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Killing Video Games
Notice, too, the ignorance of how video games are used, by whom, and to what effect. Only a small fraction of gamers use point-and-shoot games any more. Meanwhile, violence among the young has been dropping for several years, not rising. And there is no significant or credible evidence linking point-and-shoot games with youth violence, anyway.
No less an authority than the U.S. Secret Service cautions in a special study of school shootings that it's dangerous to generalize about the causes of violence among kids. "The use of profiles is not effective either for identifying students who may pose a risk for targeted violence at school or -- once a student has been identified -- for assessing the risk that a particular student may pose for school-based targeted violence." The Secret Service study cited bullying and harassment as a primary cause of the recent spate of school attacks, and made no mention of video games in general (or point-and-shoot games in particular) as a cause of school violence. You can read the report for yourself. Too bad State Sen. Toni Harp hasn't.
Harp, a New Haven Democrat and the bill's main sponsor, predictably ripped Governor Rowland for pledging to veto her inane legislation. She told the Hartford Courant newspaper that she hopes Connecticut doesn't experience a "tragedy like Columbine, because then he can take some responsibility." Sen. Harp, the mother of three apparently unfortunate children, argues that "these are games that train people to kill." Nowhere in her proposed bill or public statements did she offer any factual support of that foolish and demonstrably false statement. But many of her fellow legislators didn't appear to notice or care, sending this message to kids: lawmakers know nothing about the contemporary world, and rarely follow even minimal standards of research, accuracy or integrity.
Harp first introduced her bill -- which passed by an 82 to 63 vote --in l999, just weeks after the Columbine killings. It would require business owners to control video gaming the same way they restrict sales of cigarettes (at least there's substantial medical research supporting the idea that tobacco is unhealthy) and liquor, by prohibiting anyone under 18 from playing games that involve firing simulated guns at simulated human beings. Operators of public video-game outlets would have faced fines up to $1,000 for letting minors grab the joysticks for games Sen. Harp considers violent and distatesful.
Under her bill -- you can't make this up -- minors could kill simulated aliens and animals at will, however. As for other "weapons," the bill doesn't address violent games that don't involve guns. There must be something in the state's drinking water. U.S. Senator and former vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman has introduced legislation in the U.S. Congress that would make it a federal crime to show R-rated movie trailers in any place where children might possibly see them.
"We've got to realize that we can't legislate everyting under the sun," said Gov. Rowland, himself the father and stepfather of five kids under 16. "It's too much big government, it's too much Big Daddy. Let's send a message to parents that, 'Hey there are some games out there that are pretty ugly, and why don't you go see what your kids are doing?" Rowland also noticed that the bill would be a nightmare to enforce, if it were even possible. We are shocked by this kind of logic from public officials, even though the idea that parents ought to yank their kids out of video game parlors for playing point and shoot games is still pretty inane.
If Sen. Harp knew anything at all about the evolution of gaming, she might re-consider her stance. If point-and-shoot games actually turned kids into murderers, there would be few people under 18 left alive in the United States.
Americans now name video games as their favorite form of entertainment, according to one recent survey by the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA). TV came in a distant second, with Web-surfing third. If you include home entertainment systems like PlayStation, then video games are the runaway national pastime. One hundred and forty-five million Americans play computer and video games, the IDSA estimates. The vast majority (80 per cent) aren't kids at all: typical gamers are between 28 and 30, and nearly half are women.
Gaming isn't merely hunt-and-kill challenges for adolescents -- it includes everything from urban-planning, trivia, gambling, bridge and chess puzzles to complex, sophisticated journeys into the imagination. And it's making a ton of money.
Game-related revenue totalled more than $8.9 billion in 1999, topping the $7.3 billion generated that year by movie box office receipts. This isn't a cult; it's mainstream entertainment.
MIT's Henry Jenkins and other scholars have been pointing out in recent years that gaming is revolutionizing the imagination. Yet it's been greeted by the same Puritan ethic that regards play as suspicious, Jenkins has written, and which denounced other new forms of entertainment and culture, from novels to TV.
The biggest category of games are strategy and role-playing games, followed by by action, sports and racing. (Hunt-and-kill games are now down to 15 percent of the market).
In some way, politicians like Sen. Harp ought to be held accountable for their laziness, their disconnection from their own constitituencies, ignorance of the cultural lives of the young, and lack of regard for basic freedom. It's hardly a democratic value to bring government into decisions like what movies kids can see or which video games parents ought to allow them to play.
As for Gov. Rowland, he gets the Penguin award for rational response to the post-Columbine hysteria.
Quake teaches many valuable lessons that can be directly applied to every day life.
My goodness. Has anyone even given any thought to why boys like games associated with war and strategy?
Frankly, I believe that if we remove all the virtual outlets for male aggresion, we'll see a whole lot more violence amoung those kids who aren't typically interested in sports (most sports being war-like games themselves).
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
Drugs became illegal in the US because of these exact types of stupid legislators. Now, it's part of our culture. Walk down the street and you can find zillions of people who actually believe that pot kills.
Same with video games. Once they ban them, it's easy to "educate" people with PR campaigns. Eventually, hardly anyone will remember the days when a 10 year old could play space invaders. Zillions of people will actually believe that videogames cause violence. Truth won't matter. Science won't matter. Research won't matter. They will believe it because they don't think about it, and are afraid to take a minority stand.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Long ago we needed a separation between Church and State. Now we need a separation between Parent and State. Parents need to take some responsiblitity in raising their children and stop blaming every form of media that doesn't fit into their package of morals.
