Talk:Video game controversies/Archive 4

I need help to fact check references
Given that I believe that User talk:97.100.165.246 has a vested interest in this topic, due to only contributing to this page with no set identity, other history, or revealed information about himself, has a history of wholesale deleting multiple important research references that his agenda disagrees with, omitting important information that he clearly knew about, such as the APA official statement, which I found first yesterday, slanting this page to appear as if there are more no effects studies, even though the reverse is true, and that the money and manpower lies in the "indoctrination works" camp, rather than a multi-billion dollar industry with over 500000 fans signed up to spread propaganda and follow their attack directives.

And most importantly for this topic, I have had to correct an inaccurate representation of facts, such as claiming that ALL the con FMRI researchers were found to have a slant or that Anderson used 100% of his own studies for his meta-analysis. So, basically I have been continuously searching for (as he generally doesn't direct link to the studies) and checking through his many added "no effects whatsoever" papers, and recurrently found the summaries slanted. However, this is quite a lot of work to demand from me, and when he adds books that are not available on Google Scholar such as Sherry's supposed meta-analysis published in an anthology publication, I am unable to see if what 97 claims is true or false. I also recurrently find the language too longwinded and not compressed enough, but that is a problem I have myself. In any case, help to fact check the references by neutral parties would be very appreciated. David A (talk) 06:16, 19 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The rate of daily changes to this article has exceeded my ability to keep up since mid-March. I figured I'd wait for things to quiet down and then check out the changes in digest form afterward. I'd be glad to help track down and verify claims from individual sources, though. For example the Sherry meta-analysis you speak of, does appear in my search of Google Scholar. You can find a link to it here. This is the Google Books version, so some pages may be unavailable. I can try to help track down missing pages as well. -Thibbs (talk) 10:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay. I would appreciate your help in checking this through. I find the ip user highly suspicious. David A (talk) 11:15, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I just really exanded Mortal Kombat controversies, I guess you use any content/sources to integrate them here too
Like things like the bans in Florida and Brazil. --SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 06:23, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Violence against women
The article listed video-game violence against women as bad thing 21% depicted violence against women, ¿does this mean that video-game violence against men is also a bad thing? because I can list quite a few video-games that have random male characters being assaulted and killed (often for no reason, nor relevance to the plot). --86.81.201.94 (talk) 12:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The article is full of references to general violence in video games, with reliable sources from both sides of the debate about whether it is harmful. Is there anything you think needs to be done to improve the article? Cheers, Dawn Bard (talk) 14:12, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem is a more general problem with the type of reporting, which makes it difficult to 'fix' on Wikipedia.
 * To illustrate, say a shooting kills 100 people, of which 70 are men and 30 are women.
 * Now, the headlines read "30 women killed in shooting", and turns the debate into violence against women.
 * Is that an accurate representation of what happened? Nope, but that's the unfortunate reality of an agenda based debate as we see here. GameLegend (talk) 16:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Online harassment versus sexism in gaming
Sexism in gaming was added as a 'see also' header to Video_game_controversies by Thibbs just now. I am not sure if that is appropriate.

If this is going to be an article centrally associated with the subsection then perhaps the section title should be named. There is a mismatch between these two ideas.

For example, sexism in gaming applies to all kinds of games, but ONLINE harassment makes it seem like we are just talking about online ones.

Plus, online harassment happens for all kinds of reasons, not just sexist ones.

Also because this happened simultaneously with the move of the misogyny-discussion from portrayal-of-gender to online-harassment... it seems to me like this is actually linked to BOTH issues. Sexism or misogyny can be issues motivating how games are designed (thus how gender is portrayed) and it can also result sometimes (or altenatively, correlate with) online harassment... so it doesn't seem to fit exclusively in one or another...

Perhaps it could have its own section and link to the other 2 as references via internal statements? I don't have any present idea for a good name for such a section though, open to ideas if anyone agrees. 10:30, 15 October 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ranze (talk • contribs)


 * The "See also" sectional hatnote is intended to function as a traditional "See also" section but only for the limited scope of a section. In other words the use of a "See also" sectional template as I understand it is guided by the same rules that guide the placement of an item in a "See also" section - i.e. WP:SEEALSO. To quote from that MoS guideline, "The links in the "See also" section should be relevant, should reflect the links that would be present in a comprehensive article on the topic,...". As I see it "sexism in gaming" would most likely be linked from a comprehensive article on "online harassment" and due to the inclusion of the misogyny material in that section it is clearly relevant. My intention wasn't to make this an article centrally associated with the subsection by any means, but the purpose of a sectional hatnote isn't to flag readers that this is the main topic of the article anyway. I was careful to avoid using the template since "sexism in video gaming" isn't identical to "online harassment." The reason I moved the misogyny paragraph out of "portrayal of gender" and into "online harassment" is because "portrayal of gender" is a question about game content whereas misogyny is a question about player interaction. There are arguments that a sexist/misogynistic culture can influence the negative portrayal of gender in games, but the link between the expression of sexism/misogyny and harassment is a direct one requiring less opinion and vagueness than mere influence and correlation. Regarding whether to make this a new subsection of its own, I don't have a strong opinion except that if it is made into its own subsection I'd recommend placing it under "Online harassment". It might also be a good idea to more clearly differentiate between in-game issues versus player issues like so:

