Video game violence rant

[Saint Faucet]

(Please note: The views expressed in this post are entirely my own and do not reflect the views of Brick House Trading Co..)

I was checking my usual round of gaming news sites and came across a link to the article "Slain teacher's family launches suit aimed at media violence (http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,11%7E24990,00.html)". Yes, ye olde finger pointing towards "video games as murder sims" has reared its ugly head again. The family of a slain Columbine teacher seeks $5 billion, but according to their lawyer "money may be the smallest part of the goal." Sure it is. I expect this suit to be thrown out (though given the multi-million dollar payout to some idiot who spilled a cup of hot McDonald's coffee on herself, I can't say for sure), but in the meantime we'll be forced to listen to the same arguments that have made the rounds for the past several years: "Mature games were/are marketed to the wrong age bracket."; "Violent games cause violent children."; and of course, "The ratings system does not work."

Look, I was initially against setting the ratings system into place on games. I felt it would limit the creativity of the game designers by forcing them to dumb down storylines and gameplay in favor of earning more of the cash received from the sale or rental of their products through larger venues (such as Wal-Mart or Blockbuster, which have strict policies regarding content deemed too adult and/or explicit). I felt dollar signs would blind the publishers into curtailing their developers' imaginations and thus limiting them to the production of mind-numbing, 'kid-safe' titles. I still believe that the ratings system puts the aforementioned limitation into place, but by the same token I've grown to accept it. The system is a great way to alert parents to the content of the games.

For example: Parent says: "Wow. Conker's Bad Fur Day has this cute little squirrel on the cover. I'll bet this would be a great game for my 12 year old. Wait. Why does it have a "Mature" tag on it? Excessive substance abuse? Foul language? Animated violence? No way in Hell am I letting my kid near this title!"

The fictional parent in this situation noticed the ratings tag (which granted isn't that hard to spot on the Conker's box) and read the reason the title was given a "Mature" label. Unfortunately, no salesclerk I've ever met would have asked the parent if they checked or understood the ratings system when they went to purchase the product. On top of that, most people shop online nowadays and don't have the luxury of an intervening individual to alert them to this aspect of their choices. The ratings system exists, but no one seems to care until someone carts out the "video games cause violence" mantra.

So what can be done? Sure I could take the stance that it's the retailers responsibility to inform the parent about the ratings system and to prevent minors from purchasing games that the ratings systems say they shouldn't, but instead I will take the unpopular stance of "educate the parents". As a gaming industry member, I point my finger-of-blame right back at the parents and say "Have you talked with your child today?". I'm of the belief that a parent should be concerned with their child's well-being mentally, physically and morally. A child should be taught right from wrong and real from fantasy. All of the 'studies' (more like abstract claims, but I digress) I've seen on the relationship between violence in gaming and child aggression have neglected to include the impact of parenting on the subjects. I'd be willing to back off or adjust my stance on "violence in video gaming" should it ever be conclusively proven (and by that I mean verified by 3 or more independent studies from reputable unbiased research groups) that despite the presence of medium-to-strong interaction by parents in the upbringing of the child, violent media does cause violent behaviour in children. Unfortunately since no studies of this nature have surfaced supporting the "violent media equals violent kids" claim, I'll continue to say that all these problems could be rectified just by having the parent talk with their child on a regular basis.

To all of you parents, I say interact with your kids. Make time for them. Explain to them what reality is and what fantasy is. Explain why it is okay to do some things, but not others. RAISE you kid. Don't expect someone else (a teacher, another family member, the babysitter) or something else (the television, the computer, books) to do your job as a parent. Don't point your finger at me and my industry and claim we owe you money because we failed to do your job.

It was never our job to begin with.

[UBIK]

....that about sums it up, people need to stop and think instead of just pointing and yelling.

[Morte]

I agree that actually raising children is a more consructive activity for parents than suing gaming and movie companies and generally blaming others for their own failure. But there are other things that can be done to curb in the violence that seems to be taking an increasingly dominant position in society. It is by no means an original idea, yet its simple appearance must not deceive the less educated reader. Although it does not seem like a complex solution, and has been put into practise in a lot of Western countries, in America it has not gained support it has elsewhere. It boils down to this: Why not just BAN THE DAMN GUNS? Is it really that hard to fathom that as long as everyone can easily gain access to any handweapon ever invented, no amount of law suits, rating systems and parenting will achieve anything. Of course parents need to raise their children, and rating systems might help, but if there always will be bad parents, and there is very little anyone can do about that. When the law was created, there was good cause to do so, but that cause has vanished a long time ago. You can sue anyone for anything you want in America, and for outsiders, like me, it is as if this is actively encouraged when companies have to pay people for putting their dog into a microwave. I do not know how the American judical system has come to this state, but it encourages people to just blame other people, and it is exactly that mentality that lays, at least partly, at the root of the problem. You cannot blame the gaming industry, nor the movie industry. If companies make products with a lot of violence, swearing and other 'mature content', apparently there is a lot of demand for it. It is not the job of those companies to censure themselves. If a situation existed wherein a company was selling products, it is the governments job to change that. A good example would be the exhaust of hazardous gases into the atmosphere, but that probably does not mean very much to that diplmatically challenged mr. Bush. I will not claim that this problem does not exist in Europe, as it does, but at a much smaller scale. Now why would that be, I wonder? Something may be rotten in the state of Denmark, but it does not compare.

[Kintoun]

Hear hear dammit! http://members.chello.nl/~deleeuw3/mad.gif

I'm sick of hearing people blame videogames and violence in the media. Take the case of Japan. What they consider to be "too hot for tv" is FAR beyond what the US considers. If you don't believe me then look up Ebichu on the internet. This anime (equivalent to US primetime shows) shows bad language, suggestive themese, and TONS of sexual content. Yet Japan has none of whats going on in the US.

