142: The Myth of the Media Myth

[Arcadia2000]

Just as Budweiser is free of blame for alcoholics, you cannot blame Blizzard or Take2 or whomever for making a product that YOU got addicted to.

Any parent who fears video games is delusional, and should be forcibly shown the ratings system. ... Any parent who makes it "impossible" for their children to play video games at home, is essentially casting them to the world for the world to educate them on the content in video games. Are parents really so delusional to think that if they ban video games in their house, that their child won't go out and find their own way to play? ... Forbidding children from having things due to (soley) some moral ground is (IMO) a poor developmental stance. (Which isnt so different from parents forbidding their children from having sex, without giving any education on the matter.)

Now mind you, I would like to say that I do agree with you in part, but these two sections have me shaking my head in disagreement. I may not be able to blame a videogame designer for creating a game that is addictive any more than I can blame the Beer/Wine/Spirits industry for creating beverages that are addictive, but the principle here is a little different. The alcoholic beverages industry tells you on the bottle how much of the addictive substance is in the bottle by percent or proof, and is for sale to adults only and to be consumed by adults only as mandated BY LAW. It is assumed that adults are old/mature enough to be responsible for their own indulgences and we have consequences in place if they choose not to be.
The videogame industry is deliberately creating a potentially addictive substance/experience for children. Children, even teenagers, generally do not possess the reasoning capability to decide for themselves when enough is enough. There is biological evidence to support that brain/reasoning development continues into the late teens and early twenties. This is why we do not sell alcohol to children, setting aside that there are definite medical consequences for overindulgence. Children may or may not become addicted to videogames, just as adults may or may not become addicted to alcohol, but adults are of an age to decide for themselves just how much is enough and suffer the consequences if they choose poorly.
This brings me to the second point. Good parenting involves setting healthy limits for your children. If you believe that certain videogames are inappropriate for your child then as a parent you have the right to say that in your house your rules stand for your child until your child moves out, has their own house, and can make their own rules. If you are morally against ALL videogames ... I agree that the logic there is faulty. Banning your child from videogames will make him/her a social pariah in much of today's culture, however, there is something to be said for encouraging him/her into developing other artistic, musical, physical, and social talents instead. As a parent, it is your right and responsibility to make the best decisions for your child based on their welfare and benefit as you possibly can. It is also your responsibility to be well-educated on whatever you are making decisions on, and this applies to more things in life than just your children. Do I think that it is wrong to forbid your children to have sex while they live in your house under your roof for purely moral reasons? Absolutely not. However, you still have a responsibility to educate your children about sex because the media and culture of today are going to tell them about it and you might not agree with what they have to say. The media and much of today's culture romanticizes, rationalizes, and welcomes sexual expression and experiences. It downplays or outright ignores abstinence as a form of birth control. It devalues a very special experience that should be shared only with someone you deeply care for, trust, and value. If you've created an environment of love, trust, respect, and responsibility, then your children are going to be more likely to respect your wishes when it comes to what you do and do not want them doing and that goes for relationships/sex, videogames, drinking, drugs, and likely anything else you can think of. They may not like what you have to say on the matter, but they will respect your decision until they can choose for themselves. Forbidding your children from doing something on a purely moral ground is a perfectly good reason to do so, provided that you have done thourough research, explained to them why you have chosen this stance, and have built a home based on the aforementioned principles. If you respect your children and behave in a way that is logical and provides a good framework for appropriate behavior, then your children should model that behavior, because it is consistent with what is considered just and right. Telling your children they can't drink when you get drunk every night in front of them is a poor model for behavior. Telling your children they can't play videogames because they all contain satanic references is both illogical and shows lack of research. Your children are more likely to refrain from playing addictive games if *you* do not play addictive games and you define your reasons in logical processes. "I think we can find better things to fill your day" is acceptable because you have said "we." If they can't play videogames, then perhaps there is another place where you can steer their desires that you can find and explore together. As a family. It shows that you are interested in who they are and what they want. It's respectful of them while you ask them to be respectful of you; it's a good model for behavior.
A parent who fears videogames isn't delusional, he/she's un/mis-informed. Ratings don't cover all definitions of acceptability to all people. The child who has gone out and found his/her own way to play videogames against his/her parents' wishes has parents who have something more fundamentally wrong with them and their parenting style than an un/mis-informed ban against videogames.

