Would you say a video gamer has no sense of reality?

Question

It's just a question. I know many many do, but based on those you meet, do they throw video games into real life? I'm doing a paper!

Answer 1

I would probably say that most gamers tend to relate some things in games to life and vice versa. I true gamer knows when to seperate reality from the gaming world.Video games are a way to relieve stress to many gamers.

Answer 2

Correlation does not indicate causality.

There are a good percentage of people who commit violent crimes and blame their actions on something else, videogames being the preferred scapegoat of the new millenium. However, more often than not, gamers are well adjusted individuals. Gaming is basically a hobby. People do it with varying degrees of seriousness and comittment, and pour various ammounts of money into it. Coming from one who has had a controller in his hands since he was 4 years old, I believe I have a very good sense of reality, in that I can distinguish between videogames and the real world. I'm pretty much living proof that videogames are not the cause of violence. I spend much of my time playing videogames, and I'm attending a technical college to learn how to make videogames, and I have a clean criminal record, save for a couple of speeding tickets. I've played through Doom, Doom 2, all of the Mortal Kombat games, Grand Theft Autos: III, Vice City, and San Andreas; and countless others that have been flagged by the media as "causing violent behavior" in people. The truth is that some people are unable to distinguish between fiction and reality, and whether it's videogames, television, or literature that inspires them to go out and do something crazy, they would have done it eventually, regardless of the catalyst.

Now, some would probably say "what about the children who are very young?" Well, that's what the ESRB (America) and other rating systems are for, so that parents can decide whether or not their children can handle that game. Most game stores will card when selling M rated games, so it's not a huge problem.

Answer 3

Good question. This is one I always wanted to ask my boyfriend who is a huge gamer. (Well, he was until it became clear that I was going to continue throwing a fit about it.)

Instead of asking him if he actually had a foot in reality's door, I tried to be a good girlfriend and relate to him. I began playing WoW. I created a character, leveled it, joined a guild, made "friends," lost my social life, gained 10 lbs, then quit. After my year long stint of gaming and interacting with the other gamers on my server, I wouldn't say that they have no sense of reality. I would say that they are doing everything they can to avoid it--and you can't avoid something if you don't have a sense of it.

Take my boyfriend for example. Before, when I would get upset with him (which was rarely), I would try to talk things over with him. Many times my questions and my anger would overwhelm him so much that he would turn his back on me and begin or continue playing a game. Of course, this would make me angrier and want to throw a shoe through his monitor.

It took a long time for me to realize that the reason he would take the game over me was because he felt reality too much and wanted an escape. Games (on line RPGs, anyway), offer an alternate and safer reality. You get in a fight with some dude on line that you dont really know, it's not that big of a deal because you can block him or turn off your computer. You piss off your girlfriend, you can't turn her off.

As far as console games--well, my boyfriend plays those too, as do his friends. I did not do the supportive girlfriend thing with these because frankly, I can't use the damn controls and I find them excruciatingly boring. But I watch my boyfriend and his friends avoid reality by distracting themselves with a "safe" game where they can be anyone but themselves.

If gamers had no sense of reality, bills would not get paid and they would be unemployed. The gamers I know are at least able to do the bare minimum to get these things done.

I think hard core gamers do have a sense of reality. I just think they want to avoid it.

And casual gamers? Well, I imagine they just want a way to blow off steam and take five after a long day.

Answer 4

I would say that by far, the majority of gamers DO have quite a good sense of reality. There ARE those who don't, but in my experience they are few and far between. It depends heavily on the person themselves, as well as what games they play.

I myself am a gamer, and for the past year plus, I've played World of Warcraft with my boyfriend. For over a year we were involved with one of the "high-end" guilds on the server that we played on - which meant that we were basically logging in and "raiding" (playing) with the same group of people a good 5-6 nights a week, for usually a minimum of 4 hours a night. That's a lot of time if you add it up.

However, I don't think that at any point either of us lost our grip on reality - the game was something we enjoyed, but it didn't preclude the rest of our lives. In fact, the majority of the players in our guild were older than we are (we're in our mid 20's, our guildmates for the most part were in their late 30's or 40's). While we would play, everyone would be joking and laughing about everything that went on in their real lives - girl problems, family, pets, school, etc. It was a very friendly and social group.

With that said, there ARE people out there who play games to the exclusion of everything else. In World of Warcraft, the PVP system was set up such that you literally needed to be logged in and playing almost constantly if you wanted to get the highest rankings. The player on our server who did that posted his time played statistics at one point - he had something like 300 days of played time in the game, just around a year after it had been released. Scary. ;)

Answer 5

I play bf 2142/2 CAL O, CSS CAL M, and im very addicted to WOW i game for quite a few hours a day. But i attend school I hold a steady paying job, and i keep up with all domestic and foreign news. I'd have to say the gammers with control are like any other normal person. But I personally know some people who are very out of touch so i guess it just depends on the indivisual.

Saggitarius' son

Answer 6

Me and my gamer friends have a good sense of reality. When the games turn off- so do the game reflexes. Besides- if games were really affecting people like anti-gaming interests say they do- everytime you go to someone's house you'll rummage through all thier drawers, smash thier furniture, and bang your head on the ceiling trying to find money ;)

Answer 7

mmm this sounds familiar...
on my experience about 1 out of 4...
and they throw those video game "stuff" only when they are with other gamers... i mean i never actually met a gamer who throw those video game suddenly without anything triggering them to do so... i mean do you?
plus some gamers are smart enough to know that if they do those video game act to the people who dont know or play the game they would look stupid...
therefore they stick to their own kind... gamers usually hang out with gamers so eventhough they acy stupidly with those game antics they wouldnt care because they would know what he is doing...
i dont actually believe that playing video games influence people to do crimes... i mean i actually believe that we put those crime in our mind in the game... so the game is like the sponge of our evil mind..lol
i actually start playing some game that is a bit gory such as Resident Evil and so far i havent shoot a person or try to pretend that the person behind me is a zombie...
well playing tekken so much actually give me some interest on doing martial arts but i never walk in the street and beat someone like paul or break someone else's arm like nina...
if you wanna see people who throw those video game antics you could hang out with hard core gamers....

Answer 8

well games are always a fun thing but unrealistic take v a game like
re4 very violent and bloody very realistic but the gamer warps out of that when his gun goes through the enemy or a wall or something like that snaps him or her out of it.....people should be able tom distiguish it except for kids who thing anything is real

Answer 9

depending on the game,, they may lose track of time, but the ones i know do not go that extreme where they cant function in the real world.but on some online games it becomes a whole new set of community and family.

Answer 10

we do have a sense of reality, we don't think that video games are real life. that is just offensive to everybody.