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GTA Violence, the Media, and the Gamers
jvm writes "The Video Game Ombudsman and Curmudgeon Gamer currently have posts with opposing views on the recent and oft-criticized NY Post article about the violence in the Grand Theft Auto series of games. The Ombudsman discourages gamers from getting upset over the 'false and irresponsible' writing in the NY Post, equating it with a 'National Enquirer story saying that video games cause AIDS'. In response, this Curmudgeon says that's plain wrong, that gamers should 'stop dodging the issue' of game violence and 'start talking realistically about degrees of harm, freedoms, and responsibility'. So what's a gamer to do? Ignore the obviously clueless mainstream press or start the soul searching? Oh, and Penny Arcade has its own angle on the perils of dealing with the mainstream press, in response to how the noble Child's Play was represented."
But they must be stupid if they thought their charity drive was ever going to change public perception of gamers or game violence. A gun control advocate is still going to think the NRA is just a bunch of gun nuts, even if the NRA raised $200K for a childrens hospital.
When I was young it was common to beat children for educational purposes. That was at the first decades of the last century. When you look now at history you will notice that the 2 worst war in history fall just behind this time. And in fact this education changed the way we though about violence: we didn't think that it was wrong to use violence if it was justified by our "ethical values", e.g. national needs.
This only stopped when beating children became more and more unpopular. My grandsons still have trouble to understand how I could German soldiers in WW II as a sniper - they view violence and especially killing as ethically evil.
Over 90 years and counting !
I've had this debate many times with gamers, professors, mothers, friends. It boils down to there being violent content available to children without regulation. Yes, there are ratings, but they're hardly enforced.
:) Laws and penalties need to exist for those selling "mature" games to children and/or helping a child obtain such a game.
;)
:) My personal opinion is the adoption of the "movies" rating system along with law to enforce sales of mature games to children. That solves the problem.
From discussions I've had with various people, here's what I can remember us coming up with:
1. Ratings System -- Why is there not ONE unified ratings system spanning Movies/TV/Games/Music, etc. I'm sure it has to do with copyright and licensing, but that aside...having 3 different ratings systems that aren't all that obvious (TV is the worst culprit) leaves a bunch of confused parents and consumers.
2. Regulation -- Ratings exist, but why, unlike movies and alcohol, can a 12 year old walk into a gaming store and buy GTA/Doom/whatever? If they want to get a hold of it, it shouldn't be easy -- just like getting beer when you were 15 wasn't.
3. Social Responsibility -- Even with the above in place, there are some parents or people who just don't care. Mostly they're misinformed and don't know little johnny is beating up a prostitute behind a bush, but there are those out there who are perfectly willing to buy their 13 year-olds GTA (everyone's favorite example, so I use it). Society draws lines all the time -- alcohol sales, cigarrettes, pornography -- why should the same not be applied here?
4. Censorship -- This is a stupid answer. If I can watch someone's head get blow off in a movie, I should be able to do it myself on my TV too. So, call this an anti-answer.
The real thrust of the article(s) I thought is that games are seen differently from other forms of media and that gamers are taking the flak. I never understood this. When a really violent movie comes out, are viewers of the movie ridiculed for going to see it? No. So why are gamers compelled to defend gaming? Why is there not something being done to educate the public. Games aren't just Mario and Donkey Kong anymore -- it's not them weilding shotguns and stealing cars. Video games have expanded to include new audiences -- I just don't think the public understands this. Everytime I tell someone the average gamers age is 25 (maybe it's 28, I forget)...they can't believe it.
Ok, done defending.
It seems that your anecdotal evidence might actually have some backing.
"concludes that despite what may appear to be a high prevalence rate of arrests for serious offenses among NFL players, these players in fact "seem to have a lower [crime] rate than the comparable population," even though they are members of a profession that rewards violence on the football field."
http://www.amstat.org/pressroom/nflcrime.html
I admit to being surprised.
jef
This argument has already been played out for decades with music (and movies, pr0n, etc), namely whether they influence culture or merely reflect it. Of course the answer is both. Music gets it's initial impetus from some street culture (hippies, punks, gangsta rappers) but as it becomes popular it influnces more people to percieve said culture as a "good thing". Studies have been done that show that people exposed to pr0n in controlled environments show a marked shift in internal attitudes, such as considering sexual promiscuty as common/desireable and not wanting to have daughters (wacky!).