 

[Arcadia2000]

This is not a double post.
[From the article] Dave Taylor: "I also feel that the game industry in its greed and desperation for sales has been negligent of this growing issue of the fallout of kids playing games. We're all about how addictive the game is, how much replayability there is and making sure it's a popular genre like FPS. That's fine and all, but the result is that you're creating a program that turns kids into game-playing automatons that spend a lot of time on it because of how addictive and replayable the games are, and that makes them very good at twitch reactions for hiding, jumping, crouching, shooting, lobbing grenades, etc. I agree that a great multiplayer FPS can teach valuable skills when it comes to teamwork and tactics ... but it doesn't improve the basics, like literacy, math skills, physical fitness and diet. These are a lot more important to responsible parents, and if your kid is either playing games all day or pining and whining to play games all day because his friends can, then you're not going to have a lovely view of the medium."

This is precisely my view of videogame development as it exists today. Videogames can be a great facilitator of various features of character education. But character education isn't all that children need to learn. When parents allow (and unfortunately in many cases it is that they simply allow and do not put a stop to) their children's *unhealthy* interest in videogames, then they are allowing their children to neglect other facets of their education. Ultimately it IS the parent's responsibility to decide what, when, and how long their children will play. However, the videogame industry isn't making it any easier on the parents when sections between saves become longer and longer, or you set up to do a raid on WOW that will take multiple hours to complete. (Not that WOW is marketed to children, but you get the idea...) Videogames for children need to have more convenient features like easy saves and pick-up-put-down playability. I LOVE Fire Emblem for precisely that reason. Saving is EASY. The pick-up-put-down is 100% there. It has GREAT replayability. Videogame designers should perhaps focus as much on who controls the purse-strings (that was an old reference...) as the audience it is trying to hook. Wouldn't parents be more likely to buy your games if they had an easier time getting their kids to finish their homework and go to bed even though the gameplay and storyline is so addicting that it'll keep the kids playing for months (and keep their parents buying sequels)? And while you're at it... throw in a line about eating a balanced diet, or about how playing soccer is a great activity when you're not busy saving the world! Hey kids, math is fun! [I'm gonna be a math teacher...] Kids generally listen to their heroes more often than to their parents anyway. ^_^

 

[trlkly]

I think the writer tainted the pool anyways by asking "what do you HONESTLY think about X". I don't know why, but adding the word HONESTLY seems to make people want to give negative responses. Try a little experiment. Ask your same people what they "honestly" think about other things, particularly things that you think everybody should be okay with. I'm pretty sure that your answers are still going to be negatively slanted.

Oh, and about introducing your profession in public: I think it has more to do with the idea that games are for kids (and thus must not be healthy) that makes people cringe when they hear an adult is in that profession. I also think it is jealousy, as they wish their job was as fun as they assume yours is. They then draw upon what the media has told them in order to "verify" their opinion, so that they don't seem selfish. Getting people to actually explain the real reason they don't like something is difficult, because, often times, they don't even know themselves, and subconsciously make it up as they go along. I know I do!

 

[Nerdfury]

Oh, and about introducing your profession in public: I think it has more to do with the idea that games are for kids (and thus must not be healthy) that makes people cringe when they hear an adult is in that profession. I also think it is jealousy, as they wish their job was as fun as they assume yours is. They then draw upon what the media has told them in order to "verify" their opinion, so that they don't seem selfish. Getting people to actually explain the real reason they don't like something is difficult, because, often times, they don't even know themselves, and subconsciously make it up as they go along. I know I do!

I agree wholeheartedly, though of course this is not the sole reason. But a very accurate one. Let me explain a bit:

I work for a telecommunications company that is extremely large, employs a LOT of people and basically holds a major market share of the telco industry - mobile (cell) phones, terretrial (land line) phones and the internet. We were founded by the government when Australia first got on its feet and were a government department designed and founded to create and operate the country's phones. So, being tax paid and the only one we grew strongly.

