Videogame
Violence: A Second Look from the Perspective of the Gaming Culture
The party of
warriors crashed through the underbrush into the clearing. An elf, tall and
lean, was carrying an ornate golden bow. A man, strong and fearless, was
sporting armor and broadsword that seemed more decorative than functional. And
a dwarf, stout and sturdy, yelled a battle-cry through his thick beard,
swinging his large axe in wide arcs. In front of the trio was a clearing in the
dense forest where five goblins had set up a small camp. The fire in the center
was burning bright, and the goblins scrambled to pick up their own crude
weapons for the coming fight. The elf, man and dwarf made short work of the
group of goblins, their weapons hewing through flesh and bone. The corpses lay
in a pile, and the trio began looking through the camp for anything valuable.
They would carry the spoils with them, food and healing herbs, to the next
small camp only a short walk ahead. Perhaps there they would find a weapon
better than what they currently possessed; A bow that made its bearer shoot
faster and farther or a sword with cryptic runes that would slowly heal its
bearer’s wounds. They would continue this pattern throughout the night. They
would never tire, for these three were not living in the conventional sense,
but in the virtual sense. They were avatars, or a virtual representation of a
person, for a popular game known in gaming culture as an “MMORPG,” or,
“Massively Multiplayer-Online Role-Playing Game.” When the users who created
them would log off the virtual world, they would not move. Their world would persist,
but they would wait motionless and lifeless where they stood until their user
logged back on for more carnage and mayhem. The world of fantasy violence
awaits.
Since
their humble inception, videogames have become a significant part of American
culture. The stereotypical gamer, anti-social and brooding, has been portrayed
in the media in a negative light for many years. Only recently has some of the
stigma of playing videogames lifted as they have become more mainstream and
widely accepted by society. Some of the stigma still lingers, however. Images
still haunt communities around Littleton, Colorado and Paducah, Kentucky,
famous for their school shooting incidents. Various psychologists perform
studies on videogames and their effects on children and their conclusions are
often the subject of talk of parents. When looked at by other professionals who
are self-professed “gamers,’ the results of these studies are sometimes
interpreted very differently. Videogames have been unfairly criticized and
vilified for a number of societal problems and incidents due to various
misconceptions about gaming culture. Often, benefits from playing videogames
are not studied or overlooked. Stereotypes concerning people who play
videogames devoutly are often false and results from studies on videogames can
often be seen as skewed by the media.
Concern
over videogame violence can be seen as far back as the 1970s with an obscure
arcade cabinet game called Death Race. Like all early videogames, the graphics
were crude and left a lot to the imagination. A block was to represent the car,
and the player earned points for running down stick-figures scattered in the
road. The stick-figures were to represent “Gremlins,” but this style of graphic
violence caused the game to be banned in some areas of the country (Kushner,
2003, p. 79). Even with very little graphical detail, and a small set of
instructions that clearly stated the car was not running over people but rather
monsters, society let their imagination run wild. Unfortunately, they
overreacted and assumed the worst. Children would be corrupted and tempted to
run down pedestrians in real-life.
The controversy in
Death Race was the first major issue to strike the burgeoning industry
concerning violence. Videogames were a brand-new medium, captivating the minds
of many computer enthusiasts at the time. By the time the first videogames were
shown to the public, society did not know how to react. Chaplin and Ruby write
in their 2005 book Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment, and Big
Bucks in the Videogame Revolution, “Considering that most people in America
had never seen a computer in 1962, to actually be able to play with one – to
control a visual representation on screen – left them speechless” (p. 46). The
backlash to videogames in the early years is easy to understand since many in
the general public, in fact, did not understand videogames or computers. One of
the very first videogames, Spacewar, was discontinued from mass-production due to
general confusion from the large instruction manual that came with it. This was
something that very few people had seen or even thought of. The games were
created by brilliant programmers working in labs at MIT or Berkeley on the very
first computer systems available to the academic and business world. They
viewed the programs they created as a way to expand their problem-solving
skills. They were pioneers in an industry that did not yet exist and were
misunderstood by the general public.
