Why I Am Not Playing GTAIV
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Gamespot: 10 out of 10. Game Informer: 10 out of 10. X-Play: 5 out of 5. IGN: 10 out of 10. 1UP: A+. Gamespy: 5 out of 5.
I would not be surprised if GTAIV is Game of the Year. I’m not playing it, and I probably never will.
Here are my reasons in no particular order:
There are just too many reasons not to.
I’ve changed. In the past, I would play any game that was popular or a triple-A title without any regard to content or subject matter. I just cannot play a game where it’s good to be bad. I pretty much avoid games where you are a serial killer, psycho, or just some crazy going postal. The GTA games let you do just that. You’re rewarded for being evil, and not just a satiric or comedic type of evil. Generally, the worse you are the better. I’m not against violence. I like playing Crackdown and Assassin’s Creed, but even then I don’t play them all that much anymore. Now, someone will argue that I really don’t know the game because I’ve never played it. However, there’s so much about GTA in popular culture and reviews that I’m pretty sure I’m not too far off the mark.
Violence and language affects you. Argue this as much as you want, but playing games influence you. Any game. There is no way around it. Another argument is that anything we watch, do, hear, and feel influences a person. Over the past year I’ve come to realize that when I surround myself with violence I tend to be more agitated and have a shorter fuse. I’m also tempted to use language I shouldn’t when I hear a lot of it. That’s not good. I generally avoid movies, comics, books, and games with over-the-top violence and language.
I have two kids under the age of five. Why even fall into the trap of exposing my boys to this? Will I be able to protect them from everything? No. This is me being a responsible parent. By the way, the adult games I do own and play are put up and out of sight from the kids. I don’t watch movies or play games until after they are in bed.
My job. In working with teenagers, I am appalled at how many of them know about games such as the GTA series or any other type of game that the ESRB says they shouldn’t play. It’s only too obvious: they’ve played them. Gamers, publishers, and designers can scream all they want, but these type of games are being played primarily by kids. Who’s to blame? Parents? Retailers? Gamers? Publisher? Designers? You? Me? No one really knows, and that debate will go on forever. I’m trying to influence kids to live good, clean lives and uphold at least a modicum of morality. It gets difficult when I’ve got to break up a group of kids sharing gaming tips when it’s time to teach them. Oh, and it’s not just games either. Movies like Superbad (Quality matches title? Brilliant) and their ilk are just as to blame.
I know some of these reasons are tied together. Do I think anything negative about people who play these type of games? Not at all. Each person is allowed to set their own standards. I just feel that if no one at least stands up and reminds us what we’re really surrounding ourselves with and sucking into our lives what it is we might become. If not, we may see games where you can drive spikes through a person’s skull, come up with creative ways by killing a person by cutting their genitalia, and exploring all ways to strangle a man. Oh, wait…I think we’ve got that on a couple of titles.
Sickos are everywhere
And some of them have (and play) video games!
In an unrelenting attempt to make the tenuous violence-and-video games connection, we get a story like this. The media will not let up. Look for a ban on video game controllers soon, backed by Senator Clinton.
This deplorable behavior by the boyfriend should be vilified and condemned. He will receive the swift justice he deserves. But did we really need a headline like “Baby killed with video game controller”?
Unacceptable.
Suu-per-mann!
“You are who you choose to be.”
I’ve only known of three movies that cause me to tear up at the end almost every time I see them. I’m not ashamed to admit that one of them is animated. As far as I’m concerned Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant is nothing short of brilliant.
I introduced this wonderful movie to my two sons tonight and it was a great experience. At first, they didn’t know what to expect and fear reigned through the first half of the movie. But just like their ol’ man the emotions of the giant and the quirkiness of the movie started to win them over.
Then the giant died. How do you explain sacrifice to a five year old and a 2.5 year old? I really have no idea. However, one thing that they did realize is that using guns in the wrong way is bad. Our oldest had been running around the house over the last month pointing at random people and and yelling, “BANG! Your dead!” He didn’t understand the concept of death, and we didn’t want him flippantly thinking it’s OK to shoot things all the time.
We have a moratorium on certain things in our house while the boys are awake. This mainly includes violence of all forms in the areas of games and television. It just doesn’t happen. I think it’s worked for us. Actually, I think it’s worked for me. I don’t relate well to violence. It’s not that it makes me violent. It’s just that it agitates me. It changes my attitude. It changes the way I view things. That’s not good for a person who’s the head of a household and responsible for raising two boys (especially in an increasingly acceptable, violent world for younger ages—there’s always been violence.)
In short, in generally affects me for the worst.
Occasionally, I’ll make room for Half-Life or a quick FPS walkthrough. However, the last FPS I’ve completed was Half-Life 2—it’s episodes and Portal variant—a long time ago (Call of Duty 4 and Metroid Prime 3 came close). I think I’ve just learned to pass up on games with a sense of immediacy, especially in terms of violence.
