Perspectives On Games And Violence

Thanks to GameSpy for their column discussing the recent news stories linking games and violence, which provides a considered perspective on stories of sniping, neglect, and sadness, suggesting that "...it makes great news to juxtapose crimes and violent games. Sadly, it appears that 'great news' coverage too often comes from making an emotional connection for the reader/listener/viewer. Not one based on facts, but emotions." There's another article on games and violence at GamerDad.com, also trying to answer this most difficult of questions: "I see [the media] blaming a hobby I love. But they could blame almost anything. But I think that no matter what they blamed, what [the perpetrators] did still wouldn't make any sense whatsoever."

Comments

It's about giving kids the tools

[Dancin_Santa]

Take a good look at the Columbine videos. Those Klebold and Harris learned how to handle those weapons from video games. They learned how to not be afraid of the weapons. They became desensitized to the weapons and the gore which they inflicted upon the students and teachers at Columbine.

Perhaps it wasn't the games that set them off (more like multiple swirlies and wedgies in front of girls), but the violent video games they played gave them the tools to perform their carnage.

If it didn't work so well to desensitize kids to violence, the military wouldn't be using the same type of simulations to train troops.

Re:It's about giving kids the tools

[Grand]

"but the violent video games they played gave them the tools to perform their carnage."

How do you get real guns after you play violent video games? Am I missing some bonus levels or something ?

Re:It's about giving kids the tools

[domninus.DDR]

I have to argue against this... I play a *ton* of gorey, realistic first person shooters (35 hours a week?), and I am still sensitive to violence. I close my eyes during senseless violence like the scene in trainspotting where what's-his-name throws a beer mug over the balcony so it hurts someone just to start a fight. The difference is.. shooting someone in counter-strike has a purpose (defusing the bomb! saving hostages!), and senseless violence is well.. senseless. It's not like in (many) video games you are rewarded for violently killing innocents. Besides, none of the gore in any (popular) video game compares to real life. Violent tv shows and movies desensitize much more... I just dont see this argument working. As for the military using video games, your logic doesnt really work. Havent troops been desensitized through other means for more than... well since we had militaries? Im sure the roman armies were just protecting the empire + glory of rome or some sort. The troops today also have some similar motivation to get over thier disgust at destroying human life.

Re:It's about giving kids the tools

[StocDred]

"Those Klebold and Harris learned how to handle those weapons from video games"

I would guess that they learned how to handle those weapons by actually owning those weapons. Dumbass.

Re:It's about giving kids the tools

[ArmyOfFun]

Those Klebold and Harris learned how to handle those weapons from video games.

I disagree, video games teach you nearly zero about how to actually handle a firearm. I am pretty skilled when it comes to FPS type games, but I am a horrible shot with real guns. The two are totally different experiences. Even realistic games where there is "recoil" do not match real life firing. The weight of the gun, the effect gravity has on your shot, the way recoil totally throws off your aim, as well as the noise and smoke that is produce. No video game I have ever seen accurately reproduces a single one of those feelings.

If it didn't work so well to desensitize kids to violence, the military wouldn't be using the same type of simulations to train troops.

I don't think the goal of military training is to desensitize troops to violence, if it was, why hasn't animal slaughter been a part of military training in the past? The military wants soldiers that can think/act/fight under pressure and make wise tactical decisions quickly. It is the training of tactics (as well as how to operate machinery) that the military uses simulators for. While you could argue video games made the Columbine kids better tacticians, playing elaborate games of capture the flag could've produced the same results.

Re:It's about giving kids the tools

[NanoGator]

"Those Klebold and Harris learned how to handle those weapons from video games."

That is one of the most retarded comments I've ever heard.

*Sigh* well I might as well feed the "interesting" troll here.

1.) There are major, and I do mean major differences between pointing a gun with a mouse in an easy-to-use arcade scenario and holding a gun. Saying that FPS shooters improved these kids' abilities is like saying the Jetsons taught me how to live in the future.

