How Videogames Became the Bogeyman

Tom Leupold, writing for the Inside Bay Area site, explores why videogames have become an American bogeyman. Talking with prof. Dmitri Williams, he discusses the rise, fall, and resurrection of games as a part of mainstream society. From the article: "Today, as games have once again infiltrated the mainstream, a growing number of adults are again enjoying gaming and understand there are games that are appropriate for different age groups. But that hasn't stopped crusaders from trying to censor them in the name of 'saving' the children. Williams, 34, said those under 38 have a different view of games than their elders. Most have grown up with games and, like television for the previous generation, games are embedded in their culture. "

Comments

How Videogames Became the Bogeyman

[rob1980]

See: How Rock'n'Roll Music Became the Bogeyman in 1950. Bunch of wound-up old people that don't like change.

Re:How Videogames Became the Bogeyman

[Gnostic Ronin]

You forgot comic books. People honestly thought Batman comics and True Crime comic books would make kids go out and kill people. Before that, I think Flappers were the end of Western Civilization.

In fact, I think everything that came along since the Roman Era has been the "End of Western Civilization". Kids have always been lazier and less interested in knowledge than privious generations. Evil currupting forces have always pulled them from the Straight and Narrow(TM). Even Christianity, when it first came along was a threat.

Re:How Videogames Became the Bogeyman

[Kelson]

Sometimes I find myself wondering: 10-15 years from now, am I going to be the old fogey freaking out about something new that I don't trust, but all the kids are into?

Then I think of MySpace.

Some parent's don't like responsibility

[Eightyford]

First it was radio... then it was television, rock and roll and comic books. After that it was video games, rap, heavy metal, and goth music. Now it's the internet and more realistic games.

Message to parents! If your child screws up, it is probably your fault! Sucks, doesn't it?

Re:Some parent's don't like responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

"Message to parents! If your child screws up, it is probably your fault!"

Or possibly the child's...

(That shouldn't seem like a radical idea, yet somehow always seems to be missed.)

Re:Some parent's don't like responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

I would actually argue that Rock and Roll is the best comparison to violent videogames for one important reason; in the 1950's Rock and Roll was a musical format which was created to appeal to Teenagers.

As much as people will argue against this, the fact is that the majority of Mature games are targeted towards Teenagers and if they could no longer sell them to teens the sales would evaporate. Being 26 I believe that I'm reasonably representative of most adult gamers and I can honestly say that I purchase 1 or 2 Mature games in a year and the vast majority of games I own are Teen or Everyone rated; on the other hand, one of my friends (who was working his way through university at EB) claimed that 95% of people who were buying games like Soldier of Fortune and what not were 13-17 years old.

I don't know if there is any damage, but people who think they're adult forms of entertainment are delusional.

Re:Some parent's don't like responsibility

[Knara]

Not nearly enough because it's still too hard to find tasty baby meat for my sammiches in my grocer's luncheon meat aisle.

Re:Some parent's don't like responsibility

[Stalyn]

Don't forget the role society plays as well.

Up until a certain age, we (society) pretty much assume that anytime a kid screws up it is the parents' fault. An being oblivious/ignorant does not give the parents a free pass for their kid's behavior.

Which translates to, until a child is able to determine social norms independently, society blames the person who is responsible for instructing a child on how to act within society when the child does not conform to social norms.

Re:Some parent's don't like responsibility

[Nephilium]

And of course... an appropriate quote to refute:

'Juvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms, one which gives a clue to their problem and failure to solve it. -- Colonel Dubois in Starship Troopers

One who is a child does need to be instructed on how to behave... the responsibility for this education does not belong to anyone except the parents... it is no one else's responsibility to teach a child how to act well...

The problem is that too many parents now (and most likely in the past as well), think that children can grow up fine with no supervision of their activities... no knowledge of what their kids are doing...

Without a parent/grandparent/aunt/uncle/sibling teaching/raising a child... it's a total crapshoot as to how the kid will turn out... the downside to this is it's actually WORK to raise a child, and not just let the TV turn into a babysitter...

Nephilium

The trouble is that things never get better, they just stay the same, only more so. -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)

Re:Some parent's don't like responsibility

[tfinniga]

It's almost shocking to see a moderate argument. It seems that the average slashdot poster is an idiot, and half are below average. However, I think it's mostly because a balanced argument is much longer to type and less fun than firing out a quick one-liner, or shooting talking points back and forth.

Here's my take on the whole thing - raising kids is a tricky business. Many people take different approaches, and very few parents will agree on everything. Most parents that I know want their kids to grow up to be better people than they are. Most work quite a bit to reach that goal.

One argument that seems common is that anything that is banned or censored is controlled at the request of parents who don't want to take responsibility for their own kids. So, the argument goes, it is the fault of bad parenting that I can't watch saturday-morning porn on NBC - lazy parents that don't want to raise their own kids. However, the laziest parents I've known don't care about what their kids listen to, see, or do, certainly not enough to try to ban it.

On the other hand, it seems that there are a lot of parents that don't spend enough time with their children, but still act as if they did. It's easy to imagine parents like these being shocked that their kids are into bad things, and going ballistic. Legislating a solution, instead of trying to work one out with their kid. These are not always helpful.

Personally, I try to spend a lot of time with my kids, get a good relationship, teach values and social expectations. (Currently we're working on pooping in the potty.) However, I appreciate the fact that my kids don't have to grow up too fast. I'm glad that Nick Jr. doesn't have violent or racy ads inbetween shows, and I'm glad Dora the explorer doesn't swear. It's nice that there's entertainment that's age appropriate, and I appreciate the help. As kids get older, there's a delicate balance between letting them make their own mistakes and bad judgments, and cushioning their fall. At the end of the day, it's up to the kid to decide whather he wants to take what you taught him and try to be good, or ignore it and seek other pursuits.

