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With a wearying regularity, the issue of violence in videogames arises. And time and timeagain, we as gamers received poor media coverage that borders on the libellous, with ourhobby derided and vilified. Especially in the wake of the tragic massacres in America, most notably in the case of Columbine, the coverage of this topic goes into overdrive. To quote Linkin Park, "they point the finger at me"; we as the purveyors and players of games are coming under heavy fire.
However, it is clear to me, listening to the scandalmongering shows on this, along with the negative news coverage, that the gamers side is never properly represented. This editorial is about that, the whole problem surrounding videogame violence, and what we as gamers could do to improve our tarnished public image.
Videogames, are, in general, violent. Whether you are playing Mario, F-Zero or Quake III, there is violence in the game. After all, what is jumping on a hapless Goomba with the intent of killing it if not violent? This is the attitude taken by adults and the media in regards to videogames. It is taken as a black and white issue, that the games are violent, that they are turning "our nations children into gun totin' zombies", or something to that effect. As such, if your parents know that you play violent games, you can get a lot of slack over it. If you're under 18, then they feel betrayed by you, that you would even consider these games enjoyable, and if you are older than that, you're perceived as a bit of a failure, and that there is something wrong with your morals. Ok, that's a bit extreme, but parents can really alienate their children on the topic of videogames, just as they did with rap earlier in the last decade.
What causes this wave of negative opinion towards games and us though? The media and politicians, who are always glad for a scapegoat with no chance of libel being filed for their actions. I will give an example of a show I caw around a year ago on British TV, Channel 4 to be precise. It was titled "Video Nasty", and suffice to say it was the single most damaging programme for the videogame industry I have seen in many a year. The program featured repeated clips of some kids at the arcades, shooting away on Time Crisis. It was fairly obvious from these that they were enjoying themselves, no doubt because they had just received a free game from the nice TV people. These were deliberately implemented to scare parents, which soon became apparent as the show's sole agenda.
Next the showed some footage of the students fleeing Columbine school, and superimposed images of Doom,RE, and Carmageddon over them. They then had a self taught expert on the show, retired lieutenant colonel David Grossman, who told us all of how these gamesare "teaching our kids how to kill", and that when Klebold shot those children, he "was playing a stinkin' videogame". I find this to be incredibly offensive, nearly a personal affront. I have yet to figure out quite how clicking a mouse or pressing a Z-trigger makes you a sharp shooter. If that was the case, surely the army would state "Must have a level of at least Veteran 11 in Perfect Dark" as a requirement on the application form? However, since this expert presented these "irrefutable" facts, I got given out to by my parents for my love of videogames, as they simply saw the bad side of videogames. That was due to the program presenting no alternative to its viewpoint, so we never saw the look of elation on a person's face as they made that jump in Mario 64, or the joy as someone wins a game of NFL2K. No, the good side to videogames would obviously detract from the conveniently shocking (and rating pulling) bad.
The one aspect of this programme which I found to be untouchable in terms of irresponsibility in press coverage was the way speculation was presented as hard fact. Again, I shall give an example. A psychologist doing research, though as a science student myself I do not think it can be fairly termed that, was filmed in order to give a "official" aspect to the show. Her experiments consisted of allowing college students to play one of two videos for a couple of minutes and then doing an "aggression" test on them. This test consisted of letting them put the researchers hand in a bucket of ice cold water till they decided to stop. And what were the results from this highly scientific test? Those who played the more violent game kept the researchers hand in for a few seconds longer than those who didn't though there were a number of exceptions.
From this, the psychologist deduced that violent videogames make you violent, and from that the program concluded that they were the the cause of all society's ills. However, one thing I didn't get about this was, how in the name of Freud can you make a scientific study if the subjects are college students! Of all people, they are the ones who will cop onto what its about, and decide to screw with the results for fun. Everyone does this, especially me. On all those forms you get on registration, how many would fill it in correctly? What? I don't see to many hands. That's because its fun to screw the system if you can get away with it. Thusly the software on the PC this is written on is registered to an 85 year old father of 30, with an average income of over 38 cents a year in my position of a CEO. Yet, is this info taken as law? No, and unlike the results from the aforementioned test, advertising results are never produced as definite. If they were, you'd be seeing some seriously weird products out the doors of Microsoft and friends.