Video games are no different than any other input to our brains. Anything we experience influences us in some way, and if we experience blowing people away as a fun, of course we will have a shift in values that is more tolerant of violence. Children are especially vulnerable to programming by experience (see the results of wife-beater/drunk parents), so I could certainly see society want to stop kids having access to these ideas.
That said, noone should feel they have the right to tell any grown adult what to think or experience. If a video game makes me more violent, let it be on MY head if I go out and shoot someone. However, the best way to ensure that video games for adults are not banned outright is to make sure that they stay out of the hands of kids. As everyone knows, enforcement of the ratings system is a joke.
gdp
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
Forgive me for a second if I cast back to my walk back from the pub the other night. I really, really needed to go to the toilet ... really badly (don't mod me as offtopic yet, this is going somewhere ... really!). Why can't I go to the toilet right here? Well many drunkards do, but the point is that victorian London shows us why we shouldn't. Cholera and whatever else, that bag.
The thing is that we live a technologically advanced life, especially in western cities. I can't go to the toilet in the street, because if everyone did that we'd be rife with disease (and I ain't different from anyone else). I can't just wander across the A12 or whatever highway you like because it's dangerous and we need the roads to supply us with food and whatever else in adequate volume. I can't go around shooting people from the top window on canary wharf because the state guarantees its security, by attempting to guarantee yours (and everyone elses), besides which the top windows on canary wharf very likely don't open, and I'm not allowed up there for "security reasons" to find out anyway.
All the while joe public is tap tap tapping away at a computer to meet the deadline, asking you if you want fries with that and getting stuck in a traffic jam on the way home.
Modern technology gives us new freedoms, of course, but increasingly only as you can afford them. A highway is like a slap in the face when it saws through the inner city, 75% of whom don't own cars (and if they all bought cars, there'd be nowhere to park them!), it just knocks down your mates house, and puts other mates of yours 10 lanes of highway and an ominous footbridge/underpass away.
The internet, and computers are cheaper than cars, and a PS2 cheaper still. It's worth pointing out that the highest concentration of Sattelite and Cable television subscribers (in the UK at least) is in high unemployment estates. These people can't do much outside their houses (go to the pub maybe), so they tend to entertain themselves in and around it. For people such as this grabbing some fatboy out of his kompressor and taking it for a little spin might be a very appealing idea, especially as they're zooming past your window on a newly erected concrete flyover.
The urban world isn't anything as simple as a "nightmare", it can offer new freedoms and a fulfilling way of life as cultures meet and countries worth of people are compressed into so many square miles. It also imposes restraints on all of us, but especially the poor. GTA and other violent games are a result of our hamhanded adaptation to a world changing faster than we are.
Why should there be just one standard of risk tolerance for the whole country?
Violent video games do have an effect on the young. The question is, how willing are you to accept this risk in exchange for greater freedom?
The tolerance for risk varies from person to person, so the answer to that question will vary from person to person.
At some point, a compromise must be reached amoung people about just how much risk they should all accept. It is possible though, that some people accepting risk in one part of the country add no extra risk to those in another part of the country. What game kids play in Seattle has little affect on the people of Tampa.
The best approach to this problem, IMO, is to allow cities/communities to set their own standards. There is no single "right" answer for the whole country. This seems like it ought to be a "cities-rights" issue.
1. It seems to me that the "violent games" issue, like most cultural issues, is being debated by two sides whose primary argument is "the other side is wrong". Even when one side presents some form of evidence to support their standpoint, the other side tries (not necessarily successfully) to discredit that evidence, and pretty soon we're back to the whole point/counter-point argument. The two sides both need to find some undisputed facts and grab onto them like a bulldog. Whoever has the best facts... wins! It's a whacky concept, I know, but it usually works.
