A pretty good example is taking your car to go everywhere vs going by foot/taking public transport. Staying in your car/bubble gives you no opportunity for random encountering while being "in public" can lead to many unexpected things (girlfriends, fights, etc.) and gives you more life experiences.

I think the biggest thing you actually miss, is seeing the majority of people where ever you happen to live/move.

In a country like Finland thats not soo biggie, but as you move to a country where the rich are truly rich and the poor are really really poor - the bubble effect goes ^3

I always wonder how and why the majority of people always train this ignorance.
Maybe it's because I grew up in a really messed up environment that it's easier for me to have compassion now.

compassion does not equal (hyper) sensitivity.

Like i stated before, alot of this has to do in my opinion about how we can these days build our own "reality experience".

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Its easy to read about stuff that interests us "easily" and comment on these sort of things, thus perhaps feel part of some like minded community.

"Buuhuuu, the cute dog is going to be killed because of ebola suspection" vs "actual boring news about xxxx people in africa/whereever dying for some boring mundane cause".

Its like unless the reality really comes inside your house/home door without asking, its pretty easy to ignore instead of whatever pleases one better. If climate change is not of interest to you, you can totally close your eyes to it (till sea comes inside your house) ...but if youre interested in, there is insane abundance of information and discussion concerning it.

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Also if you wanted to speak up your mind to public in days past, it was not actually very easy. These days you can just tweat whatever and potentially millions people will read and comment more on it. So in that sense i am not sure if its totally fair to say people are necessarily more sensitive - but they sure can bring their opinion more easily out to open which might look like that way.

and because of this, before it tended to only be the more extremist views that came out into the public (as it was what was 'news worthy' enough for others to report on), creating a certain bias. But today the more 'normal and mundane' views are much more represented.

That's why we have in French the expression: "He did the war" ;)

Yes, but if I say here, that I abhor the slavery, torture and systematic slaughter of animals for masses of cheap products, that I abhor the way people are wasting energy and don't care what the company they buy it from it doing to the environment humanities children have to live in, that I abhor the way discrimination even inside peoples own species is still so common, it doesn't make a difference.
People are so bombarded by crticism all the time, that they have a special layer of ignorance I like to call a subconcious mind-block to prevent anything from getting through and checking the thought patterns they are trained for and they are living without any re-thinking.

yes, thus => cocooning.

People are comfortable in their cocooning and even if someone points out 100% science that some part of their cocoon is not right/sustainable etc - its usually ignored. The cocoon, "self selected reality" so to speak is either so comfortable that you dont want to lose anything from it or youre so used to the bad stuff, that you dont really want to stirr it either. I mean things could be even worse than in your cocoon right now rrrright? :)

But its all very human thing, its sad - but its also very understandable.

After all human brain evolved to work with day to day survival and tribal social relations. Not global world destroying stuff or the long term fate of whole race. To huge majority that is simply uncomprehensible:

Just today there was news about 800 000 people having been force to leave their homes because of Crimean crisis. Now try to comprehend what that -really- means. Imagine 800 000 people, then them leaving their homes. People just dont get these stuff, cant say i do very well either. The cuddly cat videos and such are more easy to comment on -__-

...i am pretty sure i either went OT or derailed something somewhere. My bad ;)

Speaking of cocooning, Canada losing civil rights and increasing security measures in 5... 4... 3...

Fear conquers all.

Not sure if you did. In that analogy, the devs trying to push their game to GOG and feeling entitled to have their way would be the mafia men ;) Fair enough. Let's stop right there. That's one gigantic strawman you built. Let me reiterate. My entire point was that the effects are not black-and-white. For you, it seems to be either no effect at all or ppl turning into violent psychopaths. See, you can have quite serious negative effects in between the two.

People usually don't run away from their real-life problems to play Dear Esther or Broken Sword. Simplistic run-n-shoots carry a lot more appeal. As the gameplay is mindless, repetitive, and possibly addictive, the more you play, the more it can aggravate the underlying problem you ran away from in the first place. Ranging from being anxious, angry, and thus rude to ppl in you surroundings, deepening your depression, to hitting someone or hurting yourself in a violent outburst that could be linked with you immersing yourself in a violence-ridden fantasy world are all a possibility. If you keep coming back or can't resist not to, you may start losing your friends, start neglect yourself and/or your partner etc. Your elevated aggression might progressively impair your ability to judge things critically, you might start imagining real people as victims in games you play and round and round it goes, leading who knows where. And let me be clear - the virtual violence almost always being but one of the contributing factors to make your life a misery, if that happens.

And how the violence in particular plays a role? See, in real life, people have problems and things don't often go according to their wishes. People are dependent, weak, ill, or too insecure to have enough agency in the society at large. But a game puts them in control, it gives them power. And there's arguably no more potent a drug than the destructive power at your fingertips. It's very appealing to young men in their teens who try to find their place in the world. I know it was to me when I was a teen (and my opinions about violent games were quite similar to yours back then).

Now, we can perhaps talk about the regulation angle. Just as the negative effects of violence are nuanced - it doesn't have to end with a killing spree for anyone to take notice - the regulation should be nuanced as well. Again, from the discussion thus far, you seem to only recognize two categories: "anything goes" and "it's banned!!1!". But that's not how reality works.

We don't advertise hardcore porn in the streets yet it's readily available to anyone able and old enough to get it. On the same account, there's certainly no need to advertise trash like Hatred everywhere in order for you or anyone else able and old enough to get it.

I hope you at least agree that this kind of game should not be sold to kids and mentally ill. In other words that at the very least these groups should be _free from_ its influence even though someone who wants to make a buck might think otherwise.

Bottom line, partial censorship (as in Fallout) or restricted access could be annoying and might create a minor inconvenience for some, but it is not by any stretch equivalent to full-blown censorship that results in a legal ban. And from what I've read here, most opponents of this game would go with the former rather than the latter. So here's hoping that nuances in serious and complex issues won't be lost on you the next time you look at them. Oh really? Did you have anything specific in mind?

If you think generation Y is bad, you'll have a lot of fun dealing with the people from Generation Z... They are coming for us... Their level of narcissism and sensitivity will probably force older generations to live the rest their lives as hermits. I've already encountered a few of them in online mutliplayer games like Call Of Duty and No Room In Hell and all I can say is....RUN........RUN....far away. Get to the choppa.

Gen-Z. Zombies. Gen-Zombie. Yep. Makes sense. If there is a choppa available, I shall indeed attempt to get to it.

Okay, I''ll bite. Shut your whore mouths, turdlings. Yes, you big pampered crybabies with a fragile psyche, you. For some reason couples after the war decided to spawn intellectually deficient intestinal worms rather than flush them down the toilet. Clinched your sphincters yet? Feeling resistance in there? Good. Cry more and suck it up. Or can't you handle being dissed on a forum, you self-absorbed narcissists? Do you want a mod to come here and do some "social engineering nonsense"?

[It's in the plural, so, not a personal attack! hur hur hur!]

I'd agree with that. There’s a problem when parents with no interest in games go into a gaming shop thinking it’s basically Toys-R-Us, and come out with an 18+ murderfest for their eight year old son. You might even say more games like Hatred could continue to help change the public perception of ‘games are for kids’. Part of being a parent is also doing your best to control the content your child absorbs based on general appropriateness and their development (every child is different in this regard). Does anybody do that any more? I mean, actually sit down and play the game for half an hour before giving their child free reign?