I waffled on writing about this. It's been so done to death that I didn't know if I had anything substantial to add. Then I saw this from Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV and NRA friend):
“Look at Grand Theft Auto, put out by Rockstar Games in New York City
and see what it promotes,” Manchin said, adding later: “Shouldn’t that
be looked into and maybe be banned?”
Give me a break.
I'm an adult gamer. And in 2012, I am average. The average gamer is now in his 30s (and I will keep saying "his" because it remains a largely male hobby, though that is changing - during some trips to GameStop I've seen only women working). A gamer in his 40s has spent his entire life around games. Games are mainstream. They are ubiquitous. You have them on your smartphone. Saying Adam Lanza was known to play video games is about the equivalent of saying he was known to drive a car. It's a billion-dollar industry that supports thousands of good-paying jobs right here in the USA. And yet certain older politicians - mostly conservatives but it extends to some Democrats as well - persist in their belief that only kids play games, who are subsequently driven to violent tendencies. Therefore they should be heavily regulated or even banned. Wrong.
The Right loves the free market. It's the basis of capitalism. People are free to make economic decisions based on their interests. Businesses succeed and fail purely based on their ability to offer appealing products and services to customers. Supply and demand determine the inherent worth of something. Sounds great, right? Well, conservatives forget about all that when it comes to Hollywood and video games. Suddenly consumers are mindless zombies forced to digest whatever filth those California libruls spew forth to pollute society and destroy traditional America. Well, guess what - there would be no Grand Theft Auto IV if the previous GTAs didn't sell well. Disney, Universal, Electronic Arts, and Activision are ultimately driven like any other company - by demand for their products. If you don't like them, don't buy them. Don't allow them in your house. You are the parents and you have the responsibility for your children's exposure to games. Don't conservatives want more parental and less governmental involvement in children's lives? Just don't interfere with the rights of adults to consume whatever media they so choose. Moreover, gamers are parents themselves now. They know how to regular their kids' content and play time. Trust them.
The last serious campaign against violence in games was in the mid-1990s in response to games like Mortal Kombat. As a result we got the Electronic Software Ratings Board, a voluntary system that the industry readily agreed to implement in order to avoid more direct government regulation. Given that games were pretty much unregulated at the time, most people generally accepted something that was akin to the movie ratings system, as it would preserve the right for game developers to make the games they want. And the ESRB has worked well. Most stores actively refuse to sell Mature-rated games to kids. The system may need to change a bit in response to more sales moving online - but a credit card is still needed for those and given time the industry will probably self-regulate again to preserve its independence.
Meanwhile there have been no credible studies showing that video games lead to violence. Many other countries have violent video games - the very same ones enjoyed by US gamers. They also have practically no mass shootings, and the overall violence level is lower. If video games caused violence, South Korea would be the deadliest country on earth. That country is obsessed with games. People there do die from playing games...but literally - they die from playing for days on end. Now, gaming addiction is a problem there, and the Korean government is working to combat it. But gun violence is a non-issue. Hardcore Korean Starcraft champs don't go on shooting rampages (and before you bring it up - the Virginia Tech killer was mentally disturbed from a young age).
The gaming community is diverse, intelligent, enthusiastic, and kind. To the game critics, every game is GTA, Call of Duty, or Doom. Far from it. There are myriad genres of games. And you know what genre a lot of gamers are sick of? Shooters! Some of the best-selling and highest-rated games of the past few years have barely contained any violence at all (See Braid, Flower, Journey, Fez, and To the Moon). Some involve brain-bending puzzles that I would certainly like to see Manchin try to solve. Amongst gamers the stereotype of a Call of Duty player is a "dude-bro" fratboy type who only plays CoD in order to preserve his non-gamer-nerd image. Easy to poke fun at, but not particularly dangerous. I listen to hours of intelligent and thoughtful discussion about games and gaming culture on podcasts every week. Gamers support charities like Child's Play.
Games can be as technically impressive as a Hollywood blockbuster. They can be as moving as a great novel or TV show. But their interactivity takes them to a level that for many people - myself included - is far greater than passive entertainment. We acknowledge the craft that goes into designing good games and want to support those artists in their careers. We are gamers. We know the difference between fantasy and reality. We are here to stay, and we have the right to enjoy gaming as we choose. I'm tired of having to justify my hobby more than somebody whose hobby is collecting a small arsenal of actual weapons.
Games have been protected as free speech by the Supreme Court. This means there's likely nothing the critics can do other than bloviate and try to scapegoat games in order to avoid talking about the real problems (detailed in my previous posts). Games are still a young medium and it's likely that eventually their harshest critics will literally die off (there's definitely a bit of old-fogeyness about them). Until then, I would advise anyone who wants to attack video games to do two things. First, they should watch the documentary Indie Game: The Movie, available on Netflix Instant now. It's the story of two independent game designers and the length they go through to accomplish their lifelong dream - publishing a successful game. Both games (Fez and Super Meat Boy) went on to be critical and commercial hits. If you want to make it harder for these artists and entrepreneurs to accomplish their life's work, you're just mean.
Second, any politician or media figure who wants to criticize a game should first have to answer some basic questions about it. For example, for Grand Theft Auto I would ask: When is the next GTA game coming out? What is it called? What is the general plot of any GTA game? Name one actual setting of a GTA game (hint - it's not New York). Name five things you can do in a GTA game other than killing people. (I say this and I don't even really like GTA.) If you're going to criticize video games, you should be expected to do as least as much research as would be required for a high school essay. If you don't, are you more concerned about the issue or about drawing attention to yourself and away from what really matters?
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