polish-American, religion unspecified. There is nothing "Jewish" about Wolfenstein 3D! 69.124.106.162 (talk) 19:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Please examine the sources provided as citation for this statement. -Thibbs (talk) 18:26, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

This Article Should be Taken Down or Heavily Modified

This article should be taken down. For these following reasons:

1. It generalizes the Columbine killings as an example of media violence breaking into reality. When in truth there are huge sociological reasons to why what happened at Columbine occurred. Most of which being common High School problems like extreme bullying and abuse by peers and teachers looking the other way until the problem occurred and the blame had shifted to something benign.

2. It lists Jack Thompson as a hero for the cause and doesn't take into account that he was recently disbarred for wasting our court system's time with frivolous lawsuits.

3. Religious games should be made in a religious games section, not in a non violence section. The two are not synonymous. Also in the mention of Wolfenstein just because there are Nazis does not mean that the protagonist is Jewish. In fact it isn't even implied.

Final words:

In video games defense they only seem violent to an on looker whose never played before. The truth is the player is more focused on the challenge and strategy then whatever graphical images are on screen. Often times it is hard or impossible to focus on both. The reason video games involve shooting and fighting is it allows players to safely and nonviolently experience a life or death situation, without fear of the consequences carrying over into reality. Because that's what video games are, virtual. And to say that that people kill because they have played an digital toy, without even thinking of the people in their lives that hurt them and drove them to murder, is flagrantly ignorant and blatant fear mongering. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yashination (talk • contribs) 19:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. If you read the article you will notice that:

1. It does not generalize the Columbine killings as an example of video-game-inspired violence. It does discuss the notable fact that some members of society believe this to be true (i.e. that the Columbine incident was directly related to the video game, Doom). Your believe that the truth behind the Columbine event lies elsewhere is a valid perspective. In fact, I happen to agree with you. Unfortunately, Truth is not a valid criterion for inclusion on wikipedia and by the same token it is not a valid criterion for exclusion. Instead the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, and I believe the references included adequately demonstrate the verifiability of this contentious social viewpoint. As a final thought, I think it is important to note that it is wikipedia policy not to censor articles on notable and verifiable topics. As such, wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable.

Just to add context from the article... The first mention of the Columbine incident in this article is contained in the following line: "In ... 1999, the fears of the media and violence-watch groups were legitimated in their eyes as [Columbine-related] investigations ... revealed that [Klebold and Harris] had been fans of the video game, Doom..."

The paragraph immediately following this contains the following conclusion from AG Satcher's 2001 video-game-related-violence study: "media violence has a relatively small impact on violence ... meta-analysis [had demonstrated that] the overall effect size for both randomized and correlational studies was small for physical aggression and moderate for aggressive thinking."

I think it is extremely clear that the viewpoints presented in the article are balanced if not slanted against the notion that video games cause violence. (note added: Thibbs (talk) 13:19, 8 June 2009 (UTC))

2. Jack Thompson is certainly not listed as a "hero." There are three uses of the word "hero" in the article - two used in discussion of a video game's central character, and one as a title in the references section. The article distintly takes into account the fact that Jack Thompson was disbarred. To refresh your memory, please re-read the following excerpt taken from this article:

"Shortly thereafter, the case was dismissed and Thompson's license was revoked following a denial of his pro hac vice standing[26] by Judge Moore who noted that "Mr. Thompson's actions before this Court suggest that he is unable to conduct himself in a manner befitting practice in this state."[27] In March 2006, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld Judge Moore's ruling against the dismissal of the case.[28]"

3. Within certain segments of society, religious games are improperly equated with non-violent games. This is another issue that evokes wikipedia's non-censorship policy. Although you and I both recognize that religious games may contain violence, it is notable and verifiable that the creators of religious games often emphasize the non-violence present in their games. If you think this section could be improved, please don't hesitate to edit BOLDly. I'm afraid I cannot agree that the section should be removed entirely, however, as it is clearly related to the article's central topic. As far as the Wolfenstein reference, please see this discussion.