The situation is not as bad as it once was; after the program I described earlier was screened, the broadcaster was inundated with angry complaints from gamers and members of the psychological establishment alike, and ELSPA, the European games rating body, later made a public denouncement of the programme, calling it "unfair" and "misleading".
Ok, that's the end of the rant part of this. So, we all know that the media and politicians look to videogames whenever something goes wrong these days. So the question is still there as to why. Well, it's fairly simple; the need for someone to blame, and the games industry, so fragmented and in truth, utterly defenceless, as it is, makes it the perfect candidate. Notice how after the tragedies that took place in these schools, the President goes on record to say that this is a tragedy, and that we need stricter measures on videogames. Now, I have nothing against America, anything which gives me Bob Dylan and Star Wars can't be totally screwed up, but the fact remains that the American culture (not the people) is in general to blame for this. Guns are simply to easy to obtain, and the legislature controlling their purchase and use too slack. This makes it easy for those who are critically unstable in mind to carry out their evil agendas, whereas in other countries they would be unable to do so without being caught, in the majority of cases.
And now we move onto solutions. Instead of always blaming things like videogames, and to a lesser extent films, maybe stricter gun control would alleviate this situation. I know it perhaps goes against the 5th (?) Amendment, but that was written at a time when Americans were unable to bear arms, as the Redcoats wanted to avoid confrontation. It
was put in to prevent America being recaptured by the British. It is no longer necessary! Another problem that needs solving to combat this issue is parenting. If you use your kid's Nintendo/TV as a baby-sitter, it is your own damn fault if they screw up, not Nintendo's, not Fox's, not someone else's. Many parents raise the point then that they don't know what they are buying for the their kids. A good example of this was the other who bought her child Conker's Bad Fur Day, not realising that the game was rated mature. She then had the audacity to complain about Nintendo, saying she felt betrayed. I don't know, but if you can't see the "Advisory: For those aged over 17 years only" in big writing all over the game's box, then you can't be too observant. However, if she had fed her child rat poison, and she had claimed the company also made sweets, would she have a leg to stand on legally? No, because these things are labelled, and you are meant to read them. They aren't just there for decoration!
I do accept that there is a likelihood that violent videogames may accentuate extreme violent tendencies in people. However these people are mentally unbalanced, and anything could spark them into acts of violence, be it videogames, films, whatever. I read the other day of a man who fatally shot his neighbour when he was unable to play the murderer's favourite song on his guitar. These people will always be a danger to society, and thanks to modern medical care, they are no longer as much of a problem as before, as some can be cured, especially if the symptoms are diagnosed in youth. Which brings me to another point. Youth, by which I mean those who are too young to have developed a steady moral code and who show violent tendencies, should not be allowed access to violent media of any kind, be it videogames or indeed the news, which it should be known glorifies tragedy in order to boost ratings.
However, I am not totally against all anti-violence movements; don't think I am one of those misguided souls for a second. I feel that there are some problems with the levels of violence in videogames, as the ratings system simply doesn't work. Parents seem to be blissfully ignorant of it till they realise little Jimmy isn't learning those cuss words from the neighbours, and even then they don't take much heed of them. Shop clerks really don't mind how old you look when you make a game purchase, so long as you have the cash. So there needs to be a more strongly enforced rating system. With this there would be no trouble from the media, as you can't blame games developers for selling their mature products to mature audiences, can you? the ratings commission would also need to be overhauled though, as there are some serious inadequacies in it.
