Grand Theft 1
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GRAND THEFT CHILDHOOD
THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AND WHAT PARENTS CAN DO
Lawrence Kutner, Ph.D. and Cheryl K. Olson, Sc.D.
Simon & Schuster
NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY
CHAPTER 1
The Big Fear
We've been seeing a whole rash of shootings throughout this country and in Europe that relate back to kids who obsessively play violent video games. The kids involved as shooters in Columbine were obsessively playing violent video games. We know after the Beltway sniper incident where the seventeenyear-old was a fairly good shot, but Mr. Muhammad, the police tell us, got him to practice on an ultra-violent video game in sniper mode to break down his hesitancy to kill.
-Washington State representative Mary Lou Dickerson on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (PBS), July 7,20031
THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD DARREN AND A HALF DOZEN OF HIS video game-playing friends are sitting around a table at the Boys and Girls Club in a working-class section of Boston. We're talking about the games, especially the violent ones. They've all played them.
Darren had a tough time in school earlier this week. On Monday, a teacher said something that embarrassed him in front of his classmates. When he went home that afternoon, he plugged in his video game console, loaded Grand Theft Auto 3, blew up a few cars and shot a half-dozen people, including a young blonde woman. When asked, Darren admits that the woman he killed in the game looked a lot like his teacher .
Everyone attributes violence that is shown in kids to the violent video games that they play. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think it is much more convincing that violent children seek out violence in video games, not the other way around. After a certain age (I’m not sure what that age would be) I think that violent children letting out their aggression through playing video games could actually prevent aggression outside of the virtual world. In sports sometimes a coach will tell you to pretend that the ball that you are hitting is the face of someone that you hate. Maybe if Darren disliked his teacher, this had the same effect on him, relieving built up aggression. It sounds counter-intuitive with all of the media coverage on the dangerous affects of video games but I think that a study on these effects would be unique and eye-opening.
To build on that I think the idea children letting out their agression by playing violent video games is a very interesting idea that I’ve never heard proposed. I’m interested as to whether or not that idea holds any merit. But it reminds me almost of a stress relief ball someone could squeeze when they’re angry and stressed. I think the only danger is that these people are spending more time dwelling and fantasizing about violence instead of really relieving it. Although it is an interesting idea I think other forms of sports or exercise are most likely better stress relievers than simulated violence.
To build off Brannon’s comment, it’s been proven that exercise (when you do it enough, like a long run or intense activity) releases endorphins in the brain which chemically function to reduce stress. I don’t know how the tests are run specifically, but if they can measure the change in endorphin levels after exercise (and even sex) it seems more than feasible that tests could and would be run in relation to playing video games to provide scientific support for this claim.
I know that personally I like using video games to let off steam, and while i see that actual physical exercise is probably more effective, I am very curious as to what the results of such a test might expose. I did find an interesting article on the internet, from a Texas A&M study, which found, “In this study, 103 young adults were given a frustration task and then randomized to play no game, a non-violent game, a violent game with good versus evil theme, or a violent game in which they played ‘the bad guy.’ The results suggest that violent games reduce depression and hostile feelings in players through mood management." I would like to see a more comprehensive study of course.
I agree I think the reading focused on what have all discussed in class. If your kid is showing signs of mental instability or violence at a young age it’s probably not a good idea to let them play violent video games. It is up to parents to know their kids and decide what they can handle. It seems like most of us were exposed to violent video games as children and I don’t think any of us are violent…..
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If you listen to the politicians and the pundits, the relationship is blindingly clear: playing violent video games leads children to engage in realworld violence or, at the very least, to become more aggressive.
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.: . In August 2005, the American Psychological Association issued a resolution on violence in video games and interactive media, stating that "perpetrators go unpunished in 73 percent of all violent scenes, and therefore teach that violence is an effective means of resolving conflict." !
I honestly thought the statistic would be higher. If 73% of video games don’t punish violent acts then 27% actually have mechanisms for punishing violent acts. Not that I have a lot of experience with games, but I can’t think of a single video game that punishes violent acts. When I played FIFA I wasn’t called for a foul when I would intentionally slide tackle players without the ball, which would be a foul (and a mechanism for punishing overtly violent acts) in a real soccer game.
But then again is pulling a trigger a violent act? Or does an act become violent when there is actual harm and real world repercussions. I was probably about 8 or 10 when I fist shot a gun. It was a child-sized single-barrel shot gun for skeet shooting with my grandfather. Manufacturers have been making child-sized shot-guns for longer than video games have been around. But, no one makes a huge fuss over this. Granted they’re not used without adult super vision to the same extent that video games are either. But, I also grew up playing air-soft in the woods behind our neighborhood, as long as we wore our eye masks nobody’s parents cared. Is the act of pulling the trigger violent? Or does the difference stem from shooting clay disks or friends in 10 layers of clothing versus shooting and killing an animation of a person. In either case there are no real world repercussions. In fact the risk for actual repercussions is higher in the activities I listed with the risk of accidents. But, we attribute violence in video games to the connection drawn between shooting and killing or even the gory imagery.
The allegation that “perpetrators go unpunished in 73 percent of all violent scenes” is based on research from the mid-1990s that looked at selected television programs, not video games." (para 43)
But again why should punishment matter? I’m agreeing with the scientists in this reading over the media claims they present in the beginning. But, why is this a concern of the media? Are they inciting fear that lessons of justice aren’t being taught? Or is there a deeper fear of the unknown and a concern that the medium has a greater power to persuade and children may not be able to separate the game from socially accepted reality?
Careful, Megan, the statistic is for scenes in video games, not games themselves. In one game, the villain can “get away with” violence 10 times and then receive punishment once at the end at the hands of the player. This means that the ratio of “unpunished violence” to “punished” violence is high.
Furthermore, this is the EXACT same argument that was used against comic books in the early 20th century. The idea that comics encouraged crime by showing criminals getting away with crimes, even temporarily, resulted the Comics Code rule stating that ALL criminals had to be apprehended and punished BY THE END OF THE STORY. THis meant the death of long story arcs and plot development, as the Joker always had to get caught and there could be no cliff-hangers. This is what may happen to video games if this silly argument is allowed to be reapplied to the new “problem media”.
You commented just before I did, now most of my post seems redundant.
Basically, yes, they are concerned that the lack of punishment in fiction teaches children that crime pays.
Actually, many games punish violent actions. Just not ALL violent actions. Most shooters, role-playing games, adventure games, etc, either disallow violence against innocents or allies, or PUNISH the player with in game consequences or a simple GAME OVER screen if they kill their teammate.
In Assassin’s Creed, for instance, they give you a tiny bit of leeway for collateral damage, but if you kill more than one or two civilians, rather than targets or soldiers, you immediately lose.