2. Am I the only PERSON WHO PLAYS VIDEO GAMES who is sick of hearing the word "gamer"? If someone plays sports then they're a sportsman/woman and that has a certain credibility. If they drive racing cars then they're a racecar driver and that has credibility. When I hear SOMEONE WHO PLAYS VIDEO GAMES describe him/herself as a "gamer" it sounds to me like they're trying to wrap their fun hobby in a veil of credibility, as if it has social merit or importance. It doesn't. You play games because they amuse you. Chances are you only play games when you have nothing else better to do. Please stop trying to create some sort of respectable social niche to put yourself into.
They do have to walk through a counter! They should be refused the sale, as there's an age limit in the game. Although probably 90 % of the GTA3 out there which is causing "irreparable harm to children" has been bought by their parents.
You can't switch on a channel without somebody getting shot, even the news channels now show dead bodies in full color.
It is about time that we drop the legal age for soft porn movies to 12 and make programs/movies with violence 18+.
Or it is time for some familie value sessions, but he, the parents are at work 60 hours a week, no can do.
What power has law where only money rules.
Excuse me, but being human, I have something called "free will" that I excersize daily. You will never convince me that a video game will make me take potshots at people driving on the interstate simply because I will never choose to do something so stupid and illegal. Consequently, the rest of humanity, however stupid or depraved they may be, DO POSSESS a free will of their each and individual own.
When you (or anyone) try and say that games or movies make the world more violent, you're arguing that humans don't have free will, which is inherently silly.
Instead of trying to convince the world that everything is someone else's fault, you should be trying to convince the world that individuals should take responsibility for their own actions. I'm sure you mean well, but your thinking is irrational and assumptive. Covers it well enough, I think.
I am Jack's Savage Beats.
In the US people are insulated from each other, driving everywhere, moving from air-conditioned box to air-conditioned box. In that environment people become polarized in their views and treat each other in the abstract. So you can easily have groups of people who see violence as intrinsically evil and a couple of psychos in the room next door polishing their guns. The only place people mix is on TV, which is controlled and compartmentalised too, or through ever more realistic computer games, violent movies that don't reflect objective reality or porn. Add boredom and blood sugar dips and its no wonder some people eventually train themselves that the Matrix is real and other people are just avatars.
Unfortunately most people (aka The Media) forget one important fact.
These law-breaking, violent and pornographic games are aimed directly at YOU the responsible adult and NOT at impressionable children.
Because you are a responsible adult with the ability to know "right from wrong" (at least to an extent that's acceptable to most laws in your country/state), these games are fine and dandy for you to play. They're just a wild break from reality that your mind is happy to enjoy for a while.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Or maybe little tiffy shouldn't have had access to a gun?
The one that gets me with the two kids sniping at the cars on the highway ---- hmmm blame game, or blame the gun? FSKING MORONIC PARENTS
Who lets their kids 14 and 17 leave the house with a gun without accompanying them to the target range, and accompanying them back.
Or better yet, if you have kids, don't have a gun.
Or better yet, don't own a gun at all.
I think in this case the parents ARE to blame, and they grew up *without* computer games. Which either means there are other problems in our society other than the latest blame-fad, or we are going to be even worse parents because we play computer games. Or both.
I don't think this is true. Most /.'ers don't oppose game ratings. Cuz, well most /.'ers are probably adults. And really the parenting should be left to the parents.
/.'ers do oppose is the outright ban of games because a select minority don't like it. If you don't like the game don't buy it is what they are saying.
What most
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
They don't want to take responsibilty for their actions and their lack of parenting.
... including parental guidance.
... at the cost of countless hours of life wasted by young minds, all over the world ...
... "I killed 15 people with all sorts of wonderful weaponry ... no, not really ... its just a video game" == training to take no responsibility for the morality behind the actions one takes in the universe we all live in.
On the one hand, you've got Media and Government colluding together to remove the rights of parents to educate and raise their children, in order that there may be future 'markets', 'consumers', 'citizens' well-trained to do as those in power say, that society may prolong itself in a way which keeps vested interests happy.
On the other hand, you've got idiots in the middle complaining that 'its all the parents fault', freely ignoring the radical social programs of the 60's, 70's and 80's which were carefully calculated to reduce the rights of parents to raise their children properly. By properly, I mean that the parents right to control and help the childs growth is removed, directly or indirectly, by social pressure, 'trend', or 'market plasticity'.
