Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

[Otacon]

Well, I suppose he deserves his own thread. Unlike Jack, he's a respectable asshole because he enjoys computer games and isn't a complete d!ckhead.

He happens to be a professor at Arkansas State University, which is located in Jonesboro, which is where I live. My dad is also a professor there and my brother is a student there. :eek: If Grossman ever stages a debate or anything over here, I promise that I'll try to attend it and report on it.

[Beacon]

Isn't Grossman the guy who wrote a book claiming that humans needed video games to desensitize them to the point where they could kill and most soldiers in WW2 never actually shot at anybody?

[Grahamr]

He's a More polite jack thompson,he plays some games and is actully an intresting person to be around,so i hear. but he is still stubborn about his opinion,and uses logical fallacies.(besides one game called"marine doom"which is a variant of doom,the army only uses them for hand eye coordination.) i hear he's on the lecture circuit alot.

[Jabrwock]

He's a More polite jack thompson,he plays some games and is actully an intresting person to be around,so i hear. but he is still stubborn about his opinion,and uses logical fallacies.(besides one game called"marine doom"which is a variant of doom,the army only uses them for hand eye coordination.) i hear he's on the lecture circuit alot.
Not to mention the fact that Marine Doom was only designed to teach small team tactics, not desensitize troops...

[Grahamr]

Not to mention the fact that Marine Doom was only designed to teach small team tactics, not desensitize troops...

Really? i would like clarifacation,so we can bury the ARMYUSESGAMES2KILLOMG excuse once and for all.


any proof?

[Yukimura]

Hey gramhar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Doom

There you go.

[Jabrwock]

Hey gramhar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Doom

There you go.
The US Army Corps of Engineers link at the bottom of the article goes into more detail.

Marine Corps Modeling and Simulation Management Office (MCMSMO) adapted the game Doom II for training four-man fire teams. The game teaches concepts such as mutual fire team support, protection of the automatic rifleman, proper sequencing of an attack, ammunition discipline and succession of command.

[Grahamr]

Hey gramhar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Doom

There you go.

thank you,friend.

[Soldat_Louis]

By the way, did you know that between what he said about videogames in his first book (On Killing, 1995, and paperback edition, 1996) and what he said about games since his testimony in the Paducah and Jonesboro killings (1998-1999), there is a HUGE difference ?

In fact, in On Killing, he talks about videogames only on 2 pages and half (pp. 314-316), but it's worth reading. Check it out :

In video arcades children stand slack jawed but intend behind machine guns and shoot at electronic targets that pop up on the video screen . When they pull the trigger the weapon rattles in their hand, shots ring out, and if they hit the "enemy" they are firing at, it drops to the ground, often with chunks of flesh flying in the air.

The important distinction between the killing-enabling process that occurs in video arcades and that of the military is that the military's is focused on the enemy soldier, with particular emphasis on ensuring that the U.S. soldier acts only under authority. Yet even with these safeguards, the danger of furure My Lai massacres among soldiers drawn from such a violent population must not be ignored, and, as we saw in the section "Kiling and Atrocity", the U.S. armed forces are taking extensive measures to control, constrain, and channel the violence of their troops in future conflicts. The video games that our children conduct their combat training on have no real sanction for firing at the wrong target.

This is not an attack on all video games. Video games are an interactive medium. They demand and develop trial-and-error and systematic problem-resolving skills, and they teach planning, mapping, and deferment of gratification. Watch children as they play video games and interact with other children in their neighborhood. To parents raised on a steady diet of movies and sitcoms, watching a child play Mario Brothers for hours on end may not be particularly gratifying, but that is just the point. As they play they solve problems and overcome instructions that are intentionally inadequate and vague. They exchange playing strategies, memorize routes, and make maps. They work long and hard to attain the gratification of finally winning a game. And there are no commercials : no enticements for sugar, no solicitation of violent toys and no messages of social failure if they do not wear the right shoes or clothes.

