Don't start blaming games again
One day removed from the horrific shootings in Germany and already videogames are being implicated in somehow creating a monster. Haven't we been here before? Aren't we, as a society, smarter than to instantly make a giant leap from pretending to be in the Army on screen to finding a gun, walking out on to the street and shooting innocent civilians? And, while we're about it, are average gamer arguments that "it's just a game" really helping us get to the bottom of why these events occur?
Let's take a step back. Clearly anyone who takes a gun and goes on a killing spree is unwell. Are games the cause of the illness, or are they merely a means of escape for a person who feels they can't connect with society in any meaningful way? That their only hope of interaction with others is through a faceless medium where they are more powerful, skilled and respected than they could ever hope to be in the real world? Interestingly, Michael McLendon, the Alabama shooter who only this Tuesday killed 10 people in a similar attack, hasn't been linked to videogames. But then, he was 28. Tim Kretschmer, the German shooter, was 17. Clearly adults don't play videogames. Or, if they do, they are level-headed enough to accept the unreality of the virtual world. They just shoot people because they have a grudge.
There is clearly a difference between watching violence on a film or TV show and actually adopting an alter ego and interacting in a violent world. That's where the "it's just a game" argument perhaps falls down. However, for every Tim Kretschmer there are a million gamers who just play their games and go about their business. If violent video games are to be banned or somehow diluted just in case one person is driven to murder, hadn't we better ban alcohol, ban violent films, ban life?
This is about society's responsibility to help the Tim Kretschmers and Michael McLendons of this world to open up, interact with the real world, accept their life for what it is: probably fairly boring and mundane; probably filled with trifling disappointments and rejections; probably even filled with gross unfairness or miscarriages of justice. Sadly, that's life. It can't stop. And we can't stop it. And we shouldn't be having another debate about the influence of videogames on people's behaviour when the real issues go far deeper and require much more action than simply banning something which some "experts" perceive as a problem.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Google
Yahoo
who is society?
Who is society then, or should we relegate society to the legal or lawful laws made up by the authorities?
We have long forgotten that we also who do business are society. Yes we, yes you who enrich and have authority over this game field.
Nobody is calling you to close or limit business, only your conscience and millions of others. The banning is the last mean when you have neglected to fulfill your responsibility through other means.
What other means are? Inform your clients, set an age or audience for them, enforce them, create better games, mind the clients, and mind society, don't just enrich at the expense of their moral failure or disintegration.
People in Stuttgart were asking for the government to invest more in psychiatric aid to prevent this. However, do you think it is just their responsibility? They don't believe in anything and that is why they think this could be solved with some more expert help. A patch, like when you fix your games.
May you bear it in your conscience and may players who think so closely do to themselves. The ultimate thesis and it has always been that way is that you all need a greater help.
Who is society?
We are. From what I've read, seen and heard, this kid went to school, he played table tennis, he presumably lived with a mother or father or both. He was quiet. He had difficulty making friends. He was what you'd probably call a loner. And he played "violent" videogames. Clearly he interacted in society, yet no one saw him as a potential killer. That's what makes this so difficult to comprehend and such an upsetting issue.
My problem with the way this is being reported, overtly in some places and implied in others, is that people are looking for reasons as to why he did what he did. The existence of violent games on his PC is an easy answer for a society, ie us, who can't accept that we let this kid slip through the net. It's not "He was a loner with murderous intent who played Counter-Strike", it's "He played Counter Strike and was therefore a loner with murderous intent". At the risk of sounding flippant, that, in my opinion, is bullshit. All CS is going to do is make you a better aim.
For all we know, he sat up the night before and watched snuff videos until his eyes bled. He tortured woodland animals. He kept a scrapbook of his favourite mass murderers. He was an expert in the Colombine killers. Who knows? That's the point. We don't know. Nobody took the time to find out. But, oh, he plays violent videogames. That's it. Case closed. All nicely compartmentalised. Move on. Until it happens again.
I agree with the author that
I agree with the author that games are more likely to be the outlet for bad, disturbing and frankly ill behaviour rather than the cause of it. Yes, games deal with adult themes, adult emotions and often put players in the position to do grisly, bloody and violent things. And particularly recently games are graphically and audibly so lifelike they enhance the emmersion into these kinds of situations even more. But the actual blame for events like this cannot lay with the games themselves. There is a big gap between violence in video games and carrying this out in real life and I don't think that video games by themselves can be responsible for leaping over this gap, there has to be something wrong and a problem there to start with.
Games are regulated with age certificates in the same way films are, but maybe it's time to get a bit more strict with these and even consider a 21+ rating, especially parents (there is talk of prosecutions against parents letting their kids play games rated above their age), who think it's ok for their 10 year old son to merrily game away on GOW2 and the like. What about online registration requirements for controversial games? At the very least it will help to demonstrate that the games industry isn't an irresponsible money grabbing set up that people with no experience of it seem to think.
Post new comment