I think it has actually become a recent trend in games to punish more than necessary violence. I’m not sure what version of FIFA you were playing but you definitely get called for fouls in the more recent versions and receiving cards is not fun. Especially in other sports games, there have been great lengths to clean up the franchises so that teamwork is on display. Shooting your comrades in Call of Duty also immediately makes you fail the mission (it happens by accident a lot sometimes….agh). So while games still do reward for violent actions that are progressing the story or mission i.e. shooting enemies in Halo, anything more than what is deemed necessary is usually met with consequence. Even Grand Theft Auto has cops chase the player if they do anything violent seen in the vicinity of cops. I know that isn’t the best example, but it should be considered that even a game of such gratuitous violence would have cops swarm even if the player is completing a mission.
.: . The attorney for Lee Malva, the young "DC Sniper," claimed that the teen had taught himself to kill by playing Halo on his Xbox game console. "He's trained and desensitized with video games ... to shoot human forms over and over." 3
.: . Columbine High School shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were avid computer garners. According to psychologists Craig Anderson and Karen Dill, "One possible contributing factor is violent video games. Harris and Klebold enjoyed playing the bloody shoot-'em-up video gameDoom, a game licensed by the U.S. Army to train soldiers to effectively kill."
I knew before reading this that the Columbine shooters were known to play Doom almost obsessively, however i did not know it was a game licensed by the U.S. Army. I think this ties back into previous discussions involving army games. Can we assert that games could be effective in training soldiers to kill, but could not have the same effect on children? Should games licensed by the U.S. Army even be available to the public?
I agree with your question of whether or not these games have the same effect on children. It seems very hypocritical for me, when I see people argue against violent video games for causing violence, but then using them to promote violence. Is it only okay if the violence is sanctioned by the government, or if the children playing are being trained as super soldiers for the army? I think its a serious moral issue that needs to be considered before moving forward with both arguments.
I think the reading made a good point about this very issue. When soldiers are playing these games they are given a specific context and they using these games in a specific environment. When kids play these video games at home they might have a different mentality
We hear that youth violence, as reflected in violent crime and school shootings, is a growing problem, and that young game players are socially isolated and unable to form interpersonal relationships .
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:. The growth in violent video game sales is linked to the growth in youth violence-especially school violence-throughout the country .
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:. School shooters fit a profile that includes a fascination with violent media, especially violent video games .
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:. A British study by Save the Children was described in the press as finding that "children are struggling to make friends at school because they spend too long playing computer games." A spokesperson for that organization added, "Children have always played alone, for example with dolls or train sets, but these activities required a certain level of imagination-they stimulated their brains. That is not the case with modern computer games, which do children's thinking for them and put them in their own little world,"?
We're told that the game ratings and content descriptors provided by
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to help parents protect their children from violent and other inappropriate content.
.: . The ESRB employs child development specialists who play each game thoroughly before assigning it a rating that helps parents select which games are most appropriate for their children .
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:. Video games that are rated T ("may be suitable for ages 13 and older") are less likely to desensitize a child to real-world violence than video games that are rated M ("may be suitable for ages 17 and older") .
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:. Checking the ratings on the games our children bring home-and not allowing M-rated games-is the best way to protect our children from video game violence.
All of these statements are wrong! Some are misunderstandings; others are outright lies. In fact, much of the information in the popular press about the effects of violent video games is wrong.
Torturing the Data?
Guy Cumberbatch, PhD, is a psychologist specializing in media research. He directs the Communications Research Group in Great Britain and has been studying the effects of mass media on violent behavior for several decades. He sums up that research succinctly:
The real puzzle is that anyone looking at the research evidence in this field could draw any conclusions about the pattern, let alone argue with such confidence and even passion that it demonstrates the harm of violence on television, in film and in video games. While tests of statistical significance are a vital tool of the social sciences, they seem to have been more often used in this field as instruments of torture on the data until it confesses something which could justify publication in a scientific journal.
If one conclusion is possible, it is that the jury is not still out. It's never been in. Media violence has been subjected to lynch mob mentality with almost any evidence used to prove quilt.'
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The strong link between video game violence and real world violence, and the conclusion that video games lead to social isolation and poor interpersonal skills, are drawn from bad or irrelevant research, muddleheaded thinking and unfounded, simplistic news reports:
.: . The allegation that "perpetrators go unpunished in 73 percent of all violent scenes" is based on research from the mid-1990s that looked at selected television programs, not video games."
.: . The video game Halo involves shooting an unrealistic gun at a giant alien bug. It is not an effective way to train as a real sniper. In court, Lee Malvo admitted that he trained by shooting a real gun at paper plates that represented human heads. Also, Malvo had a long history of antisocial and criminal behavior, including torturing small animals-one of the best predictors of future violent criminal behavior."
.: . It's unlikely that Harris and Klebold's interest in violent video games or other violent media played any significant role in their actions. An FBI investigation concluded that Klebold was significantly depressed and suicidal, and Harris was a sociopath. 10
Youth violence has decreased significantly over the past decade." You are more likely to be struck and killed by lightning than to die in a school shooting. 12
.: . Video game popularity and real-world youth violence have been moving in opposite directions. Violent juvenile crime in the United States reached a peak in 1993 and has been declining ever since. School violence has also gone down. Between 1994 and 2001, arrests for murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assaults fell 44 percent, resulting in the lowest juvenile arrest rate for violent crimes since 1983. Murder arrests, which reached a high of 3,800 in 1993, plummeted to 1,400 by 200l,l3
.: . The U.S. Secret Service intensely studied each of the thirty-seven nongang and non-drug-related school shootings and stabbings that were Con-
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sidered "targeted attacks"* that took place nationally from 1974 through 2000. (Note how few premeditated school shootings there actually were during that twenty-seven-year time period, compared with the public perception of those shootings as relatively common eventsl) The incidents studied included the most notorious school shootings (e.g., Columbine, Santee, Paducah), in which the young perpetrators had been linked in the press to violent video games. The Secret Service found that there was no accurate profile. Only one in eight school shooters showed any interest in violent video games; only one in four liked violent movies."
.: . On the other hand, reports of bullying are Up.IS While bullying may not make the headlines, it makes a big difference in the everyday lives of our children." As you'll see in chapter 4, our research found that certain patterns of video game play were much more likely to be associated with these types of behavioral problems than with major violent crime such as school shootings.
I think it’s our current media environment as a whole that has made bullying rise. There’s a senses of anonymity that comes with a lot of the mediums we currently use. As we all know cyber bullying has become a critical part of bullying today.I think there’s anonymity in video games too. You start a lot of games by choosing your avatar and give yourself a name. You’re not required to identify yourself in that character, giving you great anonymity. Then since a lot of multiplayer games use head sets to communicate between players, children and adolescents have the ability to take out aggression on other players without the potential of being held responsible. Obviously if you play with your friends they will know your username. But there is still the ability for someone to keep themselves anonymous.
