Violent Videogames from a New Perspective
 

All "true" gamers have a knee-jerk reaction to the "issue" of allegedly "violent video-games." More than once we have felt our one true passion trampled on by the nefarious motives of arbitrarily officious moms and politicians.

But is there a real idea behind all this nonsense? I think so.

We are quick to dismiss the idea the violent video-games affect behavior in any way--but I think this is a grave mistake.

I think the crux of the issue is that videogames have added an unprecedented third dynamic to art--interactivity. Whereas beforehand we had only our eyes and our ears with which to experience art, we now have our hands.

And so this brings with it a whole new slew of ideas and byproducts.

I was talking with my friend the other day. Being geeks, our discussion naturally hovered around videogames, and in this case, First Person Shooters in particular. He commented on how disturbing modern FPSes really are--usually, you're one man, gunning down thousands of other grunts. Sure, this may have been 'harmless' ten or fifteen years ago, when we were shooting badly-drawn sprites, but as videogaming becomes more and more realistic, I believe the problem becomes real.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...m_ingame_2.png

It is still too 'arcadey' and 'gamey' to say--but the direction we're leaning in is frightening. In the dark and serious FPSes, the damage you wreak upon your enemies is nigh palpable. You see their limbs fly, the blood splatters on the wall--their bodies cringe and form hollow husks before your eyes. The difference between this, and say...any movie, is that you are here to witness every single death. Whereas genocide may occur off-camera in a movie, here you are, perpetrating it.

Perhaps this still may be harmless. To adults. But what about to kids? The misguided moral lesson we might learn is truly no different from any other. When Biff steals a football from the school and his dad never calls him on it, while it did not turn Biff into a kleptomaniac, what it did do was subconsciously teach him that he was exempt from the rules, and that he didn't have to take responsibility for things (see Ender's Game*). What goes through a child's head when he's gunning down man after man? Undoubtedly, the chances are low that he'll be the next Hitler. But it is certainly (I believe) desensitizing the worth of 'the rest' to him.

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What kind of culture are we fostering? Online videogames, specifically First Person Shooters, have the most hostile environment I've ever encountered in my life--this coming from a self-proclaimed addict. The anonymity of the Internet has indirectly taught us our "right" to be a raging asshole. Coupled with extremely realistic videogames, we are breeding quite the volatile generation.

I think an interesting case is the classic No One Lives Forever--a short-lived FPS franchise from the 90s. You play a female secret agent in a nostalgic satire of 60s/70s action cinema. Cute, eh? But my friend brought up the most interesting facet of the game (which I always remember as its novelty)--the enemies have lives. They are people. If you crouch just around the corner, you can hear this 'nameless' guard talking about his mortgage, or his five-year old daughter that he's picking up in a few hours. And while, surely, this was meant to be a novel and comical addition to the game, my friend found it all the more horrifying to kill these people--they are no longer faceless.

So once again, I say: that's the crux of it. The more realistic games become, the more we truly are adopting roles. What about RTSes? Coupled with FPSes, the idea is enforced even more to think of groups not as individual people gathered, but as a collective conscious. Oh so slowly, it becomes so easy to be a pundit. It becomes so easy to devalue the opinions, or perhaps, the lives, of massive quantities of people.

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And what more proof do we need than the young yuppie who grows up playing these games, who is nothing less than a heartless douche bag who frequently disparages homosexuals, african americans, and various other groups? (incidentally, another opposite, but equally interesting situation)

So I stipulate: Videogames, as an entirely new vehicle of art, allow a level of influence not previously seen in artistic mediums. Along with this comes an entirely new poential for imbued morals and ethics--especially unintentional ones.

Forgive me if I'm long-winded. I'm really not trying to present the right-wing, "ooga booga violent videogames r satan!!" perspective. If anyone managed to read this all, thank ya kindly. I fear that I haven't articulated my point completely, and I hope to do so through more discussion.


*Specifically this quote: It offers revenge without guilt. If you ever as a child felt unloved, if you ever feared that at some level you might deserve any abuse you suffered, Ender’s story tells you that you do not. In your soul, you are good. You are specially gifted, and better than anyone else. Your mistreatment is the evidence of your gifts. You are morally superior. Your turn will come, and then you may severely punish others, yet remain blameless. You are the hero.[/center]

Now, you see, this issue always comes up (I got banned from Penny Arcade for a thread exactly like this one) and it's always, always, always the same arguments. This above argument I've seen many times already, either in print, on television, or in person: it de-moralizes and de-values the ethical worth of our children. Which raises the question:

When will parents take some god-damned responsibility?

My son, who is 4, plays Nerf Arena every day. It's based on the Unreal engine, and you run around and blast the hell out of other players with Nerf rockets, Nerf bombs, and Nerf bullets. He thinks this game is hilarious, and it only took a couple of conversations for him to understand that this was just a game, and it was not right to shoot people in real life. He has a well-developed sense of reality and unreality, as shown by this (more or less exact) quote from last night.