We might prefer to see children reading or getting exercise and interacting with the real world by playing outside, but video games are definitely preferable to most television. But video games can also be superb at teaching violence - violence packaged in the same format that has more quadrupled the firing rate of modern soldiers.

When I speak of violence enabling I am not talking about video games in which the player defeats creatures by bopping them on the head. Nor am I talking about games where you maneuver swordsmen and archers to defeat monsters. On the borderline in violence enabling are games where you use a joystick to maneuver a gunsight around the screen to kill gangsters who pop up and fire at you. The kind of games that are very definitely enabling violence are the ones in which you actually hold a weapon in your hand and fire it at human-shaped targets on the screen. These kinds of games can be played on home video, but you usually see them in video arcades.

There is a direct relationship between realism and degree of violence enabling, and the most realistic of these are games in which you stand before a huge video screen and fire a pistol at actual film footage of "outlaws" as they appear on the screen . This is identical to the shoot - no shoot training program designed by the FBI and used by the police agencies around the nation to train and enable police officers in firing their weapons.

The shoot - no shoot program was introduced nearly twenty years ago in response to the escalating violence in our society that was resulting in an increase in deaths among police officers who hesitated to shoot in an actual combat simulation. And, of course, we recognize it as another form of operant conditioning that has been successful in saving the lives of both law-enforcement officers and innocent bystanders, since the officer faces severe sanctions if he fires in an inappropriate circumstance. Thus the shoot - no shoot has served successfully to both enable and constrain violence among police officers. Its video arcade equivalent has no such sanctions to constrain violence. It only enables.

The worst is yet to come. Just as movies have become successively more realistic in their depiction of violence and death, so too have video games. We are now entering an era of virtual reality, in which you wear a helmet that has a video screen before your eyes. As you turn your head the screen changes just as though you were within the video world. You hold a gun in your hand and fire it at the enemies who pop up around you, or you hold a sword and hack and stab at the enemies around you.

Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock, says, "This manipulation of reality may provide us with exciting games, entertainment, but it will substitute not a virtual reality, but a pseudo reality , so subtly descriptive as to raise the levels of public suspicion and disbelief beyond what any society can tolerate." This new "pseudo reality" will make it possible to replicate all the gore and violence of popular violent movies, except now you are the star, the killer, the slayer of thousands.

Though operant conditioning B.F. Skinner held that he could turn any child into anything he wanted to. In Vietnam the U.S. armed forces demonstrated that Skinner was at least partially correct by successfully using operant conditioning to turn adolescents into the most effective fighting force the world has ever seen. America seems intent on using Skinner's methodology to turn us into an extraordinarily violent society.

Well, when I read that, knowing Grossman's further reputation, I was astonished. How could he changed his mind so deeply ? In my opinion, it's because he hadn't heard of Doom or Mortal Kombat at that time...

[Soldat_Louis]

Well, now that Grossman seems to be back (http://gamepolitics.com/2007/05/19/grossman-on-va-tech-massacre-blame-the-games/), I thought it was time to up this thread.

And here is an article written by Frank Borelli (http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=25&id=35780) just after V-Tech shootings. It seems more moderate than what he's saying right now :


(...)Still, the mental and emotional conditioning he'd received and the training he'd enjoyed through the near-constant use of interactive video games has been one of the items brought to the forefront as a possible cause for this event. Let's be perfectly clear: while studies show that saturation play of these games does affect an individual's inherent inhibition against violence, games don't kill people. Not one of the 32 dead at Virginia Tech died as the result of a game shooting them. (...)

[KN]

Isn't Grossman the guy who is like this:

"Hello, video games make people violent"

"oh wait, no they don't"

"Hello, video games make people desentisized to violence"

"Oh... wait.. no.. they don't

"Hello, video games *thing*"

[Soldat_Louis]

Coming back to Mr. Borelli, I'm quite surprised that his initial point of view (right after V-Tech massacre (http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=25&id=35780) he talked about violent games but he also precised that "games don't kill people") became so radical despite the fact we know that Cho apparently didn't play video games at Uni.