So, you try to be a good parent, try to help your kids be good people, and appreciate any help you can get from society in general. Some people would like the world to be adults-only, but I really appreciate that there are some places that are safe for kids.

In relation to the perception of games, I personally hope that the Wii will help change people's perceptions. Unfortunately, the current crop seems to be more aimed at hardcore gamers, who expect adult-themed games to be an option. My 3-year-old probably couldn't handle a dual shock, but I bet she could have a lot of fun with a Wii. Hopefully there will be better content out there which will show a kid-friendly side to this medium as well. Heck, if the devkits are cheap, I'd be happy to make some.. :).

Lobbying Money

[WiseWeasel]

I'm willing to be it's because television, music a movie industry interests are lobbying our representatives to place restrictions on the games industry, which they see as a threat. The games industry just isn't ponying up enough money to counterract the rest of the entertainment industry's lobbying dollars and stay off the regulation radar, and now they're paying the price. It's a terrible way to run a country, but people in power are making too much money to change it...

38?

[Schemat1c]

Williams, 34, said those under 38 have a different view of games than their elders.

I think he needs to go higher than 38, I'm 41 and I too grew up with video games. I play HL2 deathmatch on a server where the majority of players are older than me.

The culture war

[VTMarik]

Ah yes, first it was The Novel, then it was Radio, then Movies, then Comics, then Television, then it was Lenny Bruce, and now it's video games. Anything that is new and exciting to the younger generation (AKA what wasn't around for the previous generation) is evil simply because it is new and untested. The game The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the Atari, which had no blood and only showed death as children flipping upside-down before disappearing, caused a massive storm of controversy for all of two days before everyone started speculating about the end of the fad.

Thanks to Nintendo, the fad has now become a staple of entertainment and everyone's left wondering why. This confusion quickly leads to hatred and FUD which brings us up to date. And now you know the rest of the backstory....

Good day.

Bogeyman is right

[digitalhermit]

Back in my time it was Dungeons and Dragons. You'd watch the news and see these "exposes" on the kids who are LEARNING TO LOVE SATAN because of the EVIL D&D game. Oh yeah, and Satanism was also a dire threat to our kids. Oh and Styx and Kiss too. Then 2 Live Crew. My neighbor tells me that in his day it was Bob Dylan that was symptomatic of evil.

Lower crime is who's fault then?

[nuggz]

People would rather blame than take responsiblity.

What can we blame for the lower per capita crime rates?
Particularly when we consider some things weren't crimes, or weren't widely reported earlier.

Yes we have had graphic headline grasping crimes lately, but there has always been something. I'm sure there were pissed off kids taking swords or clubs to each other before they invented guns.

Games? Oh yes...

[Criceratops]

Yes, games are a terrible waste of our time and money, and a contributor to drinking, institutionalized violence, and selling sex!

It sucks billions and billions out of foolish peoples' pockets...

More riots, beatings, and other assorted violence take place because of games!

During games, people are exposed to repeated messages selling them alcohol and sex as well!

Did I mention that hundreds of pro and amateurs are permanently injured or killed playing these "harmless" games?

In fact, there are numerous studies proving that these games suck money away from vital education programs and game-players often score lower on standardized tests!


Yes, they are evil.

Wait a sec, we *are* talking about sports aren't we??? ... ooops!

don't blame all of us....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an Old Person (tm), and a gamer. I've been doing it since line-printer lunar lander games on mainframes. Pac-man is newfangled :). I'm as against this idiotic blame shifting as anybody.

Blame it on stupid people, instead, some of whom happen to be old. We're not all like that.

Music is the weapon. Retail is the defense.

[Animats]

Rock and roll used to evoke similar hostility. But that's changed, as rock moved from rebellion to senility and lost its political connection.

It's suprising how little hostility hip-hop and rap evoked, considering that much of '90s rap was about killing people. ("Devil, to gangbanging there's a positive side and the positive side is this--sooner than later the brothers will come to Islam, and they will be the soldiers for the war; what war, you ask; Armageddon; ha, ha, ha, ha, ha" -- "Armageddon"; RBX, The RBX Files, 1995, Premeditated Records, © Warner Brother Records, Time Warner, USA.) But hip-hop and rap switched from guns to "bling", thereby encouraging shopping. "According to American Brandstand, a Web site that tracks brand names on the Billboard top singles chart, of the 111 songs that made the Billboard Top 20 in 2003, 43 mentioned a product; 84 different brands were named."

So we can expect that as in-game advertising becomes more pervasive, media criticism of games will become muted.

Re:Music is the weapon. Retail is the defense.

[l0cust]

Well said. Though I think there is another aspect of why the hip-hop/rap thing did not get so much OPEN negative publicity. It may sound a bit NPC but the whole hip-hop/rap culture is generally associated with the black community and no politician or major public figure would risk commenting openly against it for the fear of being dubbed a racist. OTH calling games the reason for their sons/daughter indulging in sex/violences/whatever accomplishes two goals - It absolves them of the responsiblities of the actions of their children by providing a proverbial witch to be burnt at stake, plus it there is no obvious race/culture/demographic attached with the games so they can curse it all they want without fear of repercussions from potential voters etc.

I honestly don't know what to make of the current situation. It is really easy for me to imagine all old ignorant hags sitting in the position of power and trying to restrict my choices/actions/thoughts for monetary, power or whatever reason but then it may happen that when our generation comes to that stage and have the same kind of power in our hands, we may end up trying to restrict something which (some of us atleast) genuinely feel is wrong but is really popular with the younger generation. Oh well, I just hope the concept of karma works. Will suck really if things don't balance out in the long run.