Then we privatised, got into mobiles and the internet and suddenly the media had us in their sights and suddenly the flavour of the decade was articles and media commentary on how we were a monopoly, how little old ladies got massive bills they couldn't pay and how we were more expensive than our competitors.

So now when I tell people where I work, I have to be careful or I'll get that look you get when you tell people you work for Satan and/or a telemarketing company. Of course, out of 2.5 million internet customers alone and a whole lot more land line customers, we're still number one in terms of customer satisfaction and quality - but that less than 2% that complain make our lives a misery. All because the media has instilled this opinion that my company is horrible.

 

[WilyWombat]

Great article Brenda!
I NOTE that there will always be those who point at the new thing and find it scary (and try to capitalize on it).
I HOPE that with our persistent, informative and respectful conversations to the general non-gamer population we can defuse their concerns.
I KNOW that over time this will become a non-issue as gamers age and increase their demographic penetration to pretty much everyone.
The main concern is how can we advance that education and stop any negative legal restrictions from being implemented until games are no longer scary? We have games industry representatives at work, but everyone in gamer culture could do ourselves a favor by putting out good facts that show the truth about games. Here is the ESA link to the top 10 facts about games and gamers. http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php

 

[Muzz]

As noted, you can't really explain this through any cultural/political split like Harv Smith did. It is (video game violence effects), in my experience, the one thing that all sides tend to agree on. I wrote a sociology project on my local Quake and Quake 2 deathmatch scene. This was new stuff at the time and the teachers were very encouraging. It was so long ago all the cultural criticism texts were still banging on about the 'meaning' of vast data storage like CDROMs, the simulacra of FMV games like 11th Guest etc and were hopelessly out of date (even being only a couple of years old). Academia was moving too slow to keep up. As a result what a wrote was mainly descriptive and half of the page count was an extensive appendix and glossary so people had some idea what I was talking about (when I had tried to describe online gaming in class people would go off on tangents related to Freud/Lacan film theory and Beaudrillard at what I said. I wanted to make clear that this was nothing like any medium previously seen and all current theories were inadequate.)
Anyway, after I submitted the criticisms came pretty evenly across the board; "I don't know how you can delve into a community like this and not address the terrible violence it is based upon." At the time I was stunned. I had heard such stuff before of course, but usually from bleating rightwing church going pundit types (who don't hold quite the sway in Australia that they do Stateside, thankfully). My university was notorious as an open minded, free thinking, hippy pinko enclave (hell, it's partly why I went there) and some of the staff at my little school were tenured godfathers of these principles who'd been there since the start. asking around it seemed to be the tacit assumption of fellow students as well. If we had these sorts of people offside we really were screwed, I thought at the time. The Columbine massacre was still over a year away (geez I'm old). This kind of thinking was just taken for granted.
It was interesting to look into as the thought of quake2 DM as in any way "violent" never even occured to me. Seems silly I suppose in one sense but, without getting in to too semantic chicanery, I don't think it is, in any physical or psychological sense, violent and the graphical representation of violent acts must be separated from those ideas and assessed in context. Afterwards I started trying to figure out "violence" and I kept running into a philosophical wall. It's a bit OT, but the only way to solve it, in short, was if violence holds a special place in the mind/brain and almost nothing can touch it, certainly not a silly game. Emotions are not on a linear scale from calm to excited to agressive to angry to murderous rage, even if it feels like it is sometimes. I haven't really delved into it for years so I'm quite behind on all the psych and neuroscience in those areas these days. But that's vaguely where my view did not accord with the accepted assumptions about how it all works, and that was the problem.
My point is, as it occured to me later; these folks were of that humanities school of the late seventies and early eighties and in that post structuralist world symbolism is as good as truth. The advent of the FPS really worried these guys as they'd been reading Lacan and Beaudrillard for years and those guys bang on about how mediated life is and how, in effect, we are what we watch (extensions of notions that we are what we read. Much of this stuff is barely reconstructed Whitgensteinian stuff). Here were games where there was no seperation, as they saw it. You weren't controlling anyone doing terrible things anymore; they were your eyes now, your hands firing the shotgun. That's almost as good as doing it yourself to them. If you're doing it in a game the shape of your thoughts are the same as those in real life. (And that's where I 'violently' disagree. Incidentally most scientific MRI type studies of the gaming brain work from a similar assumption and most psych studies delight in finding links between feelings of 'aggression' and games playing. So I might be way off. Yet to find a study that repeats the same questions with football, however). These supervisors of mine would have been the sort of lefty intellectuals against censorship in the arts, keen to debunk the Hayes code and the Wertham comic book theories, would have loved outing religious opposition to rock and roll as segregation by another name etc etc. Games though were valueless and even dangerous indulgences still beyond the pale.
The typical right wing conservative side takes a view of human psychology along the lines of 'monkey see-monkey do'; sounds the same sort of thing, but it's not quite. It does, however, allow people to arrive at the same opinion of games on both sides of the cultural divide.
My tutor did confess to me that he might not be looking at it properly. He felt he'd seen what too much fantasy can do when one of his friends in a D&D group went mad and murdered another.
Of course, in the years since the backlash has only gotten worse as graphics have improved and games got popular. But now there are at least more academics who will go into bat for games, where ten years ago there were practically none. I reckon the broad 'sides' of western culture still find it pretty easy to agree that games a negative and corrupting influence though, even if it's for different reasons. And the media effects argument is unlikely to be resolved until we hit the level of simulation in The Matrix and see what that does to people. It's gonna be a long road back from frogger.
(christ it's a bloody essay! Sorry. Consider the volume of verbage representative of my view on the quality of the Escapist and its articles.)

