Senior Game Designer Talks About Game Violence, Real Violence, and Lead (Video)

William Volk may not be the world's oldest game designer, but he's up there. He started out as a play tester for Avalon Hill in 1979, and since then has worked for Activision and other major players in the game space. His current job is with PlayScreen, where he's working on their Word Carnivale iOS game, which is not violent at all. But over the years Volk has worked on slightly violent video games and has watched public outcries over video game violence since 1976. He's also tracked how much less violence we've seen since lead was removed from gasoline. (Editorial interjection: Aren't most remaining pockets of massive gun violence in cities where many poor kids grow up in apartments that have lead paint?) Due to technical problems during the interview, some of the conversation is missing, primarily about the recent spate of multiple murders. It seems, for instance, that Newtown shooter Adam Lanza was heavily into violent video games, which is sure to spark plenty of new discussion about how they affect players. But then again, as Volk reminded me in an email, "If people were influenced by video games, a majority of Facebook users would be farmers by now," a meme that has been floating around Facebook since last year, if not earlier.

Comments

To all of the doubters of the lead theory

[greg_barton]

Here is a better article than the small blog post cited. Read the whole thing. The clincher for me was that when lead was removed from gasoline in different states at different times the reduction in violence in those areas tracked perfectly two decades later. Not only that, but the shape of the violence reduction data tracked well with the shape of the lead reduction data. (i.e. a fast phase out of lead resulted in a fast reduction of crime twenty years later.)

Video games/violence

[RazorSharp]

The video games/violence debate is extremely flawed from both angles. In this regard it reminds me of the nature/nurture arguments -- whenever someone takes a side one way or the other I'm convinced they're wrong. The problem with the 'video games cause violence' argument is that people are free to make choices of their own. The problem with the 'video games don't cause violence' argument is that the choices people make, especially among children, are influenced by environmental factors.

I'm critical of video gaming as a lifestyle. I have no problem with them as an occasional diversion, but playing for hours on end is like running a screensaver on your computer -- it's keeps things active enough to stay on, but nothing useful is happening. I've seen children who act violently, mimicking video games/tv/movies/etc., but that's not what really concerns me. What concerns me is that the children who play lots of video games have an extremely adverse reaction to any suggestion that they should read, do something constructive, or exercise. All too often these 'gamers' are confused for nerds (or geeks or whatever word you choose to use). They are not. They're morons and they'll remain morons as long as they spend the majority of their free time on XBox Live or the Playstation Network.

That's not to say I think video games are a scourge to society. They're no different than TV in this regard. The problem is parents who allow their children to plug into these diversions from actual life on an almost permanent basis. Many of my friends have children. The ones who limit video game/tv time and only offer it as a reward for doing constructive things have well adjusted children who are bright. The ones who let their kids zombify themselves in front of the boob tube have maladjusted morons for children who think an example of fine art is a Michael Bay film.

When people claim that video games cause violence they're oversimplifying the issue -- however I can't disagree that children who are raised by video games moreso than their parents will be more prone to becoming violent adults than those who aren't. When people dismiss the idea that 'video games cause violence' that's not really what they're objecting to -- they're objecting to the very true assertion that playing video games extensively has a negative impact on an individual's life.

Everyone knows it's not the violent games...

[Zaphod-AVA]

Everyone knows it's not the violent video games, it's that evil Jazz music corrupting our youth!

Re:It's not a matter of heavy metals

[nitehawk214]

Then what's the issue with alcohol?

I keep running out of it.