Bad influence from Grossman and Thompson, maybe (and I don't forget that those two are close friends).

[Soldat_Louis]

Oh, and here is an analysis written by Grossman for NewsMax (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/5/18/175356.shtml), but it focuses on the guidelines for schools to prevent shootings rather than on media violence.

[KN]

Oh, and here is an analysis written by Grossman for NewsMax (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/5/18/175356.shtml), but it focuses on the guidelines for schools to prevent shootings rather than on media violence.

Alright, let's read!

I've been predicting for years that a tragedy like Virginia Tech would occur, and I am so very sad to be proven correct.

Aaaand it right off the bat.

The kids who gave us Jonesboro in the middle school, and Columbine in the high school are now giving us Virginia Tech in the colleges. And this generation, steeped as it is in violent images in video games, television, and movies, will give us workplace violence in the years to come, on the same, ever escalating scale.

****, if you're going to start out like that, why not throw in this too?

Again, I pray that I'm wrong. But for police the message is clear: Keep your powder dry.

At least he tries to make up for it.

The Virginia Tech killer showed what one determined adult can do. Virginia Tech could have been worse

Yes it could, my dead Dave.

Imagine what a cell of trained Islamist terrorists could do in a school?

Wo, wooo, waait. Whaat?

Is this man insane? Is he part of the "them there terrists are muslims!" group? Does he live in this century?

In the case of Virginia Tech, police arrived on the scene at Norris Hall within nine minutes. (Reports of those on the ground say it was more like seven minutes.) I don't know how any agency in the world could have done any better, short of having armed men in the building. There is no way on earth they could have done any better, as far as law enforcement response goes.

Ah, sanity. Yes Dave, having armed police in what amounts to a small indoor city for young adults (I always thought that part of college was bull****) would in fact be a good idea.

Remember, it was only after law enforcement arrived that this mass murderer killed himself. How many more could he have killed with an additional nine minutes? Yet many colleges do not permit their officers to be armed. In such a college any armed response has to come from outside, and would generally take much longer.

Oooh, more sanity. He's not calling for giving the students guns or getting rid of the gun-free zones. Great.

The harsh lesson for parents: Do not send your kids to any college where the campus police are not armed. Colleges that are so removed from reality as to refuse to arm certified police officers are negligent and grossly irresponsible. Such colleges do not deserve to have the lives of your children entrusted to their care. Be sure to ask about such matters before you allow your student to attend any college.

What..?

College is for adults. He's saying the parents of these adults should treat them like kids and decide where they can go because there aren't enough gunsies yet?

A few other key lessons from this that no one can deny:

# All schools, from kindergarten to college, must have classrooms with two ways out, even if one of them is a window. On one side of the building where the Virginia Tech massacre occurred, the students could not exit from the windows. This is a case where the fire code and the safety code should have full agreement.


Delicious sanity :3

# Secondly, all schools must have classrooms that can be secured quickly. Professors and students blocking doors with their bodies are classic cases of heroic efforts to overcome inexcusable negligence in classroom safety. In isolated cases, nationwide, teachers have told me that the local fire marshal objects to this initiative, believing that quick escape in case of a fire is a greater priority. Here is a case where the fire marshal and the fire code may have to compromise, and the police chief should dig his heels in and go toe-to-toe with the fire chief to seek a compromise over this issue. Not one child has died in school fire in all of North America in over a quarter of a century. But entirely too many have died from school violence.

You could just combine everything and flatten them with the fire door!

# Classrooms have fire sprinklers, fire exits, fire codes, fire alarms and smoke alarms. We need to find a way to provide the same kind of protection from violence.

AUTOMATIC SECURITY TURRETS!

[Soldat_Louis]

Here is Grossman's point of view (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/6/20/112817.shtml?s=ic) published in NewsMax) about recent Federal report on V-Tech shootings. But it doesn't mention video games.

