SWBF violence?

[Black Water]

Hi, this is for the more older swbf players , my parents always tell me that swbf is to violent and to stop playing it. They say i will try to do what they do ... , so i ask you guys, would you let your child play swbf?

[jdee-barc]

Aren't you 15 (it says that on your profile)? By that age your parents shouldn't be bothering you about the games you play. I'm 16 (although it says 1012 here). I mean, are you really going to try to go on a killing spree with a weapon that shoots radioactive grenades?

[Shazam]

Well, I've been playing SWBF since I was ten. My justification for playing it had always been that I told my mom that all I do is go around shooting robotic droids. Now that I'm older, my mom could care less what I'm shooting in my games.

[BlackScorpion]

Well, the video game is rated "T," which, according to the E.S.R.B., means that the game is suitable for the teenage demographic.  There was a thread last spring about a similar topic (it was about violence in television programming, so the concepts are remarkably similar), and I'll merely adapt what I wrote in that thread:

People are influenced by electronic media, sure.  However, when Lee Harvey Oswald was killed (on live television), did people go out and engage in a killing spree?  (This might be before your parents' time, though.)  Although this rhetorical question is something along the lines of a reduction to absurdity, I maintain that it is the crux of your parents' argument.  Perhaps such a person is the type of person who is so mentally unstable that anything else could have set him or her off.  So this "undue" influence of video games on these people could be replaced by something else, such as peers or society as a whole (see, e.g., the concept of modeling).

[Joseph]

If you are so unstable as to be influenced by a video game to commit violent acts, you need immediate help. Preventing you from playing the game would not solve the problem.

Your parents are being irrational.

[Shazam]

The average mentally unstable psychopath doesn't go around killing people because they did so in a game. Even if that could be tied in to reasoning, I don't think it would've mattered much whether they played violent games or not, it's their real-life interactions (or lack thereof) that makes them act the way they do.

[{212}FrenchFryZ]

LOL! no one is really answering the quistion he asked! Yes, i would let my child play battlefront I think its a good game to start off on because you can always pick like zam to be the republic and just shoot droids! Also there isnt any blood and they can respawn so its probly more like Lazer Tag or something rather than playing with blood and you are done for the session/mission if you die. Hope ppl actully answer the quistion really intresting forum

[{PLA}gdh92]

If I had a child and they seemed mature enough to understand what was happening I wouldn't have a problem with them playing battlefront as there's no story to the violence so it's just a matter of pointing and shooting which to me is no worse than snakes and ladders or 'tag'.
This probably won't go down well with some but I wouldn't let a young child go online with battlefront unless I knew the server/people there because of the things that are said, I don't just mean swearing but some of the comments that appear on X-fire etc can be pretty vicious and I wouldn't want that to be someones experience of online gaming.
Although I would happy to leave a child on a website like this one or PLA servers which are moderated so that younger players don't have to worry about the bad side of SWBF.

[Ultimo]

Think of it like this:

When characters die, they don't die, they just go back to spawn. When a gun kills, it's simply just a teleporter ray sending that player back to spawn. Almost like laser tag, like Frenchie said.

On the childly note, why not let them play? By the time I have kids, the weapons in this game will still be far from development.

[Sereja]

Well, I do not think, in SWBF, may present some violence. The matter, is not just, you killing people or droids. The matter, is in type of gameplay. Everything look's small, in action, and it's feels, just like "toy soldiers game". It is some mix between, "3rd person" game, and strategy. So, I do not think, mom, should worry about it.
Well, still, if somebody made some "zombie" mod map, with lot of bloody effect, and tearing body parts, you should wait, some time (till 15-18), before play this map. Honestly say, some of my unfinished maps, I wouldnt recommend play any person, till 21 or higher...

[Kit Fisto]

Think of it like this:

When characters die, they don't die, they just go back to spawn. When a gun kills, it's simply just a teleporter ray sending that player back to spawn. Almost like laser tag, like Frenchie said.

