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Columbine Student on VG Violence
Sophia wrote in to mention some discussion of Video Game Violence on 1up.com this week. Brooks Brown had the experience of attending Columbine High School around the time of the now infamous shooting incident. Via his blog, Brown goes into a detailed discussion of Why Violence in Gaming is a Good Thing. From the article: "GTA isn't about fucking hookers or killing cops. It's a story of a guy who got screwed trying to get back on top. It is, by nature, a story game. Postal 2 may let you kill anyone you want in bloody and disgusting ways - but that's not what it is about either. It is, by nature, a tech demo in the abilities of programmers and AI. it is WE - the gamers - who change what the game is about and determine what happens. It is the person playing who determines what the game contains." Jane Pinckard has a quick reaction to his post. More commentary on this subject is available via John Davison's Blog, who met Brown at a taping of a news program which was ostensibly to be about gaming in general. Instead he was ambushed about violence in games and ended up walking out.
In the days after the Littleton, Colorado massacre, the country went on a panicked hunt the oddballs in High School, a profoundly ignorant and unthinking response to a tragedy that left geeks, nerds, non-conformists and the alienated in an even worse situation than before. Stories all over the country embarked on witchunts that amounted to little more than Geek Profiling. All weekend, after Friday's column here, these voiceless kids -- invisible in media and on TV talk shows and powerless in their own schools -- have been e-mailing me with stories of what has happened to them in the past few days. Here are some of those stories in their own words, with gratitude and admiration for their courage in sending them. The big story out of Littleton isn't about violence on the Internet, or whether or not video games are turning out kids into killers. It's about the fact that for some of the best, brightest and most interesting kids, high school is a nightmare of exclusion, cruelty, warped values and anger.
The big story never seemed to quite make it to the front pages or the TV talk shows. It wasn't whether the Net is a place for hate-mongers and bomb-makers, or whether video games are turning your kids into killers. It was the spotlight the Littleton, Colorado killings has put on the fact that for so many individualistic, intelligent, and vulnerable kids, high school is a Hellmouth of exclusion, cruelty, loneliness, inverted values and rage.
From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Todd Solondz's "Welcome To The Dollhouse," and a string of comically-bitter teen movies from Hollywood, pop culture has been trying to get this message out for years. For many kids - often the best and brightest -- school is a nightmare.
People who are different are reviled as geeks, nerds, dorks. The lucky ones are excluded, the unfortunates are harassed, humiliated, sometimes assaulted literally as well as socially. Odd values - unthinking school spirit, proms, jocks - are exalted, while the best values - free thinking, non-conformity, curiousity - are ridiculed. Maybe the one positive legacy the Trenchcoat Mafia left was to ensure that this message got heard, by a society that seems desperate not to hear it.
Minutes after the "Kids That Kill" column was posted on Slashdot Friday, and all through the weekend, I got a steady stream of e-mail from middle and high school kids all over the country -- especially from self-described oddballs. They were in trouble, or saw themselves that way to one degree or another in the hysteria sweeping the country after the shootings in Colorado.
Many of these kids saw themselves as targets of a new hunt for oddballs -- suspects in a bizarre, systematic search for the strange and the alienated. Suddenly, in this tyranny of the normal, to be different wasn't just to feel unhappy, it was to be dangerous.
Schools all over the country openly embraced Geek Profiling. One group calling itself the National School Safety Center issued a checklist of "dangerous signs" to watch for in kids: it included mood swings, a fondness for violent TV or video games, cursing, depression, anti-social behavior and attitudes. (I don't know about you, but I bat a thousand).
The panic was fueled by a ceaseless bombardment of powerful, televised images of mourning and grief in Colorado, images that stir the emotions and demand some sort of response, even when it isn't clear what the problem is.
The reliably blockheaded media response didn't help either. "Sixty Minutes" devoted a whole hour to a broadcast on screen violence and its impact on the young, heavily promoted by this tease: "Are video games turning your kids into killers?" The already embattled loners were besieged.
"This is not a rational world. Can anybody help?" asked Jamie, head of an intense Dungeons and Dragons club in Minnesota, whose private school guidance counselor gave him a choice: give up the game or face counseling, possibly suspension. Suzanne Angelica (her online handle) was told to go home and leave her b
Uhh, I'm pretty sure it was pretty much a 'kill everything that moves, and even if it doesn't move, kill it anyway just to be sure' kind of game. It was innovative in the ways you could kill people though. Very creative.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.....
The real danger is with racing games. Try racing an Audi S4 around in Project Gotham all day, then hopping into a real S4 to go to the grocery store. Dangerous stuff.
If I'm not mistaken, all forms of drugs were legal up until around the turn of the century. People used to be able to medicate themselves as they chose. But after society perceived that drugs were causing harm to the youth, there was a big push for leglislation.
If the political push continues against violence in video games (and I think it will), it will be interesting to see if this "war on game violence" plays out the same way. That would mean either some kind of certification to use games or perhaps some biometric age device hooked up to game players. I don't believe games harm anyone, btw, but in politics perception is everything.
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I have often thought that people who were likely to commit murder were attracted to violent video games, and NOT that violent video games created murderers. Perhaps we should find out what percentage of violent video game players DO NOT commit violent crimes... probably in the high 90 percentage count. Also, perhaps we should find out how many people who commit violent crimes didn't even play violent video games. For those who believe in the Bible... Cain slew Abel... and that was before violent video games, movies, or anything else of that nature.