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InstantCool
<sarcasm>
Thats right let the government take control of the tasks which I as a parent am supposed to have control over.
I don't want to be a responsible parent and teach my kid right from wrong, I want to live in a society who dictates that for me. Uncle Sam hit the ball right on its mark, I mean why should I tell my kids how to act in society, or the differences from movies, video games, and reality when I could push the blame on those darn folks who make those games.
Look when I was growing up sure we listened to people like Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, and we never once bit the head off a bat, unlike that wretched Marilyn Manson.
When I grew up, we didn't look at films by John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood and decide to go shoot up our schools. My great government at the time did their darndest best to make sure guns didn't flood the schools, and education back then was the focal point of society.
No more. I say forget spending on education and send that money towards the prison systems, where all the kids will rot for playing video games. Least when I grew up we didn't have video games. We just had World War II, and Vietnam, real man games.
Damned kids
</sarcasm>
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But they aren't any more secure. Little boys have always played war, or cowboys and indians, or knights in shining armor. Quake III doesn't encourage hooliganism anymore than cap guns or toy swords.
Until society stops looking for the quick fix and instead tries to hunt down its inherent problems and reform them, things will continue as they are.
Got Rhinos?
From the Wall Street Journal's Zero Tolerance Archive.
In Jonesboro, Ark., eight-year-old Christopher Kissinger has been suspended from South Elementary School for three days. Christopher's crime: pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and saying "Pow, pow, pow." The Associated Press reports that "the incident apparently violated the Jonesboro School District's zero-tolerance policy against weapons."
Nearby Westside Middle School was the site of a 1998 shooting in which four students and a teacher were killed. No poultry was involved in that crime.
Physics, Cosmology and
Who needs unhealthy fps games like Quake? Games that teach you that killing human shaped things in a non realistic environment is OKAY? I would not want my children playing such awful awful kinds of entertainment. Pointing & Shooting? Why, no wonder so many kids are shooting up schools!
I would much rather my children play healthy, non fps games that teach them healthier lessons! Like Need for speed 3 or Grand Theft Auto 2. This way my kids will learn valuable driving skills and will know the proper respect to give authority figures.
This comment is pretty old, I know, but I think it's worth repeating. Here we go.
During the second presidential debate Governer Bush proclaimed that 'a child could turn to the Internet and have their heart turn dark'. During the third debate Gore spoke of the 'battle' between popular culture and parenting, and of the need for federal regulation to help parents 'win'.
Many people think I am a sarcastic asshole. I do not pay attention to warning labels on music. I wept not only for the victims of the massacre at Columbine, but also for the persecution that followed, and the resulting paranoia of people like the Trenchcoat Mafia. I enjoy reading the Onion (http://www.theonion.com). I am not one of 'the right people', whoever they are. I feel that my way of life is threatened. I feel that Al Gore wants to ban MAD Magazine. I am scared when Bush claims 'there should be limits to freedom' in response to a website parody tilted against him.
I want these politicians to know that I am not a grumkin hiding in a sewer or a dark alley, ready to pop out and sing some Tom Lehrer songs to innocent, impressionable youths (I don't like sewers that much). I am not the enemy, and I am not an insurance liability. _We_ are good people, and _we_ will not be silenced or legislated against, or used as a debating "straw man" to symbolize something that is wrong with America. In fact, I strongly believe that America without people like us would be a bland and boring place.
I've printed up a whole bunch of little buttons with dark hearts on them, a la pink triangle. If you agree with my views, or even if you think I'm a total whiner who should move to Canada anyhow, I would be honored to have you wear a Dark Heart button.
Anyway, if you want some buttons, I'll send you five anywhere, for free. Just send your snailmail address to ohako79@hotmail.com, and I promise to delete your address afterwards.
Sincerely,
Keith Page
"Hey there are some games out there that are pretty ugly, and why don't you go see what your kids are doing?"
Computers, televisions, playstations and all similiar products are toys, not babysitters. Parents need to realize this and actually get involved with their child's life. Because if parents don't get involved with their children, the government will and that doesn't sound too exciting to me.
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Oh bother.
When my dad was a kid growing up in the 50s and 60s, kids got into fights all the time, they all owned air rifles (and shot them at each other), they played tackle football. They lived in a violent society. We didn't become so concerned about it as a society until we became so damn litigious. Sadly, as a law student, I fear that I may contribute to that (hopefully not -- ambulance chasing isn't in my career plan). Anyway, why don't these politicians just look to their own childhoods, look at the violence that was an inherent part of that time to see that video games are simply substitute for that real-violence lifesyle? I have an answer: because they're too far removed from the real world -- from real human experience -- for the most part to honestly and effectively repsond to these problems. Yes, it is a fact that school shootings are occurring on an unprecedented scale, and that they are far more violent (in a single instance) than, say, the average fistfight. But overall, I think we live in a less violent society now. People are just so concerned about it because of the countless lawsuits, the media, and the politi-whores who make careers out of scaring the hell out of people. Anyway, that's my .02 of rant for the day.
D'oh -- the stuff that buys me beer! Ray -- the guy who sells me beer!