2.) If something like Quake is such a strong training tool, then how come none of them tried to rocket jump? Okay, silly comment, but consider how many of the other things you learn from these games that are just completely impractical in a real world situation.

3.) Why is it so hard to believe these kids didn't train on paintball guns? I mean if they were into guns that badly, it's really hard to imagine they'd limit it to Doom.

"They became desensitized to the weapons and the gore which they inflicted upon the students and teachers at Columbine."

Again, another completely retarded statement. Movies and video games (especially) do not accurately portray gore. Take a real life photo of a dead man hit in the face with a shotgun and a photo of the best make-up effect one could show in a movie and anybody'll notice the difference right away. Despite all of the violent movies and games I've played over my 25 years, Rotten.com (site that shows dead bodies) still shocks me to the point of wanting to puke. There are so many levels of detail that make-up artists don't go through.

Yah know, I just reread what I've written and what you said, and calling you a troll and saying things you've said are retarded is harsh. And I do apologize for that. I think that was more of a message to everybody I've heard (particularly in the media) who has said basically the same thing you have. They're so intent on trying to prove this that they aren't really thinking aboout it.

Believe me, if these games could make people into better killers, the Army would have been using them for years. And no, don't point me at that Go Army game. That's an attempt to get people to enlist.

Re:It's about giving kids the tools

[psyco484]

Ok, dude, seriously, step outside for a while. 35 hours a week!? I enjoy playing games immensly, but damn dude! That's 5 hours a day every day 365 days a year!

Ok, but aside from that, I'm arguing for your general point, but also against what you actually posted. First off, the original poster is way off base, and I think I've seen him particularly making the same outrageous comments repeatedly (I didn't check though). It's not about rewards for killing, it's essentially simulation. It's a fantasy outlet for a lot of people

Games do not give kids the tools to kill. Neglect, humiliation, and familiarity with violence in real life give kids the tools to kill. No amount of counter strike, doom, quake, etc. is going to make me knowledgable enough to pick up an automatic rifle and blast people. The fact is that in this particular case, these kids had plentiful access to guns, they were familiar with how to fire them, and had a lot of experience with them. I'm not saying guns cause violence, that's about as silly (maybe slightly less) as saying video games cause violence. Look, if kids are neglected, abused, humiliated, ridiculed, looked down upon, and otherwise made to feel worthless about themselves and everything around them, then obviously they aren't going to hold life too highly.

Everyone is so ready to jump to point the blame, that we miss the fact that these kids were depressed, suicidal, angry as hell, and they just didn't give a damn about anything. Their parents obviously failed to raise them in such a way that they would value life. The school system failed in that these kids were continually ridiculed, and the school didn't prevent it. The kids had mental disorders causing them to think it was a good, and just, idea to go into the school and kill people that humiliated them, and others they felt were likely the same way. It's vengence plain and simple. The kids were reported racists on top of that. I'm sorry, but hatred doesn't just crop up, it's a learned trait.

I think you would have a hard time arguing that a culture that glorifies war, vengence, and has a long history of hatred isn't bound to raise some blood-thirsty, vengeful, hateful people. That aside, I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that if the kids didn't know how to use the weapon it wouldn't have happend so easily. Kids shouldn't have guns. If that's what it has to come down to, I'm all for it. If a 12 year old can't go hunting legally with his father in the name of less youth shootings, I'm all for it.

All of this comes down to curbing a problem. There is no way to eliminate gun violence completely. There is no way to pin point which kids are going to snap and kill their school, shoot trucks on the highway, or plan out elaborate terrorist style massacres. But if you have a group of kids who have shown signs of mental illness, who are constantly harassed by their peers, or neglected by their parents or community, then you probably have an idea who to try to help instead of further shun. No single thing will fix the problem, no single thing is to blame, individuals are responsible for individual actions, but they're also impacted by their environment.