 

[Verdammnis]

On topic of literacy...

Playing through Mass Effect with subtitles on definitly won't hurt your literacy skills. Even without subtitles, I'm sure vocabulary would be slightly improved as well. It is a VERY dialogue heavy game, with a very complex story of higher quality then a lot of childrens literature.

 

[John Kwag]

I agree with Clint Hocking.

Remember, Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent and the deterioriation of the once vibrant comic book industry in the US? No one realizes that it was exactly going overboard with accomodation with those who never read a comic in their lives and were horrified by the insubordinate "obscenity" THAT THEY WERE TOLD ABOUT that was contained within. That is what ultimately killed the industry. What made it appealing to the younger generations was stripped away...and the industry dwindled. The Comic Code, which ultimately controlled content that could or could not be shown, basically killed an entire industry.

Here we go again.

At least the Wertham of our generation, Jack Thompson is incompetent and insane. But has there been any in depth reports in mainstream media on his disbarrment proceedings? No. Not really. Because if the personification of Big media's and the politically conservatives' opposition to games would be shown to be worse than wrong but insane. The average person would deduce that well...if the piper is that messed up.....

Of course the TV, newspapers, and magazines are ALWAYS right.....HAHAHAHA good one. Let me wipe my nose on my copy of the Wall Street Journal. And use the Fox News Network to cure me of this laughter. Bad idea. Makes me laugh even more. But in a generation or so, Fox will be irrelevant (probably why Murdoch hedged his bets and bought MySpace)and that palpable desperation they have now for viewers through their pandering makes me laugh even more.

Look outreach is fine. Education is fine. But damnit don't let them influence the games we design, code, draw, record audio, and market for. But the only way to educate effectively to the older audience is to use Big Media. The same Big Media which is losing revenue to us.Yeah. right. They are really going to help educate people to enjoy what is essentially the entertainment medium which will force them to lose their prominence and market.

No. It's not going to happen. Not at least in a meaningful way.

So I say...they are irrelevant now and they will be irrelevant later. As a marketer, as a business development guy...yes I want to reach larger audiences but my core target is and will always be under 40. Hell under 35. Let the desire for this older audience simplify user interaction and other technical aspects. But hands off of the content and assets. That's what the music industry, the TV industry and the movie industry did sem-right when they were confronted with EXACTLY THE SAME DAMN UNFOUNDED AND HYSTERICAL PERCEPTIONS AND MYTHS. Which the comic book industry failed to do. Protect the content and the right to fashion content that appeals to our and younger generations.

No. The important thing is to educate our generations NOW to not react to what comes after games as the primary entertainment media in the same stupid, reactionary, and ignorant way the baby boom generation is reacting to games now. Like the "Great American" generation before that reacted to Rap...to Rock and roll...to TV....to comic books. Let's end this cycle of fear baiting. This blame on media of the issues that have more to do with human rights, economics, war and religion than games.

