I think people want something to blame. They can't blame themselves because they are perfect. Maybe it's not the video games maybe it's the fact that mankind is dark.

Because it makes them feel better to have something or someone to blame. Lots of this random finger pointing when, of course, the problem is never just one simple thing.

Because it's convenient. And people don't have think or work anymore when they've made something up that they think explains a problem. They also don't like trying to understand the difference between correlation and cause and effect. It's so complicated. ;)

good point... It is sort of a chicken and the egg scenario... If these people were successful in banning violent games then they could also be as successful in banning half of history

Probably because sarcasm alone doesn't seem up to the job

Maybe because in some cases, with "some people". Some video games may increase it.

Because they don't want to have to take responsibility for themselves, their offspring and their society, and because they have no concept of history as a whole. I was talking today to a pre-teen who is not generally allowed to watch even PG-13 movies, and had never heard of Stalin. I'm sure her parents are the types to blame video games for violence... but I blame ignorance.

I think the reason is, generally, nothing more than ignorance. All of a sudden, thanks to the media, we're overwhelmed with stories about rape, murder, dealers pushing hard drugs to little kids, abuse, massacres and so on. So it's no wonder that, now that we are all more informed about what's going around us (often to the point of exaggerating how bad things are), some people try to figure out what could be the cause of this "influx" of crime (whether real or perceived) and end up blaming video games/music/films etc with violent themes. Seeing as countless studies have been undertaken for decades, yet there is still no solid proof of a connection between crime and digital violence as far as I know of, I am not concerned.

Because the video game spread violence to children.

Social violence is an outgrowth of a lack of INDIVIDUAL responsibility within the society. There are multiple facets to this: There is the individual responsibility of each parent to raise their child to respect and adhere to the rules of the society in which they live. There is the individual responsibility of each person for their own actions. There is the responsibility of each child to learn and adhere to the rules of society. For any group of people to co-exist with each other (form a society), there MUST be rules to govern their interactions. Otherwise there is anarchy, violence, and failure. For those rules to be meaningful and successful, every individual has the responsibility to uphold them and, should they require it, be corrected and/or punished for not. This whole concept of blaming things on others or, better yet, on nebulous concepts such as 'society', 'corporations', 'governments', or 'video games' has the effect of shifting personal blame away from the individual and, ultimately, away from ANY given person. The "It's not MY fault, it's HIS fault" eventually becomes "It's not ANYBODY'S fault". Which is tripe. Admiral Rickover had it right: "Responsibility is a unique concept... You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you... If responsibility is rightfully yours, no evasion, or ignorance or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point your finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible." For your information, Admiral Rickover is commonly referred to as the 'father of the nuclear navy'. He is THE man responsible for the nuclear propulsion systems on our submarines and air craft carriers AND their unparalleled safety record. He stood before Congress and told them, in no uncertain terms, that HE was PERSONALLY responsible for EVERYTHING about the entire program, most especially for ANY failures. He would not allow fingers to be pointed at anyone else but himself. The solution to social violence (which is what's important here...not BLAME) is to realize what the root cause is and to affect changes to remedy that. And the root cause is a lack of personal responsibility of the individuals within the society.

i don't think anyone blames video games for causing violence, strife and chaos, but studies are numerous that they encourage acting on these latent tendencies

People have very short memory span and love to go around blaming anything in the world that gets them out of taking responsibility for their own actions

It's much easier to find a scapegoat then to deal with any problems yourself. At least that's the theory most politicians have anyway.

Because then they would have to admit some social responsibility. This is the age of blaming everybody else for your problems and looking to someone else to fix it and then blaming them for not doing it or stuffing it up. Before video games it was television and music. Every age has it's problems, we only see ours because here and now is where we live.

Because America loves a scapegoat!

I think it's a general fear of things you don't understand, and a lot of adults have trouble understanding video games.

It's an easy answer, and that is what people like. It's much more pallatable for people to try and put the blame on games than try and understand the real causes of violence.

You know, they actually think these days that it is a release for violence. As in, if you are shooting people up on multiplayer Halo, it's going to subdue your possible desire to go and shoot people up for real/get into general 'boy' fights. I'm not kidding, it's true. I don't know why this isn't more widely reported, but it is true.

Gotta blame something/someone, no?! ;-)

Video games are seen as an easy scapegoat by those (parents) who are too lazy to or incapable of properly disciplining their children. When I was a child I played video games such as Contra and Mortal Kombat, but I've never fired a gun, killed anyone in a fight or harmed a single alien, ever. That's because I was taught respect in the home and not left to accidentally pick it up among my peers at school and in the neighborhood. With our ever-increasingly time-poor society, less and less time is being given towards instilling a sense of boundaries and limits in the young. When they inevitably go wrong, instead of saying "we should have taught them better", society as a whole points the finger at each other until the finger gets pointed at something or someone who cannot point back. At this stage it's video games (remember when it was music, ahhh, good times). My point is this - People as a whole always choose the easiest option for them. And it's easier to blame someone else for your failures as a parent than yourself.

every generation has it's own "video game" back in the 40's it was books with action plots and movies; in the 50's comics; in the 60's music; in the 70's T.V., in the 80's peer presure, and today, its a mix of most of the previously mentioned. video game will be the bane of parents and actavists for a few more years, and then they will move on to somthing else that seems a bit worse.

every generation bitches about how bad the new generation is, forgetting the previous generation said the same about them. I don't see how kids simulating shooting on a screen is so much worse than running around with toy guns , aiming at friends and arguing over "who's dead".

