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Controversies Against Gaming

I believe that the videogame industry has received a lot of unnecessary abuse over its history by people who have no right trying to interfere with it. It is my belief that videogames are the greatest form of media available to use, they utilize the player as both audience and story teller. They can portray messages and evoke emotions with the audience that no other medium can come to. To see it attacked and
its progress slowed is a terrible thing.

Now before I talk about anything else let me mention that there is a rating system for all videogames called the ESRB rating. It is given by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (hence the name.) The ESRB limit which games can be purchased by specific age groups. The rating is clearly printed on each game case and it lists why the game has received the rating. Because of this there can be no confusion about the content of a game. While reading the rest of this blog please remember this.

So let us start this journey with the most respectable group I am going to talking about. MADD. Mothers against drunk driving is a great organisation, helping families cope with the loss of a loved one and working to prevent further accidents is an admirable mission. Now this being said they lose a lot of my respect for what they tried to do to Grand Theft Auto 4. In this game the player plays as Niko Bellic an immigrant from Eastern Europe to the fictional city of “Liberty City” which is based off of New York City. The Grand Theft Auto series is based on open world gameplay and gives the player the freedom to choose what they want to do. In GTA 4 the character is given the option to enter bars and consume alcoholic beverages. By doing this the gameplay becomes more difficult, the camera becomes unfocused, the character becomes harder to control to simulate being drunk. As I have previously mentioned the GTA series is based on the freedom to choose, and it maintains this freedom even while the character is drunk. In doing so it allows the characters to drive while drunk. While drunk the other characters in the game try and convince the character not to drive, they insist that the player calls for a taxi and does not drive but as the game is about free choice the player has the option not to listen to them. When MADD learned about this feature they were upset. They went to the ESRB and asked them to reclassify the game as adult only instead of mature. This means it would go from a game for anyone 17+ to being classified as obscene and restrict the games sales heavily.

Now I find this offensive to not only Take-Two interactive the company that published the game but I also take it as a personal offense. MADD is basically saying that they don’t believe that the people playing this game are smart enough to realize that drinking and driving is bad and that they have to come in and interfere. The game is rated for an audience of 17+, these people can make their own choices. When companies and groups try and step in and interfere with something that has nothing to do them it is an insult. Now, I can understand where MADD is coming from though, drinking and driving is not really something you want to joke about especially with as many people who have lost people to drinking and driving, so because of this I won’t be too harsh on MADD. They were insulting but in the end it was a one time offense and I still find them to be a respectable organization.

Well with the first group off the list let us now talk about a single man who seems to hate the video game industry. Jack, Thompson. Now I am not just trying to make the man look bad, I don’t need to he does it himself, he has been quoted saying “We intend to hurt the video game industry,” during a court case against videogames. Jack Thompson believes that videogames are murder simulators that desensitize people to violence and make them more prone to violent behavior. In one court case he got a search warrant and when searching the apartment decided that they key evidence was a game console and a copy of the game “The Getaway”. This game is violent but I can’t see how just owning the game is enough to connect it to the murder. Jack Thompson’s beliefs are clouded by emotions are have no backing when it comes to facts.

Here are the facts. Since 1990 there have been approximately 325 school related violent acts, in the entire world that have been recorded. This is 30 years, and only 325 incidents. Now let us just assume for one moment that Jack Thompson is right and videogames do increase violent tendencies, and while we are at it lets assume all of these incidents were related to videogames. Grand Theft Auto 4 alone sold 15 million copies worldwide, this means that relating GTA 4 to all these incidents, videogames made 0.002 % of the player more violent. This is just comparing it to grand theft auto 4! Consider all the games ever made and all the people who have ever played them. The numbers do not match the claims, videogames don’t make people more violent and you cannot prove they do.

Again though as much as I think Jack Thompson is wrong I will admit that why he is doing it is respectable. All he is trying to do is protect children from what he considers to be dangerous. Personally I think he should mind his own business and that parents should watch out for their kids and when the kids are old enough to not need their parents watching over them they won’t need Jack then either, but I still understand his goal.

I am going to speed run through a couple things because I don’t want to make this too long for my audience so here are the short hand notes on some other time people have interfered with videogames. Mortal Kombat started with blood and gore especially during the finishing fatalities, and the ESRB was created to remove said blood. Resident Evil 5 was criticized for being racist because it was a white main character killing black characters, also the game was set in Africa…enough said. Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion was changed from T to M because of a mod that allowed characters to be seen naked, mods are modifications done by people after the game is made so that was unfair. Another more famous mod is the “Hot Coffee” mod which allowed players of Grand Theft Auto 3 to modify the game to unlock a mini-game which should sexual activities and partial nudity, again this is a modification and the producers had nothing to do with it, and yet were still sued. These are just a few I can name but as I do not wish to clutter up my blog any more than I already have let us move on to the bigger question at hand. Why?

So why are videogames consistently attacked by political groups and the like. The easy answer is that videogames are still fairly new and still expanding. I would imagine that for those who want something to blame you would look for the newest thing and blame that for the change, and I agree with that. Just like comic books and metal music in the past videogames are easily scapegoated for other problems. Why blame the parent for neglecting her child and having him become violent when you can say he played Doom and say that was the cause.

Videogames are by far the most advanced and interactive form of media available and can be the most influential I believe. I have been playing games for over a decade, some of my fondest memories are gaming, and I love this medium. The controversies that videogames face are like a double sided sword, it is both good and bad. I have previously mentioned what I think about the controversies but I would also like to add what I believe to be a benefit of them. Facing controversies strengthens the videogame community by working together for a goal and it also influences the developers. When we show that we are willing to stand up for our hobby it shows the developers that we are willing to support them and encourages them to advance our medium forwards by experimenting with more edgy topics and complex stories.

Well thank you for checking out my blog I hope you have a great day. Feel free to comment.

Game on!