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Lopson
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Still Going In Circles
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To become a medic in AA, a player must attend to a few virtual classes. At the end of these classes, you have to pass a small test with a certain score (above 60% if I remember correctly). Nice to see someone use what he/she has learned in those classes.
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Kajet
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SUCK ON THAT ANTI GAMING ASSHOLES!
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~Va^^pyrA~
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Those men are lucky that their injuries weren't more serious. This man could have just as easily done more harm by reenacting something he saw in a videogame or a movie without knowing exactly what the technique does or why it is applied. Overall, this story reeks of propaganda almost as much as the game itself does.
I think the only lives America's Army is really saving are those that play the game and then, based on that experience, realize how dumb it would be to join the armed forces just to die for some greedy politicians' personal crusade.
Besides, one has to wonder what exactly these men were doing to have rolled their vehicle.
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« Last Edit: 2008-01-21, 20:58 by ~Va^^pyrA~ »
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Sucutrule
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SUCK ON THAT ANTI GAMING ASSHOLES!
Seconded GO PEE ON YOUR PANTS JACK THOMPSON! |
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How I am supposed to type will all this cheese laying around?
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
Team Member
Elite (3k+)
  
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I always thought the most interesting thing to learn from AA was that you are never the terrorist, or the enemy--you simply cannot assume that identity. That is a very important thing to learn about the way people are inclined to see things...
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Phoenix
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I think it's kind of neat the way they did that Tab. It's kind of like our old turncloak bug for teamplay put to a clever use. I've never played the game myself, but it did keep it from being a complete CS clone I suppose.
Vampira: I think the game itself is fairly obvious as a propaganda tool. I'm fine with that since it doesn't pretend not to be. The news article I think is a welcome breath of fresh air from what is usually published about video games and their effect on the real world. I say kudos for whoever programmed the medic stuff in the game for basing it off real world medical knowledge. If the guy was running around looking for a white stimpack box to hit the guy with, on the other hand... 
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  I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
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scalliano
Elite
Posts: 1095
Yup, that's me
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AND LIEBERMAN AS WELL!!! GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY ALONE!!!! |
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PSN ID: scalliano
The Arena knows no gender, colour or creed, only skill.
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Kain-Xavier
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The problem with acknowledging that a video game helped save a life is that it adds credibility to the argument that video games can train you (i.e. train you to kill.)
This video game obviously affected the person who played it in some manner, but I suspect a bit of luck and the virtual classes Lopson mentioned played a bigger role. After all, one can become reasonably knowledgeable about performing CPR or the Heimlich maneuver just through watching an informational video.
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Phoenix
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Blaming video games for violence fails if you're taking it from a training aspect though. Of course they can be seen as a potential training tool, provided they're designed to mimic reality, which games by definition do not do very well. I have yet to see a video game that demonstrates how to properly load an unload a firearm, how to sight one in, how to control recoil, proper shot placement and trigger control, breathing control, ballistic drop and wind compensation, material penetration, etc. It's point, click, boom when you're in a game. Life is not like that. If you want to learn how to shoot a gun, you don't learn it by playing a video game, you learn it on the firing line, and you learn military combat tactics, well, in the military. That being said, there's a reason flight simulators exist for pilots. Those DO mimic reality, and are designed to keep someone who has not flown a plane before or is a bit rusty from crashing the real thing. You can use a video game as a situational training tool, provided it's designed to be a training tool and not a piece of entertainment. It's still no substitute for actual experience. Where the problem lies is in assigning responsibility to the game for the poor choice of actions of an individual. A video game is not responsible for someone's decision to pick up a gun, machete, chainsaw, or hop in a car and kill someone. That individual made a conscious decision to commit murder, so they should still be held accountable, regardless of what may or may not have influenced their decision making process. Influences can be fought or taken away, and while they can sometimes be overpowering, the individual still has to choose to do the wrong thing. Personally I've never felt the urge to go on a killing spree after playing a game. Someone who is mentally unstable is already going to be predisposed to problematic behavior anyway, so you cannot use that as a rule either.
