Mortal Kombat 11 still has power to shock, but can we put argument over video game violence to bed?

It's time to stop fretting about violent games influencing real-life behaviour, argues OXM's Chris Burke, and a Royal Society report backs this up

[PhoenixUp]

It’s still absurd how a game like this can have such over the top violence with little second thoughts yet there’s usually a big concern over how sexual content is handled within the same game

[Casepb]

All due to culture man.

[GhostTurtle]

Seriously.
"Its cool to chop of somene's head but goddamn them titties better not be jiggling"....

[yomfweeee]

Curious do you have kids? Because there is a difference. I tried to explain it in another post.

My kids know violence is wrong. They know shows with violence isn't real. They know it isn't okay to do that stuff in real life ever. Nudity though? It isn't illegal like violence. But it does affect desires that are part of human nature and I wouldn't want my child exposed to that.

Like when I was younger, I'd try to sneak catching a boob on some late night TV. I don't recall ever trying to sneak anything about violence.

It is different.

[Imalwaysright]

No there is no difference because kids shouldn't be playing games that have nudity or games with extreme amounts of violence like this one.

[carcarias]

My kids are adults and I haven't a clue what you mean by this comment; what big difference are you talking about? As @Casepb said, it's just cultural so trying to rationalise it is difficult.

You're saying kids know violence is wrong in real life because it's illegal so no need to worry about it influencing them. However, boobs aren't illegal IRL so it's important kids are kept away from such media because they won't understand boobs are.....wrong? Or a bad influence? Eh?

What do you mean by, 'affect desires that are part of human nature'? What negative impact do you think it has? Also, did 'catching a boob' on late night TV have a bad effect on you? Did you become some kind of sex offender?

I remember, when I lived in France between '89-93, there'd be adverts for shower gel with soaped up women showing breasts. Don't remember society collapsing or an increase in juvenile delinquency.

I think people are just over protective and fearful of sexual themes but violence gets a free pass. I managed to get hold of my dad's porn tapes when I was 12. Loved it. I understood it was fantasy though, like movie violence and Tom and Jerry when Tom gets an anvil on the head.

Seeing porn never stopped me from understanding that women, along with everyone else, should be treated with respect. In other words, as I myself would like to be treated. I therefore am not worried about 'boobs' having a greater effect on kids than violence.

Having said that, age ratings are there for a reason. I just will never understand how the violence often gets a free pass compared to the sexual content.

[yomfweeee]

@carcarias

So you let your kids watch whatever movies with whatever nudity (I'm not talking porn) when they were young children?

I've never known any family to allow this.

[jcole97]

The game is rated M for mature...

[DaGR8JIBRALTAR]

You wanna see some tits? Ass? Get on xvideos weirdo.

[MoshA]

Some SJWs at Netherrealm rose to power. Good riddance. The game is review bombed to death on both steam and metacritic.

[The7Reaper]

It's super confusing.

"Hey can we slash open this dudes throat and have them bathe in blood?"

"Sure."

"Can we show a nipple?"

"WHAT! ARE YOU CRAZY? THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"

[stefd75]

I think adults can deal with it, this is a game for adults after all, 18 rated in the UK i believe, if kids are playing this then that is the parents fault.

[SegaGamer]

I actually think it's the kids that can handle this better than the adults. It's the adults that freak out over a bit of boob jiggling XD

[stefd75]

God I love jigging boobs

[zahdab]

What is really disturbing is not the over the top violence but the fighter's smiles and faces while doing it... seeing some enjoying ripping another's headoff and then using it as a puppet with smile on their face is qbsurd but disturbing for me

[EliteComments123]

its a game!! LOL movies do it etc. kids shouldnt play it.

[bloop]

Oh come on. How can it possibly be disturbing when it's so over the top that it couldn't possibly resemble anything that could happen in real life? The gore in MK has always been so ridiculous it's more comical than anything.

[zahdab]

well the facial animation is very realistic for one, it's hard to look at it like previous games that look very gamy... i am not saying i am not going to play and enjoy the game but when i saw the videos it just struck me as a bit much ... though i've played every single MK so far.
it's something you would see a serial killers doing not the supposed "good guys" in the franchise

[SoulClaw]

then don´t play it faggot

[zahdab]

Mature! hope you didn't hurt your brain to come up with that one...

[xVOLTx]

I guess you don't like horror/ zombie movies then.

[zahdab]

I do, though the violence in them doesnt do much for me ... if the plot is interesting i enjoy them, if the plot is boring i don't, cheesy violence can be funny but you would rarely see a main character or a good guy doing violent acts and enjoying it

[jagermaster619]

Are you kidding me? Don't buy it then I'm tired of all you snowflakes getting upset with anything and everything....you need to hide under a rock and shield yourself from all the M-rated games and movies! 🤦‍♂️

[zahdab]

are you kidding me ? i am not entitled to an opinion that is different than yours ? just cause I don't enjoy seeing characters doing excessive violence and enjoying the violent acts makes me a snowflake ? if you read my comment i mentioned it's not the violence that disturbed, i know it is mortal kombat ... it's just the reaction of the character's face while doing the act, it's almost glamorizing the violence.

it's one thing to have an opinion and it's another to insult people for having an opinion different than yours. whatever man i am tired of kids pretending that seeing violence and enjoying violence is manly ... I've probably played and watched more violent games than you can count does't make me more manly than nor does it make people who don't enjoy them snowflakes ... grow up

[gangsta_red]

I think the industry has moved way past violence in games. It's only brought up by a minority that needs to make some sense out of any current tragedy. And those stories never last a day unlike back in the Jack Thompson days.

Besides, MK's violence has become comical at this point.

[Christopher]

Ends a battle by shooting my opponent in the head five times at close range.

Follow-up cut scene of helping the enemy up from the ground with zero damage shown.

I dunno, gangsta, seems pretty realistic to me.

And I think Trump was the last officially researched complaint about video games in the U.S., but his report came back the same as the others. I know the one representative in California still wants to do something with it, but he gets voted down almost immediately. I think he just has a personal story that he tries to pin video game violence on rather than a kid that likely needed help from a professional (or just more/better love at home). I do not understand China's stance against it, but it's hard to figure out what they're thinking a lot of the time these days with certain laws.

[AK91]

Yes video game violence doesn't affect people in real life contrary to what countless "researched" articles will tell you but neither does sexual content in games.

[Tross]

I have still yet to hear of a case of someone using a videogame to murder someone, such as beating them to death with the case. Could someone link me to one if that's ever happened? Otherwise, it's stupid to say that videogames cause violence. Maybe someone got strangled to death with a controller cord when those were still a thing? Charging cables just don't have enough heft for that IMHO. I suppose you could tie someone down, break a disc and shove the shards down someone's throat. Only physical copies would work for that, obviously. Oh no, I'm just giving MS and Google ammunition to advocate for their all digital/streaming future...

In all seriousness though, if someone truly cannot separate fiction from reality and feels "inspired" to do some of the things they do in popular games IRL, they have bigger problems that are well beyond the scope of "so-and-so played X, so we should blame that for Y". Odds are if they didn't play that game they would have consumed some other kind of media with violence, and no I'm not saying violent media in general is to blame either. Jack the Ripper was around well before any of this violent media was a thing, and I firmly believe that someone who has a predisposition to violence will be at risk for that kind of behaviour regardless of what media he or she consumes. If anything it's a confounding variable as it's highly likely that people with such a predisposition will be that much more inclined to consume media with a certain degree of violence.