Just to play the devils advocate:
http://games.slashdot.org/articl...543236&
from=rss
Gamers actually get release from dying in FPSes that they don't receive in winning.
Secondly, I'd be very careful to note the the previous articles didn't establish a causal link. Correlation does not imply causality. Furthermore, school shootings are such rare events that they are essentially Poisson "shot noise". Proving a hypothesis based on sparse sampling is very difficult especially when external factors can't be compensated for.
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if any game involving button mashing, even Katamari Damancy or DDR wouldn't result in the equivalent arousal readings. We're evolved to go into fight or flight mode under a broad variety of situations.
Personally I tend to unwind by playing DOA2 as Kasumi, but I don't run around in a Japanese schoolgirl uniform assaulting people (well not most of the time).
My personal preference would be to see a broader range of genres in gaming. In essence, FPSes are to gaming what gangsta is to rap or superheros are to comics. I'm glad to see the Wii and the DS predominating the consoles and portables in that regard.
With every posting, I'm more and more puzzled as to the purpose and usefulness of this series. If we're indeed looking into "The Meaning of School Shootings," why are videogames being discussed to this level of detail in regard to the shooters? It's like proposing to discuss "The Meaning of Great Architecture" and then spending the series in an in-depth exploration of hammers.
Sorry, Evan, I've tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you've lost me. Lots of interesting facts and figures, but none of them addressing "meaning." Normally, I'd be interested in hearing "how the decontextualization of violent media imagery contributes to the problem" and the changes a game industry person like yourself would suggest. But since you'll likely continue to focus on the anomalous phenomenon of school shootings rather than the real problem of day-to-day physical and psychological violence in schools and workplaces, I'll be giving it a pass.
This may come into context when you recall that the War Against Video Games was one of the ways Senator Hillary Clinton avoided actually finding her spine on issues such as the Iraq War and the Patriot Act.
What Obama til Denver said.
What is the point of this series? Not feeling it over here.
School shootings=ostracization of anyone not "normal" + tolerance/encouragement of bullies + zero penalties for bullying + school environment that rewards cliqueishness + a gun.
I don't even think it's a gun control issue, believe it or not.
I don't think most high school shootings would happen at all if at the elementary school level, children and PARENTS learned that a) bullying has real consequences like expulsion and exclusion from activities like school sports and b) all high schools had real merit-based positions for smart kids. As in some schools, "honor roll" is actually mostly a peer-elected society only marginally based in academics (which shocked me when I found this out at my first year at Cornell--I met a lot of not-very-impressive specimens who were on "honor roll" who pretty much just got voted in on popularity).
FWIW, a reason--not a MAJOR one but a very strong supporting MINOR one--that I have not told off my loathsome idiot of a boss yet is that I get to go home and chop up zombies, demons, and disgusting looking disease worms with an ever-changing arsenal of coolio-looking, upgradeable swords (while running around in upgradeable coolio armor).
www.hellgatelondon.com
I play a blademaster, a guardian, and an evoker that I may kill off because playing an evoker is boring--you don't actually get close enough to beat shit up by hand. 
Ooops, better not let me within 200 feet of a school.
humm as vidoe games get more violent and mroe realisticly violent actual youth violence gose down.
care to address that evan...or dose it shoot too many holes in your pet, discredited thory to deal with?
http://www.livescience.com/
techn...o_violence.html
"Grossman (and others) explicitly argue that it is the lack of this physical release for the Arousal of violent media which contributes to the Desensitization and conditioning of consumers of violent media. Instead of using media imagery in constructive ways, the constant exposure without catharsis is a part of the problem."
I disagree that videogames don't provide physical release or catharsis. They aren't physical exercise, but couldn't the button-mashing and "twitch factor" (fast-paced game-play where you rely on quick reflexes) in games be a kind of physical release? It seems like there's not really a conclusive answer to this.
But the desensitization to violent imagery, especially in games where you see a lot of blood and exploding flesh, is another issue. That could outweigh the release you get from button-mashing and twitch-based gameplay. Or it might not. Which factor predominates is a valid empirical question.
I think relating any of this to NIU or Virginia Tech is a real non-starter(and I don't mean to imply that any part of this series has done that).
I just watched the new Rambo movie last night. It was a throwback in the sense of a Reagan-era mindless violence pic, but its death scenes were gorier due to the advance of technology. If you want to see humans turned into hamburger by a .50 caliber machinegun or seen their heads blown off by a sniper rifle then go see this movie.
As for me? Yeah those scenes were adrenalin boosters. I wanted to see Old Man Stallone slice and dice at 2000 rounds per minute. But after it was over, that feeling was gone within about half a minute. Feelings of thin plot and caricatured characters creeped in. If I had paid for a ticket to see it I might've felt a little pissed. But c'est la vie to any other basal instincts it aroused in me.
As for the university school shooters, they were adults with psychiatric problems. The Virginia Tech guy didn't play violent video games, though I don't know what he watched. The NIU guy was a 27 year old who went off his meds. That these two picked schools was probably more a consequence of being at school at the time.
It's kind of strange, but when that old guy shot up that Wendy's in Florida none of these questions of violent games or violent media were raised. Why not? This generation is the natural-born killers generation or what?
I dunno if video games makes me a better or quicker shot, but unless I am in the situation where I am shooting someone that doesn't really matter. I guess the real question is "do videogames help the ability of a psychotic suicidal shooter to aim and fire quicker on his victims?"
DDR tends to be more of a zen type thing for me, and usually calms me down. Guitar Hero on the other hand REALLY gets the adrenaline going, especially when you get to a crazy solo. (The solo at the end of Avalancha in GHIII makes my excitement level go off the charts, to be honest)
Hate to say it..but:
Not just fail. Epic fail. Almost Legendary fail, to be honest.
Graphic violence in video games is a way to give context to abstraction, in a way to pull in the "middlecore" crowd, who for a variety of reasons are already attracted to violence images. The actual effect of the games themselves stand up with or without the graphic violence. Take for example, the big release this week, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Not a graphically violent game, it's a standard fighter featuring various Nintendo characters (with some cameos). So how graphic can it be? But it gets my excitement and adrenaline levels up MORE than various graphically violent games. So of COURSE those studies are going to find something. Is it any different than after playing any other sort of competitive game/sport?
Hell no. Hell, I knew people that their heart would be racing after taking high school tests.
The almost pathological track to this series to hide the REAL causes of mass violence, namely the alienation and isolation of an individual by their entire community, in the face of so many comments pointing this out..and the writer saying just stick with me..it's coming! And then it looks like it's never going to come?!?
Looks to me to be an ax to grind. Nothing more, nothing less.
First, it is impossible to build a substantive social argument around mass shootings in the US, because they are simply not common enough; you're several times more likely to be killed by lightning. Second, in the time frame of the study of media violence you cited, real world violence in the US has declined substantially; that is very strong evidence that there is no causal link between media violence and real-world violence. It's much better than laboratory-based studies, since it's a natural experiment on the thing you really care about, which is the relationship between media violence and real-world violence.
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