The fact of the matter is, there is no black and white issue here. Dialectic discourse has failed and always will fail, completely, on this subject.
You think Madison Avenue respects the rights of parents? Fuck no, especially if it means one less consumer to plug product into.
Video game violence is a reality. Kids growing up with the notion that there are 7 different ways to kill someone (all available at a hotkey) are not the same sort of kids who grow up knowing that death and mayhem are not something to value, and should not be 'respected'.
Yeah, sorry, but kids getting all goo-gah over "the cool graphics in GTA" are demonstrating a form of 'respect' for the subject matter.
Blaming parents for not raising their kids properly is one thing. But also, putting responsibility on those who produce content which -intentionally- makes it difficult for a parent to govern is another thing entirely. Video Games are -designed- to destract people from other lifestyles. If a gamer isn't paying full attention to a videogame, the game producer isn't happy. While that's happening, nothing else can impinge on a persons consciousness
"Tommy, stop playing video games and go outside and climb a tree" == anathema to the gaming industry, who hate the notion that there should be any other influence on a person than the products they are producing.
I once worked for a video game company whose sole product line consists of war and combat simulation software. When their first networked-player server went online, and it was discovered that some players had been playing for 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the first 4 weeks of the launch, all of the executives were ecstatic. To them, there is no better way to dominate their market
If you do something, take responsibility for having done it. If you -dont- do something, take responsibility for not having done it. Video games detract from this simple parental mantra, quite extensively
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
That's where the start the soul searching part comes in.
Right... I know I run into children under the age of 10 that are sitting alone in rooms reading the writings and philosophies of Aristotle and Socrates (who, incidentally, was accused of corruption of the youth in Greece), trying to decide what the concepts of "right" and "wrong" are, just so they have a good moral, and logical argument to give their parents when they confront them about wanting to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Happens all the time. Maybe, instead of the gamers doing the soul searching (remember, we're talking about gamers with a problem telling real-life from a video game here, not the 30-yr-old playing Final Fantasy Tactics), we should be asking why the parents (or other legal guardians) aren't trying to teach their children why the man has the gun, and why he gets shot by the police when he does something very, very bad.
Should games which, if a movie, would get an R rating be available for purchase by children under 17?
No, and they're not. Watch the little monitor at Walmart the next time you buy a Mature-rated game. It clearly says "Is cust over 17?" That is, of course, if you can see it before the 16-year-old proud graduate of the 8th grade, before dropping out to work full-time at Walmart, hits the OK button and clears it. The problem isn't that children want to play the games. The problem isn't that children want to buy the games. The problem is that adults, whether they're parents, or clerks, let them.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
You're confusing the people who are complaining with the people who are causing the problem. It's not my kids' parents that I'm worried about. It's the crappy parents down the street who worry me.
If GTA3 influences their son to cross some mental line and beat my daughter to death, all the parenting in the world that I did wouldn't have mattered. How do I hold that other parent responsible or force that other parent to keep GTA3 out of their problem-child's hands?
In many voter's eyes, maybe it's just easier to ban the video game totally than to force someone else to be a better parent?
Put another way: I think that it's logical to assume that the people most interested in banning violent video games don't allow their children to have them, so you can hardly say that their looking to excuse their own bad parenting. Instead, their looking to circumvent their neighbor's bad parenting.
Don't get me wrong. I would never agree with such a ban. I'm a libertarian through and through. I don't like anyone telling me what I can say, what I can sell, what drugs I take, whom I can pay to have sex with, where I'm allowed to travel, etc.
However, that doesn't blind me to the fact that critics of games like GTA3 have a legitimate concern. Studies have shown that video games directly influence behavior. I have no doubt that in some case somewhere, some violent video game led to the taking of an innocent life.
- We could try to solve the problem by banning the game.
- We could try to solve the problem by holding parents responsible for their kids' actions.
- We could just accept the problem as the cost of living in a free society and move on.
I think that some combination of the second two makes the most sense, but I understand why the first one seems so attractive to some people.Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
This should be illegal. As its not just bad reporting, but lying to the general populace.