(thanks to illspirit for the link)

[Yukimura]

You'd think of all people, He'd be harping on games all over the place. Guess he's not the crackpot loony we all thought he was.

Now if we can just disbarr jack, put the larouche cult out, and shut up the ignorant polis, things would make sense.

[KN]

And now for another episode of Grossman Extreme.

A leading expert on mass violence has taken issue with a presidential task force report delving into the Virginia Tech shootings and school violence in general, saying it fails to address the key issues.

You know, I've always wondered how you become an expert on mass violence. Is there a body count requirement?

The report, released to the public on June 13, was issued by a panel that included Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and was officially titled "Report to the President on Issues Raised by the Virginia Tech Tragedy.”

Ah, Gonzy and a man called Leave It. This can be nothing else than pure greatness.

But Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a former West Point instructor, declared: "I think they missed the boat.”

Is "former West Point instructor" his version of "i wuz on 60 minutes. TWICE!"?

Grossman is the author of several book including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society,” which is required reading for FBI recruits.

This must be outdated. I'm sure by now the required reading is "Shoot the Darkies!"

After reading the government report, Grossman told NewsMax exclusively:

"All they are reporting on is largely mental illness, sharing information about threatening individuals, keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, getting help to mentally ill people, and improving emergency preparedness and violence prevention.

And... that's not enough.. how? Cause I can't imagine YOU supporting full gun control.

"A full spectrum plan looks at: Deter, Detect, Delay, and Defeat.”

YES! That's what we need! TOM DELAY!

Grossman elaborated on each of the four points:

"Deter: The killer can be deterred. That is why there are seldom any successful workplace massacres in police stations. We need to start putting pressure on schools that refuse to arm their police.

Grossman is currently looking into whether there is a correlation with why there are so few reports of nude public indecency in Alaska

"Most colleges and universities are small cities. Any city leadership that refused to arm their cops, and then had people murdered, would be put out business at the next election. We entrust our kids in the care of organizations that neglect the most fundamental aspect of public safety: armed cops.

But college is for adults... They're.. not kids....

But yes, we need Metroco- policemen!

"And of course we have the whole issue of not permitting concealed weapons permits to apply on campus. These are laws that disarm law-abiding citizens, and attract killers who want a body count.”

But all they want to do is become experts on mass violence :(

On "Detect,” Lt. Col Grossman told NewsMax:

"The whole focus of the president's task force report was on detecting mentally ill killers before they strike. But most of the high school killers were not mentally ill. The kids that gave us Jonesboro in the middle school and Columbine in the high school are now showing up in the colleges. And the high schools are getting very good at identifying these wannabe killers. All the methodologies learned in blood in the high schools now must be applied in the college.

Detection checklist includes:

*People with silly nicknames such as "Reb" or "Vodka" (This seems to be what Dylan and whatsisname from Lollumbine called themselves)
*Students carrying a gun. I believe target practice is not part of the curriculum, and that it would be a good idea to open fire on anyone, who is not a law enforcer, with a gun.
*People with a MySpace. These are high risk factors.
*People interested in becoming an expert on mass violence
*Lawyers
*People who are not high. Drugs must be handed out daily, as it has been shown that stoners are non-violent.

"An alternative is to identify (‘detect’) and list in a national database all the colleges that refuse to arm their police, and to recommend that parents not send their kids to these colleges. Instead of trying to detect the killer, just detect the negligent schools.”

And then BOMB THEM!

As for "Delay,” Grossman says: "This generally means lockdown drills and securable facilities. Lockdown is to violence what fire drills are to fire. Every classroom must be quickly securable. How many teachers and professors and students have to die blocking doors with their bodies before we learn this lesson? "Also, every classroom must have two exits, even if one is out the window. And colleges have to do lockdown drills, just like high schools. The faculty must be briefed on where and how to secure their students.

No Tom Delay? But how will this plan work without him? I repeat my earlier statement of flattening gunmen with fire doors.

