Ginger Posted March 3, 2007 Why the fuck do they waste money on such shit research A survey has to be the lowest form of research imaginable, the questions tend to be limited and leading and usually formed to make the outcome inevitable. I couldn't find the actual paper (I didn't look hard) but it is most likely shit. Fuck people being allowed to do bad statistical studies and publish the results, it does my head in; they bias public opinion with their totally spurious assertions and models. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Salka Posted March 3, 2007 Lots of stuff makes you drive faster. You know that some owners put their racehorses facing backwards in their trailers on the way to the racetrack, so that they run faster during the race? Fact. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
elmuerte Posted March 3, 2007 You know that some owners put their racehorses facing backwards in their trailers on the way to the racetrack, so that they run faster during the race? The bigger question is, does this actually work? And why would this work? Back on subject. I did notice the exact effect of racing games. I was playing a racing game against a friend of mine for an hour of so (multiplayer nfs hot pursuit 2). Directly after that we had to drive somewhere and we both notice that my friend was driving much faster than usually (or allowed on that road). But we also noticed he was more in control than we would normally be when driving that fast (not that is was that fast, 80kmph on a 50kmph road). I guess he was still surfing the adrenaline rush he had from trying to beat me in the game. So a person might drive faster, but (s)he might also drive safer. And it's not that driving fast directly translates to more eccidents. Most traffic accidents happen in areas with lower speed limits. Ofcourse this is also because there are more dangerous situations in low speed areas. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nachimir Posted March 3, 2007 I'm pretty sure there are residual effects; playing Destruction Derby 2 on the Playstation certainly used to make me temporarily more aggressive when driving. Never had so much as a near miss due to it though. Another time, I spent 10 hours or so squinting into the viewports of UnrealEd and, trying to drive immediately after, found it had temporarily fucked my sense of perpective and distance. Still, manageable and faded in minutes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Salka Posted March 3, 2007 Why the fuck do they waste money on such shit research A survey has to be the lowest form of research imaginable, the questions tend to be limited and leading and usually formed to make the outcome inevitable. I couldn't find the actual paper (I didn't look hard) but it is most likely shit. Fuck people being allowed to do bad statistical studies and publish the results, it does my head in; they bias public opinion with their totally spurious assertions and models. Couple of weeks ago the BBC wrote about some government funded study, which had "found" that men don't like fat women. Wow well done! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nachimir Posted March 4, 2007 Also, after a few months of playing far too much Infiltration (A UT "realism" mod like CS), I unconsciously checked skylines for silhouettes. Fireworks also made me flinch and look for cover. However, I didn't shoot a single person. Not one. Not even a little bit. Games can have pretty profound effects, but so can other forms of media. I think Henry Jenkins nailed it best when he described them as a risk factor: A white middle class kid playing GTA SA is unlikely to go out and join a gang. A kid in a poverty stricken area rife with gang culture is going to get a lot more reinforcement from playing the same game. Games are part of a much bigger and more complex context, which is poorly understood because it's made of culture, personality, and all forms of media. People are ready to start flinging poo from all sides of the issue, which is by turns insecure, opportunist and unhelpful. Noone wants to believe anything bad about the choices they've made or the values they hold, and because games are a new form of media little to no such knowledge yet exists to support any side of the debate. The games industry is seldom if ever ready with decent counter arguments when people like Boris Johnson or Hilary Clinton start talking shite. Their anti-game arguments are absolute crap, yet when people like Greg Costikyan thoroughly dismantle them, it remains stuck in blogs and has no effect on mainstream media coverage or debate. Industry trade associations and the like could be doing a hell of a lot better in this respect; there are people out there who are not getting exposure that would benefit the games industry. The industry is also dangerously close to overselling the educational benefits of games, which are likewise poorly understood and *depend* on games having a real world effect on players. Spot the contradiction? The net result, IMO, is that games affect people pretty much as everything else does, but just as goes with other forms of media, they never pluck responsibility from the hands of players and *make* them do anything. It's a shame that keeps on getting drowned in sensational and reactionary rhetoric. </rant> Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DanJW Posted March 4, 2007 After playing too much MGS3 lately, I keep trying to creep up on the family dog without being seen. But I haven't tried to slit his throat yet. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
