Games Are No Cause For Murder

An anonymous reader writes "At Gamers With Jobs, Shawn Andrich speaks out against pointing the finger at videogames as a causative factor in a murder cases. He makes the excellent point that, though we may enjoy the metaphor, life is not a game. There is no simple connection between event A and event B. Our actions are dictated by experiences from a lifetime, and they should be addressed that way for good or ill. 'Life can't be framed up like a game of billiards. There is no easy eight ball, corner pocket shot to be made when trying to draw a line between cause and action ... Lasting, positive change will only come when we stop reaching for causes and start creating conditions that will support kids and teenagers who need it. We can't make anyone put the pin back in the grenade, but by supporting active, caring people who want to help, we might be able to influence some of those fateful decisions before it gets that far.'" GamePolitics on Joystiq has an editorial up looking at a similar question.

Comments

Of course...

[AltGrendel]

...you realize that Jack Thompson will have something to say about this.

Not that it will be anything worth while, but that's never stopped him before.

Re:Of course...

[The Damned Yankee]

Mmmm... no. Simulators are training, and the debriefings that follow their use aren't designed to help them deal with any sort of emotional trauma, but rather to evalutate how they did in said simulator and where room for improvement might lie.

Plus, add to that the fact that, unlike most folks who play GTA, soldiers in simulators are training for actual situations that they will face in real life. Real life, it's generally acknowledged, is generally the source of most physical and psychological trauma.

But nice try, Mr. Thompson.

Re:Of course...

[Sj0]

Correction: Jack Thompson causes violence against Jack Thompson.

If video games never existed, he'd still be attacking angry music. Rappers aren't the saints that gamers are.

A profound couple of sentences

[PrescriptionWarning]

from the article "Getting mired in the minutia of cause and effect keeps us in a constant cycle of fear and blame. It's an utter waste of time."

straight, to the point, and in my opinion very accurate. kudos for this one!

Preaching to the Choir

[Rycross]

I'm not sure that gamers and game journalists repeatedly stating, "Games don't cause violence," is doing any good. Usually, its preaching to the choir. In the cases its not, simply saying, "Hey they don't cause violence," isn't going to convince anyone not already convinced. It seems to me that articles of these sorts are more mental masturbation than anything else.

Oh, and am I the only one who's tired of the old, "I'm a gamer and I'm not violent so obviously games don't contribute to violence," gem being busted out time and time again, as if its actual proof? If you want to convince people, how about trying something a bit more scientific?

Re:Preaching to the Choir

[pla]

Oh, and am I the only one who's tired of the old, "I'm a gamer and I'm not violent so obviously games don't contribute to violence," gem being busted out time and time again, as if its actual proof?

When dealing in absolutes, yes, it does constitute a valid (dis)proof.

To prove causation, you must show the precondition as both necessary and sufficient. If I play violent games and haven't killed someone, you can't say that playing violent games cause murders (without any qualifiers).

Now, that doesn't disprove the idea that playing violent games may apply another CCW turn to some people's screws. But that means a whole world of difference, putting "violent games" in the same ballpark as "pain", "alcohol" (or other drugs), "a good scare", "isolation", "Military experience", and "divorce".

violent kids like violent games

[192939495969798999]

I am shocked that more people don't make the connection that: of course the murderer kid played violent video games... s/he was a violent person! If those games "made" people violent, then wouldn't there be a direct correlation between when a new game is released and some huge spike in murder statistics, where the new murderers mostly also owned the game?

Simplest answer

[MikeRT]

How video games inspire violence in 3 easy steps:

1) Psycho plays video game
2) Psycho likes what he did in fantasy world
3) Psycho goes outside and lives out his fantasy world with the best weapons he can find

There's the issue, in a nutshell.

Re:Simplest answer

[El Torico]

The key words in your post are "Psycho" and "fantasy", not "video game".

Re:Simplest answer

[The Living Fractal]

This is not the issue in a nutshell. This doesn't mean shit.

Just for example: if we didn't have violent video games:

1) Psycho plays outside with friends in violent games like tackle football, "smear the queer", or any number of the violent activities children, teens and adults engage in.
2) Pyscho likes what he did in these games.
3) Pyscho does it outside of the games. It gets worse, and Psycho eventually kills someone.

The same could be applied to reading books. Hey I know, we should ban any book with violence because some psycho might read it!

The only real thing you said is "some people are psycho".

Stating the obvious is not helping the situation -- with people blaming video games when there's an infinite number of other things in life that can set somebody off.