The problem is that society does not want to hold itself accountable for what it has done in removing personal accountability. No longer is there "right" and "wrong". How do you know what not to do then? No longer are criminals punished, they're "rehabilitated". When has this ever, ever worked at stopping crime? I could go on a very long rant about how cause and effect need to be taught to children and, if properly taught, will dissuade them from poor decision making later in life, but it would be a very long rant and I don't want to stray too far off topic right now. The basic point is that everyone and everything else is blamed - poor upbringing, living conditions, childhood trauma, stress, etc. Society makes no end to excuses for violent criminal behavior. Blaming video games is just another way of avoiding the placement of proper blame and dealing with the issue in an effective and fair manner (to the victims and citizens as well. Justice is not just for the accused).
If you want to get to the core of it, humans have killed each other since long before video games were ever around. If you believe the bible, murder was one of man's first sins, second to disobeying God. If you believe in Darwin, it's instinctive. Either way, the capacity for man to kill man is part of human nature and is written in human history. Do you not measure history from one war to the next? I have never read a history book where time was measured by one period of peace to the next. Those who act as if video games somehow turn otherwise peaceable people into killers are in stark denial of the truth of human nature. You don't need video games to be involved for men to murder one another. That's where the whole "blame the game" argument falls flat. It's just that most people don't like think of themselves as potential murderers, even though the capacity exists in everyone.
Look, if someone saw something in a game and used it to save a life and it worked can't that be seen as something positive? How many people would have even bothered to stop and help?
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Kain-Xavier
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Look, if someone saw something in a game and used it to save a life and it worked can't that be seen as something positive? How many people would have even bothered to stop and help? I never meant to discourage that. I was just discouraging the use of this event to support the claim that video games don't cause violence. To me, this person would have helped those people regardless of whether or not he had played America's Army. |
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« Last Edit: 2008-01-22, 05:21 by Kain-Xavier »
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Phoenix
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I understand what you mean now. I don't see it as supporting the assertion that video games do not cause violence, though I understand those who want to smack around Thompson with it. I just see it as someone put something they learned in a game to a good use, and noting how much publicity it has not been getting as opposed to how much negative publicity games do receive. 
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I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
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Footman
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In before Wack-o Jack-o calls this report a load of horse crap.
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~Va^^pyrA~
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I think the game itself is fairly obvious as a propaganda tool. I'm fine with that since it doesn't pretend not to be. The news article I think is a welcome breath of fresh air from what is usually published about video games and their effect on the real world. I say kudos for whoever programmed the medic stuff in the game for basing it off real world medical knowledge. If the guy was running around looking for a white stimpack box to hit the guy with, on the other hand... We would be seeing a very different article (or none at all) however if this guy had pulled someone out of that SUV that shouldn't have been moved and thus caused even more damage. Obviously I have little information outside of the article, but improperly applied medical techniques can be even more dangerous than simply bleeding while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. And not to take anything away from the game's training or this guy's accomplishment, but I think just about everyone should know basic first-aid. Sadly, most don't and that's what makes this story-worthy, at least in part. The other reason that it is worthy of an article is because it is propaganda, promoting another piece of propaganda. Regardless of how obvious it is, the game still comes disguised as a "fun experience", which is about as far from the truth as you can get for a combat situation. Furthermore, I think the fact that the government uses a videogame to train and recruit gives a very negative image of how interactive media influences the real world. It basically directly links videogames with learning or being interested in killing others in real life. |
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~Va^^pyrA~
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Yes, the article is a press release. Or, at least, is summing up a press release.  |
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Lopson
Elite
Posts: 1133
Still Going In Circles
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It could be looked at that way. I wouldn't be surprised if the article had been completely fabricated by the AA's team. Ofcourse you also have to understand that most people won't connect first-aid with the army, so even if it is a piece of propaganda, it's sucks at propaganding the army directly. Indirectly, it does its job.
PS: The game sucks. A few years ago I tried to play this game, but it had this stupid ranking system that kept kicking me out of the servers. Great way to help a n00b get the hang of the game!
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