If video games caused violence, we'd have terrible world wide child violence and regular school shootings by now. We don't. I belive this is all about children with psychological issues that, of course, may be influenced by video games, but so would they be by movies, TV and news by this theory.
I believe a video game simulation is nothing compared to how convincing real events illustrating the true nature of gruesome human behavior, and we're basically fed with this daily through television. People call watching it educating.
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I've always thought that if a kid can't tell the difference between a video game and the real world, and thinks it's okay to shoot people like in a video game, his parents need to step in very quickly and get him help and stop him from playing those games. I've been playing computer games from a young age, and I've never had the urge to actually take out a gun and shoot someone.
His observations on how it's not the game itself, but what you bring to the game, is right on the money.
As an example, how many people have played Civilization III?
So... what's it about?
Is it about a brave tribe of people who are struggling to establish a civilization under your benevolent leadership, and advance their learning and culture while they peacefully expand, only to be constantly attacked by less enlightened and/or more warlike cultures?
Or is it about a tribe of people who have fallen under your evil domination, who you will then guide forward through the ages in an orgy of conquest, until you stand astride the Earth as its sole Overlord?
Or is it just a bunch of pixels being moved around by the in-game AI, and you're a video gamer with a few hours to kill, amusing yourself by trying to defeat the AI opponents in the game?
It can be any one of those things, depending upon the imagination of the player.
If you leave your kid all day around games/movies/music/newspaper/TV, and you don't spend the time educating him, telling him about right or wrong, loving him, that sort of "old fashioned" stuff, well, maybe he will grow up with a skewed view of life.
The thing is that parents (even bad ones) are voters, so it's hard from the policital point of view to say "hey, you're bad parents! you're to blame!". It's much "safer" to blame "those darn videogames and rock music!" because videogames and songs don't vote!
Anyway, maybe we as a society should start paying a bit more atention to parenting. After all, to put it in Scott Adam's words, we need a license to drive/fish/whatever but to be a parent we only need a couple of organs. And maybe between all the people that have those organs there are some who can't take care of themselves, let alone a child...
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
"GTA isn't about fucking hookers or killing cops. It's a story of a guy who got screwed trying to get back on top."
So it's about a guy who got screwed and is trying to get back on top... On top of what again? The criminal world? By enacting all sorts of violent mischief? Who just happens to fuck hookers and kill cops along the way?
Now don't get me wrong, I love videogames, but the line this guy is trying to rationalize is so thin as not to even exist. It's as if the author is trying to explain away the fact that the game is putting you in direct control of a quasi-gansta whose missions are to almost exclusively commit acts of violence against rivals and society at large. I mean, let's not sugar coat this here. You can't divorse the two concepts, as well as the fact that it becomes more than "just a story" when you have user interaction. You're programming your brain with tactics, responces and behaviors in order to operate in that environment. I'll be the first to say most pleas of Videogame violence is way too overrated, but I'll also be up there in saying that it's not as harmless as some of the developers would have you believe. For most well adjusted people, it probably IS harmeless. But for a developing child? You have to be fucking kidding me. There's a reason sesame street exists and it's to program kids. Or, conversly, you can program them with GTA. Both purposely or inadvertantly will do the same thing, and to try and totally absolve yourself of the potential impact you're making on anybody playing is rationalist idiocy.
And yes, the parents have the biggest role in that development. But I wish these devs would call their games for what they are instead of trying to hide behind this conjured BS.
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It's the fact that mankind has an inborn propensity for violence. The problem isn't violent video games, but that we haven't addressed the fundamentally violent nature of mankind.
Lenin and Hitler killed millions before the first video game had been invented; our violent nature is as old as recorded history.
Instead of blaming a scapegoat (video games), parents would be better off recognizing this fundamental trait (propensity for violence) of human nature and teaching their children to overcome it. After all, keeping the kids away from violent video games won't keep the bullies from bullying, nor will it keep them from getting angry... The ability to take revenge isn't limited to those who have played violent video games.
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His main point seems to be that modern games give people the freedom to do whatever they want, and it is the gamers that choose to cause violence. This is of course, bullshit.
Of the three games he focuses on, I have only played GTA, but while that games does allow you to do many things, the majority of the things it lets you do are violent. Where is the option to bring peace between the clans through negotiation? Where is the option to join the police, and help deal with the clan warfare through proper authorities? Going further, where is the option to help out the poor and homeless at the soup kitchen? Where is the option to move out to the suburbs, and get a real job, have some kids? Where is the option to travel to other countries, learn new languages, trek across the Andes?
While its true that fucking a hooker, then killing her to get the money back is not part of the main game of GTA3, and was only discovered by some sicko, there is no option to give her some of the hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars that you end up with up with to sponsor her through college.
I like GTA, and I don't think that violent video-games necessarily cause people to be violent, however it is very naïve to say that games like GTA are completely neutral, and it is games that make them violent
I understand the empathy for the victim-villians of the piece, but I wonder just how many of the geeks who identified with the Columbine shooters would be willing to treat the 9/11 perps with the same consideration. I heard a lot of introspection about bullying and alienation in high schools after the Columbine massacre: if anyone dares put any historical or political context around 9/11, they are shouted down.
Your point about "The killers at Columbine weren't geeks, nerds, goths, dorks, weirdos, metalheads, skaters, or punks." is true. But I don't buy your conclusion. The groups you point to have found outlets for their frustrations. "I'm a homicidal maniac," says Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family Movie, explaining why she apparently didn't dress up for Halloween. "They look like everybody else."
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23