Video Game Violence OverRated, Concern for Online Play
Walking around the local mall I remember seeing obviously underage teens enjoying a game of halo on one of the local video game vendors kiosks while their parents stood alongside and watched. While this shooting game with graphically violent tendencies apparantly didn’t bother the parents then, as they stood back and watched their teen blasting the other mallrats in virtual world with heavy arms and frag grenades. Those same parents of the young gamer may start to have a very different opinion once their precious young teen brought that hot new FPS or other online multiplayer game home and hooked it up to his home gaming console for online play.
“When you logon to Xbox live more often then not you will be greeted by a 14 year old that learned a new word on the playground that day, or maybe itÂ’s the drunken 24 year old who hates black people, gays and anyone who isnÂ’t in his frat. No matter who you are if you have played on live [and many other online video gaming/chat services] you have run into cursing and lewdness. If you look at the rating for the game you can see that it is intended for ages 17+ but parents donÂ’t care/understand/listen so lots of underage kids have this game.”
Posted over at ImJosh is a great 33.9 hour study on the amout of cursing done within that set period of time. The results are quite interesting and may surprise you. Remember that this is the report of one persons experience, the language will vary obviously depending on game/player/adversary/console among a number of variables.
Last December I started recording the frequency of profanity that I was able to hear while playing Halo 2. The results of the study which lasted 33.9 hours were surprising.
Disclaimers:
1. The curse words were those which I could hear, more may have occurred and other players in a given game may not have heard the same number of curse words I did. The ability to hear other players depends on your proximity to them.
2. The times recorded are the times I was signed into Xbox live and either engaged in a game or in the process of joining a game or viewing the results and listening to the discourse of other players. The times do not reflect solely “in game” time. You can view my games at bungie.net with the gamertag Ca1vin. note the ONE in the gamertag.
3. Do not proceed if you do not want to view words which may offend some. This article is not an excuse to swear in our comments. Offenders will be bannd from commenting for a period of time.
“When you logon to Xbox live more often then not you will be greeted by a 14 year old that learned a new word on the playground that day, or maybe itÂ’s the drunken 24 year old who hates black people, gays and anyone who isnÂ’t in his frat. No matter who you are if you have played on live [and many other online video gaming/chat services] you have run into cursing and lewdness. If you look at the rating for the game you can see that it is intended for ages 17+ but parents donÂ’t care/understand/listen so lots of underage kids have this game.”
Posted over at ImJosh is a great 33.9 hour study on the amout of cursing done within that set period of time. The results are quite interesting and may surprise you. Remember that this is the report of one persons experience, the language will vary obviously depending on game/player/adversary/console among a number of variables.
Last December I started recording the frequency of profanity that I was able to hear while playing Halo 2. The results of the study which lasted 33.9 hours were surprising.
Disclaimer:
1. The curse words were those which I could hear, more may have occurred and other players in a given game may not have heard the same number of curse words I did. The ability to hear other players depends on your proximity to them.
2. The times recorded are the times I was signed into Xbox live and either engaged in a game or in the process of joining a game or viewing the results and listening to the discourse of other players. The times do not reflect solely “in game” time. You can view my games at bungie.net with the gamertag Ca1vin. note the ONE in the gamertag.
3. Do not proceed if you do not want to view words which may offend some. 
The Words and categories used are as follows.
Fuck: All forms, ing, ed, er
Ass: hole, bag, hat, etc
Shit: Self Explanatory
Racial: any derogatory term which focused on a playerÂ’s race
Sexual: Sexual phrases which were not homosexual. Fuck was not included in this unless it was directed at a person i.e. your mom.
Homosexual: Comments which called someone gay or any slang term with the same meaning or referred to two people of the same gender performing sexual acts on each other.
Damn: Self Explanatory
Bitch: Self Explanatory
He also offers the Excel Spreadsheet of his research data.
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