Let's educate ourselves not to be the same idiots and fools.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

OK, here's where I hobble out on my walker and say I remember when there weren't any video games to blame and people were still saying, "It will make our children brain-dead, psychopathic, and socially stunted." Of course they were saying this about television. My mother's house is still not wired for cable of any sort, because watching TV is a morally bankrupt activity and she's not going to pay to be able to do more of it. And yet, despite being protected from the corrupting influence of Showtime, I grew up just as alienated and screwed up as anyone else.

I think that we have a subconscious cultural awareness that we really aren't spending time with our kids and it freaks us out. We don't have dinner together, we watch TV in different rooms, and now the kids sit playing games for hours on end, oblivious to the family around them which, to be honest, they'd probably be oblivious to anyway, it just wouldn't be so notably focused on one object.

Some parents will proudly declare that they do not allow their kids to play video games or watch TV. These are frequently the same parents that have their kids signed up for umpteen different sports leagues, music lessons, or after-school programs. Well, this is all great, but they STILL aren't actually spending time with their kids, unless you count the drive time back and forth. Whether the kids are off playing soccer or playing the latest Super Mario game, they still aren't talking with their parents. So this anxiety about losing touch with our kids continues to grow and collect around the available cultural flashpoint, which is now videogames. I would argue that even the wave of comic book censorship in the '30s and '40s was a manifestation of this.

It is not inherently corrosive to their development for kids to watch TV, but if kids watch TV with their parents and talk about what they are watching (as opposed to sitting side by side staring at the same screen) that can be a great learning and bonding experience. I would suggest to a parent who is concerned about how much time their son or daughter is spending playing video games that they play video games with their kids. You want to engage your kid in conversation, have them explain the gameplay mechanics and strategies to you. I have never seen a kid fail to open up to an adult who asked to be taught how to play.

Just think, if you learn to play and enjoy games with your kids, you now have something in common that you can always talk about that isn't school and isn't prying into their slowly developing personal lives, though I bet once you are clutching a controller alongside them, you'll start to hear more about that as well. In selecting games that you can play together, you actually get to engage your kid in a conversation about how their tastes and yours intersect and why each of you likes what you like. Where else are you going to get a conversation like that? You don't listen to the same music, you probably don't watch the same TV shows, and you probably don't read the same books. Gaming could conceivably be the only medium you can really enjoy together.

Sure, with games there's a content issue. Same with movies, TV, and yes! even books! My god, if my mother only realized what I was reading when I was 13! Lots of sci-fi and fantasy, but we're talking Theodore Sturgeon's Venus Plus X and Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books here. And she thought D&D was a danger to the salvation of soul but let me run around with Gene Wolf's Shadow of the Torturer under my arm.

A big part of keeping games from being scapegoated is to acknowledge the anxiety that fuels the frenzy. In a way, I think it would be a relief to a lot of parents to decide that they are the victims of the video game boogeyman that sneaks into their houses and steals their kids off the couch - that way they wouldn't have to face their role in their alienation from their kids. So I think people who care about games need to call them on this. I do think the other big part is for the games industry to make sure they mind their obligations as contributors to the culture, because they aren't just a passtime any more, they are a way we tell ourselves stories about who we are. They are The Media now, too.

 

[PhoenixFlame]

This was a really great article, but considering the writer, I'm not surprised.

I think that the media's need to report the sensationalized topics is part of this. After all, it's far more boring to report that everything is working fine than to say that everything is totally jacked up. While I totally understand that topics of interest mostly revolve around things that are bad rather than things that are good when it comes to the media or the news, I also think that people should see that there are two sides to every story.

I agree that the negative connotation to games is comparable to the negative connotation attached to what was considered entertainment before the gaming industry got into full swing, whether that is TV, music of a certain genre, or something else. The way that all those other entertainment mediums became accepted was a certain degree of positive coverage for them. If there was a bit more positive press for games along with some education, they wouldn't be so demonized by people who didn't know any better. They'd rather point to the one story of how someone died after playing games for 48 hours straight or the person who got physically assaulted for killing someone else in a video game and say that games in general are bad, when in fact those are extremes you can find in any one bit of media entertainment.