I think there is more at play that just anonymity. The Buchman et. al. reading mentioned that it is easy for players to act violently towards other players or characters because these there is a certain understanding that this virtual world is not reality (it creates a distance that makes the violence seem less, well, violent). I suspect something similar is at play here. It’s possible that these players don’t feel the same remorse when they bully each other because at some level this is not the real world but a virtual world.
I want to say that the always-connected nature of the mediums of the internet and many multiplayer video games today contribute to a large part of why bullying is on the rise.
Children can go home to play video games in order to de-stress, but if they log in to some online service they’re exposed to not only the anonymous bullies but the regular bullies who can further target them online. What should be a respite from reality becomes another problem and these compound with social media, cell phones, and everything else we use to keep constantly connected.
I agree, and would say that the issue is with people always being connected. If a kid is always connected, they have no way of avoiding their bullies, and usually tend to find more bullies when they join games or other online interaction services. The communities of most games are pretty bad, and I would say that reputation still has a big role in it. For instance, in a game like call of duty, every 10 minute game is its own thing, essentially. Nobody really pays attention to people’s gamertags, so nobody feels any incentive to be sensitive or attempt to gain a reputation. In other games, like MOBAs for instance, there is slightly more of a build-up of reputation, but the communities are still very dark and disturbing. MMOs and other games where you build a reputation tend to, in my experience, have the best, nicest, and most respectable communities.
I agree with Alison and Tomas. I think the media environment makes it easier for us to bully each other but it is not just because of the anonymity that these games give us. I think it has to do with people create these worlds. They create gaming environments that are insensitive to people of minority racial groups and females. This combined with the anonymity heightens the ability for people to bully each other in video game environments.
For many children and adolescents, playing video games IS an intensely social activity, not an isolating one .
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:. Many games involve multiperson play, with the players either in the same room or connected electronically. They often require that players communicate so that they can coordinate their efforts. Our research found that playing violent video games was associated with playing with friends .
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:. For younger children especially; games are a topic of conversation that allows them to build relationships with peers .
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:. Although it came from a reputable organization, the widely cited British study claiming that increased use of electronic media has led to
* The Secret Service defined a targeted attack as "any incident where (i) a current student or recent former student attacked someone at his or her school with lethal means (e.g., a gun or knife); and (ii) where the student attacker purposefully chose his or her school as the location of the attack. Consistent with this definition, incidents where the school was chosen simply as a site of opportunity, such as incidents that were solely related to gang or drug trade activity or to a violent interaction between individuals that just happened to occur at the school, were not included."
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social isolation among children based its findings on the personal opinions of an unspecified group of primary school teachers who were asked to compare today's children Cages five to eleven) to what they remembered about children who were in their classrooms when they started teaching, not on scientific observations of children conducted over time. Blaming supposed deterioration of social skills among kindergartners and first graders on MP3 players and time spent surfing the Internet is a bit of a stretch, to say the least. Also, the "study" was part of a publicity campaign for Friendship Friday, an annual fund-raising event in Great Britain for Save the Children."
The current ESRB rating system, while more effective and informative than other media rating systems, has significant flaws that need to be addressed .
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:. ESRB raters don't actually play the games at all. They watch videos of excerpts of the games that have been provided by the manufacturers.' Until 2007, the Entertainment Software Rating Board employed temporary workers with no background in child development to rate its games. Their previous online help-wanted ad for game raters stated:
The ESRB is looking ior adults with flexible hours that would be available to come to our office in midtown Manhattan on a freelance basis (1-4 times a month) during normal (9-5) business hours to rate video games. Experience with children is preferred. Prior experience playing games is not required and training will be provided."
That approach has recently been revised. The ESRB now uses full-time employees to rate games, although training in child development (or even being a parent) is still not required. The new (2007) online helpwanted ad for game raters reads:
* The often-heard demand from politicians and others outside the industry that game raters play all possible parts of a game before assigning a rating is naive and impractical. Making judgments based upon appropriate video excerpts makes much more sense, especially since publishers face significant costs, including fines, if the ESRB revises a rating upward after a game is released.
I think the idea of how the ESRB rates games kind of goes back to the topic of our first paper, and could be tied into all of the first sections readings very easily. I am kind of disappointed that the organization feels comfortable rating a game based on excerpts. Especially thinking back the the “persuasive games” article, Bogost explains to us how video games can be used as arguments, rhetorical or not. I don’t feel like you could understand an argument from a game, or a movie, from excerpts, but what if a game was filled with strong political rhetoric. For example, a game that was anti-government. I don’t think its acceptable for the ESRB to rate games without playing them through. A game can have dangerous ideas, as much as it can have dangerous visual content. I understand that this might be going above and beyond what the rating system is expected to do, but it could be very helpful in the future, especially if video games are to be accepted as a higher form of art or media than they are now.
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Prospective candidates should have:
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Experience with children
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Interest in and familiarity with video games
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Strong communications skills (verbal, written)
Parents and those with video game playing abilities are preferred, though these are not requirements. Salary is commensurate with qualifications and experience. Training will be provided .
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:. According to research on the effects of violent media, the ESRB may have parts of its ratings system backward! One of the predictors of which violent media are likely to result in violent real-world behavior is material that does not show the realistic negative consequences of violence, such as pain, suffering and blood.' ? Violent video games that are rated M are more likely to show those negative consequences. Those that are rated T or E achieve such lower ratings in part by not showing those negative consequences: dead bodies just disappear; blood is animated rather than realistic." Also, those games in which the player is rewarded with extra points for avoiding a violent confrontation (e.g., the SWAT series) are given the same M rating as those games in which the player is given extra points for piling up virtual corpses .
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Mar 4We’re concerned that children won’t take away the lessons of the repercussions of violent actions and that violence is not a primary answer nor a solution. However, it requires a Mature audience to process such things …
Mar 4Sometimes I feel like having young kids play video games that are too mature for them is like taking your kid to an R rated movie when their a toddler. The parents awesome the kid cannot process any of the material in the movie so they skip the babysitter.
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:. Our interviews with adolescents and their parents found that while parents thought they knew which games their children were playing, for the most part they did not. Also, a growing number of games-some of them extremely violent, sexist and racist-are available for play online and are not rated by the ESRB. Neither of these is the ESRB's fault, of course, but they point out some of the limits of any game rating system.
As Darren tells his story about feeling angry, then playing the violent video game in which he blew up cars and shot several people, including one who looked a lot like his teacher, the other kids sitting around the table nod their heads. It's clear that at one time or another, they have each done something similar. "1 guess I got my anger out," Darren says. "Then I sat down and did my homework."
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The Game Made Him a Zombie
The United States is by no means alone in its common assumption that video game violence leads to real-world violence. On January 11, 2006, an allegedly drunk twenty-year-old man entered a synagogue in Moscow, brandished a knife, and injured eight people, six of whom required hospitalization. The Russian newspaper Pravda reported the story:
Alexander Koptsev was a quiet and unsociable young man. He had no criminal record and was leading a decent lifestyle. Alexander suffered a severe psychological trauma a year ago, when his sister died, the Kommersant newspaper wrote. Being unable to handle his grief, the man became a secluded individual, started spending most of his time indoors and developed an addiction to computer games.