Any thoughts? -Thibbs (talk) 11:46, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Other controversies
 * Game design controversies
 * Sexual themes
 * Portrayal of gender
 * LGBT characters
 * Portrayal of race
 * Portrayal of terrorism
 * Digital rights management
 * Game player issues
 * Addiction
 * Online harassment
 * Sexism and misogyny
 * Criminal activity

Criticism of video games as moral panic
My sandbox now contains a slew of links to articles that connect video game outrages with moral panic. Barring one or two, they all deal with the question of violence. I haven't sifted through them to see how many are academic vs news, nor how many of them have already been used, but they're there if someone wants to have a look. Primarily, I mention it here because I think that criticism--that the level of concern about the violence in video games is a moral panic--is worthy of inclusion. If someone wants to help me sort through the sources, that would be cool. There's a lot of them--and I don't think I even got anywhere near exhausting them. Willhesucceed (talk) 20:12, 21 October 2014 (UTC) I suggest we hold off on actually including this in the article until it's split, but there's no reason we can't figure out a course of action until then. Willhesucceed (talk) 20:16, 21 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Given the overall standards of this topic, and to make the page as a whole more reliable, I would suggest that you sift out the non-scientific opinion pieces, and keep the references to actual research articles. David A (talk) 09:20, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I think there's room to include a discussion based in social commentary as well. For example there was a large public outcry against video games in the USA following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The connections to video games were tenuous at best (primary reports confused the shooter who played rhythm games and MMORPGs with his older brother who played FPSes), and no scientific analyses were conducted that I'm aware of. But there were still high level discussions between the US vice president and the makers of violent video games as a direct result of the tragedy. I think it is worth worth documenting verifiable and notable instances where the media and general public have connected video games to violence just as we have here. -Thibbs (talk) 12:30, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll try to separate the research and opinion pieces soon, but it does seem to me to be important to include social commentary as well. We should summarise the opinions in aggregate instead of quoting them, however, so they don't take up too much space. Willhesucceed (talk) 22:52, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * For what it may be worth, there is a whole Moral Panic Theory and lots of scholarly discussion about how media based panics start and are maintained, but I'm guessing that's some of what you already have. StoneProphet11 (talk) 03:22, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Competition Between Platform Fans

 * I think it is definitely worth adding a section about the competition among fans over gaming platforms, as well as the discrimination and tension that often results from such strife.

Sagacity159 (talk) 07:45, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Well the term "controversy" could potentially cover this topic. We would need some realible sources as reference material, though. Do you know of any good sources for this topic, ? -Thibbs (talk) 19:08, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sadly, that is one of the areas I am having troubles with. I think that media coverage can definitely be used to show evidence of it existing, but most of it is from a very biased standpoint. However, this topic I feel is sort of ignored by most objective material on video game culture, and Wikipedia is no exception. I will probably look into finding some over this coming holiday season, hopefully we can work together on this . Sagacity159 (talk) 21:59, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. I think we just want to make sure we focus strictly on RS-based reports of controversy arising from things like discrimination against gamers over choice of console or brand loyalty and we should avoid getting too much into market competition over gamers by gaming companies (which would probably be better covered in Console war instead) -Thibbs (talk) 23:06, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Does Video game controversies need improvement?
(Per Thibbs' suggestion, I'm bringing the discussion over from here.)

Is this really the best way to present this information? It seems like an incredibly unwieldy page.

To my mind, there are two broad categories into which video game controversies fall: socio-cultural concerns (gender, race, religion, etc.), and lifestyle/psychological/health concerns (addiction, effects of a less active lifestyle, violence, etc.). Do technological concerns such as DRM really belong here? Maybe it's better to move that to its own page.

So the layout would look something like:
 * Background
 * Negative effects
 * Socio-cultural concerns
 * Gender
 * LGBT
 * Etc.
 * Health and psychological concerns
 * Addiction
 * Violence
 * Etc.


 * Positive effects
 * See also
 * Further reading

The country-specific incidences can be tucked under the relevant concern instead of being grouped by nationality.

Is "Video game concerns" better as the article name than "Video game controversies"? "Controversy" seems like a strong word for some of the worries addressed on the page, e.g. addiction, and would also seem to be more appropriate for an article which also contains a section titled "Positive effects".

Do you have any better ideas for improving the article? Or are you fine with the page as is?