As far as video games in the military...ummm, the military has better ways to "desensitize" it's troops, if that's what you want to call it. Put a group of people in a scenario where if they hesitate on pulling the trigger they may be dead in an instant, and they're going to pull that trigger as many times as it takes to make sure the threat is eliminated. The military doesn't need video games to desensitize people, they just need to put them in a life or death situation, and the desire to live, at whatever costs, will prevail.

Sadly stuff like this seems to have to happen before people realize there might be a problem with the way our society functions. It takes tragedy to make us realize we're screwing up, and to come up with ways to fix the problem. But that's an entirely different topic.

Re:It's about giving kids the tools

[PainKilleR-CE]

As far as video games in the military..

The military says that they use video games for two reasons:
1) improve teamwork
2) expose them to situations which could be life-threatening and/or expensive if performed in a real training exercise (especially useful for vehicle simulations, like landing stalled and/or damaged aircraft)

Whether or not you choose to believe the military is a personal issue. As for desensitizing people, watch some real footage of boot camp or SEAL training. They're far more concerned that you can perform without thinking at all, and that if you are thinking, it's tactical in nature, and concern for your squad members' safety that you're thinking about. The easiest way to get someone to be ok with killing someone else is to put them or someone they're concerned about in danger, and once everyone believes that they're all responsible for the safety of everyone in their squad, it gives them a protective attitude. If someone doesn't learn that kind of attitude, they either wash out or get put into a position where they aren't directly responsible for the lives of others.

The link is the other direction

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Video games, movies, and music are all a reflection of human civilization. I don't think humans have gotten more violent, looking back at the Crusades and the constant wars the Romans fought. We should consider the fact that humans were violent before video games. Obviously, video games that are created by people will reflect this. So the real question is why are humans violent?

In the past, we had to be in order to survive. To an extent and for some people, that is still true. The next step in evolution of our society would be to remove this rather negative mark on our characters. And then, we could all gather round the N7 and play some Animal Crossing 3.

Always a cause 'a posteriori'

[ptaff]

How many murders today are attributed to the murderer? Video games, insanity, sad infancy, television and lots of other "causes" are presented to us as the real murderers.

A kid commits a violent crime. Now, in our society, it can't be the kid's fault (they're so cute and innocent) - and we must find someone or something guilty. Look at the past of this kid. What's (even in little doses) abnormal? ahHA! he plays Quake. We found a murderer, the child is thereby "innocent", everybody's happy.

The sad thing is that this principle applies to adults too. There are not any more murderers left, only bad luck, bad circumstances, bad influences.

Responsability is the keyword here, man.

OF course they are going to blame video games!

[BrookHarty]

Two Tennessee tennagers have pleaded guilty to charges of reckless homicide, reckless endangerment, and aggravated assault because, last June, they thought it would be fun to fire a high caliber rifle at the highway. They killed one motorist and wounded two others. They claimed they got the idea from the game Grand Theft Auto III.

Of course they will blame video games, better than the death sentence. The legal system is full of "Pass the Buck" excuses.

It isn't age appropriate.

[Sheetrock]

The types of video games kids get their hands on nowadays amount to a pornography of violence. I don't know how we've made the leap so quickly from Pong to Postal, but I've come around to see the point of people who call games like Grand Theft Auto 3 and Doom "murder simulators".

It doesn't seem to matter that there's a sticker on the front of the box that says M; 13 year olds are playing this stuff, and one can see with MMORPGs that the lines between fantasy and real life are dangerously blurred for people much older than that. The industry has been warned to clean things up, and has promised to do so, but this mental sugar keeps getting dumped to the shelves because it costs less to package violence than plot (look at movies as an example.)

Maybe the development of decent games like Myst should be subsidized; maybe the distribution of violent games should be hindered for the public good? I think we've moved well beyond establishing that violent or extremely compelling video games are a danger to some individuals and the people around them: now is the time for research into potential solutions.

Re:It isn't age appropriate.