Seb: "Daddy, Simpsons is a cartoon, right? Not a real-world TV show?"
Me: "That's right, someone drew it."
Seb: "But your other favorite movie is a real-life movie, right, with real people?"
Me: "That's right, it has real people, but it's not real-life, it's TV-life."
Seb: "Oh. When Mommy watches the news, that's real life, right?"
Me: "Right."
Seb: "And when I watch Superman, that's TV-life, right?"
Me: "Right. And whats your Nerf game?"
Seb: "Computer-game-life."

He's four. He's freaking four years old, and he has a better grasp on reality than some people I work with. He tells me how he uses triple-Nerf-rockets to blow up the other team, but they're OK because it's just Nerf. He also watches me play more adult games, and says stuff like "Wow, he exploded! Is that red stuff blood? Ohhhh no! Good thing he's a bad guy..." but he gets a kick out of it, and I'm always there to explain the difference between people and real life. He's a gentle boy, and he's always the one to coach his older cousins to play nice and not to hit, and it's awesome to watch him sit and patiently explain to his three-month-old sister that "It's not nice to kick Mommy when she's feeding you."

Moral and ethical education begins in the home with responsible parents who, instead of turning a blind eye to their children and turn an accusing eye to game manufacturers, they sit with their children, and fucking raise them.

Signed,

Parent Sick Of Being Blamed For Other Children's Problems

I have heard your arguements before, including the one about the level of interactivity. I will also point out that it is very true that exposure to violence does desensitize individuals to it. That's been proven. There's even evidence related to observational learning (the bobo doll).

What I'd like to point out concerns anti-social personality disorder. What some people don't know is that it can only be diagnosed in adults (18 or 21), but that doesn't mean someone younger can't have the same traits. Some people also make the mistake and think that those with antisocial personality disorder don't know right from wrong, which is blatantly untrue. Otherwise they wouldn't attempt to evade arrest. It is more true to say that, to a person with antisocial personality disorder, it is not wrong to hurt others.

Antisocial personality disorder is not a learned thing. It's related to the way an infant bonds with their parents or caregivers.

What I'm attempting to say is, any person with antisocial personality disorder isn't going to need encouraging from a video game to hurt another person.

I'd also like to say that restricting violent media of all kinds to younger children isn't a bad idea, so long as it has reasonable limits.

Antisocial people don't necessarily harm others.

And I'm all for restricting the sale of M-rated games to minors. I am a minor myself, and I'm still for it.

I do not, however, believe that the levels of interactivity have anything to do with it. Paintball, Nerf guns, laser tag, all examples of things even more real-life-esque than video games. I've played paintball. What do you do in paintball? Shoot functioning weapons at other real, non-electronic fleshies.

So, yeah, don't let minors buy M-rated games like you wouldn't let a minor into an R-rated movie without a parent, but understand that you as a parent have to take responsibility and teach your kid that it's not nice to shoot poeple inna face.

This could be an oversimplification. You can talk on and on about the ideal things that should be, but at the end of the day, you have to be prepared for what actually happens in life. In other words, there are bad parents that can't be counted on to prevent their children from getting possibly screwed up by lots of violent, realistic video games. Honestly, all the warning labels and frivolous lawsuits only point out how the American legal system is built to protect idiots, so yeah, it turns out it is the developers' fault if the parents aren't responsible with their children.

I totally agree. This is why I was trying to say, "from a new perspective." My point was not "..and therefore they should be banned." I was raising the question as to whether or not these games to have influence.

By saying "it's up to the parents," you seem to agree that they do exert some degree of influence. What is to be done is a whole nother matter--honestly, I don't think there's much we can do, I'd just like to see if we can analyze an exception (in videogames as opposed to other art) if there is one.

What I think is interesting is how more and more these...unregulated third-parites are raising peoples' kids for them. Surely, due to negligence. But even with lessons and warnings, I also think the issue is the demanding presence of media today. The Internet, videogames, television--they are more sprawling and far-reaching than we could ever imagine. And if it is true that through play and closed systems we grow up and learn to learn, and videogames are increasinly becoming a part of that, what does that say about our videogames? Even to adults, I question--what are we forging?

I think the difference is, whereas it's just little splashes in real life, the level of realism is so heightened that it is not little splashes--it's gory deaths. That's my specific point about realism.

I'd also like to mention something I had meant to before--with modern games also comes realistic death sequences and varied death sequences. I've often found myself, and others, killing enemies over and over again (or even civilians ;D) simply to see how they shudder and die. It reminds me of a quote from True Romance--"Now the first time you kill somebody, that's the hardest. I don't give a shit if you're fuckin' Wyatt Earp or Jack the Ripper. Remember that guy in Texas? The guy up in that fuckin' tower that killed all them people? I'll bet you green money that first little black dot he took a bead on, that was the bitch of the bunch. First one is tough, no fuckin' foolin'. The second one... the second one ain't no fuckin' Mardis Gras either, but it's better than the first one 'cause you still feel the same thing, y'know... except it's more diluted, y'know it's... it's better. I threw up on the first one, you believe that? Then the third one... the third one is easy, you level right off. It's no problem. Now... shit... now I do it just to watch their fuckin' expression change.