From the things on the news and from what I hear this is the "main attraction" as it were to going and killing people in real life. "Well when I killed those 20 people they didn't die they just went back to spawn!" You can look at it in a good light or a bad light. Personally I think some games influence child thought but most don't. You could say the same thing about Lego Star Wars!
I would let my kids play this game offline or splitscreen with a friend. It's just Star Wars. Nothing in it has ever happened. You won't get biased to Germans like you would playing a WWII game and killing the Nazis.

Well, I do not think, in SWBF, may present some violence. The matter, is not just, you killing people or droids. The matter, is in type of gameplay. Everything look's small, in action, and it's feels, just like "toy soldiers game". It is some mix between, "3rd person" game, and strategy. So, I do not think, mom, should worry about it.
Well, still, if somebody made some "zombie" mod map, with lot of bloody effect, and tearing body parts, you should wait, some time (till 15-18), before play this map.

Very wise words. SWBF wasn't geared toward adult audiences to begin with. Most of us were in elementry school when we started playing this game ( with a few exceptions ).

Honestly say, some of my unfinished maps, I wouldnt recommend play any person, till 21 or higher...

Woa Sereja!? What kind of dark maps do you have unfinished!? And how many unfinished maps do you have?!

[Unit 33]

Considering other examples of gaming this game is practically docile.

[BlackScorpion]

LOL! no one is really answering the quistion he asked! Yes, i would let my child play battlefront I think its a good game to start off on because you can always pick like zam to be the republic and just shoot droids! Also there isnt any blood and they can respawn so its probly more like Lazer Tag or something rather than playing with blood and you are done for the session/mission if you die. Hope ppl actully answer the quistion really intresting forum

I realized I didn't explain why my original post in this thread was a reduction to absurdity, so while I would argue that the information to answer the question was there, to make the jump from that information to my position would require extraordinary reading comprehension as well as making a couple of logical jumps.

Anyways...

(I am just a nineteen year old college student, so take this with a grain of salt.)

I do not believe that the average parent of a child who plays video games believes that his or child will become a serial killer, hence the reduction to absurdity (what I said boils down to discussing that since action A [playing video games] wouldn't lead to extraordinarily bad consequence B [becoming a serial killer] that arguments against action A are moot).  But they're not moot, they're just without teeth.  That a parent wants the best for child seems to be above argument; however, parents don't always know exactly what is best for their child.  Parents see new technologies that they never had when growing up (brb, walking up the hill to school for both directions) and, it is my--lay--opinion that they think that they grew up okay without these technologies (either they didn't have the world wide web during their youth or its infrastructure hadn't been as widely implemented as it is today) which could potentially lead to them believing that it is best if their progeny grows up without becoming overly dependent on them. 

From the things on the news and from what I hear this is the "main attraction" as it were to going and killing people in real life. "Well when I killed those 20 people they didn't die they just went back to spawn!" You can look at it in a good light or a bad light. Personally I think some games influence child thought but most don't. You could say the same thing about Lego Star Wars!
[...] It's just Star Wars. Nothing in it has ever happened. You won't get biased to Germans like you would playing a WWII game and killing the Nazis. [...]

I understand--indeed, I agree with it--your point regarding fantasy violence, but the argument that someone would be "biased" against "Germans" because that person "play[ed] a WWII game and kill[ed] the Nazis" that appear in that video game is a silly one.  Most people who are unable to realize that people of German heritage are not necessarily Nazis are too young to play the video games that these (fictional) Nazis appear in.  If you were referring to those people who are unable to draw distinctions between the real and the virtual, see my post infra.

[SleepKiller]

My two cents, none of us are actually qualified to discuss on the matter. Unless one of you just happens to have a degree in psychology?

[BlackScorpion]

My two cents, none of us are actually qualified to discuss on the matter. Unless one of you just happens to have a degree in psychology?

Because we all know that experts in a given field all widely agree on every subject.  /s

With that said, you do have a point... but to extrapolate from that point, unless Mart's parents have a degree in psychology, they're not qualified (to render an opinion concerning the aggregate).