"Defeat: This brings us back to our cops again. First, armed cops need to be onsite. The Virginia Tech shooter killed 32 in nine minutes. How many more would he have killed if armed police were not onsite?

I'm not one to associate decreasing the body count with defeat. Unless you're talking about prospective mass violence experts.

"Secondly, the police need rifles so they can defeat body armor (the high school killer of seven at Red Lake, Minn., was wearing body armor) and so they can effectively engage snipers. The campus police need SWAT teams trained in explosive breaching so they can quickly and effectively respond to barricaded gunmen scenarios.

Give them explosives and tanks. If the terrorists have snipers now, we're going to need all the firepower we can get!

"Remember, if a gunman is trapped in a bank or convenience store with hostages, he isn’t there to kill people. But if a gunman takes hostages in a school, he can be there for only one purpose: to kill kids and to carve his name in history in your children's blood.”

Or doing it for the lulz.

The expert concludes: "In these scenarios, seconds equal lives, and just as colleges have fire hoses and fire extinguishers on site, they need to have the tools to respond to violence on site.

I've always wanted to see someone taken out with a fire extinguisher.

"If they are not going to permit their citizens (students and faculty) to carry lifesaving tools (firearms), then they must provide those lifesaving tools, in the hands of trained professionals. This is a moral, legal obligation.”

What.. nwait.. no...

He just.... said.. we should give the students guns x.x

Why Grossman? I thought you were so cool :(

[Soldat_Louis]

You'd think of all people, He'd be harping on games all over the place. Guess he's not the crackpot loony we all thought he was.

You know, in the case of V-Tech shootings, it is difficult to blame video games when you know that none of them was found in Cho's room. I know it didn't stop LaRouche nor Thompson, but these two are agenda-driven, and would use anything (including lies) to make their cause win.

On one hand, I have a lot of things to reproach to Grossman : I find him dogmatic and sometimes manichean. I don't like his verbal excesses when he talks about "murder simulators" and "teaching kids to kill". I don't like when he divides the world in two camps : peace warriors (him and other "anti-violence" activists) versus culture of death (where he puts "video game industry"). He gives me the impression to have a double language : sometimes he precises that this is not an attack against all video games, and other times he doesn't make the precision. And the biggest reproach is that he's the one who brought Jack Thompson into the debate (not to mention all the guys who parrot and re-interpret his "murder simulator" theory). On the other hand, he's known for liking some video games (such as Warcraft 1) and he seems to respect truth a bit more than other "anti-game crusaders".

So although I don't really trust him, I don't put him on the same level as notorious liars and massacre chasers such as Jack Thompson and LaRouche followers. In fact, he's closer to what I call a "good video game critic" : a person who is entitled to her/his own opinion about video games (this opinion can go from a simple criticism of the most violent ones to total dislike of the whole medium), but who ultimately respects the truth, and makes sure that any accusation made is justified by the truth.

[Grahamr]

<3 Kn :D


________________________

[Grahamr]

Now if we can just disbarr jack, put the larouche cult out, and shut up the ignorant polis, things would make sense.

We can't do much fighting, mainly because we lack an army.

Our Responsive and Valiant militia were able to respond to the Larouche duo when they invaded Pixelantia in what is known to historians as "The Larouche War", But before then, President Dennis had officially abolished the Pixelante Army when he closed the Activism-board.

[Soldat_Louis]

I feel I have to up that thread, because of Grossman's latest statement (http://startelegram.typepad.com/pop_cultural_district/files/Dexter2.doc) about Dexter (quoted in PTC's press release) :


Network television has now achieved a new low. Hard to do, but they have accomplished it by making a network TV ‘hero’ out of a vicious serial killer.

Remember the old television programs and old movies where the sheriff faced down the lynch mob? He would tell them that there is going to be justice in the town, and then he sent them home in shame. Sadly, those old themes are gone.