As immersion becomes more and more of a goal for videogame companies, won't this become even more effective--and potentially morbid? Like the link I posted before about The Sims: you construct these lives, you give these Sims context, and then you tear them down and watch them suffer. I just think it reveals what we're capable of--basically, think The Milgram Experiment. Can this apply to videogames? (please click--very relevant)

I don't like the direction this is headed. I believe the point is being missed, here. Parents aren't the sole ones morally culpable. I'm tdddalking about the very stuff we're manufacturing. I'm talking about the art itself--the art's validity. I think specifically this idea I'm proposing only applies to the last (and future) generation of videogames, as well--we are starting to breach that uncanny level of realism.

This is specifically why I'm not trying to start another "let's ban videogames" thread.

I'd also like to note that I'm mostly playing devil's advocate on this; while I'm developing this theory, I'm more ambivalent with myself on the issue.

Until America (other nations already have) comes up with a way to keep violent games out of the hands of children talking about it doesn't do jack. Hand the kid a loaded gun and let him have at it.

I agree with your points as stated in your latest post, Locke.

I do not, however, see the connection between America having to keep violent video games away from kids and giving them loaded real guns, Steve.

Well, yes, there is a multi-billion dollar market for violent games, but I think that it helps us to forge personalities who can separate violence from their daily lives. Growing up, my favorite games? Civilization, Colonization, Civilization II, racing games.... and Diablo. See, I love violent games, but I also loved puzzle games. I wasn't being raised to equate television and games with violence, I was equating television and video games with things I normally never get to experience, such as a challenging puzzle, social interaction AND violence.

But personally, I think as long as we still live in a world where tens of thousands of people die every day in wars, that maybe video games aren't how we would worry about affecting the development of our children. My son watched the news a few nights ago, and I had a fucker of a time explaining while real-life people were dropping missiles on eachother, when neither of them were the bad guys.

The problem is really that there's the 90% of children who at least have somewhat responsible (albiet certainly, imperfect) parents who correctly teach them right from wrong, and imaginary from real, and video games from real life. And then you have the 10% of children who are neglected. The 90% of children who at least are given some form of guidelines, generally speaking, can play all the violent video games in the world and still be capable of living ethical, productive, and benevolent lives.

These 90% of children actually probably benefit from videogames and are nicer people because of it (myself included,) because they have an outlet which they can purge their frustrations with, and they don't have to take out their anger in the "real world." I benefitted immensely from being able to play Metal Gear Solid and Medal of Honor after a tough day at school. Instead of actually aggressively confronting bullies, I shot a Nazi soldier in the head and felt the relief of being "in control" and a "dominant force to be feared" without actually wreaking havoc in reality. It's kind of like being able to play "what-if" scenairos with your imagination, and you benefit from it because afterwards you can get on with your life without feeling all like you want to hurt people you personally know.

But then there's that dastardly 10%, and they ruin things for the majority of us because those children actually aren't well-parented, and subsequently the only way to draw the line for them is to have third parties (like the government and ESRB rating crackdowns) intervene. These 10% have no ethical boundaries because their parents, for whatever various reasons, never enforce them; so you put a violent videogame in their hands and it merely gives them very, very bad ideas. Of course, violent movies and violent music has the same effects, but because movies and music have been a part of American culture longer, the older generations generally don't 'attack' those sources of entertainment as 'potential problems.'

So, frankly, I actually don't mind the idea of cracking down a bit on M-rated videogames. I don't think kids under 18 should be playing them without their parents' permission or at least, their knowledge. I don't see not selling M-rated videogames to minors as some horrific affront on "rights" to freedom because if you're not 18 you're a minor and you don't yet deserve all those rights. There are more than enough great Teen-rated videogames out there; heck, every Final Fantasy is T-rated, as is just about every Nintendo game ever made. It's not as if we'd be horrible monsters depriving kids by preventing them from playing Grand Theft Autos.

Video games aren't the "devil" contrary to the view of a certain Congressman, but at the same time, we gamers can at least negotiate compromises with concerned third-party authorities as opposed to just sticking our faces in the mud and pretending that video games have no negative influences whatsoever. It goes without saying that if gamers believe video games have positive influences (on our capability to reason, our capacity for problemsolving and innovation, etc.), that negative consequences can stem from them as well. The problem really is that when gamers respond to the assaults of certain Congressmen by saying "YUR AN IDIOT GO TO HELL LOL GAMES AR GOOD," we only reinforce the public's perception of us gamers as immature children incapable of maturity, responsibility or reasonable compromise.