We need to be able to figure out who has violent tendencies, who is psycho, and make them cease to exist before they harm others. And that, as an issue, both logisticall and ethically, is not too easy to fit into any 'nutshell'.

TLF

Illusion of Reality

[Vexor]

It's about the lack of self control and discipline that causes kids to recreate what they see/do in a videogame. TV is no better then a videogame except for one key detail. The detail being a videogame is far far more interactive. The illusion is more complete. The experience more real.

The kids parents (or their legal guardians w/e) are responsible for those kids. They either need to keep them in line or find assistance from another source to do their job. I know there are lots of great parents out there doing their jobs but their kids aren't the "vocal minority" making waves in the pool. Its the slackers, the drug users, the abusers who end up with dejected kids. And those are the kids I feel sorry for.

Re:Illusion of Reality

[Lurker2288]

"It's about the lack of self control and discipline that causes kids to recreate what they see/do in a videogame."

I think that to suggest that it's self control and discipline that prevents kids from acting out what they do in games is pretty damn absurd. Do you think that every kid (or even most) who plays Counterstrike is thinking, "man, it would be so great to go machine gun my school...ah, but I really shouldn't."

I don't think most people have any desire to act out violently in real life. If a kid comes from a lousy background, or has rotten parents, then those things may be sufficient to send him down a dangerous path without video games having anything to do with it.

Re:Illusion of Reality

[Lurker2288]

And my point is that most gamers have no desire to commit violent actions. Video games aren't a corrupting influence that creates violent intention where formerly there was none. If a kid is inclined to violence, he's going to do something violent. If he's a heavy gamer, it might be game-influenced. If he likes movies, maybe he'll act out a film scene. The media may influence the form, but it doesn't magically create the desire to harm other people.

To speak to your example, if the idiot kids hurt emulating wrestling were big comic fans instead, they might have tried to fly like Superman. Or if they enjoyed extreme sports, maybe they'd have tried some kind of atheletic stunt. The point is, wrestling is merely tangential--the root cause is lack of common sense, and restricting access to wrestling won't address that.

People like to blame video games because it's a lot easier than addressing the root causes of youth violence, lousy upbringing probably being the chief one. Until we see otherwise happy, well-adjusted kids from stable families turning into murderous zombies because they played GTA, there are better uses for our preventive efforts.

In other other news.

[u-bend]

Video games cause obesity and heart failure.

I mean, if I'm playing video games all the time and not exercising and then subsequently die of a heart attack, then it's the video games, not my sloth, that killed me, right?

In other other other news, parents are not to be blamed for anything.

Logical arguments are illogical

[Nymz]

Listing studies and statistics, is logical if you believe that video games are games, but is futile if you believe video games are something you don't understand or value. If we assume that Slashdot posters, when compared to the general population, are more logical, more male, and more likely to value enjoyment derived from video games, then logical arguments would be "preaching to the choir".

If we assume that those whom believe video games are not fun, have no value, and are tools of the devil, then it won't matter how many "typical immature males" cite numbers, statistics, or logical cause-and-effect studies, the "fact" will remain that I know video games have no value, so it's no surprise to me that they make males violent, and if I can further enhance my power, agenda, and feeling of moral superiority, by being "against violence" and "protecting children" then why would I not do so?

Interesting addendum

[BlackCobra43]

You can replace step one with "Reads a book", "Watches television" or heck, even, "daydreams" and it will be just as accurate - which speaks volumes on the worth of the argument put forth

Reverse cause and effect

[CokeJunky]

One argument I have not heard very often, but I think should be brought to light, is that someone predisposed to engaging in violent activities may be drawn to violent video games, more than the average person. That point of basically allows that someone may use video games as an out, or that they could maybe be involved with pulling that person deeper into whatever is causing them to have violence problems. One wonders if the preconditions for someone who will be violence affects how they percieve themselves, and the real world versus the video game world.

More simply put, seeking violent video games may be one of the effects, rather than the cause. The problem is that most gamers are not in this category.

Re:Social and moral relativism is simply killing u

[The Damned Yankee]

"Political correctness?" Really? I think you'll find that bad parenting predates the term. One can find such parenting even in morally rigid, highly unrelativistic families. A hundred hours of GTA are nothing next to a lifetime under an abusive dogmatist for a father, for example. Parents who want to be the buddies of their kids, though annoying, do far less damage to society than the ones who do their best to grind the kids' self-esteem under their heels.

And saying the games are a catalyst still implies causation, which remains unproven.