,, , I'm told you'll be interested in participating in this discussion. Willhesucceed (talk) 19:35, 19 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Well I agree that the article is quite unwieldy. It's currently topping 113k in size and that's since last March when Myrtlegroggins trimmed ~33k out via tighter summarization of many RS studies. Not only does this make it difficult to read for readers but I can attest to the fact that it makes it quite difficult to steward for NPOV when the editing heats up as it did last April. According to WP:SIZESPLIT, the article shuld almost certainly be divided by this point and I think that this may offer the best way forward. The term "controversies" is extremely broad. It does encompass DRM issues although as Willhesucceed points out these issues don't really fit well with the health and sociological concerns covered elsewhere in the article. Most of this article is concerned with external perceptions and analyses of gaming whereas DRM is mainly an insider's concern (sadly... it really should be a concern for all who value the preservation of culture... but I digress). So anyway I agree with Willhesucceed's notion of dividing by Socio-cultural concerns and by health concerns, but I would rather see those parts of the article split out into new articles and trim this article down to act as a parent article.


 * So my preferred layout would look something like:
 * Video game controversies
 * Background
 * Socio-cultural concerns - Summarizing positive and negatives related to Gender, LGBT, Etc. in 1 to 2 paragraphs each. Section hatnote to "Video game culture controversies"
 * Health and psychological concerns - Summarizing positives and negatives related to Addiction, Violence, Etc. in 1 to 2 paragraphs each. Section hatnote to "Video game health controversies"
 * Technological concerns - Non-summary-form coverage of DRM, Emulation/Piracy, Etc.
 * See also
 * Further reading


 * Video game culture controversies
 * Background
 * Negative Effects
 * Gender
 * LGBT
 * Etc.
 * Positive effects
 * See also
 * Further reading


 * Video game health controversies
 * Background
 * Negative Effects
 * Addiction
 * Violence
 * Etc.
 * Positive effects
 * See also
 * Further reading


 * So we'd end up with the creation of 2 new articles and of course all three would be linked to each other. Thoughts on that? -Thibbs (talk) 12:17, 20 October 2014 (UTC)


 * That was actually what I initially wanted to suggest but I didn't know how amenable other editors would be to it. I say let's do it. Willhesucceed (talk) 14:32, 20 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I am fine with splitting the page into linked to sections, as long as the research papers, that I took the time to read through and summarise, are preserved within those pages. David A (talk) 18:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
 * That said, I am personally fine with length, as long as the page itself is informative, which this page is i.m.h.o. David A (talk) 07:39, 21 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Well let's give it a at least a week to garner more comments, but then I say let's go for it. -Thibbs (talk) 12:01, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Another thing that may be worth adding to the health controversies is the whole video-game-induced seizure scare of the 90s. I know there are plenty out there, but here's a decent source: Lehman, Betsy A. "Games are not a waste of mind". The Boston Globe. 8 February 1993. -Thibbs (talk) 21:37, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, just to reiterate from previously, it is extremely important that no valid information is censored out during the transfer to the new format. Linked to sub-pages is fine. Removing important multifaceted infornation from public knowledge to make the topic more onesided is definitely not. David A (talk) 09:17, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * My intent, and I'd wager Thibbs', with restructuring the article is to make the content easier to read and process, not to make it more one-sided. Willhesucceed (talk) 22:56, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The point is that no information whatsoever should be removed, just moved into sub-linked topic pages. I trust Thibbs neutrality on the issue, but from what little I have seen on your talk page and edits (and I apologise if this admittedly very cursory impression is unfair) you seem to have come to Wikipedia strictly to take a stand for the crowd who have systematically harrassed Zoe Quinn in morally repugnant manners. Inserting valid counterpoints is fine of course, but my inherent paranoid tendencies make me fear censorship of the content supporting the other side of the issue, which must be preserved as a whole for the sake of the neutrality of the article. David A (talk) 08:24, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'm leery, honestly, as right now the page looks pretty neutral and informative. I think as a few people here have commented, I'd hate to see the page altered to support a particular agenda. Both studies that support effects and those that don't support effects should be retained and in equal balance. I also echo DavidA's concern that this not be turned into an anti-women, anti-Quinn, anti-Sarkeesian page, although GamerGate may be worth noting with great care. StoneProphet11 (talk) 03:18, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I think it's a bit long, though, and it meets SIZESPLIT so the suggestion is not terrible. I don't think there's any need to pre-judge anyone's motives here. Obviously this shouldn't be turned into an anti-woman article. No article should be an anti-woman article. We can all keep an eye on things collectively while maintaining an assumption of good faith in our peers. -Thibbs (talk) 03:28, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Understood. And I apologize if I pre-judged (I actually wasn't referring to any editor, just a general comment given the GamerGate stuff).  Shorter would be good, so long as the balance of studies isn't altered to be either anti-game or pro-game.  I think it has about the right "feel" at the moment.  StoneProphet11 (talk) 03:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, I was mostly concerned that militant pro-gamers would want to censor out any research that shows that a sufficient amount of sufficiently extreme media does have a negative effect on empathy, conscience, ethics, compassion, etc. I don't really have a problem with the length either. I have been busy, but would like to read through and summarise more relevant research papers at some point. David A (talk) 05:54, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it's helpful to focus on any set of hypothetical bad actors unless there is an actual problem. Biased editors on both side of the divide are equally capable of violating WP:NPOV here and neither should be tolerated. Summary would be another way to tackle the length issue, and that would be great if you could tackle it, David A. I'm surprised that Willhesucceed never took any steps to accomplish his suggested split. -Thibbs (talk) 06:09, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, I 'm not very good at summarising even more than previously. I think that the science section of the article is rather succinct as is, even if the other parts might need some work. I would preferably like to first prioritise reading through the research papers that I have found on the topic. However, I am not ruling out skimming through the article and trying to make it briefer at some point, if nobody else wants to do it. I just don't think that I am very good at it. David A (talk) 11:18, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I know of a few recent papers on both sides of the debate. I suppose that's one question though, if the intent is to make the article shorter, adding more research papers would obviously do the opposite of that.  Perhaps there's a way to summarize papers in clusters while linking them, then let anyone who is really interested go to the original sources?  That is to say rather than providing summaries of individual papers as is currently the case?  I dunno.  I will hold off until some decisions are made.  StoneProphet11 (talk) 14:42, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Reducing the size is not a goal as such, but Willhesucceed was proposing a split based on the size of the article and I agree that it could be helpful. The current article is not exceptionally easy to digest and splitting it could be beneficial, but it's far from the worst I've seen. If nobody wants to tackle cutting it down then it's not a pressing issue. I have no plans to cut it down myself. The basic goal for the article is to present both sides of the story in rough proportion to the amount of coverage they get in the Reliable Sources at large. The article shouldn't be skewed one way or the other except as demanded by the use of available RSes. -Thibbs (talk) 17:50, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