Hollywood voluntarily submitted to a written code, beginning in 1930 and continuing through 1968 when the MPAA rating system was set up. This ‘Hays Code’ said that...the MORAL IMPORTANCE of entertainment is something which has been universally recognized. It enters intimately into the lives of men and women and affects them closely; it occupies their minds and affections during leisure hours; and ultimately touches the whole of their lives. A man may be judged by his standard of entertainment as easily as by the standard of his work.

Movies like Casablanca and Gone With The Wind were made under a code that a criminal was not rewarded, violent behavior and lawlessness was always punished, and the criminal was never the hero. Well, that code went away in the late 1960s and then we got Dirty Harry, Charles Bronson in the Death Wish series, and Richard Roundtree in Shaft.

Today, there is a new type of hero in action, adventure and horror movies, in plots that almost always play out the same way. They begin with horrific death and destruction so vivid, so in-your-face that audiences, kids included, are virtual witnesses to bloody celluloid realism. Then the audience sits through the rest of the movie as the hero desperately seeks vengeance. Toward the end, it is often the bad guys who are shown playing by the rules, as the hero turns into an avenger, violating codes of ethics and breaking laws along the way. Anthropologists and sociologists say there is great power in the stories we tell ourselves, so when we tell tales of vengeance, we are going to reap avengers.

Say we have a kid being bullied. He feels helpless and powerless to fight back. He is not into sports, martial arts or any activity other than playing video games. He associates only with friends who feel the same way he does. He is, in fact, exactly like all the school killers from Columbine High to Jonesboro, Arkansas, and a dozen places in between. And the kids who gave us Jonesboro in the middle school and Columbine in the high school are now giving us Virginia Tech in the college. These killers shared one common trait: an obsession with media violence. Like all the others, this kid becomes convinced that the right response is anger followed by revenge. What began as an outrageous act of bullying, soon begets an even more outrageous act of revenge. It is an all too common vicious cycle that is happening inside our kids’ schools right now.

And now we have come to a new low, with a serial killer as the 'hero' on the public airwaves. It is time to take back the airwaves, and to throw out the wretched people and corporations who have turned our airwaves into a moral sewer.


Note, though, that this statement doesn't appear on Grossman's own website.

[BlackIce, British Commie]

<3 Kn :D


________________________

:eek::eek::eek:

[beemoh]

This paragraph bothers me, as he seems to go from "games" to "violence" with no acknowledgement that there may be areas where the two don't go together:

Say we have a kid being bullied. He feels helpless and powerless to fight back. He is not into sports, martial arts or any activity other than playing video games. He associates only with friends who feel the same way he does. He is, in fact, exactly like all the school killers from Columbine High to Jonesboro, Arkansas, and a dozen places in between. And the kids who gave us Jonesboro in the middle school and Columbine in the high school are now giving us Virginia Tech in the college. These killers shared one common trait: an obsession with media violence. Like all the others, this kid becomes convinced that the right response is anger followed by revenge. What began as an outrageous act of bullying, soon begets an even more outrageous act of revenge. It is an all too common vicious cycle that is happening inside our kids’ schools right now.

[Icehawk]

This paragraph bothers me, as he seems to go from "games" to "violence" with no acknowledgement that there may be areas where the two don't go together:

Many truths we hold depend on a certain point of view. (Obi Wan Kenobi)

For myself I think he is blinded or more to the point sees what he wants to see. How does games have anything to do with altering the movie code or bullying?

Where is the root of the problem and why are none trying to deal with it? No a target is needed and all to often that target is popular media.

On the upside at least none are trying to claim the games trained him or made him lash out. Its just... implied

[Pominator]

The thing is: there will always be someone out there who does not like your entertainment medium and will go all out to attack it, completely forgetting that s/he had a social entertainment that was looked down upon back in their day, Comic books were looked down upon by people who hated their parents for not letting them go see the talkies at the theatre.

Dungeons and dragons taken the hit from parents who listened to that "obscene" musician called Elvis, what with his terribly sexual pelvic movements and all that, it is a never ending cycle, come the next generation we will be attacking nanotech holophase projectors that have us in the middle of a movie.

