Gamers Gone Wild...
Here's a post from my friend Emera in the Kansas City area. Thought I'd share since I thought it would appeal to some of my geek friends.
My co-worker was telling me today that when she was a kid her dad used to role play. Then she described the rash of gamer suicides that happened in the early eighties. I remembered this being an urban legend and also that there was a terrible Tom Hanks movie that used this as its plot. Oy to the Vey. >: | So I found this on the Religious Tolerance website. Go here www.religioustolerance.org/d_a_d3.htm if you'd like to read the complete article.
Role-playing games:
Criminal acts by gamers?
There are many anecdotal stories about youth who have become involved with RPGs, and have become totally obsessed with the game. They become emotionally linked to their pretend RPG character. They lose the capacity to separate fantasy from reality. Some stressor makes them snap. They either commit suicide or go on a murder rampage. These stories make excellent material for an "urban legend". Such stories are widely discussed throughout North America. Fortunately, RPGs simply do not work this way. A gamer who commits suicide after having lost his identity in a RPG is probably as rare as a person who goes into a deep depression and kills themselves because they went bankrupt playing a game of Monopoly. Pro-RPG groups have investigated each of the murder-suicides which are allegedly caused by gaming. No causal link has ever been found.
The claims by conservative Christian groups that gamers commit suicide or engage in criminal acts do not appear to hold water:
Michael Stackpole calculated expected suicide rates by gamers during the early years of Dungeons and Dragons. He used B.A.D.D.'s estimate of 4 million gamers worldwide. Assuming that fantasy role game playing had no effect on youth suicide rate, one would have expected about 500 gamers would have committed suicide each year. As of 1987, B.A.D.D. had documented an average of 7 per year. It would appear that playing D&D could be promoted as a public health measure, because it would seem to drastically lower the suicide rate among youth. 1,2
Suzanne Abyeta & James Forest studied the criminal tendencies of "gamers" and found that they committed fewer than average numbers of crimes for individuals of the same age. 3
The Association of Gifted-Creative Children of California surveyed psychological autopsies of adolescent suicides and were unable to find any that were linked to these games. Their National Association has endorsed Dungeons and Dragons for its educational content. 4,5
The American Association of Suicidology, 6 the Center for Disease Control, 7 and Health & Welfare (Canada) 8 have conducted extensive studies into teen suicide. They have found that no link to fantasy role-playing games exists.
Dr. S. Kenneth Schonbert studied over 700 adolescent suicides and found none which had fantasy role-playing games as a factor. 9
The Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games was organized in 1988 to counter the attacks by B.A.D.D. and other groups. The Committee has investigated each of the 130 suicide or criminal cases that B.A.D.D. advanced. 21 are missing name, date and/or place and could not be located. Of the over 100 that the Committee has found, they have been unable to find any that were caused by role-playing games.
William Schnoebelen has listed 11 suicides or murders which he believes were tied to D&D.
Just outta curiosity, do any of you out there know of anyone who's dead or violent as a result of gaming???
*grinz*
Nah, didn't think so.
My co-worker was telling me today that when she was a kid her dad used to role play. Then she described the rash of gamer suicides that happened in the early eighties. I remembered this being an urban legend and also that there was a terrible Tom Hanks movie that used this as its plot. Oy to the Vey. >: | So I found this on the Religious Tolerance website. Go here www.religioustolerance.org/d_a_d3.htm if you'd like to read the complete article.
Role-playing games:
Criminal acts by gamers?
There are many anecdotal stories about youth who have become involved with RPGs, and have become totally obsessed with the game. They become emotionally linked to their pretend RPG character. They lose the capacity to separate fantasy from reality. Some stressor makes them snap. They either commit suicide or go on a murder rampage. These stories make excellent material for an "urban legend". Such stories are widely discussed throughout North America. Fortunately, RPGs simply do not work this way. A gamer who commits suicide after having lost his identity in a RPG is probably as rare as a person who goes into a deep depression and kills themselves because they went bankrupt playing a game of Monopoly. Pro-RPG groups have investigated each of the murder-suicides which are allegedly caused by gaming. No causal link has ever been found.
The claims by conservative Christian groups that gamers commit suicide or engage in criminal acts do not appear to hold water:
Michael Stackpole calculated expected suicide rates by gamers during the early years of Dungeons and Dragons. He used B.A.D.D.'s estimate of 4 million gamers worldwide. Assuming that fantasy role game playing had no effect on youth suicide rate, one would have expected about 500 gamers would have committed suicide each year. As of 1987, B.A.D.D. had documented an average of 7 per year. It would appear that playing D&D could be promoted as a public health measure, because it would seem to drastically lower the suicide rate among youth. 1,2
Suzanne Abyeta & James Forest studied the criminal tendencies of "gamers" and found that they committed fewer than average numbers of crimes for individuals of the same age. 3
The Association of Gifted-Creative Children of California surveyed psychological autopsies of adolescent suicides and were unable to find any that were linked to these games. Their National Association has endorsed Dungeons and Dragons for its educational content. 4,5
The American Association of Suicidology, 6 the Center for Disease Control, 7 and Health & Welfare (Canada) 8 have conducted extensive studies into teen suicide. They have found that no link to fantasy role-playing games exists.
Dr. S. Kenneth Schonbert studied over 700 adolescent suicides and found none which had fantasy role-playing games as a factor. 9
The Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games was organized in 1988 to counter the attacks by B.A.D.D. and other groups. The Committee has investigated each of the 130 suicide or criminal cases that B.A.D.D. advanced. 21 are missing name, date and/or place and could not be located. Of the over 100 that the Committee has found, they have been unable to find any that were caused by role-playing games.
William Schnoebelen has listed 11 suicides or murders which he believes were tied to D&D.
Just outta curiosity, do any of you out there know of anyone who's dead or violent as a result of gaming???
*grinz*
Nah, didn't think so.