Videogames
gradually gained acceptance and popularity in American culture. The industry
crashed and recovered in the 1980s. A Japanese company called Nintendo
succeeded in gaining a large share of the market and producing a game console
that was affordable enough to be placed in many homes. Many programmers and
computer enthusiasts challenged themselves to create games on their own
systems, inspired by games and characters such as Mario. Two of these
enthusiasts were John Carmack and John Romero, founders of id software and
creators of several violent games such as Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake. These
games would go on to be linked to the tragic school shooting incidents that
took place in Littleton, Colorado and Peducah, Kentucky.
The two teen
shooters from the Columbine shootings were said to be warped by their favorite
music and their favorite game, Doom. Doom was shown in a negative light in the
media, portrayed as sick fantasy and ultra violent. Today, many writers look
back on the incident as an example of how an industry is portrayed when
conclusions are rushed. Fantasy violence was not new and had existed before in
other forms of media and imagination. Kushner, an American writer and
Journalist, stated in his book Masters of Doom:
Violent
fantasy, of course, had an ancient history. Readers had been fascinated by the
gore in Beowulf for over a thousand years (“The demon clutched a sleeping thane
in his swift assault, tore him in pieces, bit through the bones, gulped the
blood, and gobbled the flesh”). Kids played cops and robbers, brandishing their
guns and flying backwards in imagined bursts of blood. (2003, p. 79)
Had the shooting incidents not
occurred, the fantasy violence in games such as Doom may have been overlooked
or unnoticed. The outrage over the incidents fueled public rage and led to a
scramble to make sense out of a senseless act. It is argued that the music and
videogames that these teens played were the scapegoat for the incidents because
they had not yet reached mainstream acceptance. Doom was distributed not
through retailers, but freely through the internet. The new forms of metal
played by acts such as Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson were demonized and
also associated with the same games. Kushner explained that Trent Reznor of
Nine Inch Nails had agreed to record music for Carmack’s next violent game,
titled Quake (2003, p. 213).
Some proponents
of the videogame industry view fantasy violence as essential for a child’s
normal development, teaching him or her to be able to distinguish fantasy from
reality much better than a child who has not had any experience with fantasy
violence. Charles Herold, a writer for the New York Times and videogame critic,
challenged parents to attend a boxing match with their child and watch as the
crowd cheers and a man is beaten until he can no longer compete. He stated, “Perhaps
then people will realize that an animated spear is better than a real fist and
they will e-mail me with their gratitude for luring the world away from true violence.
They are most welcome” (2005, para. 21). It’s true that sporting events today
are not the same violent spectacles the Romans put on for their public, but
real violence in sports can still have an effect on a child. A favorite star
gets physical with another player, and a child may assume that this sort of
physicality is acceptable. A child who plays a violent game will know the level
of violence on screen is fantasy and is not acceptable in the real world.
Studies on how
videogames affect children are numerous. One of the most active in the field of
study is Anderson, a PhD and journalist for the American Psychological
Association. His report on violent videogame studies state that children who
routinely play violent videogames are subject to a moderate but predictable
rise in aggressive behavior and thought (2003, para. 4). A moderate increase in
aggression may serve as proof to some that videogames are responsible for all aggressive
behavior. The very same conclusion was drawn in the past when studying the
effects of contact sports on college and high school students. Goleman, a
journalist for the New York Times, wrote in 1985, “Since football athletes
might be more aggressive to start with, the telling point in this research is
that, as the season goes on, these athletes grow more hostile and aggressive,
and remain so in the off-season. That result was not found with swimmers”
(para. 12). Aggressive behavior in individuals has always been present, and
experts and researchers will continue to do studies on activities and other
areas of our culture that contribute to aggressiveness. Videogames were not the
first scapegoat of aggressive behavior, and will not be the last. Organized
sports such as football and hockey are an accepted part of modern culture and
serve many benefits to the players. These sports are not banned because of an
increase in aggressive behavior in the participants. Videogames, similarly,
have many benefits not reported in the aggression studies.