Alexander Koptsev was playing a game called Postal-2 before he left home and went to the synagogue in Moscow center. The game models a situation, in which the character is supposed to kill as many people as possible in the streets of the city ....
The game which the young man was playing made him a zombie.
The man was programmed to demolish and kill. It was believed not so long ago that the descriptions of such mental disorders could be found in fictitious novels and stories. However, those addicted to computer games often suffer from the so-called video game epilepsy syndrome. Ardent gamers suffer from headaches, facial muscular spasms and eyesight disorder. The syndrome does not lead to aggravation of mental abilities of a human being. However, it develops certain peculiarities typical of epilepsy: a person may become highly suspicious, aggressive and hostile about everything and everyone. A person who suffers from the video game epilepsy syndrome can easily grab a kitchen knife, leave the virtual world and look for victims in reality.
The incident in the Moscow synagogue is an alarming signal indeed. However, this signal warns about the growing influence of virtual reality on the human mind."
This is utter nonsense, of course. In his confession to the Moscow police, Koptsev said absolutely nothing about video games; he stated that he was
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envious of the Jews' standard of living and spoke of his "desire to die." 22 Clearly, this was a very troubled young man.
While there have been some reports in medical journals of an increase in the number of seizures among children over the past century, especially among children watching television or playing video games who are already diagnosed with epilepsv.P these are extremely rare events when compared with the number of children and the amount of time spent playing video games. In some of those children, flickering lights (such as those on a television or computer monitor) can trigger seizures. These seizures are not associated with the types of dramatic paranoid or violent behaviors described in the Pravda article.
Our Journey as Parents
The prolific scientist and author Isaac Asimov famously stated, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!', but 'That's funny .. .''' So it shouldn't be surprising that our first step into what would become several years of full-time research was our casual observations of our son, who liked to play video games.
One of us (Cheryl) is a public health researcher specializing in media influences on health-related behaviors. The other (Larry) is a clinical psychologist and journalist specializing in child development and parentchild communication. We're old enough to have been teenagers at a time when the few video games available had titles like Pong and Space Invaders. But we're young enough to feel very comfortable working and playing with computers and other technology.
Neither of us were "garners" a few years ago; one of us is today. (The other can take it or leave it-a sure sign of a generation gap.) Our teenage son, Michael, had first played simple computer games in childcare when he was about three years old. Those games had crude graphics and agonizingly repetitive (to an adult) music. They involved completing simple tasks, such as lining up an animated fire truck with a mark on the screen so that the cartoon firefighters could rescue a cat in distress.
He played the games a few times and loved them. Like other children
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that age, he was completely fearless when it came to interacting with computers. While his teachers hesitated over the new and complicated devices, he and his classmates saw computers as friendly toys and plunged ahead.
This is a pattern seen in the introduction of all new technologies. Our own parents were initially uncomfortable around microwave ovens, color televisions and electric typewriters. Our grandparents were unsure about commercia) aviation. Although they would surely deny it now, our children will one day balk at some of the future technologies that their own children will readily embrace.
Since we had personal computers in our offices at home, we decided to look into video games when Michael was about five years old. A few stood out as developmentally appropriate and nonviolent, including a series that featured an animated purple car named Putt-Putt.
In one particularly endearing game, Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo, the child, acting as Putt-Putt, is asked to solve a series of simple one-step and twostep problems in the rich environment of an animated zoo. With each successful solution, one of the six lost baby animals at the zoo would be reunited with its parents. The child could also take time out to play ice hockey with polar bears, dance with penguins and interact with magical flowers. It was utterly charming, nonviolent and both emotionally and cognitively spot-on for a preschooler.
The graphics in these games were much more complex and sophisticated than those of earlier generations of computer games. In fact, when our son played them, the video was a bit choppy and the audio was occasionally out of sync. The computer he used simply couldn't do all the mathematical calculations quickly enough to run the game smoothly. Interestingly, this was the same computer that Cheryl had recently used to do all of the statistical calculations for her doctoral dissertation in public health at Harvard. Her computer was good enough for graduate school, but not powerful enough for our five-year-old's games of PuttPutt. This was a harbinger of things to come in the world of video games.
When Michael was in kindergarten, he asked the teacher whether they could play video games as part of their class work. She said no. We heard about this when we received a phone call from the school principal. Our son, at age five, had apparently decided to go over his teacher's head
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with the request and had set up a one-on-one meeting with the principal to discuss making video games a part of the curriculum. Clearly, he was captivated by the technology. She was not.
The games he played over the next few years were similar in tone to the Putt-Putt games, although they became much more sophisticated. The technology changed as well. By the time our son was in fourth grade, he insisted that we buy him a Game Boy. We had recently moved to Switzerland, which meant that he was attending a new school. Pokemon was an international craze among kids, and our son wanted to take part. We bought the Game Boy and the Pokernon cartridges.
As we watched and listened to him, it became apparent that the primary attraction for him wasn't the Pokernon games themselves, but the social interactions they triggered with peers. It gave the boys-as with many video games at that time, it was mostly boys who played-a nonthreatening common experience to talk about. This let them build relationships and explore new social roles.
Alot of the readings that we have looked at this semester have focused on video games as a solitray activity. I know we have discussed (mmoa) games but we have not really looked at the positives of gameplay. Grand Theft Auto makes a good point by saying that the primary interaction of video games is not necessarily the game itself. Video games give kids a social environment where they can develop skills and a sense of power within the game. The example of the Pokemon phenomenon is equivalent to the trading of baseball cards a generation earlier yet no one complained about kids collecting and trading baseball cards.
First of all, fantastic summary of content title. I’m not sure if you can assert that not all parent complained about the trading of baseball cards a generation earlier. I’m willing to bet even then parents would have found something to complain about, even if the specific example of parents wouldn’t. But even if the parents didn’t care about baseball cards, you have to understand that when people are being social by playing video games a lot of the interaction is taking place through headsets and microphones and not always with kids in the same room. I think that might be part of the reason why even though video games are social, they may not always be viewed as such.
Our son and his friends reveled in their mastery of the games' arcane rules and in their knowledge of the characters' names and special skills. These were things that the adults around them did not comprehend or appreciate, which gave the children a highly valued sense of power and importance. Michael would electronically trade Pokernon characters with his friends the way his father had traded baseball cards a generation earlier.
The game characters were mostly cute, mythical animals with a variety of strengths, weaknesses and special powers. The focus of the Pokemon plots, however, was an ongoing series of battles between the mythical animals in which the loser is knocked out or faints. While the characters were cute and the actions were highly stylized, the games focused on violence.