Unfortunatly, its compleatly legal for the media to lie and twist as much as it wants. You should be suspicious of anything you see. anything.
"Free Speech Zones" my American ass. Its already fascist.
no
You must have some punk-ass gangs, then. I live in a "gun culture" as you put it, and I have never known anyone who has shot at another person. The thing stressed most in "gun cultures" is safety. Meaning, a gun is not a toy. You don't point your weapon at anything you don't intend to shoot. You don't leave your gun in a spot where children could even remotely gain access. Trigger locks and gun cabinets, never transport a weapon loaded, etc. I am only 23 and currently have two .22 rifles and two .38 revolvers (though I've never shot the latter as they're quite old) in my apartment. I don't feel any more or less safe with them, as I only use them for recreation and hunting, and although I play GTA all the time, I don't have an iota of a compulsion to go grab them out of the cabinet and shoot someone.
I let my 13-year old cousins play GTA when they visit, because I trust them and know that they have good parents that pay attention to them. They seem more interested in doing cool stunts with the cars anyway.
People who shoot other people are not part of any "gun culture". If there were no guns, these people would find another way to kill others. That's just how it is. I don't think it has anything to do with poverty, either, as I grew up in a dirt poor family in the inner-city, and the thing I noticed about the patterns of violence and criminal behavior was the parenting. I have great parents and most of the other people in my neighborhood did too, and the ones that didn't were always in trouble. The issue of gun violence is too complicated to hang on one cause.
If you followed the Child's Play updates on Penny Arcade, both Gabe and Tycho were quite fearful of the the strange people with the cameras (read: your average geeks).
Yes- they did not play this in the slightest. As such, they got what they deserve- web notariety within the circles who already know them, and jack-shit from the rest of the world.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
That's an informed, well written post; there's just one problem with it. You can replace every instance of GTA3/video game/etc. in it with any of sex, comic books, drugs, D&D, religion, sugar, Harry Potter books, etc. and still have an informed, well written post.
A ban is censorship, and censorship always sets human progress backwards. That poorly raised kid down the street is not so borderline that GTA3 and only GTA3 will push him over the edge. Anything could, if the kid has no respect for others. And if nothing else existed he could just fall back on the voices in his head. Before defense lawyers become prolific that was all the defense these nuts would have - now that's a rarity: it's always someone rich's fault.
As I've said every time this issue comes up: in the 50's it was comic books. Then Rock music. Then science fiction. Then Disco. Then Dungeons and Dragons. Then Heavy Metal. Then Rap. Now video games. The only real difference between video games and these past 'corruptions of minors' is the higher level of communication now. Not just the internet, but news channels and misinformed talkshows all looking for ratings. So video games seems much worse when statistically they almost certainly aren't.*
*(Of course, if anyone did a statistical comparison of various alleged 'corruptions' and their real effects it would be a waste of time. Anyone swayed be sensationalism will never be swayed by numbers.)
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Not sure if you can get to actual sucking in R ratings, yet. Handling, yes, but sucking? In the US we're still way more squeamish about sex (as opposed to implied sex) than about violence.
I went to see a PG-13 movie last year, and it was full of incredibly disturbing violent images. Someone choked someone else to death -- played for laughs in the movie. Someone stabbed someone else's neck many times until, all on camera, the victim wheezed and died. PG-13.
Meanwhile, if you see anything more than a glimpse of flesh, of if (Lord forbid) you have a character say the "F word" more than twice, you get slapped with an automatic "R" rating. (The F word in particular seems to be an MPAA rule: count the number of them, and you know what to rate the movie. 'Cause, you know, kids between 13 and 17 never hear that word. Wouldn't want to corrupt them with this reference to "F'ing.")
I'm with Lenny Bruce: Nobody ever commits a murder in an X-rated movie, so really I'd rather my kids saw those than the latest superviolent "action" film that glorifies unrepentent killing.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
If a personal, child or adult, runs outside and starts shooting people, conservatives/Republicans (loose label) start screaming "electric chair!" and "get him!", whereas liberals/Democrats scream initially while under fire, only later to figure out who their next target for the blame should be. Gun manufacturers? Gangsta' rap? Violent video games?