Skills
that can benefit from videogames vary. Some, in common with organized sports,
let the player build upon his teamwork skills. Others are not readily apparent
but are now being studied, such as the effects of the player’s problem solving
and critical thinking skills. Young, an American journalist, studied research
by Steinkuehler. Young reported on Steinkuehler’s argument, “’People were
actually—no kidding—gathering data on things like the game monster's behavior,
putting it in an Excel spreadsheet, and building little mathematical models to
try to beat the monster,’ she told me recently. The game teaches complex
problem solving and collaborative learning, Ms. Steinkuehler argues” (2010,
para. 4). If these studies continue and are able to ascend to the same level as
the aggression studies, many may see all the benefits that videogames may offer
and stop focusing on just the behavioral studies that indicate videogames
instill aggressive behavior and anti-social tendencies in players.
As
a testament to the skills that videogames can teach and hone, the government
has been using videogames extensively. In the mid 1990s, when Senator Lieberman
and President Clinton were calling for regulation of the videogame industry due
to its violence, the military had licensed the Doom engine built by Carmack,
and built a new version called Marine Doom. This version of the game was used
to teach soldiers teamwork in an urban combat environment since eight players
were able to cooperatively conquer the many levels (Kushner, 2003, pp.
193-194). More recently, the armed forces have released their own game series entitled
America’s Army. The games can be downloaded and played for free from the
web-site www.americasarmy.com. Inside the games, the player must go through
virtual boot camp that includes conquering an obstacle course, learning basic
and advanced rifle skills, and even sit inside a virtual classroom to learn
other vital areas of warfare, such as combat first aid. Once the player finished
boot camp, he is allowed to play with others on various locations that pit two
squads against each other, much like war games played at real boot camps. The
game is hugely popular and is widely known to be one of the Army’s best
recruitment tools. From within the game, the player can request to have
information on joining the armed forces sent to his address or be contacted
directly by a real recruiter over the phone.
Videogames
have slowly been becoming accepted as part of mainstream culture over its
history. The violence in videogames has often been cited as a societal problem
that contributes to delinquency and violent behavior in youths. In much the
same way the music industry and motion picture industry were targeted years
before, videogames became a scapegoat for the public and for politicians. With
the help of greater societal acceptance and studies that reveal benefits from
videogames, the industry is slowly shedding the stigma associated with fantasy
violence and aggressive behavior. Even the government uses videogames as a
training and recruitment tool for the military. The next time a zombie is shown
being dismembered on a television or computer monitor, remember that violence
is not the cause for societal behavioral problems and that the game may be
teaching the player critical thinking and problem solving skills. He must
figure out a way past all obstacles whether they are a part of the environment
or a monster standing in his way to the goal. He may be working as part of a
larger group, tackling a large obstacle that he would not be able to handle on
his own. His culture is not one of endless violence, but of teamwork, problem
solving, and critical thinking. The violence depicted is no different than the
popular violence in major motion pictures, television, and sports. Videogames
will receive fair judgment once all of society is able to participate and
understand the concepts and challenges behind their design.
References
Anderson, C. A. (2003, October). Violent videogames:
Myths, facts, and unanswered questions. American
Psychological Association. Retrieved April 12, 2010 from: http://www.apa.org/about/psa/2003/10/anderson.aspx
Chaplin, H. & Ruby, A. (2005). Smartbomb: The quest for art, entertainment,
and big bucks in the videogame revolution. Chapel Hill, North Carolina:
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
Goleman, D. (1985, August 13). Brutal sports and
brutal fans. The New York Times.
Retrieved April 18, 2010 from: http://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/13/science/brutal-sports-and-brutal-fans.html
Herold, C. (2005, March 24). Fighting on the screen,
out of harm’s way. The New York Times.
Retrieved April 12, 2010 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/technology/circuits/24game.html
Kushner, D. (2003). Masters of doom: How two guys created and empire and transformed pop
culture. New York: Random House.