When is this sort of violence acceptable? I mean this is Pokemon we are talking about. The game may have a focus on violence (battles) but it is ever so whimsical. I think it is perfectly fine for 8 year olds to play Pokemon. I think it’s perfectly fine that they faint. I would let my 3 year old play Pokemon actually.
I agree with you in that these games are fit for anybody. They are more symbols of conquest and competition rather than violence. It is extremely difficult for me to correlate these whimsical actions with violent people. I too would allow any child to play these games.
I think you bring up a good point. While a focus of Pokemon is violence, it is not necessarily considered violent because of its “whimsical” quality. I don’t think it’s inappropriate for children of young ages to play Pokemon either, but it just makes me wonder about the hidden messages in video games that are so cute that they don’t really bring up much concern. I played a game called Fur Fighters when I was like 12, and it involved playing as animals and shooting each other. Whenever anyone was shot, they would give out a sort of cute but sad cry like a meow or whimper, but is this sort of violence in video games alright because it is not directed towards people? Does this make Halo less violent because the targets aren’t human? Granted, I think that shooting animals in video games is much less of a concern than if a child were abusing animals in real life, but where do we draw the line between acceptable violence for children?
This is not necessarily bad. A game of chess, after all, is a simplified portrayal of warfare in which pawns (commoners) are readily sacrificed to protect more valuable pieces. Yet few people express concerns about children playing chess, and many people actively encourage it as a form of intellectual exercise.
But looking at the plotlines of Pokernon piqued our interest in why these games were so attractive. Was it the children's identification with
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the characters? Was it the opportunity to "collect" characters? (Children this age-especially boys-tend to be avid collectors of all types of things.) Was it the social interaction?
Over the next few years, violence became a more prominent feature of bestselling video games, including some of the ones our son played. The media routinely offered stories on the dangers of playing some of these games, both in the news and in the plots of entertainment programs. These days, an episode of a television show in which a young video game designer or an avid gamer kills someone has reached the level of cliche.
Other parents spoke to us of their concerns. These ranged from fears of children becoming living time bombs ready to reenact the violent plots of the games in the real world, to concerns about whether the games prevented kids from getting enough exercise, thereby leading to an epidemic of obesity. In other words, would they become serial killers, couch potatoes or something in between?
Perhaps there was an emotional component to why video games in general and violent games in particular were so popular. We had noticed that our son, like many children, would sometimes isolate himself and play games on his Game Boy, game console or computer when he was feeling frustrated, angry or depressed. As adults, we could recall doing similar things, such as "vegging out" in front of a television during times of stress or curling up with a book when we felt overwhelmed. Was this any different? Did the violence in the game matter?
This led to a fundamental question: Should we, as parents, be worried about our children playing violent video games? The research literature
,
which we'll examine in chapter 3, was of little help. Too many of the studies were poorly designed, or bore little relevance to the real world. Perhaps most important, almost nobody had bothered talking directly to children to see what they had to say about why, when, where and how they played video games. We thought we'd try.
The Study
In 2004, we began a two-year, $1.5 million multifaceted study of violent video games and children at the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media, which is a division of the Department of Psy-
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chiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. The U.S. Department of Iustice funded the research."
Our researchers came from a variety of fields: child and adolescent psychiatry, adult psychiatry, public health, clinical psychology, developmental psychology, educational psychology, public policy-we even had an evolutionary biologist working with us. This allowed us to look at the issue from a broad set of perspectives. (Our research assistants, who were recent college graduates preparing themselves for doctoral programs in psychology, relished telling their friends and parents that they had found a job that actually paid them to play video games!)
Two things separated our study from most of the research that came before us:
.: . We didn't have a political or social agenda, or other vested interests. We weren't out to prove a point or to defend an industry. Studying video game violence was only a small part of what we did professionally, so the outcomes of the research didn't affect our careers. We didn't own stock in the companies that developed the games or sold the hardware. Although we all had ideas about what we might find, we disagreed amongst ourselves. Some of us were gamers; others were not. Some of us were the parents of teenage children; others were not. As researchers, we simply went wherever the data took us .
-
:. We interviewed and surveyed a large number of children and parents to find out what they actually did, why they did it, how they felt, what they thought and what they feared. Much of the earlier research on violent video games involved artificial situations, such as having college sophomores playa new game for a few minutes in a research laboratory, or measuring fraction-of-a-second differences in how long someone blasts an air horn or triggers white noise from a computer (a surrogate, the researchers claim, for aggression or for violent behavior) after playing a violent game. Instead, we studied real families in real situations.
Much of what we found surprised us. The data were both encouraging and, at times, disturbing. The more we analyzed our own data and looked at other research, the more we realized that we-parents, politicians,
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researchers and child advocates-probably worry too much about the wrong things and too little about more subtle issues and complex effects that are much more likely to affect our children.
It's clear that the "big fears" bandied about in the press-that violent video games make children significantly more violent in the real world; that children will engage in the illegal, immoral, sexist and violent acts they see in some of these games-are not supported by the current research, at least in such a simplistic form. That should make sense to anyone who thinks about it. After all, millions of children and adults play these games, yet the world has not been reduced to chaos and anarchy.
It's also clear that parents are both concerned and confused about violent video games. They are the first generation of parents to deal with children who use this technology. (Although, as we'll describe in chapter 2, their OW11 parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had similar fears about the new media of their day.) We want to protect our children from potentially harmful consequences, but we don't know how to do that or what those consequences might be.
One thing I didn’t really stop to consider was the implications of the generation gap when it came to games. Even though it’s 2013 and to all of us it seems a little strange if we meet someone who doesn’t know how to really use a computer. Even my own parents have learned to use a computer fairly well ( though they still have a long way to go) could it be that most of the blame aimed at video games could all be a lack of understanding and thus a retaliated lash out? If that is the case why are so many of them uneducated about it? Video games have been around for 30 or 40 years. Professor Williams games way more than I do and he understands, is he just a exception to his generation? If it was a generation thing it would make sense. In the article the prolific scientist Isaac Asimov talk about how some parents they had talked to expressed their fears about things they use to do in front of the television. They would “[veg] out”. Is that what everyone is so afraid of?
I do think there is a huge generation gap, and the people who don’t understand the media are afraid of it. That’s also not a new idea, or so it seems. Older people seem to be afraid that video games are dangerous because they are new, or difficult to understand. It is very difficult to explain how a video game works to someone who doesn’t fully comprehend the technology. I know my grandmother asked me how I fit so much music into my IPOD when I first got an Ipod mini. She was very concerned.
Even if our parents’ generations were exposed to video games, they were a different kind of video game entirely. Sure the basic principal is the same but it does not seem that one could have convincingly found much danger in the first generation video games. Though the arguments for the negative effects that video games have are often contested, one can a least understand where the fears are coming from: video games of today are filled with gore, sex, criminal activity, you name it.
