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...

[eln]

I agree, video games are a perfectly good cause for murdering Jack Thompson.

See? Video games breed violence! (against Jack Thompson)

Re:Of course...

[Irish_Samurai]

You overestimate the "simulation" environment that these games provide.

I remember reading a story about a drill sergeant who had noticed a difference in how his newest recruits who played FPS games adapted to training in relation to how the non gaming recruits performed. Needless to say that this was picked up by every media outlet possible and misrepresented to make it look like video games were training our children to be killers.

I agree that there are some elements that a FPS, or any other action game for that matter, can most certainly influence - but these things are useless without weapons training.

1. Tactical Priority - the closest thing to you is slightly more dangerous than something far away. Anyone who has ever played any game involving bad guys who attempt to hurt you is that the closest guy is generally the biggest threat.
2. Tactical Sequence - Sometimes baddies come extremely fast and everything needs to be slowed down. Basically the theory of "get em all bleeding first."
3. Using cover - No, not in actuality, but in theory. Identifying what can be used as cover from certain vantage points is most certainly developed when playing any video games. "He can't see me if I hide behind this!" Now, lets address the practical use of cover. A video game is not going to teach you that you shouldn't lean on or crowd your cover, something everyone does off the bat because they see it in movies. A game also can't teach you what cover is actually protective and which is merely visual cover. Real training does that.

None of these skills are practical without significant weapons training. In fact, they're pretty close to worthless, so I think the term "combat simulator" is a little harsh. Maybe combat game is more accurate.

Re:Of course...

[Sj0]

Yeah, I know last time I was murdering someone, I grabbed my railgun, jumped off a third story balcony and kept on running, then started shooting while jumping to avoid missle launcher fire.

And if you believe THAT, I've got some lovely beachland in Florida to teach you.

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!

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?

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".

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

[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

Re:Preaching to the Choir

[Rycross]

Its only a valid disproof if your opponent is saying "Violent games always cause violence." What they're saying is more along the lines of "Violent games can sometimes be a trigger for violence," or more frequently "Violent games can increase violent tendencies, which may have an overall effect of increasing societal violence when systematically applied to a large population." The whole I-play-games-and-I'm-not-violent defense is pretty much worthless against such arguments, and makes you look uninformed. Why would anyone take you seriously if you don't even seem to understand the basic tenets of the argument at hand?

Jack Thompson Translation

[Bobfrankly1]

I decided to run the Jack Thompson Translation software on the first comment from TFA...See the results below. Comments in italics, translations are not.

Just off the top of my head, benefits I've gotten from gaming
1. Faster, more accurate typing skills (for dodging bullets)
2. better reading comprehension (so I know who to shoot)
3. Sharpened Problem solving skills (when the gun doesn't work, switch to the knife)
4. Computer and Programming knowledge (old aimbots didn't install themselves you know!)
5. Experience using CAD like programs (to make maps of my school of course)
6. better hand eye coordination (the better to shoot you with my dearie!)
-
I had a good signature until format c:

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.

Cause for murder?

[killmenow]

I don't know. I've played some games that made me want to kill...the developer of the game.

Blaming video games is ...

[OneMHz]

1) an oversimplification, as you can almost guarantee that it is NOT the only source of violence, 2) a scapegoat that simply removes the responsibility of the person who committed a crime, those who influenced the person toward violence (*coughparentscough*) and anyone else who could have had an influence. People see a freak, and they treat them like a freak. Yet they're surprised when that person does something... freaky. If we blame violence on video games because they exposed someone to violence, then can't we blame the news too? How about violence in the streets or the home? Let's ban all of it! It would seem (to me) that "real" violence might have a more significant impact than fantasy violence, at least in developing a personality/irrational responses/violent tendencies. Most importantly, correlation is not the same as causality. And more imprtantly A implies B does NOT mean B implies A. A violent personality making someone like violent video games dose not imply liking violent video games means a person has a violent personality. And it especially means liking violent video games causes a person to have/develop a violent personality.

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.