This is shown most in the lack of consistency in ratings, in that they do not parallel those of the movies. If they did, parents would have a lot better idea of what their children were playing. The ratings should also be decided like those for cinema are. After all, have you ever seen a videogame as violent as Saving Private Ryan? Not to my knowledge, yet that got a 15's rating in the UK, while Perfect Dark got one of only perhaps ten or twenty 18 certificates handed out by the judging body in the last decade. And if I was to be told by someone that the ratings are different due to the interactivity of games unlike films which are a passive activity, I would laugh in their faces. After all, even if we are appalled at war, we were still thrilled watching that combat scene in SPR, more so than in nearly any videogame I can mention. To resume quoting music, "It's in our nature to kill each other". We are at heart barbaric, and no amount of modern culture will change that. We do have a lust for blood, though it is severely repressed in modern day man. And it is through violent videogames, books and films that we can let out our aggression, ironically enough, in a passive way. And this is where the enjoyment in these games, so invisible to those blind to new experiences, comes from, in winding ourselves down from the rat race of life, whether you are in school or at work.
Basically, what I am saying is that we should band together and stick up for ourselves and our hobby, lest we be forever castigated by the media and branded a bunch of antisocial, violent wrongdoers. Otherwise, we will forever be "guilty by association"...
However, it is clear to me, listening to the scandalmongering shows on this, along with the negative news coverage, that the gamers side is never properly represented. This editorial is about that, the whole problem surrounding videogame violence, and what we as gamers could do to improve our tarnished public image.
Videogames, are, in general, violent. Whether you are playing Mario, F-Zero or Quake III, there is violence in the game. After all, what is jumping on a hapless Goomba with the intent of killing it if not violent? This is the attitude taken by adults and the media in regards to videogames. It is taken as a black and white issue, that the games are violent, that they are turning "our nations children into gun totin' zombies", or something to that effect. As such, if your parents know that you play violent games, you can get a lot of slack over it. If you're under 18, then they feel betrayed by you, that you would even consider these games enjoyable, and if you are older than that, you're perceived as a bit of a failure, and that there is something wrong with your morals. Ok, that's a bit extreme, but parents can really alienate their children on the topic of videogames, just as they did with rap earlier in the last decade.
What causes this wave of negative opinion towards games and us though? The media and politicians, who are always glad for a scapegoat with no chance of libel being filed for their actions. I will give an example of a show I caw around a year ago on British TV, Channel 4 to be precise. It was titled "Video Nasty", and suffice to say it was the single most damaging programme for the videogame industry I have seen in many a year. The program featured repeated clips of some kids at the arcades, shooting away on Time Crisis. It was fairly obvious from these that they were enjoying themselves, no doubt because they had just received a free game from the nice TV people. These were deliberately implemented to scare parents, which soon became apparent as the show's sole agenda.
Next the showed some footage of the students fleeing Columbine school, and superimposed images of Doom,RE, and Carmageddon over them. They then had a self taught expert on the show, retired lieutenant colonel David Grossman, who told us all of how these gamesare "teaching our kids how to kill", and that when Klebold shot those children, he "was playing a stinkin' videogame". I find this to be incredibly offensive, nearly a personal affront. I have yet to figure out quite how clicking a mouse or pressing a Z-trigger makes you a sharp shooter. If that was the case, surely the army would state "Must have a level of at least Veteran 11 in Perfect Dark" as a requirement on the application form? However, since this expert presented these "irrefutable" facts, I got given out to by my parents for my love of videogames, as they simply saw the bad side of videogames. That was due to the program presenting no alternative to its viewpoint, so we never saw the look of elation on a person's face as they made that jump in Mario 64, or the joy as someone wins a game of NFL2K. No, the good side to videogames would obviously detract from the conveniently shocking (and rating pulling) bad.