Because Suburban mothers are too afraid to blame their parenting and have only video games left as a scapegoat.

Perhaps because the more one is exposed to violence, the less impacting it becomes? Just a guess in today's world.

By the age of 10 you know the difference between right and wrong, blaming games is just a scapegoat and people who use this excuse are sad.

I suspect that there's a large proportion of people who can't or won't admit that they are directly responsible for how their children turned out; it's more comfortable for the blame to rest at the feet of video games than at the feet of the parents.

Because it's easy. That's about all there is to it. It's easy to turn the focus on something simple because even the most simple minded of people can rally around it.

just ignore the BULLSHIT

Cause blaming it on materialistic things like video games and movies would be soooooo much easier and much more convenient than blaming it on their lack of parenting skills, or their demoralized habits! 3 Cheers for the nuclear family!

Oh, it's just a little something called statistics. You see, we all like to think what we focus our thoughts on doesn't affect us, that we are somehow above all of that. But in reality, we are all just trained to BS ourselves however we need to ignore the consequences of doing whatever it is we want. It's just part of human nature. In reality, what we see and think about necessarily influences our thought patterns. There's this entire multi-billion dollar industry out there, it's called advertising. Perhaps you've heard of it. You may not think so, but the folks on Madison Avenue are quite convinced they can manipulate your behavior with great precision, and if sales or profits are any indication, they can prove it.

mostly because they are dumb and dont have anything else to blame it on.

It's an easy scapegoat, and people are never apt to accept responsibility themselves.

because the children are acting out violent scenes when they kill other children.

I'll tell you the deal (with anything like this that there's a big panic over): Ok, see, there's a conman, right? He figures if he phrases things a certain way and presents certain statistics that there are probably neurotic and concerned mothers out there who will believe it. He'll get paid appearance fees to show up on television shows (Oprah and her ilk) and attain a minor sort of celebrity which he can generally parlay into even more cash in terms of speaking fees, books warning about this terrible danger, all that stuff. Oprah (and her ilk) realize nothing draws viewers like scare tactics, so they promote it, and invite the guy on and pretend to believe it because they know viewers will tune in to get this supposedly "Important Information That Could Save Their Child's Life!". This causes it to grow and gives it an air of legitimacy. Lastly, there's a bunch of mothers. They worry alot about basically anything that could possibly affect their child because mothers are that way. They feel a compulsion to try to protect their kids by childproofing the world, particularly when some clown comes on Oprah (or whatever show) and tells them a bunch of scary nonsense. So they eat up Mr. Conman's song and dance and race around trying to cure the world of this supposed problem. I may have left out some stuff but I think that's alot of it. Or at least alot of how it often gets started. After a while it kinda takes on a life of its own and becomes something that supposedly "Everybody Knows Is True" or whatever.

Because it's a convenient target for blame. I'm 16 and play Grand Theft Auto and it doesn't make me want to kill people.

"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." - H. L. Mencken

There is so much evidence these days that focusing on this type of entertainment is very dangerous. Just because chaos existed beforehand, does not mean we should brainwash ourselves for hours with this type of material. Why do you think hypnosis works? Our subconscious absorbs everything. If you waste hours inputting this "excitement", it lingers far longer than the games last. Imagine how much good you could do for yourself if you used that time to input positive information. Finally, this is being absorbed by very susceptible minds, the minds of young people. It's not good.

It's easier than blaming the parents for not parenting, and allowing their children to play those video games before they've learned the difference between games and reality. It's easier than blaming the fact that not so many people actually go to church any more to learn about morality. It's easier than blaming the school systems which don't allow teachers to talk about "games" with kids, because they are "falling behind" in actual teaching. There are a LOT of reasons.

Because they do not really understand them or have any experience of them. In the same way that playing cowboys as a child with a pretend gun does not make you grow up and shoot somebody, nor does playing computer game involving such things. A computer will not turn a person to violence, they will already be violent. And you are right, violence has always existed and in the West, we have never had so little violence than we have today. Not so long ago, half of London (UK) would turn out to watch some poor sod have his head chopped off with an axe - it was considered entertainment. People were publicly flogged and all manner of torture was inflicted by the state. In the UK, in our desperation to make everything fair we have managed to remove a lot the social controls that kept anti-social behaviour in check. Nobody was to feel discrimination about anything and so social boundaries have fallen away. Teachers have no authority in the case the kids get upset - no shouting is permitted in case the child feels discriminated against - the police have the same problem. We now have an underclass of people, all on welfare, no interest in working, breeding like rabbits and behaving like animals - and we are all too scared to say 'get off your fat arse, get off welfare, stop breeding because the world does not owe you a living.

cant ever be sure why it's just stupid seeing as video game violence actually stems from real-life violence

becuase people like to point fingers

If it bleeds it leads. So with the rise of media so has the rise in coverage of violent crime, regardless of the fact it is actually lowered (in North America anyway) as more violent video games are released.

From my own observation I can only say that a more and more children have become violent in behaviour and speech which immitates that which they observe in the violent video games that they play. It is like a child that is reared in a violent home most likely they will become somewhat violent, because of the observations. Majority of children assosiated with violence are familiar with the violent video games.