Again, to reiterate, if you wish to make constructive edits to add information or to alter the article's content then please be BOLD. If you believe that the article should still be removed, feel free to file a formal request at WP:AFD. Cheers, -Thibbs (talk) 13:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

This section is just what I was thinking, almost the whole thing is written like it's an article in a humor-based Wikipedia parody. And many sections are generally fan-ish, for example; do we need to further continue the fanning of Portal? Portal for one IS generally, a violent game, it was rated Teen for a reason, and that's because of blood and violence which occurs when you are shot by turrets. • GunMetal Angel 23:24, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT -Thibbs (talk) 00:11, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Neturality

This article is on NPOV dispute. Yes, some part of it must neutralized. The Junk Police (reports|works) 02:08, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Could you please be more specific? Please clearly and exactly explain which part of the article does not seem to have a NPOV and why? It would also help if you could make some suggestions as to how one can improve the article. If you can identify a section that is not neutral then it can be repaired. This article has been tagged for over one month as violating NPOV. Where in the article does it violate NPOV? How does it violate NPOV? Since simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag, and since tags should be added as a last resort, it is clear that if we can not identify the problem then we should remove the tag. Thanks for the help. -Thibbs (talk) 12:03, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I am seeing no discussion of this supposed problem here in talk. That bothers me since we cannot achieve consensus except by WP:SILENCE if there is no discussion... I urge anyone who finds problems with the neutrality of this article to express themselves in writing as it is the only way we can improve things here. Currently an explanation of the neutrality tag is lacking. Thanks. -Thibbs (talk) 18:06, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the tag now. It has now been over 2 months since the tag was originally affixed. Despite my repeated requests that the perceived problems be identified so that we could remedy them, there has been no such explanation for the original tagging. "[NPOV] [t]ags should be added as a last resort" (emphasis added). In this case it was used as a first resort. Let's start with discussion next time. -Thibbs (talk) 12:56, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Descent as non-violent?

I don't think Descent is totally non-violent, as the player can die in a number of ways, and anytime you exit a level without rescuing all the hostages (which happens in most levels unless you're a really hardcore player) then all the hostages you leave behind die in the self-destruct sequence. Not that I care - Descent is one the best games of all time and I love it. I would say it's relatively non-violent but not totally non-violent. --Nerd42 (talk) 04:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you mis-read the article. Descent is nowhere described as "totally non-violent." Instead Descent is described as a "Game[] where a player acts violently against robots or other non-living non-sentient enemies." The point is that games like Descent try to soften their violent content by adopting the argument that "oh it's only robots that are being destroyed. The player isn't actually killing anything..." -Thibbs (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Christian video games

I removed a section on Christian video games because it was mainly original research unrelated to the article, most of the "sources" were just links to the websites of Christian game developers, and none of the sources related to this article's topic (the few legitimate sources were just news links related to specific video games, not the genre of "non-violent games"). Just notifying everyone in case someone wants to try to clean this up (but personally I think this entire article needs a rewrite).--03:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SuaveArt (talk • contribs)

I don't think this removal is justified at all and I have restored it making only minor changes to the sources. The "sources" as you refer to them include the IGN, GamePro, the LA Times, the New York Times and the BBC and are clearly reliable. In fact there are only a few links to websites of Christian game developers, and these are completely acceptable according to WP:SELFPUB. If you'd like to improve these sources, by all means please try to search for better ones, but blanking the entire section due to your misgivings about the allegedly spamish nature of 1 of 2 sources out of some 10 is really indefensible.

It is clear from numerous reliable sources that Christian video game manufacturers have courted the non-violent market and often consider themselves nonviolent. This categorization is also applied by game players and third party reviewers. Although care should be taken to present both sides of the issue (as is arguably accomplished in the subsection you deleted), the only thing that should justify presenting neither is if there is no relational nexus between the two concepts of "Christian gaming" and "Nonviolent gaming." Examination of the sources available demonstrates that this is clearly not the case.

Finally, I don't want to read too much into it, but this strongly appears to be part of a personal harassment campaign you are engaged in regarding User:Seregain. I notice that he was the last editor to touch this page before you deleted the section he'd contributed to. I applaud your intentions of keeping POV-heavy proselytism off the pages of Wikipedia, but this kind of revenge-based editing is totally inappropriate. I hope you can reevaluate your approach to editing when you return from your block. At that time I will be happy to work collaboratively with you to improve things here. Whole-scale excision of this subsection is not helpful, however, in my opinion. -Thibbs (talk) 17:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

The block has been upgraded to indefinite and is being discussed on ANI here. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 17:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