If you’ve got to have that violent rush, I say take a break for a while. Find a different genre to play. See if it changes the way you act; who you are. As for me and my boys, we will take it slow and keep playing racing games.
The other day, while traveling down the highway my son asked me to ram into a rig we were passing. Maybe we won’t play any Burnout for a while either.
How long until?
I am in no way minimizing the horrible shooting that occurred this morning on the Virginia Tech campus. It’s an awful mess and I feel terrible for those that were involved.
I’m just wondering how long until it’s blamed on video games. I haven’t read many news stories recently — maybe it already has.
Update: Just as Josh pointed out in the comments, Kotaku mentions that Jack Thompson was on Fox News spewing his tripe all over the place.
Here is a link to a video of his appearance on Fox News: Jack Thompson on the VT shootings. (I couldn’t make it past the first minute)
More: Rush Limbaugh, the voice of reason.
Bully watching
So Jack Thompson wants to see someone play Rockstar’s new game, Bully. And it looks like he and his buddy-pal-judgey are going to get their way.
Thompson said that he and the judge plan to watch the game played in its entirety, no matter how long that takes.
Of course, anyone paying attention to the initial reactions to the game knows that there isn’t all the much violence in the game, at all. It’s rated “T”, afterall. So what’s Jack really after? Of course he doesn’t care if there’s violence or not. We haven’t had any substantive controversies lately, so he’ll just make one up. He wants needs to reinsert himself into the public eye and finds his perfect target, another game by Rockstar. He “bullies” his way into this public display, hoping for resistance and the chance to point fingers. And that’s exactly what he’s going to get.
How ironic. Here’s to hoping it blows up in his face. (Figuratively, of course)
Read “Bully for You” at Wired for more info on Bully.
Game Politics has some more information about Thompson’s hearing being denied.
Gaming and politics
Well, even though this was widely linked last week, I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on it as well. There was a piece in the Opinion Journal (of the WSJ.com) by Brian Anderson about video games. It’s the same mantra we’ve been hearing but it never hurts to repeat it:
Video games can also exercise the brain in remarkable ways. I recently spent (too) many late-night hours working my way through X-Men: Legends II: The Rise of Apocalypse, a game I ostensibly bought for my kids. Figuring out how to deploy a particular grouping of heroes (each of whom has special powers and weaknesses); using trial and error and hunches to learn the game’s rules and solve its puzzles; weighing short-term and long-term goals–the experience was mentally exhausting and, when my team finally beat the Apocalypse, exhilarating.
And the ever-present challenge to would be gaming-Nannies:
With the next generation of high-powered consoles on the market or soon to appear, gamers will have even richer, more complex virtual environments, many of them nonlinear, to explore. Working through these worlds alone, with friends or–in the ever more popular “massively multiplayer online role-playing games,” or MMOs–with thousands of strangers is far from a “colossal waste of time.” Video games are popular culture at its best. Critics would do better to drop the hysterical laments and pick up a joystick.
Of course, that can be favorably contrasted with this article in the Washington Times about video game legislation, that claims:
For one thing, these laws have tended to be mostly symbolic; the fact that interest in them tends to fade in the absence of newspaper headlines suggests strong elements of political theatrics at play. Second, the laws are regularly struck down by courts for their dubious constitutionality, and everyone including the scourges knows this. Third, more than 9 of 10 retailers have policies restricting the sale of such games to children anyway. All of which begs a question: Just how sincere are the proponents of these laws? Most of them are Democrats with strong interests in easy “moral values” scores. Smells like opportunism to us.
Political theatrics? Political opportunism? Perish the thought!
As an aside, the Opinion Journal mentions the study done by Dmitri Williams at the University of Illinois (which I mentioned here) which uses the game Asheron’s Call 2 for its study. I’ve never played AC2 (or the first one, for that matter), but it doesn’t seem like that game would be explicitly violent or very gory. Is it? Are the violence and gore on the same level as a Resident Evil 4 or a Grand Theft Auto? And if so, can fantasy violence really be compared to a game with more “realistic” characters? Is running over an innocent bystander with a pick-up the same as smashing a goblin with a mace? Just a thought.
Related articles can be found here.
Remind me again…
Who was the one playing video games?
A quick follow-up
Gamestop posted a summary of the Senate hearing on video games, which is referenced in my earlier post about the proposed video game legistlation.
From the review (you can get all the pertinent links, including testimony transcripts here), it seems like the testimony was stacked in favor of the legislation, but there was some heartening quotes, like this one from Paul M. Smith, a partner in the law firm Jenner & Block:
The attorney went on to explain that “Every court to have considered the issue has found ‘violent’ video game laws would not pass constitutional muster because the government lacks a legitimate and compelling interest in restricting video game content. Under well-settled First Amendment principles, expression may not be censored on the theory that it will cause some recipient to act inappropriately, unless it falls into the narrow category of speech ‘directed to inciting’ and ‘likely’ to incite ‘imminent’ violence.”