So apparently I shouldn't do anything because no one here trusts me because I posted on the Gamergate talk page, but nobody else wants to do it, so it's just going to stay as is? Great. Willhesucceed (talk) 03:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well that's a pretty negative attitude. Obviously you're not barred from this article simply because you posted on the Gamergate talk page. You have to keep in mind that this is a volunteer organization, however, and that it is based on consensus-based collaboration. You can't show up to make a suggestion, leave for two months, and then get upset because nobody has done the work for you. The discussion above shows that not everyone is in love with your idea, but I don't think anybody here has completely rejected it. -Thibbs (talk) 05:31, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Changed "Portrayal of Terrorism" to "Portrayal of Countries"
The only source for the original version isn't criticizing the games for showing terrorism specifically, it is criticizing them for making Pakistan look bad. I didn't think removing the section entirely was prudent, so I renamed the section to something more accurate and did a rewrite of the section. Not entirely sure about what I changed it to, so if anyone else wants to make it look better, go ahead. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 10:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Anything other than sex, addiction and abuse?
Isn't something like MP8's "spastic" recall or SM3DL's use of tanooki lead into PETA creation of responsive game are considered as controversies? I really want to know. -CodeNameBOSS (talk) 10:37, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Scientific debate section
This is extremely long - over 150 lines, in my browser - and hard to follow. I'm sure that all of the info is important, but it's a brutal read. I finally gave up.

I think it needs some editing, or breaking up into sections, so it will be more accessible to most wiki readers. Maybe there could be pro- and anti- divisions. I wanted to learn about the research, and this convoluted thing was a hard read. Just my 0.02. Cheers, Hajnalka (talk) 20:07, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

My evaluation of this article
I think that this article successfully helped me understand the common controversies of video games. It provides me with details of different studies and opinions from both sides. The tone of this article is pretty objective, but the problem is it spend too much time explaining the theories of negative effects of video games that the positive one is kind of ignored, which gives me a impression that the theories of negative effects of video games are still commonly accepted. The other problem is that most of the studies are focusing on video games' effect on young people, but according to this article, the average age of players is 31. Some of the sources are kind of out of date since video games is growing and people's opinions on them are constantly changing. I don't think a study result in 2007, which is almost 10 years ago, sounds convincing. But overall, this article is helpful for my project, and I did get some new ideas from it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.62.206.150 (talk) 17:23, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Video Game Studies
The studies observing that that aggressive behavior increases in children playing violent video games do not consider why the aggressive behavior occurs and if that behavior extends to other aspects of their life. It seems that some of these studies only factor in violent video games and children and not the children's family behavior that could effect their aggressive behavior. They should specify what qualifies as aggressive behavior because it is possible that they could add competitiveness as an aggressive quality which could apply to any game, video game or not. They cases with criminal acts related to video games are more of a correlation and a scape goat for those criminals than an actual cause since games literally do not make people go out to commit violent acts and if that is the case, then there would be a higher number of crimes. The family background of the criminal should also be investigated rather than pointing fingers at video games because it seems obvious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.62.206.228 (talk) 00:31, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

New MRI study
In Addiction Biology, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/adb.12347/abstract
 * Press release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-12/uouh-wfg122115.php
 * Secondary coverage: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/262495/Study_shows_brains_of_compulsive_video_game_players_are_wired_differently.php

It discusses both positive and negative effects, which also forces the issue that the divided sections for positive and negative in this article are an internal POV fork. Rhoark (talk) 16:29, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

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Would you say GTA brings violence or brings entertainment?
GTA has shown some violence in glorious and humorous ways. However has it gone too far? It has been one of the games that mostly banned in certain countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:1316:A008:DD9C:3BD6:F65:21FD (talk) 02:22, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

evaluation
Most the information works, the information is very detailed and specific. The article has both sides of the argument and many numbers of statistics by the scientist. Something that needs to improve is the article base in the USA, it is better that give us more research in other country. I suggest the website "http://videogames.procon.org/" for reference.