 

[ZeroKadaver]

Warning if you don't like HARSH reality then stop reading.

This doesn't surprise me since the media has been a problem since its conception and generally in the US or any country the Media is a damage control system geared to keeping the current regime in a good light and propagating their disinformation on as many topics as possible. China is currently practicing it with the Tibetan monks, they block youtube videos and in a more relaxed and covert way so does the US. One could consider the Media being the 4th branch of the government. There is reason to believe that 9/11 is not what it seems. The American College of Physicians wants to research the effects of Marijuana as a Medicine but can't because of the disinformation of it through the reefer madness era and it could be the cure for cancer. Carl Marx noted a pattern for things first there is economic creation and then there is social limitation no matter what is made people will make laws against it. For every drug that is synthesized or found there is an equal amount of banning and scheduling. Florida state Rep. Mary Brandenburg is quoted saying "As soon as we make one drug illegal, kids start looking around for other drugs they can buy legally. This is just the next one," in the current process to make Salvia a drug that has been legal since the 1990's illegal. Where do the corruption and lies end?

 

[Frederf]

I would like to say I don't think videogames are bad, I think _BAD_ videogames are bad.

It's just like literature, film, activity, food etc. Games that are social, cooperative, and need critical thinking are great. Also there are games which are asocial, hyper competitive, and mindless. I don't think violence is what makes a game bad. SWAT 4 is an example of running in and shooting the bad guys, plenty violent. But I think it's a good game for your brain especially if played cooperatively with friends. Screaming obscenities at your fallen Halo adversaries listening to Linkin' Park should only be done for short periods of time.

 

[silentsentinel]

The main problem, I think, with anti-video game people is that they still view games as simple pixels upon a TV screen, devoid of story and substance, and gamers as socially-maladjusted shut-ins, wasting away, totally lost in a fantasy world. The fact that some games, such as Half-Life, have complex stories far beyond some novels today is unimmaginable to them. They also fail to take into account that some video game companies have become extremely powerful. Gaming is no longer a "simple" hobby. In my opinion, playing a new video game is on par to reading a new book.

I also have to agree that the sensationalist tendencies of the media are also to blame. People need to realise that Fox News is just playing off of people's fears in order to get ratings. I stopped viewing them as a reliable media outlet a long time ago. Just look at Fox New's coverage of Anonymous. You can see the fearmongering dripping off like sweat.

 

[sicDaniel]

It'll pass. Someone will invent something new and the focus will shift. It happened with jazz, rock and roll, hip hop. It happened with Dungeons and Dragons, comics and television. It happened with almost every scientific breakthrough.

And in centuries from now there'll be new music, new illicit activities, new media, new entertainment and some old fart in what passes for a futuristic suit and Dr. Phil's Head In A Jar will try and convince the world it's destroying our kids.

I totally agree to you. Since i not only play video games, but also listen to death metal, i am literally waiting for myself to turn into a bloodthirsty, gun-carrying abomination.
In Germany, unfortunately, there are school shootings as well, and every time the media just says, the guy liked to wear leather coats, played games and listened to super brutal music like Slipknot. Yeah, in the world of German media, Slipknot is as brutal as it can get. I never unterstood why they wont just portray Cannibal Corpse lyrics.

There has been an episode from a serious news magazine called "Frontal 24" with a special about violent videogames (they call it "Killer-spiele") and they showed, for example, a sex-scene from the "Hot Coffee Mod" for GTA San Andreas, played Nirvana´s "Rape me" to that and told the audience, GTA was all about raping innocent women. And if youre not raping women, you slay bystanders in the most violent way possible, and killing children or grannys will grant you bonus points.
I wish i was joking.

Great article, by the way.

 

[tragicomic]

This Clint Hocking sounds like a half-witted ass. "In the end, we will stamp them out if we have to, but it would be nicer if we all tap danced our way into the future together" ... how childish and silly. Too much Hero Worship, some slight delusions of P.O.W.E.R.? Too many VIDEO GAMES??? ;-)

Yea, when you seriously think about it most games are really silly, but then our culture as a whole is comfortably silly and immature. That's certainly reflected in every form of media - movies, games, journalism and people's speech bubbles. It fits quite well with Bush's politics and Hollywood myths. Any more questions why so many games perpetuate sad stereotypes, if they offer any thought food at all?