Unfortunately, that is countered with this argument from Kevin Saunders, a Professor of Law at Michigan State University:
Saunders’ second legal basis will likely prove the most troubling to gamers. This approach would argue that “is that video game play, like the play of pinball machines, is not an activity protected by the First Amendment.” It would legally differentiate the expression of a game designer, which would be protected, from the playing of games, which would not be. As an example, he compared a sexually provocative dancer’s movements, which is a performance and therefore expression, to a gamer playing in an arcade, which is not, even though others were watching him.
This definitely far from over, but there seems to at least seem to be a level of civility between both sides. No one attacked (verbally or otherwise) the otherside, so I guess that’s a good thing.
I guess they’ve never played Grand Theft Auto.
Listen up, people!
I keep hoping that the more I read articles like “Natural Born Regulators” the more people it is reaching. I know I bang the drum pretty loudly here, but I’m just background noise in the grand scheme of things. This article is another good look at the problem with politicians trying to protect the you-know-who.
From the article:
Indeed almost every important social indicator has been improving in recent years even as video-game use among youths has increased. Juvenile murder, rape, robbery, and assault are all down significantly over the past decade. Aggregate violent crime by juveniles fell 43 percent between 1995 and 2004. Meanwhile, fewer kids today are carrying weapons to school or are victims of violence in schools than in the past. Alcohol and drug abuse, teen birth rates, high-school dropout rates, and teenage suicide rates have all dropped dramatically as well. These results do not conclusively rule out a link between exposure to games and violent acts or promiscuous sexual behavior, but they should at least call into question the “world-is-going-to-hell” sort of generalizations made by proponents of increased regulation.
Heard that before, right? What about this one:
Finally, there might be some cathartic or educational benefits associated with many video games. From the Bible to Beowulf to Batman, depictions of violence have been used not only to teach lessons, but also to allow people — including children — to engage in a sort of escapism that can have a therapeutic effect on the human psyche. Kids know the difference between make-believe violence and the real thing. And many games today are remarkably sophisticated, offering players a “cognitive workout” that is far more stimulating, rewarding, and even educational than much of the other media fare that is available.
Yeah, heard that one before, too. Unfortunately, the one we hear the most is this:
In sum, the debate over video-game regulation is being driven by myths and misperceptions. Policymakers and critics should consider the facts before moving forward with efforts to regulate the gaming industry, especially since such rules could have profound First Amendment implications as well.
And that’s the problem. Those pesky facts keep getting in the way!
(thanks to my bud Rightank for the tip)
Kids don’t get to watch eye gougings anymore
Buttonmashing.com reader Bobster, always the helpful tipster, sent me a link to an article at Reason.com entitled Blood, Guts, and Entertainment: A sanguine take on sanguinary diversions. A great read, as most Reason articles are. The writer, Justin Pete, is reviewing the book Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment in which the author argues, “that violent entertainment is good, indeed necessary—a way to sublimate the vestigial primal urges left over from our hunter-gatherer days” and “our popular culture may be saturated with synthetic gore, but at least we don’t spend our leisure time watching real people have their eyes put out, their limbs pulverized, their sex organs amputated and their flesh torn to pieces with red-hot pincers.” Interesting claims, to say the least. While I don’t necessarily agree that we have “primal urges” to “sublimate,” I do think exploring violence in our culture (especially in the past) is a starting point to refute the hand wringing that goes on now. It seems that a lot of people decrying violence in the media ignore history, much to their convenience.
Justin sites example after example from the book of violence in past entertainment, in order to dispel the myth that “things were so much better (simpler, purer, cleaner, take your pick) before.” The idea that movies like Natural Born Killers couldn’t have been made in 1939 (the year of The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind) is simply a fallacy:
Such a simplistic worldview conveniently forgets that 1939 also brought such films as Death Rides the Range, Six-Gun Rhythm, and The Man They Could Not Hang, advertised with the tagline, “Boris Karloff dares you to see this holocaust of horror!”
But, in the end, the conclusion that violence in the media is not directly responsible for violence of the partakers is never breached in the book. It’s a shame. We’ve said it here before, but no one seems to listen. Just because we enjoy violence in our games (or movies or books) doesn’t mean we wish to participate in it. Being entertained is enough for us. But, as Justin says
… the tweaking [Schechter] delivers to the world’s Chicken Littles —those like Gov. Blagojevich, who writes on safegamesillinois.org that “when kids play, they should play like children, not like gangland assassins”—is overdue. If violent entertainment is anything, it is a mirror held up to a violent culture. Eliminating these cultural reflections won’t do anything to alter the master image.