YU SHEN — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:6000:6295:9F00:D4BB:2893:B79A:2984 (talk) 01:40, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

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Additions to Positive Aspects of Video Games Subsection
Throughout the research I did regarding this subject, I found two scientific studies that return positive information in regards to the utility of video games. These studies show that video game therapy can be used to improve physical health of children with developmental delays, and that adolescents who have anxiety issues can use video games as an aid for their anxiety. I would like to add a couple sentences to this section of the article, and add the two studies to the references section of the article as well. Lordo4 (talk) 20:04, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi and welcome, . Can you indicate which studies they are here for other editors to review?
 * (A small note: If you do end up putting the content in the article, simply using inline citations above the reflist template will place the references in the ref section, so there's no need for you to put them in both places. Referencing for beginners might be helpful.) Me, Myself &#38; I (☮) (talk) 20:36, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Here are the studies
 * The Impact of Short-Term Video Games on Performance among Children with Developmental Delays: A Randomized Controlled Trial
 * A Randomized Controlled Trial to Test the Effectiveness of an Immersive 3D Video Game for Anxiety Prevention among AdolescentsLordo4 (talk) 20:52, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you, that's very helpful. If you want, you can also propose the exact sentences you want to write and wait for other editors to comment, or you can be bold and insert it directly. Happy editing! Me, Myself &#38; I (☮) (talk) 21:06, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

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Latest edits
See Talk:Research on the effects of violence in mass media. Permalink here. I have yet to revert the IP at this article (Video game controversies). Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:33, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

people's desire effect the data
In the whole article or information, lots of data resource are from life survey, but how people know the data they got is hundred present honest data? People always do the thing which is beneficial to themselves, when investigator ask the youth whether the game make their friends or themselves to be violence, although some of the youth will answer honestly, I believe most of them will say video game not make people violent. Guess if the data the investigator use is for the news of something they facing to public, their parents or adult will control them play the game, youth don not want others think video game can even make negative affects, that they can play the game uncontrolled. An other questionable point is that whosoever professor who provide the data or the normal people in this long information article are confined to think that violence is equal the physical attacks. People are focus on the whether video games will make people have the impulsion to do physical attacks to others like kill someone or fight with someone but not think about other sides about violent? I search the definition about violence in Wikipedia, it say Violence can be divided into three broad categories:self-directed violence,interpersonal violence,collective violence. Violent acts can be: physical, sexual, psychological, emotional.Violence is primarily classified as either instrumental or reactive or hostile. People think highly of the physical abuse too much like physical violence and sexual violence, and easily neglect the psychological and emotional. psychological and emotional violence are hard to get data because they are intangible, but the obvious example about the psychological and emotional violence is the language violence, especially the online video game, people unintentionally abuse enemy player or teammate who has bad skill. Although some of this players are like the psychological tests in the article, their mental activity are not enough to make them to kill or hurt others in physical, but don't they already hurt others when they abuse them by text box area in the screen? That's all I think about this long intimation article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.41.197.253 (talk) 04:44, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

nonsense.161.222.180.21 (talk) 18:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Speculated vs. Verified
Perhaps it's just me, but i'm finding that the publicized incidents section is a bit of a mess, and is at risk of growing to a length that it will require it's own article. In an effort to condense it, I came to the realization that there are two different kinds of incidents reported here.

One in which a video game is an explicit part of the crime, like this one. * On November 29, 2010 in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a 16-year-old boy, Kendall Anderson, bludgeoned his mother to death in her sleep with a claw hammer after she took away his PlayStation.

And then there are incidents where the video game aspect is completely speculated, and sometimes then proven to not be the case in the same paragraph. Like this one. *  Reports initially claimed that the killer in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre was an avid Counter-Strike player. However, police reports said that roommates of the killer had never seen him play any video games. Despite these discoveries, activist Jack Thompson continued to argue that video games were to blame.

I don't understand why incidents where video games were merely speculated belongs in a section dedicated to actual explicit controversy. I was going to go ahead and remove some of the more weaker paragraphs, but maybe I'm missing something here. What do you think? BallroomBlitzkriegBebop (talk) 00:53, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Be bold and remove them! :-) Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:30, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

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Organization
The current section on the scientific controversy seems to me rather long and tedious. Perhaps it would be better to separate the content by type of research, e.g. experimental studies, longitudinal nonexperimental studies, meta-analyses, public policy statements. This might be better than a blow-by-blow historical account of every study. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jhilgard (talk • contribs) 16:34, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Reading this again, I think it would be helpful to trim some of the wordcount and allow the reader to pursue the details through their own reading of the cited sources. But I am not experienced in Wikipedia etiquette and am a little reluctant to start editing out other editors' writing. Jhilgard (talk) 16:07, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

