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Looking at Video Games and Violence
rootrider writes "Mark Rahner of the Seattle Times has written a great article discussing the recent trend here in the US to outlaw the purchase of violent video games by minors. I'm sure articles have been written in the past that refute the idea that video games lead to violence, but this is the first mainstream article I've seen that details the issue and does it well." The trend isn't really that new. In the past, Ozzy Osbourne and Dungeons and Dragons have been favorite scapegoats, and when I was in high school it was gangsta rap music. I can't wait until we can attribute violence to the nightly news.
During times of war I tend away from video games which involve killing people. Images in the news, particularly if you've gone to the Al-Jezeera site and looked at their un-censored images (yes, this is what war is really like, unlike what you see on US news broadcasts), disturb me and I tend to shift of to strategy games and D&D (where I'm hacking monsters to bits, rather than humans.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I do have an issue with the 'embedded' coverage not showing complete combat footage or dead bodies. There should be an adult news channel where the full account resides - to remind us what is being lost in those battles.
War is sad, its just sometimes necessary. The whole truth of it should be shown regardless.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
A short introduction: My fridge kicked the bucket two weeks ago. I quickly started investigating where to buy a new and cheap fridge fast. The trip went to the Expert chain on the other side of the road and I inquired about the latest Whirpool fridges. I talked to the salesperson on the showroom floor and then went to the checkout to investigate the prices. I also started to look for a stove and a to-piece ceramic plate for later
There I saw a familiar sight. There was a poster of GTA3 along with a printed message saying "This store does not carry the following games: GTA3, GTA: Vice City and BMX XXX. because we don't sell violent games to youngsters. We boycott these games"
The really catered to the asshole in me and I asked exactly why they did not want to sell these games. The clerk stumbled out som answer like "We don't want young people to see graphic contents etc.". I asked her if she had actually read the covre of games like GTA:VC. The cover here is covered with a warning not to distribute to youngsters, approx 1/3 of the front in size. She had not.
I asked her if the store prevously had a practise of selling this game to children, thus ignoring the manufacturer's warning. She said no.
I then said that if you only sold the game to people 18 years of age, why boycott it? She could not give an answer to that.
I then spoke to the store manager and said: "I disagree to your boycott and have decided to cease all purchases from this store and all Expert stores until you let people think a bit for themselves. This wil cost you the following in lost sales in near future."
The owner really got something to think about then. He looked dumbfounded.
I walked out of that store and went to a mom-and-pop electronics storer that did not carry videogames at all and they were nicer and cheaper. After completing the purchases there I went to the Expert store and showed the manager the 3000USD reciept for sales he missed. I underlined that I would NEVER purchase anything there, but walk a click to the next store.
Again, I believe he started to think about the boycott.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/cv2.htm
overall, violent crime in the US has been on the decline since 1993.
interesting coincidence: the decline started the year DOOM was released, one of the first widespread, graphically violent games.
and a proven statistic: the higher the unemployment, the higher the crime rate. does this mean we can make bad economic policy illegal too?
Someone mod this dude up. "redundant" is an unfair mod.
Seriously tho, there is a Brisbane Australian Academic who I'm verry fond of called "John Hartley", and in his book "teleology, studies in television", he uses a word "Paedocracy"; Rule by children for children.
Basically the idea is that in the interests of "protecting the children", adult interests are subsumed to the point where we become as children under the regulatory reigme of parenthood. The adult never gets to 'become' an adult.
Interestingly almost EVERY study done thats found that violent tv or games causes probs in kids have tended to either come from
(A) Right wing think tanks, which most academics I've met rate somewhere around creationism in the legitimacy stakes (ie zero) or
(B) Have methodological holes the size of craters.
What *HAS* come across however, is that the only tv violence that does seem to mess with kids is.... news violence! Basically the idea is that for young kids, the violence on TV is real, and de-contextualised. Kids have a surprisingly well honed ability to tell real from play, and the worse "play" violence on TV/games seems to lead to is occasionally rougher play in the schoolyard. (Ie recreating powerrangers etc), but not to fisticuffs or anything.
Now, just the other day, a friend of mine told me in rather exasperated terms how he was freaked out that his 4 year old daughter was terrified that mister president bush was going to fly a plane and bomb her day care center. She didnt understand that the little blown up kids on the tv set (Hey nice one TV guys, showing bodies on newsflashes during 9am cartoons.. gee thanx) was part of a complex series of political events staged on the other side of the planet. The 4yo brain just dont get that iraq is not a 5 minute bus ride away, and that the Americans are 'on our side'.
Basically , she dont get the context, but knew the killing was real.
And thats the rub. Real violence causes real problems, while 'pretend' violence only leads to 'pretend' problems.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
But one of the things I rarely see mentioned is this - not terribly unlike the JFK consipracy theorists of the world, people who make the bold sweeping claim that video game violence caused things like Columbine do like to hang on to the tiny shreds of evidence that support their theory and ignore the mountains of evidence against it.
The lawyer mentioned in the article has attempted to make a living off of suing video game makers. His Kip Kinkle and Columbine cases were thrown out, so either he's making money either way or he's getting really frustrated right now. In addition to the Beltway Sniper case, he's suing the government over the America's Army game. His mentality is that of a spammer - it doesn't matter how sleazy and slimy what he does is, so long as he gets paid.
And the fact is that all you have to do is bring a picture of a dead kid and a waving finger to Congress and you can get any law in the world you want passed.
But think about it - how many violent kid incidents do you ever hear about? Columbine, Kip Kinkle, those kids in Arkansas, that kid in Flint. That's what, four? And what did they all have in common? Well three of them were white kids shooting white kids (the kid in Flint was a black kid shooting a white kid - significant since the kids were six years old). But what about black kids shooting black kids? It happens all the time, but the news never centers on it. Similarly, when Elizabeth Smart went missing it was Chandra Levy Part II, but the same week a black girl from a poor neighboorhood was kidnapped and no one outside of her state cared.
So the parents groups, mostly white people terrified of this happening to them, use this handful of incidents and blow them out of proportion. The game industry is growing while the overall crime rate is dropping. We haven't had a big school shooting since Columbine. And the biggest retailers (Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop) won't sell M-rated games to minors.
Personally I support not selling M-rated games to minors, but not at the point of law. The movie industry hasn't needed laws to enfore R-rated movies. Do kids still see them? Sure. But they can't just walk in. And consider this - kids can't pirate cigarettes, but if you make it to where kids can't buy M-rated games by law they'll just hit up the newsgroups.
Schnapple