Gaming Parents: good little citizens.
It’s been passed around a lot already, but I couldn’t pass up the news story reporting that 35% of parents game. Not only can I include myself in that 35% (even though no one asked me), I loved this little tidbit:
Gamer parents are also likely to be voters, according to the study, with 73 percent of those surveyed claiming to visit the polls regularly. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 85 percent think that monitoring the appropriateness of what kids play should be the job of the parents, not the government or game publishers. Similarly, parents believe by a two-to-one margin that it isn’t the government’s job to regulate games at all.
See that? Are all parent gamers conservatives? Nope. We’re just well adjusted and we’re involved. Involved in our kids’ lives, involved in politics (some of us more than others), involved in rational thinking.
It’s something we picked up while we were gaming.
The P300 response
Okay, normally when I read about another “study” that links violence with video games I usually brush it off. The latest one, from the University of Missouri-Columbia, actually seems to have at little more creedence than other studies I’ve read about.
The team monitored the brain activity of thirty-nine games players, measuring a type of activity called the P300 response, which reflects the emotional impact of an image. When shown images of real-life violence, those who played violent video games were found to have a diminished response.
Although they seem to come to reasonable conclusions (read the whole article), I still fail to see the connection. It’s impossible to say whether the diminished response in the the “game players” who played violent video games is due to playing video games or if they already had a diminshed P300 response before they ever played a game. There’s no correlation between their response and actually playing the games. It seems like they need to find a group of people who haven’t played violent games previously, let them play some Grand Theft Auto and Postal, and then run these tests. The lead researcher says:
As far as I’m aware, this is the first study to show that exposure to violent games has effects on the brain that predict aggressive behavior.
Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like a bit of a stretch. But that’s just me, the non-violent player of violent video games. (hat tip: Attempted Survival)
GR Article and Report, Updated
I noticed a lot of people are linking to this article at Game Revolution, which I linked to before and was glad people were taking a second look at this. Then I noticed it was recently updated.
So the murder rate hit a new 40 year low in 2004, good news indeed for those of us lucky enough to live in the United States during this era of peace. The best selling video game of 2004? Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Good news, indeed.
Update: Not so fast, my friend.
violent video games != aggression
It’s interesting to compare two studies that have been done on violent video games. In one, published in the June issue of Communication Monographs (which is devoted mainly to scientific and empirical investigations of communication processes. Link.), video games are painted in a good light. From the article:
… researchers found “no strong effects associated with aggression caused by this violent game,” said Dmitri Williams, the lead author of the study.
Also
Nor was game play a predictor of aggressive behaviors. Compared with the control group, the players neither increased their argumentative behaviors after game play nor were significantly more likely to argue with their friends and partners.
While the game in question was Asheron’s Call 2, a fantasy based MMORPG, there is an element of violence in the game. You’re killing monsters, after all. Even if they are helpless giant rats. In the end, the article makes a couple other good points. It says that games and their effects are complicated and that, “If the content, context, and play length have some bearing on the effects, policy-makers should seek a greater understanding of the games they are debating. It may be that both the attackers and defenders of the industry’s products are operating without enough information, and are instead both arguing for blanket approaches to what is likely a more complicated phenomenon.” It also says that kids run home from school, where they are bored, to run home to play games and “solve problems.” There must be something good about that!
Now, contrast that to a study that is constantly touted by super-lawyer Jack Thompson, by researchers at Indiana University. (Can we really trust a university that employed Bobby Knight for decades? I kid, I kid). Anyway, this study’s subjects were, “aggressive adolescents diagnosed with disruptive behavior disorders (DBD)”. It would take a super genuis like JT to use a study of “aggressive adoloscents” to prove the point that violent video games have an effect on them. That’s like doing a study of thirsty people to find out if hydrogen dioxide dihydrogen oxide dihydrogen monoxide (thanks, Bobster thanks, Good Chem Student) made them feel better. The study proved that aggresive kids’ brains react differently to stimulus than “normal” kids do. This may not be obvious but it seems to logically follow that kids who already suffer from “disruptive behavior disorder” would of course be excited by violent media. The study doesn’t really do much to prove that violent media has negative effects on “normal” kids.
I find it interesting to see what sources of “proof” each side of the violent video game argument uses.
(This was also mentioned on GGA here)
Related Posts:
Cranial Menus
GTA should have been rated AO
Parents just have to be better parents
Bad News for Rockstar
This settles it
Blaming video game fails for murder defense
MSNBC reports that Devin Moore, the “GTA made me do it” Cop Killer, has been convicted of murder. (Seen first at Evil Avatar)
Jack Thompson’s crusade just took a mean one right on the chin. But it shouldn’t be about that buffoon. It should be about a mentally unstable young man who took the lives of 3 people. Hopefully justice will be served.
Related Post:
Cranial Menus
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