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Recently doing some read-ups about this topic I found it rather interesting.
Personally, I'm not to sure either if they do leave a impact (such as altering peoples behavior) or they dont.
I'm basically in the middle.
Do you think they leave a impact on society and why?
I believe that games where you do not interact with others have less of an impact than games where you do because your brain makes you subconsciously copy things that you admire or like (such as a phrase you saw somebody else use).
However games have less impact than television. Television is where most humans learn new things nowadays. It used to be books that did this, but we're in the 21st century now :L so less and less people actually read these days (I'm not saying nobody does!).
Parents seem to be thinking that war games have a big impact on their children, but it is mostly just the loss of family time because the child is playing the game rather than an actual change in behaviour. A war game may make a child more interested in weapons, but it does not make them go round actually shooting people. So I think games have a mental impact rather than a physical impact, if you see what I mean?
Games don't have nearly so much impact on society as society has impact on games. The only problem I have with imagery in games is the use of war propaganda whereby entire races or classes on people are completely dehumanised for the sake of entertainment, normalising a state of mind which pretty much amounts to "those people don't look like me, they must be the enemy". I don't think this really means people are more likely to take their aggression to the streets or anything that drastic, but everything we encounter influences us in some way and putting forth damaging stereotypes only helps to fuel hatred
Well, It's not like I go down to my local farm and start to throw real birds at pigs.