[Babbster]

It's been said over and over again: A little parenting goes a long way. If parents don't want their kids to play M-rated videogames, they can more than likely stop them. Giving children a strong moral foundation early on could keep them from being interested a little longer, too. That being said, I disagree with the hypothesis that these games are teaching kids how to murder. But, guess what: Even if they WERE it would still be a pretty simple first amendment issue in that the developers have the right to make these products and the right to sell them.

Oh yes, and this I found funny:

Maybe the development of decent games like Myst should be subsidized...

Absolutely. Let's subsidize the making of games that stand atop the sales charts for years and make millions upon millions of dollars for their creators and publisher. We should also subsidize the making of "decent" movies like Sleepless in Seattle.

It's amazing that despite a total lack of proof of a connection between crime and [violent] videogames, people are still willing to bash them as if such proof existed.

Re:It isn't age appropriate.

[FortissimoWily]

"It doesn't seem to matter that there's a sticker on the front of the box that says M; 13 year olds are playing this stuff"
The ratings are there for a reason, so why are the parents those ratings are there for still letting their 13-year-olds play these titles?

Eh I can't wrap my mind around this

[Anonvmous Coward]

I just watched LOTR 2 last night. There's a scene in it where a child must pick up a sword to defend himself. This is fiction, but from what I understand from history there were times on this planet where kids did have to worry for their lives. Did they have incidents like these?

I remember when Doom was blamed for Columbine. I read the journal that got that line of thought going. Nope, it didn't cause it. It was an outlet for them. To be perfectly frank, I think if those kids had played more Doom, then more of their anger would have melted away. Who knows? Enough activities like that (laser tag?) might have prevented them from carrying it out.

It's really hard for me to accept that video games cause violence while I and many others were raised on them. I've never raised my fists in anger. My friends and I never started fights. Never did the "stand toe to toe with you because I'm a bad dude" maneuver. None of us live in rage or anger.

As interested as we were in these games, you'd think we'd have been anything like those kids that shot up Columbine. None of us even had an interest in guns.

The argument isn't binary

[KNicolson]

Reading most of the for and against posts here and in the linked articles, both sides hold very binary views of the issues: it's either "The killers might have played the game, so therefore anyone who plays the game may very well kill someone", or the "I've been playing it for X years and I've not gone on a homicidal spree". Proper scientific studies seem to suggest there might be a weak causal link between games and violence, but rather than discuss the real issues, we only hear the two polarly opposed absolutes.

If it were another subject, like, say "Smoking can cause cancer", viewpoints like "Even one breath of second hand smoke will kill you!" or "My grampa puffed 20 a day and he's still a healthy 95" would be instantly dismissed as intellectually naive. Why do people seem to think this lack of deductive reasoning is acceptable to defend or condemn the issues surrounding a much more complex proposition?

The reaction to the reaction

[Mike Hawk]

Hi Mike Hawk here again to take a deep breath and not tow the party line.

I'm not concerned about violent video games today. I'm not even concerned about violence.

So the point of this post then...
What I am concerned about is our (slashdot, gamespy, the video game industry) response. IMMEDIATELY everyone has come out to say that no way video games had a part in this. My problem is, while instinct goes along way, we are not studying this enough for a possible correlation. I mean, if a kid shoots a truck to complete a goal in GTA:VC, then grabs his buddy and goes outside and shoots at trucks, noone considers it even within the realm of possibility than there was some slight connection?
But then again, I'm not saying that post hoc ergo proctor hoc either. I'd just like an intelligent discussion on the issue rather than knee-jerk from both sides as we traditionally get here.
I'd also like to see a serious independent study on the issue. I'd like to see how the brain reacts during and after playing the most violent games over an extended period. An increase in emotional release during gameplay is good; an extended tendancy toward release after play has ended and the real world has begun could be bad.

What are my solutions? I'd don't pretend to offer any. Do I think we should ban them altogether? Hell no, this is America dag nab it. Do I think we could restrict purchase to those over 18 as we do pornography? Thats again a little knee-jerk for me at this point, though there is no downside to anyone but the Entertainment Software Association and its members. (Keep your "slippery slope" and 1st amendment arguements to yourself, we already do this with porn in America and there have been no conclusive studies about that either.) Can we do nothing? I guess, until it is your kid (or you) that takes it in the chest.