"Gamergate controversy in 2013 and 2014"
[Historical-revisionist game of telephone intensifies], evermore. --SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 11:08, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Why didn't you correct this error? - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 11:45, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Because I told myself to never directly touch anything GG, and never did, and that's for 2 reasons: 1) I don't think I should as I was personally involved so shouldn't edit about basically myself, and 2) I've seen anti-GG editors who don't have such scruples regarding POV editing actively work to ban their enemies to keep their stranglehold on the narrative and I've had enough problems. Btw, it will be easy for you to find the so-called "reliable sources" stating that GG did happen in 2013, because the mass media lies about it are often very confused and contradicting each other in all kinds of ways. For some examples of "GG in 2013": (one of these being AP no less, and to quote the top comment from one them: "Some-one should go edit wikipedia to state Gamergate started in 2013 and cite the Vice article as proof."). --SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 12:06, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I would argue that making wild accusations of impropriety and engaging in conspiracy theories that people are 'out to get' GamerGaters is just as involving as editing the article. You really should step back from the subject if you have so much issue discussing it civilly. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 19:08, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

GG absolutely started in 2013 (August), but it did continue through at least a good year if not more from them. --M asem (t) 19:11, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * This is confusing, because I distinctly remember it starting August 2014. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 19:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Shoot yes, got my years mixed up. The instigating post was August 2014. That said, events leading to that were queuing up in the year prior (eg a game jam central to the issue was in 2013, IIRC). --M asem (t) 19:19, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I would agree that it has history dating before August 2014, such as the Game Jam and Feminist Frequency. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 19:27, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

The hashtag didn't exist before the exact day of August 27, 2014, you guys. "Conspiracy theories" - Masem can attest, as he was victimized even as he's anti, for just trying to be a neutral even a little bit. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 19:42, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * No, it didn't exist that day - we know the tag came from Adam Baldwin (at least as we can RS) within a couple weeks after 20+ sites posted their "gamers don't matter" articles. Mind you, there was a HECK of a lot of telephone-gaming that happend with GG, and I won't pretend at the end of the day, a certain narrative on GG "won" because it came from RSes, but unfortunately, we can't do anything about that on WP until we have RSes to counter the narrative. --M asem (t) 19:52, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Eaxactly August 27, yo: https://spectator.org/63898_happy-anniversary-gamergate-love-adam-baldwin/ I honestly have no idea what "a game jam central" could be about, that Chelsea VV thing was supposed to be "Rebel Jam" (which still "is coming", I guess, just like that Tingle game). The narrative was created by Wikipedia editors and is repeated after Wikipedia, complete with the widespread use of Wikipedia's exact phrase "Gamergate controvesy", and the "reliable sources" routinely linking to Wikiedia. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 19:55, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Can you demonstrate any further factual inaccuracies? Your user talk page may be an acceptable place for you, a GamerGater, to talk about conspiracy theories, but this is not. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 20:10, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

As I told you, Masem right here was a victim of a conspiracy fact. You're free to ask him to tell you in his own words about the treatment that he got for just trying to be neutral and factual and for not being hysterical in his approach. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 20:17, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't care about the personal opinions of the editors. Find sources, and please stop trying to implement your POV. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 20:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Uhhhh, no. WP did not create the narrative, but it did help to propagate a specific narrative due to our reliance on RSes. Eg WP:Citogenesis at play - we created an article that reflected the average of what most gaming RSes had about the situation (which was against the movement), and then mainstream sources started pulling from WP to continue that. Its a cycle that exists not only on GG but lots of other topics. But one we cannot correct. Now, that said, if we have sources that are RS that are claiming GG started in 2013 rather than 2014, that's something we can use logic and common sense to say "2014". --M asem  (t) 21:19, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Masem might give you a plenty of evidence, you know, also of being openly hounded outside Wikipedia by Wikipedia users. As for "sources", I gave you already a sample of 3 as for the GG in 2013 time-travel claims, could find you all kinds of absurd claims from "reliable sources", and show you how they contradict even each other despite all being either influenced by or based on Wikipedia. That narrative was created in particular by one user, a former admin named Ryulong. Despite that fact he was banned already in November 2014 (for paid editing), his edits still constitute 18.4% of all edits anyone (which means over 500 people) ever did on this article: (Masem being #3 on the list, but in 3 years before he was forced out eventually, not in 2 months and 1 week, during which time it did matter most). So, it's why I never edit anything GG (that and I shouldn't anyway, per both rules regarding that and my own moral standards). You asked me, I answered you, and now you know. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Oh, and one user banned for harassing Masem off-wiki had this to say afterwards, which I really recommend you to read by their own words: https://archive.is/r3nK2 (his personal edits on the article constituted additional 1.9%, not counting these he did socking "all the time" as he so proudly admitted there). But that's really all about my "theories" which you inquired of. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 21:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Why is any of this important? It's quite unfortunate that someone behaved poorly towards Masem, much as it is unfortunate my history of abusive behavior from people who identify as GamerGate towards my friends and I. It is, ultimately, not important to the contents of this article. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 00:32, 11 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Bryn, since this article is about video game controversies and refers to the wide range of debates on the social effects of video games on players and broader society shouldn't there be some mention about the controversies encountered right here on Wikipedia? RS have reported on it: The Guardian, Slate, The Verge <--(I'm not sure where or if it ranks as a RS), Social Text Journal, AAAI.org, and so on. Atsme Talk 📧 01:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah, I remember this. I think this would be a worthwhile mention on the Gamergate controversy article to talk about the edit wars and the media's response. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 02:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

