Coda
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#15
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Counterpoint: Having a venue to act upon negative ideas that doesn't have an impact on the real world is a healthy thing. It's valuable for emotional growth to be able to make a distinction between fantasy and reality and to explore scenarios and mindsets outside of the milieu of day-to-day life. It's actually UNhealthy to insist that fantasy worlds should be held to the same standards as reality, because that removes a point of distinction between the two environments.
Certainly there's a developmental risk in exposing children to violent imagery without moral feedback. There's a reason that such games are rated T or M -- it's not just some socially acceptable threshold of "it doesn't make us feel weird for a person this age to see these things anymore" but an actual thing that has measurable effects on emotional and social development.
But in an adult -- someone who has passed these formative years of development -- who has a healthy grasp on the difference between the real and the fictitious, there is no observed causation suggesting that performing "evil" acts in a fictitious context translates into performing "evil" acts in reality. There IS a correlation going the OTHER direction -- people who are emotionally troubled or naturally violent are more likely to gravitate towards these fantasy worlds. But being cruel in a game is ultimately no worse than playing a cruel villain in a movie, and we don't deal with actors going on rampages.
Games by Coda (updated 4/8/2025 - New game: Marianas Miner)
Art by Coda (updated 8/25/2022 - beatBitten and All-Nighter Simulator)
Mega Man: The Light of Will (Mega Man / Green Lantern crossover: In the lead-up to the events of Mega Man 2, Dr. Wily has discovered emotional light technology. How will his creations change how humankind thinks about artificial intelligence? Sadly abandoned. Sufficient Velocity x-post)
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Posted 04-27-2016, 07:26 PM
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