I'd just like more real knowledge and less instinct running around here.

Evening news

[weicco]

Shooting pixelimages at screen.. I just don't know how that compares to killing real people on streets. But what I have discovered that TV is sending pretty violent news stories at evening when kids are eating and watching TV. There are often very nasty pictures about war victims, people that has been shot and things like that. But all this is "old news", better to blame video/computer games, more viewers for "news" :)

there is a causal link between games and real life

[BobTheLawyer]

but the media has it the wrong way round.

It stands to reason that people who fantasise about violence will play violent computer games, just as they'll watch violent films. So it's unsurprising that the Columbine killers played DOOM, but that absolutely doesn't mean DOOM caused them to killers.

Of course common-sense arguments starting "it stands to reason" are often wrong, particulary in this area... anyone know of any research in this area?

Sorry about the formatting issue...

[BenSnyder]

Sorry about the lack of formatting in the previous post... I guess that kinda steals the thunder from the argument, huh?

Dammit. Well, here it is formatted this time.

I was gonna mod, but I figured it'd be better to respond. I think you misunderstand who's playing games and what the role of knowledge is in society. I also think that you are unaware, or to be generous, forgetful of the history of gaming. This is important because the evolution of gaming is still going on. And without historical knowledge of this medium and it's comparative similarities with other kinds of technology, you have no choice but to call games "murder simulators". You don't know any better.

It's either that, which I think it a common problem, or, you think that morality should be legislated.

If you want to legislate morality, just stop reading this now. We're not going to see eye to eye on this topic. But if you're interested in gaming and hope to see the flourishing of new and innovative gametypes, then by all means man, get off your high horse and grab a controller!

I'll make this quick because I'm at work and don't have the time to haul out the soapbox.

The case can be made (I've made it previously here) that violence is a necessary evil in developing technology. Just look at the airplane. I don't have data for this claim, but I would imagine that technology in health care has seen great leaps largely due to war. Games are the same way, we get the good tech by programming the easy (and desirable) interaction: killing. As people, we like it. We're good at it. So there should be no confusion as to why people are drawn to it.

You know that this evolution is working because there are so many titles out there that are not "murder simulators" as people like yourself, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity like to call them. Of course, Nintendo has been a major player in developing these non-violent AAA titles. (And when I say non-violent, I don't mean devoid of violence, I mean violence isn't the primary gameplay mechanic.) But they're not the only ones.

You think the answer is to have a government subsidy for game developers who don't include guns in their games. Do movies, books, magazines, TV shows, and real people all get breaks too for the same reason? And where do we draw the line? Can I made a violent piece of entertainment media about a historical act? What about that Mel Gibson movie? Does he need to wipe some of that blood off of Jesus? Speaking of The Passion, the same kind of thought that causes somebody to label a game as a "murder simulator" is also the same kind of thought that makes people think that The Passion is about the Jews killing Jesus.

Hello! Anybody in there? Quick, what's 2+2?

Did you know that they took the games out of that Wal-Mart in West Virginia BUT LEFT THE GUNS? This is what happens when you draw irrational conclusions based on your own assumptions that the world should run on your own moral model. You overlook the easy stuff.

Even this is a dumb statement, "now is the time for research into potential solutions". Why? And for what purpose?

Let's just get extreme in our hypothetical situations. Let's think about a world where violent videogames are banned. Hmm. Can't say I can see a difference. Not after listening to my new Slipknot or Jay-Z album. And especially not after seeing Natural Born Killers (which you might remember also got similar blame).

It's at this point in what has turned into a sarcastic rant (work be damned) that I defer to Sean Baby, whose way better at the sarcasm than me.

"Murderers get their inspiration from all kinds of places, thanks in part to their own personal insanities. But no one filed a lawsu