So I just clicked Slate's "wikipedia-s-neutrality-measure-might-be-upheld-at-the-expense-of-truth" to find out what's behind this url, and was not at all surprised to find out that "“To get the situation under control, Wikipedia community members quickly asked for other editors to pitch in and help bring on the site’s notice board,” Williams writes. Five editors, eventually nicknamed the Five Horsemen, took up the call, jumping in and trying to remove slanderous or irrelevant statements put up by Gamergaters." That guy whose, whose tweet I showed you where he's boasting the "bans don't work" as stopping him, and who was banned for his conduct not even just "irrelevant" but so bad it couldn't be been discussed on Wikipedia when he was banned (but it was "For continued serious breaches of policy, including off-wiki harassment"), was one of these supposed heroic five editors standing up to the evil hordes of "Gamergaters". The article ends their shameless defense of a Wikipedia harassment campaign with "What happens to the next victim of a Wikipedia harassment campaign if the defenders are getting squeezed out through this pox-on-both-your-houses system?" But I excepted nothing just less from a "reliable source". In our reality, what had preceded it was for example Wikipedia topic-banning another user who rightly reported that harasser early:, and so much more, nothing of which you will find in "reliable sources" so theatrically invested in what they without any shame call "the truth". SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 08:26, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

But I was actually really surprised by The Guardian article, which wasn't that bad. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 08:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

And The Verge is a "reliable source" too - with their article quoting at length, as if it was some sort of just a neutral "former editor" commenting, another let's call it a person of interest whose conduct regarding Masem (and others) is not hard to find as it was very open and seen here, also high profile (and possibly still continues, didn't check to find out). And who himself made another 7.4% of all edits ever made to that article. Actually The Guardian also takes to quote, this, as The Verge puts it, "influential figure", with actual influence not just through the Citogenesis but also otherwise. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 08:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

And okay, I'll name the names" as they all do. It's Mark Bernstein, who, as the fifth source says, "wrote a series of blog posts reacting to the case that have been widely read." As I said - real influence more broadly. And I see that one reliable source actually calls the pro-GG (or actually even just perceived as such, see again - the "widely read" Bernstein) editors an "anonomyous horde" / "the hordes" (repeatedly), when I wrote about the "evil hordes" it wasn't a quote but it is now. I guess that might make Masem (and their other main targets I won't name but Bernstein does) the khans, congrats Masem-Khan. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 09:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

is actually sort of interesting. There's no Bernstein for once, and it seems to instead concentrate on just how Three main actors seem to dominate the stage, often strongly disagreeing with other editors and each other: Ryulong, Masem and NorthBySouthBaranof. So congrats again, you're personally a subject of actual academic research. And I'd actually ironically recommend this one, and maybe The Guardian too. And to quote from it on a standard portrayal in "reliable sources": "When reading about the dispute concerning “Gamergate controversy” in news media, on Wikipedia meta pages or other external sources, it is routinely portrayed as “pro-gamergate” against “feminists”, or at least the situation is outlined as a clear-cut, two-camps edit war." SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 09:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * This discussion doesn't really go anywhere when you are trying to push a POV and the replies are "no." There's not much more to do besides that. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 10:40, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Whatever was this very strange response alluding it? I'm pushing NPOV, and just facts. Facts that can be all easily checked and confirmed, mostly just on Wikipedia itself. As of "POV" issues, here's why the sources based on Bernstein should be not allowed:

Here's what this outside-Wikipedia "influential figure" (also falsely identified by The Verge as a mere "former editor", because in reality he's been not only very much involved in editing "Gamergate controversy" before but then continued doing so until 2016-04-12 ) would say in these "widely read posts" (as one of these sources called them) was for example this: followed by. The supposed "gamergate rape apologist admin / gamergate admin" he talked about in these particular ones was supposed to be precisely Masem, btw, and whom Bernstein really did try to have banned on that day (he failed). That's a POV behavior quite a lot, no? Now, four out of five of the sample "reliable sources" (including The Guardian that mind you I still rather recommended anyway) quote Bernstein directly as some sort of authoritative voice regarding the "Gamergate controversy-controversy". And no, I wouldn't approve sources quoting my own private biased opinions too. It's called NPOV, see. And I would really prefer to having to point such things out.