The one aspect of this programme which I found to be untouchable in terms of irresponsibility in press coverage was the way speculation was presented as hard fact. Again, I shall give an example. A psychologist doing research, though as a science student myself I do not think it can be fairly termed that, was filmed in order to give a "official" aspect to the show. Her experiments consisted of allowing college students to play one of two videos for a couple of minutes and then doing an "aggression" test on them. This test consisted of letting them put the researchers hand in a bucket of ice cold water till they decided to stop. And what were the results from this highly scientific test? Those who played the more violent game kept the researchers hand in for a few seconds longer than those who didn't though there were a number of exceptions.
From this, the psychologist deduced that violent videogames make you violent, and from that the program concluded that they were the the cause of all society's ills. However, one thing I didn't get about this was, how in the name of Freud can you make a scientific study if the subjects are college students! Of all people, they are the ones who will cop onto what its about, and decide to screw with the results for fun. Everyone does this, especially me. On all those forms you get on registration, how many would fill it in correctly? What? I don't see to many hands. That's because its fun to screw the system if you can get away with it. Thusly the software on the PC this is written on is registered to an 85 year old father of 30, with an average income of over 38 cents a year in my position of a CEO. Yet, is this info taken as law? No, and unlike the results from the aforementioned test, advertising results are never produced as definite. If they were, you'd be seeing some seriously weird products out the doors of Microsoft and friends.
The situation is not as bad as it once was; after the program I described earlier was screened, the broadcaster was inundated with angry complaints from gamers and members of the psychological establishment alike, and ELSPA, the European games rating body, later made a public denouncement of the programme, calling it "unfair" and "misleading".
Ok, that's the end of the rant part of this. So, we all know that the media and politicians look to videogames whenever something goes wrong these days. So the question is still there as to why. Well, it's fairly simple; the need for someone to blame, and the games industry, so fragmented and in truth, utterly defenceless, as it is, makes it the perfect candidate. Notice how after the tragedies that took place in these schools, the President goes on record to say that this is a tragedy, and that we need stricter measures on videogames. Now, I have nothing against America, anything which gives me Bob Dylan and Star Wars can't be totally screwed up, but the fact remains that the American culture (not the people) is in general to blame for this. Guns are simply to easy to obtain, and the legislature controlling their purchase and use too slack. This makes it easy for those who are critically unstable in mind to carry out their evil agendas, whereas in other countries they would be unable to do so without being caught, in the majority of cases.
And now we move onto solutions. Instead of always blaming things like videogames, and to a lesser extent films, maybe stricter gun control would alleviate this situation. I know it perhaps goes against the 5th (?) Amendment, but that was written at a time when Americans were unable to bear arms, as the Redcoats wanted to avoid confrontation. It
was put in to prevent America being recaptured by the British. It is no longer necessary! Another problem that needs solving to combat this issue is parenting. If you use your kid's Nintendo/TV as a baby-sitter, it is your own damn fault if they screw up, not Nintendo's, not Fox's, not someone else's. Many parents raise the point then that they don't know what they are buying for the their kids. A good example of this was the other who bought her child Conker's Bad Fur Day, not realising that the game was rated mature. She then had the audacity to complain about Nintendo, saying she felt betrayed. I don't know, but if you can't see the "Advisory: For those aged over 17 years only" in big writing all over the game's box, then you can't be too observant. However, if she had fed her child rat poison, and she had claimed the company also made sweets, would she have a leg to stand on legally? No, because these things are labelled, and you are meant to read them. They aren't just there for decoration!
I do accept that there is a likelihood that violent videogames may accentuate extreme violent tendencies in people. However these people are mentally unbalanced, and anything could spark them into acts of violence, be it videogames, films, whatever. I read the other day of a man who fatally shot his neighbour when he was unable to play the murderer's favourite song on his guitar. These people will always be a danger to society, and thanks to modern medical care, they are no longer as much of a problem as before, as some can be cured, especially if the symptoms are diagnosed in youth. Which brings me to another point. Youth, by which I mean those who are too young to have developed a steady moral code and who show violent tendencies, should not be allowed access to violent media of any kind, be it videogames or indeed the news, which it should be known glorifies tragedy in order to boost ratings.