[Demontestament]

Remember the old television programs and old movies where the sheriff faced down the lynch mob? He would tell them that there is going to be justice in the town, and then he sent them home in shame. Sadly, those old themes are gone.

Yeah, you see this does not happen in the real world. The mob would of taken the Sheriff out along with who ever they were lynching because he got in their way.

[Pominator]

yeah, but this guy is trapped in the old western films

[Demontestament]

yeah, but this guy is trapped in the old western films

So Lt. Grossman is actually Revolver Ocelot? :eek:

[Pominator]

what? no!

no one could be so lame as to actually be in anything related to any metal gear game! I mean come on! The guy has standards!

/hating on Hayter

[Demontestament]

what? no!

no one could be so lame as to actually be in anything related to any metal gear game! I mean come on! The guy has standards!

/hating on Hayter

What makes you hate David Hayter?

[Pominator]

I have never really enjoyed the metal gear games, MGS1 was alright, but the rest of them were far too contrived and silly, don't get me wrong, it was fun to see Snake running around with his bandana flowing behind him, smoking to reveal laser trip wires and snapping necks, but it began to drain on me, and after playing MGS2 I just decided that it had gone completely off the rocks, that Raiden fellow was the most annoying and poorly constructed character that I had ever played as (and I have played Lifeforce Tenka!) The whole story was built as some sort of collaboration between every Japanese cartoon producer out there and resulted in the most convoluted, yet contrived plot that I ever had to sit through!

Some things cannot be forgiven, MGS 2 is one such "thing"

Oh and I am looking hella forward to Splinter cell conviction later this year!

[BearDogg-X]

Dave "Forrest Gump" Grossman is nothing more than a ignorant idiot.

Never mind that Dexter is based on a book series, and that he only kills 'bad guys', like other serial killers, mob assassins, drunk drivers, etc. What's wrong with that?

Grossman himself dives head-first into the "moral sewer" everytime he mentions Columbine and every other school shooting that's taken place in the last ten years.

And so-called "violent" media had jacksquat to do with Virginia Tech according to the official report from Virginia Tech itself, so that makes the Forrest Gump lookalike a liar as well.

[Pominator]

unfortunately some people just have such strong conviction that they are right that they will not stop to look at the facts, you should see my college's resident PS3 owner...

[Soldat_Louis]

I found on YouTube the video of an old post-Columbine debate on Fox News, between Grossman and PC Gamer editor-in-chief Gary Whitta. It lasts 10 minutes : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfw0DYUzu44

[GamesLaw]

Dave "Forrest Gump" Grossman is nothing more than a ignorant idiot.

Never mind that Dexter is based on a book series, and that he only kills 'bad guys', like other serial killers, mob assassins, drunk drivers, etc. What's wrong with that?

Grossman himself dives head-first into the "moral sewer" everytime he mentions Columbine and every other school shooting that's taken place in the last ten years.

And so-called "violent" media had jacksquat to do with Virginia Tech according to the official report from Virginia Tech itself, so that makes the Forrest Gump lookalike a liar as well.

Grossman is in fact actually an expert in his field. It just so happens that he doesn't understand that his field does not include games and psychology of gaming. I've met the man, and he's a very intelligent, very astute individual, not at all a liar as you insinuate, but he's just entering a field he doesn't belong in.

[Soldat_Louis]

Last news from Grossman : on November 17, he'll speak at a Media Violence Conference (http://www.thefreeradical.ca/Halton-District-School-Board-Media-Violence-Symposium.pdf) in Ontario, Canada. Title of the speech : "Lessons From Columbine, Littleton and Virginia Tech: The Relationship Between Media Violence and Violence Crime".

[KN]

I feel I have to up that thread, because of Grossman's latest statement (http://startelegram.typepad.com/pop_cultural_district/files/Dexter2.doc) about Dexter (quoted in PTC's press release) :



Note, though, that this statement doesn't appear on Grossman's own website.

Dexter owns