So anyway and once again: the #4 source is fine. And the quote "When reading about the dispute concerning “Gamergate controversy” in news media, on Wikipedia meta pages or other external sources, it is routinely portrayed as “pro-gamergate” against “feminists”, or at least the situation is outlined as a clear-cut, two-camps edit war." is from them (them = Ininternational Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, via Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence), as they note this approach as incorrect. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 13:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC)


 * SNAAAAKE!!, quite frankly, I initially did not realize the extent of dramah and mine-laden fields in this particular topic area, and suggest that for both our sakes, we tip-toe away from here and find some fun articles to create, ce and expand. Any article with "controversy" in the title is a big fat SMirC-thumbsdown.svg. Let sleeping dogs lie. Atsme Talk 📧 15:46, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Putting an idea out there....
I have to dig deeper into how this is structured but I think we need to make a better sectioning and/or separate article related to "Violence and video games". Yes, violence is part of the controversy but its such a broad topic on its own. I would think such an article would be more about historical facets of trying to curb video games, and alluding to some of the studies that claim the connection or lack thereof of violence and video games. Just putting this out there to figure out how such a sectioning or split may be done. --M asem (t) 00:40, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I do take issue with the grouping we have. I kinda like how things are structured under the other category, so having this be a jump point to controversies, including violence, would make for a nicer structure. Load this article with bullets, but let the individual articles explain the details. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 17:20, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Gun violence
Why does this article have no information about gun violence or mass shootings? Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:37, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * See previous section. It is buried in this, we really need a separate article to cover. --M asem (t) 11:50, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Official APA Stance on violence
It says in the article " the American Psychological Association's official stance on video games stated that "Scant evidence has emerged that makes any causal or correlational connection between playing violent video games and actually committing violent activities"" and references source 169, which is an LA Times article, and differs in opinion from the actual APA site: https://www.apa.org/about/policy/violent-video-games. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.106.66 (talk) 21:55, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
 * There's probably a small different in the public statement that the APA released and the one on their website (eg the NYtimes may have asked the APA for their opinion, got that quote from a spokesperson, which mirrors but is not an exact quote from the resolution) I've added the APA 2015 resolution as a second source on that, but its clearly the same thing. --M asem (t) 22:01, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

"AO" games
An IP user wanted to delete part of this claim...

because, and I quote, (They ran out of space.) Some observations:
 * The article cited in question is easily reachable via the Wayback Machine. I'll add the  to the article's citation.
 * The numbers in question are in fact presented there.
 * What it actually says, though, is this:

On the basis of the last point, I would agree that the claim in the article is misleading, as it implies that 50% of boys surveyed prefer "M" or "AO" games to games with other ratings, when in fact no such claim is made. The article merely notes that, among their favorite games, 50% of boys list so much as a single "M" or "AO" game. As such, even the edited version of the text is not correct, as the claim that boys prefer "MO" games is equally unsupported by the available references. Let's try to update the article to accurately reflect verifiable information, not make edits based on long screeds of WP:OR or WP:SOAP. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 02:16, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

This doesn't even factor in games that are considered to have "incorect ratings", or games with very mature themes getting T ratings, and games with mild violence getting M ratings.Shrekxy64 (talk) 23:35, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

ESRB
I know now, I should have come and discussed earlier, but I'm new to Wikipedia. Anyway, I've come to bring up an interesting topic. I inserted a quote from the ESRB's wesite, "Our rating system was established with the help of child development and academic experts, based on an analysis of other rating systems and what kind of information is valuable to parents. We found that consumers respond best to an age-based rating system that includes information about the content of a game. As games evolved, we found that parents place equal importance on understanding the ways in which some games are played, such as interacting with others online and spending money on in-game items." I wasn't sure if I should've paraphrased it, or left it straight from the horse's mouth. But, my point is, even though the ESRB can lend an idea to consumers beforehand about what a video game has for content, it still doesn't mean parents are restricted from using their own methods. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlueBlurHog (talk • contribs) 12:23, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Violence and the American Psychological Association's Official Stance
Under Areas of Controversy: Violence, it states: "the American Psychological Association's official stance on video games issued in 2015 stated that "Scant evidence has emerged that makes any causal or correlational connection between playing violent video games and actually committing violent activities."[2][3]"

However, I don't think this is accurate. The quote is not actually found in the American Psychological Association's official stance issued in 2015 (https://www.apa.org/about/policy/violent-video-games). Instead, it is found in an article published by Division 46 (Society for Media Psychology and Technology) of the American Psychological Association, which they state "do not represent an official position of APA" (https://div46amplifier.com/2017/06/12/news-media-public-education-and-public-policy-committee/). To be more accurate, I suggest editing to something like the following: "Division 46 (Society for Media Psychology and Technology) of the American Psychological Association published its views stating, "Scant evidence has emerged that makes any causal or correlational connection between playing violent video games and actually committing violent activities." However, the American Psychological Association's official stance issued in 2015 states that there is an association between violent video game use and aggressive outcomes, but "the interpretations of these effects have varied dramatically, contributing to the public debate about the effects of violent video games.""

69.215.145.216 (talk) 20:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree. The statement as it is written here is inaccurate, specially in regard to the sources. Could you implement those changes? Daveout (talk) 23:20, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Harassment over seizure warnings
A source. Is this worth including or too much of a "one off"? Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 18:00, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

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