However, I am not totally against all anti-violence movements; don't think I am one of those misguided souls for a second. I feel that there are some problems with the levels of violence in videogames, as the ratings system simply doesn't work. Parents seem to be blissfully ignorant of it till they realise little Jimmy isn't learning those cuss words from the neighbours, and even then they don't take much heed of them. Shop clerks really don't mind how old you look when you make a game purchase, so long as you have the cash. So there needs to be a more strongly enforced rating system. With this there would be no trouble from the media, as you can't blame games developers for selling their mature products to mature audiences, can you? the ratings commission would also need to be overhauled though, as there are some serious inadequacies in it.
This is shown most in the lack of consistency in ratings, in that they do not parallel those of the movies. If they did, parents would have a lot better idea of what their children were playing. The ratings should also be decided like those for cinema are. After all, have you ever seen a videogame as violent as Saving Private Ryan? Not to my knowledge, yet that got a 15's rating in the UK, while Perfect Dark got one of only perhaps ten or twenty 18 certificates handed out by the judging body in the last decade. And if I was to be told by someone that the ratings are different due to the interactivity of games unlike films which are a passive activity, I would laugh in their faces. After all, even if we are appalled at war, we were still thrilled watching that combat scene in SPR, more so than in nearly any videogame I can mention. To resume quoting music, "It's in our nature to kill each other". We are at heart barbaric, and no amount of modern culture will change that. We do have a lust for blood, though it is severely repressed in modern day man. And it is through violent videogames, books and films that we can let out our aggression, ironically enough, in a passive way. And this is where the enjoyment in these games, so invisible to those blind to new experiences, comes from, in winding ourselves down from the rat race of life, whether you are in school or at work.
Basically, what I am saying is that we should band together and stick up for ourselves and our hobby, lest we be forever castigated by the media and branded a bunch of antisocial, violent wrongdoers. Otherwise, we will forever be "guilty by association"...
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To be honest, I didn't get to the end, to hard to read
It's definetly well written, shame that i'm stupid and would need a Thesaurus to understand most of the language.
Jack-In-A-Box wrote:
> Quality & Quantity.
The 2 Q's + Newbie usually = GAD winner?
We can all but hope.
> Quality & Quantity.
The 2 Q's + Newbie usually = GAD winner?
We can all but hope.
Quality & Quantity.
The 2 Q's + Newbie usually = GAD winner?
The 2 Q's + Newbie usually = GAD winner?
MJswerve wrote:
> Can I hear "I'm a copying fool?" Maybe I can't but your goung to have
> to explain every second word to me before I even dare read that. Now where is
> that google toolbar...
Ooooooh, aren't you a hard Mr Regular. Look at me tremble in my ballet dancer shoes. [In little girls voice] Please, don't taunt me big man. I am so scared...........
NOT!!! How d'you like them apples? eh, PUNK!!!
> Can I hear "I'm a copying fool?" Maybe I can't but your goung to have
> to explain every second word to me before I even dare read that. Now where is
> that google toolbar...
Ooooooh, aren't you a hard Mr Regular. Look at me tremble in my ballet dancer shoes. [In little girls voice] Please, don't taunt me big man. I am so scared...........
NOT!!! How d'you like them apples? eh, PUNK!!!
I don't think I have ever seen a topic called video violence before ? hrmmmmmmm...........
Just because I use a higher interlectual vocabularly than yourselves does not mean that I have sunk to the level of copying posts from other sources.
Please withdraw your hastily posted accusations as they are conscriptualting me. :-)
Please withdraw your hastily posted accusations as they are conscriptualting me. :-)
Thes sort of posts are hard to read. Their too long.
Maybe it's just me being lazy ?
Maybe it's just me being lazy ?
Can I hear "I'm a copying fool?" Maybe I can't but your goung to have to explain every second word to me before I even dare read that. Now where is that google toolbar...
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