We may be asking the wrong questions and making the wrong assumptions. For example, instead of looking for a simple, direct relationship between video game violence and violent behavior in all children, we should be asking how we might identify those children who are at greatest risk for being influenced by these games. We should look at why children say they play both violent and nonviolent video games. (Some of the most popular games, even among teenage boys, are not violent. Our research also found that, contrary to popular belief, a few of the most popular games among teenage girls are extremely violent.) We should ask whether children who spend a lot of time playing video games are failing to learn important interpersonal and social skills, or whether they're using the games to improve their social relationships with peers.
Are some types of violent video games having more subtle, but potentially more destructive, effects on today's youth? Do they make sexist or racist behavior more acceptable? Do they reinforce the perception of women as sex objects? Do they lead to increases in "under the radar" problems such as bullying?
Those are the types of questions we began asking, both through our
,wn rp<:;p::trr.
hrouzh reviews of others' research. We ars
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whether the current game rating system makes sense and how it compares to other systems around the world.
To do this, we conducted written surveys of a diverse group of more than 1,200 middle school students about where, when and why they play games. We asked detailed questions about their favorite games and movies. We asked whom they played video games with. They answered questions about bullying and destructive behavior, depression, attention problems, attitudes and feelings. They told us about their after-school activities, family and peer relationships, and more. This allowed us to see how each of these issues is related to video game play.
We also surveyed over five hundred parents of these middle school students. We learned what they were doing to limit their children's access to violent video games and how their kids often told a different story. We looked at whether they played video games with their kids, and how they used game ratings.
We conducted group interviews with forty-two teen and preteen boys who routinely played violent video games. We asked about why they played those games, the influence of violent video games on their lives, what games they thought children should and should not play, and what they did that their parents don't know about.
At the same time, and in a separate room, we conducted group interviews with twenty-one parents of those boys. We found out how much (or how little) they knew about their children's game playing. We learned about their fears. We listened as they told us about their efforts to monitor and control what their children played and the information they wanted to protect their kids. We also talked about what they saw as the benefits of playing video games.
We conducted experimental research that measured critical aspects of the brain waves of college students as they played either violent or exciting nonviolent games. We also analyzed what's right and what's wrong with the designs and execution of earlier experimental research and the conclusions drawn from those studies.
We reviewed state, national and international efforts to regulate children's access to video games. We looked at what motivates these policies, who's promoting them, whom they affect and why most of them don't succeed.
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We developed and tested a new game rating system for research that addresses more of parents' concerns in a simple, clear format. We compared this new rating system to the current ESRB system.
Finally, we conducted a survey of several hundred video game developers to find out what they think about the role of violence in games and its effects on our children.
These Are the Good Old Days
Harold Schechter, PhD, a professor of English at Queens College in New York City, has focused much of his career on studying the portrayal of violence in popular culture. He states, "I have little doubt that fifty years from now, parents will be raising a howl over virtual-reality shoot-ern-ups that allow their kids to actually feel the splatting blood from the blown-off head of a holographic lambie, and that they will pine for the idyllic days of 2004, when children enjoyed such harmlessly cartoonish pastimes as Resident Evil and Grand Theft Auto. From the vantage point of the present-when the latest state-of-the-art entertainments seem to offer unprecedented levels of stimulation and lifelike gore-yesterday's popular culture always seems innocent and quaint." 25
So playing devil’s advocate a bit.
Assuming that Dr. Schechter is correct and that violent video games are simply the latest moral panic over new media, does this mean that there is not an issue? Is it a case of “this is not where the problem is”? Should we be instead focusing on educating parents about proven psychological signifiers of violent behavior later on in children, or improving our counselors’ and teachers’ ability to recognize such things?
Even further, does the fact that violent video games do not affect violent behavior in an extreme fashion make the fact they are graphically violent unimportant?
If the violent video game controversy is really just a panic over a new medium, I would said there really isn’t much of an issue. However, parents should probably attempt to keep the games kids are playing age appropriate in some manner (and to the degree that is really possible). There is also the issue of online bullying, something that is pervasive in a lot of online games – and that is something that might have legitimate ramifications, and merits some consideration.
I would have to agree. I think that as long as kids are playing games that are age appropriate, the violent video game debate wouldn’t even exist. However, kids are getting a hold of violent video games at a younger and younger age. I do believe that this could be a problem just based on my knowledge of child psychology.
If you agree with Dr. Schechter, then you would probably believe that the latest moral panic really is just over new media. The issue, however, remains. Violent behavior at a younger age has still been more prominent than in the early years of media. This is not necessarily to implicate new media, but it has been an issue. Any time there is new media there will probably be this sort of uproar, especially since so many vide games are centered around violence. I wouldn’t say that violent behavior is not affected by violent video games, but it is possible to have a video game centered around violence and not necessarily a realistic sort of violence (see Pokemon).
The Ultimate Video Game
Our research team has gathered at the Boston offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to get a glimpse of the future. Special Agent Ed Kappler, the chief firearms instructor, is demonstrating what some people in law enforcement call the ultimate video game: FATS, the firearms training system.
The equipment looks more like a home theater than a gaming system. A video projector sits in the center of the room. Special Agent Kappler is in the back corner, typing instructions into a computer. He introduces us to another senior agent who will demonstrate the system by going through a simulated "incident." This agent has nearly fifteen years of field experience. He's been through a lot of advanced training in law enforcement. He's on the FBI's SWAT team. Clearly, he's a man U.T
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knows what he's doing. He's the levelheaded guy you'd want by your side during a crisis.
The agent picks up a specially modified standard-issue pistol that fires a laser beam instead of bullets. Compressed air simulates the "kick" of firing real ammunition. Special Agent Kappler dims the lights as a life-size video image is projected on the wall. We hear the premise behind the scenario: "You've been called to a government warehouse after closing time following a report of suspicious activity."
We see several stacks of corrugated boxes inside the warehouse and hear the creak of a metal door opening to the right. A man walks in carrying another box.
"FBI! Put down the box and show me some identification." The agent startles us with the intensity of his voice. It is practiced and forceful. He is taking control of the situation. He has drawn his gun but is keeping his trigger finger alongside the barrel, away from the trigger itself.
"Good evening!" says the man on the screen, who's wearing slightly scruffy work clothes. "I'm the shift supervisor. I just needed to finish a few things before leaving."
"Put down the box, and show me some identification now!" says the agent.
"OK, OK. Just give me a second." The man places the corrugated box on top of the others. He then jumps behind them, quickly pulls out a pistol and fires at the agent. (In another version of this scenario, the man with the box takes out an ID card that proves that he really is the shift supervisor, not a thief. The agent going through the simulation, as in real life, never knows what's going to happen.)
After diving for cover within our darkened room, the agent fires at his attacker with two sets of double-taps: pop-pop, pop-pop. Everyone of us can feel our heart beating more quickly, even though we're just observers and know that this is only a simulation.
