Reread what I actually said. I didn't say violent video games weren't popular.
I said very few people derive direct pleasure from simulating murder in eg a video game. When you stomp on a bad guy in Mario, you are not feeling the serial killer equivalent to some kind of sweet orgasmic reaction high to murdering a fellow human with a butcher knife in real life. There is no connection at all.
To put it into movie terms: a lot of people enjoy action movies (which include violence), the latest flick by The Rock etc, they're exciting. A dramatically smaller share of the population enjoys watching highly graphic, gruesome, murder movies like Hostel or Saw. And that's not the person simulating murder, that's second hand, watching the simulation of it, and the drop off in popularity is extreme.
People are not having fun in GTA because they get off on actually murdering people and their sole physical outlet for it is relegated to a video game. All of those players aren't actually lusting after wanting to slaughter their fellow humans.
You can simulate sex in VR, or watch porn, and then go have sex, jerk off all day, etc. There's a direct connection.
Very, very, very few people murder or actually want to murder; some extremely high percentage of the population wants sex, has sex, jerks off, etc.
I said very few people derive direct pleasure from simulating murder in eg a video game. When you stomp on a bad guy in Mario, you are not feeling the serial killer equivalent to some kind of sweet orgasmic reaction high to murdering a fellow human with a butcher knife in real life. There is no connection at all.
To put it into movie terms: a lot of people enjoy action movies (which include violence), the latest flick by The Rock etc, they're exciting. A dramatically smaller share of the population enjoys watching highly graphic, gruesome, murder movies like Hostel or Saw. And that's not the person simulating murder, that's second hand, watching the simulation of it, and the drop off in popularity is extreme.
People are not having fun in GTA because they get off on actually murdering people and their sole physical outlet for it is relegated to a video game. All of those players aren't actually lusting after wanting to slaughter their fellow humans.
You can simulate sex in VR, or watch porn, and then go have sex, jerk off all day, etc. There's a direct connection.
Very, very, very few people murder or actually want to murder; some extremely high percentage of the population wants sex, has sex, jerks off, etc.