There is far too much focus on so-called "Christian video games". They are dubiously labeled "non-violent" simply because words such as "kill" and "attack" are replaced with "convert" and "share". Left Behind features warfare, if I am not mistaken. "Christian" does not equal "non-violent". This article needs an overhaul, and it needs to have the appropriate cleanup tags. —Preceding unsigned comment added by IronMaidenRocks (talk • contribs) 00:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the labeling of Christian games as "non-violent" simply because they are Christian-themed is dubious. The problem with failing to mention the verifiable fact that these claims are out there, however, is that it represents a censoring of Wikipedia for WP:TRUTH reasons. Although it might seem like this should be acceptable editing behavior, it is not. See WP:NOTCENSORED. Wikipedia is supposed to report on verifiable and notable subjects and not for editors to use to advance their own opinions. I realize that many editors will have problems with the inclusion of material that they subjectively believe to be incorrect but as it is verifiable and notable I think we as Wikipedians must include it. -Thibbs (talk) 04:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd also like to address the claim that there is too much emphasis on Christian games in this article. The entire Christian games section of this article makes up less than 6% of the article (4,970/89,005 bytes). I don't think that this can fairly be considered undue emphasis. I do believe that the whole "religious perspective" section is a bit too long in terms of physical layout, but I have hesitated to correct it out of concern for discriminatory censorship. I think the entire section might benefit from a bit of condensing. Rather than dividing the section by religion, perhaps the subsections could be removed and replaced with a number of full-body paragraphs that would discuss the claims that religious games in general are nonviolent. This is definitely a verifiable and notable perspective and it must be included if the article is to maintain any semblance of neutrality. Any thoughts about this idea? Would anybody be willing to give the condensing idea a try? -Thibbs (talk) 04:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I certainly don't think this is the place to recant every religious video game for every religion in existence. Wolfenstein has nothing to do with non-violent video games, for example. I think that, if there is any data we can use to reference it, to just communicate that "Christian = non-violent" is dubious. The claim seems to carry undue weight here, and it seems unchallenged.

If the lack of blood or dead bodies makes a game non-violent, then there are plenty of games that fit the bill for that. If the Christian section is going to interpret that as non-violent, then games such as Little Big Planet and Lego: Batman should be described as well. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 04:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I understand your objections but it's important to keep in mind that this is not an essay we are writing but instead an encyclopedic article. Some of the biases that are presented in the article - such as the claim that Christian games are all non-violent - are notable perspective that should be included in the article to cover this facet of the topic irrespective of the lack of truth that we editors personally feel this perspective represents. On the other hand, in the interests of neutrality there is certainly room for sourced mention of the fact that there is resistance to the idea that Christian games are by definition non-violent. Indeed, in re-reading the section on Christian games presented in this article you might notice that there are in fact numerous claims presented that these games are not all non-violent. Here are some brief examples:

"Thompson, for instance, has publicly decried such Christian games as Left Behind: Eternal Forces"
(Thompson contends that Left Behind is violent)
"James Dobson, PhD., ... has advised parents in relation to video games to "avoid the violent ones altogether."
(Dobson contends that violent Christian games are as bad as non-Christian ones)
"Other Christian FPS games such as Eternal War have avoided the issue by expressing the view that justified violence is morally acceptable"
(the argument is that Christian games are violent but that's ok.)
"Some of these games, despite containing objectively violent content have been affirmatively labeled 'non-violent video games'"
(recognition of the objectively violent nature of these games)

I do not think it is at all accurate to say that the argument that Christian video games are all non-violent is unduly presented in this article nor that it is stated as an unchallenged fact. I think that a careful reading of the article will dispel any concerns that might arise by simply skimming it. The wording of this section might possibly be deficient in its transmission of the content, however I find it hard to detect any pro-Christian bias that is not off-set by disclaimers such as "alleged to have been caused" or "according to Rev. Bagley." -Thibbs (talk) 13:17, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

First section

I think the first section should be removed, seince it tells mostly about Video game controversity and nothing about non-violent games.--83.109.224.171 (talk) 17:10, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The reason for that section has to do with the fact that "non-violent" is a relative term which is defined in the broader community in opposition to "violent video games." In other words, it's more or less impossible to understand why a game is classified as "non-violent" unless you are aware of what it means to be a "violent game." The controversies in the first section all related to violence in video games and they summarize them as much as possible. Given this background, the reader can then understand why a game like Chex Quest (in which a space marine uses weapons to "send back" evil aliens who otherwise kill him) has been identified by Reliable Sources as nonviolent. -Thibbs (talk) 20:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the original poster. This article could refer to the discussion around videogames and violence, but currently that is a huge part of an article that is about a game genre or type. Removal of that material would make the article better focused on the actual topic it is addressing. Wikikrax (talk) 11:57, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The first section represents something like a third of the article in terms of character count (~17k characters out of ~51k total). It is intended as a summary of the video game violence article (now "video game controversies") which stands at ~60k characters. For the reasons I previously outlined above, I don't think that wholesale deleting it will help the article. I would have no problem with a more succinct summarization, though. Perhaps down the road it could be folded into a history subsection that more clearly addresses the origins of the genre which emerged directly from cultural perceptions of violence in video games and efforts to promote an alternative. For now I welcome efforts to condense the first section. WP:BEBOLD. -Thibbs (talk) 12:22, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

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