Never mind the fact that man has been capable of doing his worst since before the age of technology began. Never mind that even cable television sometimes shows more gruesome depictions of violence than the video games currently under fire. Never mind that none of these children who do these things were not taught by their parents or peers the difference between right and wrong, or even how to handle negative emotions that might incite such violent acts.
After all, it is very clearly marketed for adults, which puts the responsibility on their children playing those games on the adults, not the kids (exception: idiot store clerks who sell games or any other products illegally to minors).
But who cares? Blame the video game. After all, spending months designing an incredibly realistic 3D environment in which we may run around and do the things we would never do in real life (i.e., quench our thirst for blood in fiction rather than reality) is the same thing as pulling the trigger, isn't it?
it's not so much the games as it's the parents not teaching the rights and wrongs of life,
and if it's not videogames, it's violent movies, which have ratings.. yet parents let their kids see rated R movies, then they bitch.
and also, with the obvious I dont have to explain, does this mean we have to put content managers on gaming consoles like they have on vcr's, tv's and dvd players? where the tape, or station or dvd give a signal that it's a "bad" rated game?
It's also a useless technology since most kids know more about this stuff than parents, sure, password protection exists, but that can be easily guessed, or if you unplug the console for a few weeks, the password will clear on some systems.
and it also wouldnt beenabled by default because companies of gaming consoles know it would kill sales with the real money making crowd. and parents wouldnt enable this technology, thus allowing kids to play whatever games they want.
STore clerks arent going to tell you if it's a game not recommended for children or not, THEY'RE TRYING TO SELL IT. So what do they care? and you have clerks that dont give a shit, or do it because they figure parents have enough sense to teach their children that games are fantasy.
sadly, we should be able to figure that parents should do that, but we know it isnt true, most parents pop out a kid after they get married.. go "aww, how cute" and then sit them in front of a game or tv while they work or do stuff that betters their image in life..
but, most people live in the middle class, thus are subjected to daily hard labor until they retire. and both parents have to work in the US in order to keep a roof over their heads, or want to work, not even interacting with their children.
I was lucky, my mom and dad had a business when I was little, and after that, my mom worked part time, didnt see my dad every night, but I did see him when he was off, and we did family stuff, and we were taught what's right and wrong. I play violent games, but do I think I can go out and kill masses of people and not suffer reprocussions? I do not.
The government likes this shit too.. create a drone-like working force while creating people who are completely desensitized to violence and death and life.. generation where people have the government do things for them, want things handed to them, and want to be able to do things easily. and dont mind the government killing people in other countries or killing people in this country.
it's going that way.
I did a survey at my old highschool, and 90% of the students said that we shouldnt have votes, that the government should make decisions for us.
the 10% were the realistic people who know what's going on.
and this was in a rich community, I should do this theory at my current highschool as well, in each of my classes.
There was also more respect for the weapons. People had responsibility for their own actions to a degree we do not see today in 1944. Yes, many more people respected guns because they knew what they could do, but here (US) the schools are largely run by people who think that eliminating guns eliminates violence. I used to live in a rural area over 10 minutes away from a police agency and our guns (and large dog) saved my family from trouble on several occasions. The whole "zero weapons tolerance in schools" trend is a runaway monster started by a political agenda: If I'm the toughest one on school violence, maybe I'll get re-elected to whatever office. Most of the firearms limitations for civilians I know of arose between 1963 (Kennedy assassination) and 1983? (Brady bill) with a few more in recent years.
Also, most people today do not spend nearly as much time with their kids as they did in 1944. Ever wonder why kids today know so much less about guns and so much more about worldly life in most cases? Their parents are often not there to protect them from the world, they just go find it out for themselves. Personally I would like to see a mandatory firearms education course taught alongside a thorough sex ed course starting in 6th grade and continuing until at least 8th. Kids could opt-out of the course by taking a minimal competency test in both subjects. There are enough non-parents out there that something needs to be done about guns and other issues because many just aren't learning about basic respect issues for themselves or guns from their parents like they used to.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.