The projected image on the wall freezes as the lights come back on.
The FBI agent holding the simulator's laser-firing gun is sweating. Special Agent Kappler asks him to recount what just happened, to tell stepby-step what led up to the incident and to his decision to fire back.
Surprisingly, to us at least, the FBI agent can't give a detailed or even a clear account of what transpired. He's a consummate professional. He's
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been through hundreds of these FATS scenarios. He's trained to observe and recall exactly this type of information at a crime scene. Yet his heart is beating so quickly and his nervous system is so aroused that he can barely get more than a few words out.
And it's only a game.
Special Agent Kappler replays the scene on the wall as we watch. The computer has calculated when the FBI agent's shots were fired and where they hit. The first entered a corner of a box; the second and third hit the perpetrator in the shoulder. The fourth hit the wall.
The l<""'ATS system we're using is not designed to test or improve marksmanship. Rather, it helps improve agents' judgment on when to use lethal force. Except for the ability to replay the incidents and to trace the path and timing of the agent's bullets, the system is fairly primitive. The on-screen characters don't respond in different ways based upon what the agent says or does. The instructor has no way of knowing whether the perpetrator's opening shots would have hit the agent. Future versions of the system are likely to incorporate such features.
Still, the nature and size of the projected images and the cold metal feeling of an actual pistol in your hand tell your body that this is quite different from seeing those same images on a small computer screen and responding by using a keyboard or a plastic joystick. The threat feels real, and your body responds at a cellular level.
Next, one of our researchers tries FATS. She's a developmental psychologist, not a trained police officer, although that's the role she will be playing in the simulation. Special Agent Kappler shows her how to cock the gun and move its safety switch so that it can fire the laser beam. She's nervous but excited.
The room lights go out as a video image appears on the wall. She's told that she is supposed to back up her partner, a young uniformed female officer who is questioning a suspect who's standing on the sidewalk. The muscle-bound man on the screen is easily twice the uniformed officer's weight. He's skittish and uncooperative. He reaches out to touch the officer's shoulder.
Special Agent Kappler coaches our researcher to say something that will help her regain control of the situation. "Don't do that!" she says to
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the man on the screen. Her voice is surprisingly dry and weak, as if her body is unsure of whether to be aggressive or to flee.
We watch as the man on the screen grabs the police officer, quickly takes her gun from its holster and holds it to her head. She is now a human shield, trapped between the violent armed perpetrator and the backup officer-the game player. "Get out of here, or she dies!" he yells. The police officer he's threatening looks terrified.
Our researcher has her gun drawn. Should she fire at the man holding the gun? If so, will she hit her partner? Will he kill her partner anyway? What about the children who are playing on the street behind him? What about her own safety?
Special Agent Kappler freezes the video and turns on the lights. Our researcher's hand is shaking. Her breathing is quick and labored. The pupils of her eyes are clearly dilated. Her mouth is dry.
We've been watching the clock. "How long do you think that incident took?" we ask her.
"Between five and seven minutes," she replies. "Maybe a little more."
"Actually, it was seventeen seconds."
We have glimpsed one path toward the future of video games.
Violence VS. relevance
One reason why the experienced FBI agent may have had so much difficulty recalling the details of the incident-indeed, he had more trouble than our researcher, who was simply pretending to be a police officeris the relevance of the information. To our researcher, the incident in the game was very different than the daily events in her life. She knew that it was highly unlikely that she would ever be put into that situation with a real gun and real lives on the line. Her intense emotional experience was, at its roots, similar to what she would feel watching a well-produced adventure movie or reading an exciting novel.
For the FBI agent going through the warehouse theft simulation, the experience was different because the context was different. He knows fellow agents who've been shot at and, indeed, he may have been shot at
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himself. He understands that in the course of his work he will have to stop quite a few suspicious characters. Some of these people will be armed; a few may even try to kill him. To the FBI agent, it is not just a game. The situation, people, equipment and responses are all realistic and relevant to his daily life. His emotional and intellectual frames of reference are completely different than those of our researcher.
We saw hints at this important difference when we interviewed young teenagers and preteens who routinely played violent video games. While many of them enjoyed the ability to shoot people, drive tanks, blow up buildings, steal cars, evade the police, massacre aliens and stab zombies, they recognized that these actions were fantasies.
They knew this was play. They also knew that they were unlikely to be in the situations that form the pretexts of the violent games.
James: "Really violent games, like in Vice City where you can just go around killing anybody, they're less realistic. The environment, the people are real, but not the actions."
When I read this, it made me think about how we don’t give children enough credit. Though they are easily influenced by the media, I feel like many of them know the distinction between fantasy and reality. It’s not realistic if you can do things out of the ordinary, and I know this is part of the appeal of games, but at the same time, I feel like the hardware gives that sort of separation or boundary between the game and real life. Does playing a violent video game enhance aggressiveness in children? Probably, but it’s limited in the same way that food commercials can make you hungry but you won’t necessarily go on an eating binge. It just seems to me that unless the video game we are referring to is like the FATS that they talked about, the influence is minimal.
Carlos: "But if you're like angry, angry at someone, and you really want to take out your fear on him, you just playa game. It's like that's taking out fearing all for you."
Researcher: "It takes out your anger and your fear?"
Carlos: "Yeah."
Josh: "When I play video games, it's like I have a power. I have a power to do anything. I can get away with it. If I wanted to kill, I could. So don't mess with me ....
"I wouldn't be able to kill somebody [in real life]. But in video games I could. It's a video game!"
Indeed, when they did express violent urges based on video game situations or characters, those urges almost always were directly related to
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their day-to-day concerns and frustrations as children, as well as normal childhood fantasies.
Researcher: "Which character would you like to be?"
Vinnie: "Sub-Zero [a ninja-like character in Mortal Kombat]. Sometimes I have dreams of being him."
Researcher: "And what would you do?"
Vinnie: "Freeze people. Freeze time-then 1 could get out of school early. Nobody would see what time it is."
Carlos: "Freeze the teacher."
Vinnie: "Yup, can't get us! ... I'd freeze the entire world and make my own kingdom."
Carlos: "I would be Scorpion [a "reincarnated specter" in Mortal Kombat]."
Researcher: "What would you do with your day as Scorpion?"
Carlos: "I can just tell the teacher to not give me homework. No, don't give me homework."
Researcher: "So you'd stop people from doing things you don't like."
Carlos: "Yeah."
Vinnie: "I love his costume, actually."
Carlos: "And I'd rule the world with my brother. We would make everyone wear cool costumes."
Josh: "I like [in [a character in Tekken Tag Tournament] because he's the most powerful fighter out of all the fighters."
Researcher: "How would you be like jin if you could be?"
Josh: "When somebody's getting bullied or something, and they can't defend themselves, I'd just go help them out."