Japan does have a problem with its schooling in which drives some of the student insane, but thats another story.


My roomate studied this in his Sociology class. History has dictated that the people need a scape goat. Without one, people must point the fingers at themselves. And what parent wants to admit that their child is %#&^'ed up because of them? Before media violence, the people used black people as their scapegoat. Before that it was the Jews. But nowadays people know better than to discriminate against other indivualistic characteristics (like color, belief, etc). So they now point their fingers at organizations and groups. Rap is bad, smoking companies are bad, games are bad, media violence is bad. Dammit this is bull$#^%! Although this time we have a REAL problem. It's easy to say, "You can't point your finger at people. Thats being discriminative." But what about these organizations? Here are a few of these scenarios...http://members.chello.nl/~deleeuw3/study.gif

Guns:
If I hand you a gun and you shoot someone, who is at fault? You, or the gun? Of course people nowadays are saying guns are at fault. Lets get rid of guns.

Smoking:
If you choose to pick up a cigarette and smoke it, and later you die of a smoking related disease, who is at fault? You, or the cigarette, or the cigarette co? Of course people nowadays are saying the cigarette and the companies are at fault. Lets get rid of them.

So quick to blame the item, and not the person utilizing it. As you can see these days organizations are to blame, not individuals. How sad. And how the hell are we going to oversome this? http://members.chello.nl/~deleeuw3/sad.gif

[Edited by Kintoun on 04-23-2001 at 06:25 PM]

[Slitherrr]

::Wishes he wasn't so American::

If video games have ever influenced me in a decision to kill somebody, then I'm a monkey's uncle. Where I live, the majority of people don't even touch video games, but there's still violence, and there are still assholes. People seem to be going about education in the entirely wrong direction. Censorship is not the solution, because then the child doesn't even know it exists, so what's he/she going to do when he/she confronts it? If the child hasn't been told about the situation, then they have just as much chance of making the bad decision as the good one, so who's fault is it? But nooo, society's screwed... And I totally agree that that McDonald's-Coffee-Spilling-Skank-With-Good-Lawyers shouldn't have gotten a dime, and should have lost quite a bit more than that.

[BelDragos]

Who would've thought that the hot chocolate was hot? I usually drink mine frozen solid.

[Dogmeat]

I think Slitherr and Saint Faucet have hit the nail right on the head. Particularly, that these parents refuse to believe that any of this could be because of bad parenting, and the media happens to be the most convenient scapegoat.

The problem isn't that they see violence. The problem is that they were never taught the difference between fantasy and reality, and the line ends up blurring.

And yes, guns ARE part of the problem. You can't kill someone with a cigarette or a computer game (unless you're very creative and very very sick). You can kill someone with a gun. Easily. Without much effort. And you don't have any time to have second thoughts.

[Morte]

What bugs me most about all this is that they just blame the media while all reliable research in that area has shown no connection. Like Dogmeat says, they need a scapegoat, so the just blithely assume that it must be because of media violence. Yes, in theory it might be possible that violence in games and movies could be a cause of violence. No one has ever considered that there is an equal possibility that playing games like Quake might allow people to vent their frustration and anger in a harmless manner. But then again, most people are blind to what they don't want to see, so that is not very surprising.

[Dogmeat]

"...most people are blind to what they don't want to see, so that is not very surprising. "

And therein lies the problem. These parents don't want to see that it is bad parenting that causes most of these problems, not lack of censorship or game violence. They want to see lack of censorship at fault. So that is what they see.

I think there is a controlled experiment that needs to be done to settle this matter.

Have three test groups of children watch a tv show or play a video game with fantasy violence. Have one group have their parents remind them before and after the show that it is fake, and that attacking people is wrong, etc. Have one group with one of the scientists running the experiments telling them what is good and bad, right and wrong. And have one group with no parental control.

I guarantee you the parental control groups (particularly the ones with real parents) will act much more civilized and will know the difference better.

That is the thing that they leave out of all these experiments that 'prove' video games cause violence. Parental influence.

[Nadger]

yeah! why can't people just realize, some people are crazy. why can't anyone be someones own fault anymore? How come people blame it all on something else? Its pathetic. The kids that do murder people dont murder people because of the games they play, its because they are insane. One way or another they would have murdered people. With or without the games help.

this falls back on 1 of the best rules to follow.

Don't punish all for the actions of a few.

[Talka]

Here's a story. A single man with a son was playing EQ. The boy's complaints of hunger prompted the man to beat the kid and lock him in the closet so he could play EQ in peace.

And for some reason, EQ is at fault. The man's insane! Beating his son and locking him up for a videogame is not about the videogame, the man is *JUST PLAIN INSANE*

For some reason, when there is a school shooting, we quickly point at the Games He Plays, the Music He Listenes To, and the Shows He Watches. Now we get the belief that These Made Him Mad. I doubt that. If a kid is so sick as to let a game/music/show make him want to kill somebody, he was sick before the game.

Now somebody pointed something out about cigarettes, and how its the person's fault. I don't believe that. In this case, cigarettes are TARGETED to hook people on something that KILLS them. Then they realize that they're customers are dieing, so they target KIDS. I think that's pretty sick in itself. You can give a smoking man 1 million good reasons to quit, and he knows they're good reasons, but he can't stop. The product won't let him. And the product kills him. Something is WRONG here, no? I believe that people can smoke if they want to, but the companies are targeting to kill, and once killed, they target KIDS.

Anyhoo, I just had to particpate.

--Talka