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When we asked these groups of preteens and young teenagers who routinely played violent, M-rated (age seventeen and older) games how old they thought someone should be before playing such games, they gave a predictable answer: twelve or thirteen years old-roughly a year younger than they were. At the same time, they were very concerned about younger children playing violent video games and often expressed the same logic and even used the same words that their own parents used when explaining why young children should not be allowed to play violent, M-rated games.
For the most part, however, it was not the violence that these children wanted to protect their younger brothers and sisters from. It was the language. In group after group, the children showed deep concern about what they called "swears."
That was, we came to realize, something that directly applied to their lives. They might not be able to blow up a car, fire a submachine gun, freeze an opponent, battle a zombie or engage in a samurai-style tournament in the real world. But they could swear. It was the use of language that most easily bridged the gulf between their fantasy game worlds and reality.
Justin: "Little kids, they don't know the basic meanings of life. So once they see that, they're going to think, 'Oh, that's how life goes. You can swear and go around hitting people.' "
Ivan: "I wouldn't let my little sister play True Crime: Streets of LA [a violent game in which the player takes on the role of a recently suspended Los Angeles police officer who fights street gangs, drug runners, corrupt cops and even zombies] because they say swears."
Matthew: "I don't like my little brother or sisters to watch me play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City because of the language. They might swear at other people' cause of the attitude-how they do it in Vice City. They always give people attitude and swear at other
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people [in the game]. And that could make my family look bad, like my mom isn't raising us regular or anything."
The other issue that struck close to home with these young teenagers and preteens was sex-but quite differently from the way that many parents expected or feared. The children's normal adolescent awkwardness and concerns came out in the way they responded to the sexual content of some of the video games.
I hadn’t even thought of this, but the way that these children responded to the sexual content presented in video games (like The Sims!) make me wonder what other social effects video games can have. Violence, for all intense and purposes, seems to be a fairly broad media subject that I think for the most part, people are use to seeing. But sex is still very taboo. What are the considerations being made of games that challenge acceptable sexual norms? or to go a step further, are there concerns that games could also desensitize children to sexual content? And finally, if these kids are aware of the sexual content being presented to them in the game, could a similar line be drawn to the violent content being presented in these games?
There is really a fine line with sex and games. Basically, if you show any actual sex going on with full nudity the game is going to receive an AO rating. In games like Mass Effect there is “sex” but you really don’t see much so they pass. If some of you remember the Hot Coffee scandal years back with Grand Theft Auto, the game included a hidden scene which could be hacked into so that you could see yourself having sex with one of your many girlfriends in the game. Also when BMX XXX came out, there was only one version of the game that showed the nudity of the riders (it was a terrible game). AO games don’t hit the market (therefore no financial success) and it is still very taboo within games coming out. So I don’t think sex is such an issue yet because mainly of the culture we live in. Violence is more acceptable so games with gratuitous violence come out, the same can’t be said for sex.
I’ve used this word so much in my comments today that I feel like I’m cheating, but it’s relevant here too! I think the frightening thing about sex in video games is the interactivity that’s inherent in the game.
The amazing TV show 30 Rock once had a great story arc where Tracy made a “porn video game” which he said “combined his two greatest passions.”
To my knowledge, no such “porn video games” exist, but I did hear a disturbing story out of Japan about four years ago in which a game came out and the main objective was to rape as many women as possible. The player would identify women walking alone or women not paying attention on the subway, and then “make their move.”
This is obviously an extreme example, but if we revisit Bogost’s article for way back when and the idea of procedural rhetoric, it becomes even more disturbing.
I think the authors are misguided in being shocked by the “sex” in Sims which if I remember correctly was simply a bunch of blurred avatars and hearts swimming around the screen but it’s a shock factor that when directed towards the right games is relelvant.
I found your last statement really interesting. You make a great point about awareness of content presented to the children. I don’t really think they’re fully aware of the sexual content though. I think that they’re just at the pre-pubescent age when they just don’t understand why people would get involved in sexual things so they approach it with some awkwardness and surprise. When I played God of War, there was a part where you are in bed with a couple of half-naked ladies, and you were to follow certain button sequences to “please” the ladies. When you successfully completed it, you received enhancements to your magic. I think that it is definitely inappropriate for children, but when children actually play it, I’m not sure if they really understand that these sequences mean performing sex. I apologize for making this reference, but it makes me think of Disney movies and how we can see them multiple times as children but don’t see or understand the sexual and political references until we’ve learned more about them.
Researcher: "Are there any games that you think you shouldn't be allowed to play at age thirteen?"
Patrick: "Sort of like ... The Sims [a nonviolent game in which the player creates computer-simulated people and their environment)."
Ramon: "Yeah, The Sims. 'Cause they go to people and, like ... " [pause]
Patrick: "They go to, like, people and, like ... " [pause]
Ramon: "Kiss."
Patrick: "Yeah."
Researcher: "So, because of the kissing, you don't think you should be able to play that game. How old should you have to be?"
Ramon: "Kissing. Like, fifteen."
Patrick: "Fifteen, yeah. Maybe fourteen."
Josh: "I agree with both of them."
Randy: "Also, BMX XXX [a game that combines a BMX bike competition with videos of naked women in a strip club; it was a public relations disaster for the publisher, which soon filed for bankruptcy."]
Researcher: "Howald would you have to be to play that game?"
Randy: "Twenty."
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Josh: "I disagree. You could be like seventeen or eighteen. If you're eighteen and you still live with your mom, and your mom comes in the room and you just beat the level and she sees the girl pull up her shirt ... "
[There's nervous laughter from the kids in the room.]
Researcher: "So, obviously you've played this."
Patrick: "See, he's played it!"
Josh: "No, I haven't!"
Researcher: "Well, how do you know what she did?"
Josh: "'Cause in a magazine ... "
Researcher: "You read about it."
Josh: "Yeah."
Ramon: "There's this new game coming out called Playboy: The Mansion [a game in which the player takes on the role of Hugh Hefner in both his business and private lives.]"
[Some of the kids in the room gasp.]
Ramon: "That's not good for eight-year-olds."
Patrick: "That's for, like, twenty-year-olds."
Josh: "That's for, like, a hundred!"
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Every single one of the articles I have read today has started the same way. Because of some school shootings people are looking for a source of this behavior and their natural inclination is to put the blame on violent video games. (As a side question I wonder if there were any school shootings before the invention of video games.) But as Guy Cumberbatch, a PhD in psychology and specialist in media research so eloquently put it “the real puzzle is that anyone looking at the research evidence in this field could draw any conclusions about the pattern, let alone argue with such confidence and even passion”. Me I don’t consider myself to be in the know about the ever raging debate about the effects of video games positive or negative but as the article has explained, no one can make a definitive argument one way or another. That said, I wonder where Cumberbatch falls on the issue of violence games and school shootings because I think it would be just wrong to say that there was no correlation at least.
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