Where is the stuff for adult players (I don't mean the porn)? A few articles further down someone agonized over Beyond Good and Evil, so I'm not the only one starved for something approaching the level of Deus Ex (the original). Games are kidstuff, for the most part, and most of you people know it at least half-way: "Short, easy to learn & play, and more mature content. That's a lot of changes that most gamers aren't going to like"... Most gamers being the ten-to-early-twenty cash cows with lots of time on their hands. Deus Ex wasn't much of a smash hit, the game equivalent of The Matrix can and has yet to be designed.

As it is, the non-gaming population is decreasing - in twenty years, most adults will be ex-kiddie-gamers. I'm not expecting a revolution here, so maybe we'll all spend our old age in the care of virtual reality sex dolls. The other alternative is simply not to care for this stuff anymore, and maybe that's a good thing. There will be other "novelties" around...

 

[Djimnh]

Great article.

I know the following is typically critical, but just to let you know, I've been playing video games since the 70's, in a very on and off way. I've owned a couple of consoles over the years. I still play Halo an awful lot.

I think there are a number of issues that are being ignored by both the media and the defenders of video gaming:

1. Unlike board games and other games in 'reality', video games force the participant into a visual tunnel (the screen) that enforces a constant state of spatial and temporal "rejection" : i.e. one is forced to 'screen out' the surrounding environment and become disconnected from 'real' time and substitute the game's 'time' which is manipulated by heightening speed, events, etc. If you've ever played many of these games for any length of time, you notice that time may have 'flown by' as well as (especially with FPS games) a tunnel vision feeling, similar that the kind you may have experienced after driving cross-country for 12 hours. One can argue that this is no different than TV, except for one thing: Games are active activities. Whatever effects games have that are similar to TV, games do with much greater affect, because they are reinforced through the muscles and nervous system. For instance: listening to a language tape will marginally help you understand Spanish. Repeating the phrases, writing, pressing buttons for answers will greatly help you understand.
However, in the case of video games, interaction is 'remapped' and abstracted: Nearly every activity, be it running, jumping, speaking, touching - is reduced to finger movements. Thus any real-life benefit is negated, and perhaps degraded. WII enthusiasts have a slight argument - and as the controllers become more advanced we will see haptics become indistinguishable from 'real' interaction.

2. Unlike drugs/alcohol, video games always have a specific agenda. One can get drunk and still have free will to engage in freeform decisions and spontaneous activities, interacting with the world, however foolish that may be. The vast majority of video games have a relatively narrow range of choices within a very narrow 'reality'. Secondly, drugs/alcohol use or abuse has consequences. In reality. But one can 'die' over and over again in a video game. This encourages a mentality of non-thinking persistence, or at best a mechanistic problem-solving-within-a-limited-world, rather than a thoughtful, considered, approach. It also discourages true 'out-of-box' problem solving as this kind of solution is usually outside of the constraints of the game (the game IS 'the box'). I have observed a generation of kids demanding a 'give me problems that have a specific solution' approach to everything, utterly fearful of a world where the 'rules aren't laid out' - where one succeeds by finding a new answer, an innovation. These kids' sense of comfort and wonder with the freeform, mutable world of reality has been utterly atrophied by the mechanistic (though often imaginative and complex) aspect of video games.

3. A great majority of video games focus on two aspects of human behavior or programming: The "fight or flight" response, which is a vestige of our primitive survival instincts, being one. Continual stimulation of this reptilian part of our brain doesn't seem very enlightened. In fact it strikes me as priming the pump for warlike, aggressive behavior. Again, people will offer the fact that TV/Film is full of this stuff. But again: The mind/body connection! You are acting out the fight or flight response, over and over. It is language training for primitive behavior. It's what boot camp does.

Secondly, video games tend to orchestrate a continual goal-reward structure that is extremely addictive. Every few seconds or at most minutes, you are 'rewarded' by doing some mildly difficult task or other. You could be Mario running around picking up coins, or you could be running over pedestrians in GTA, or making another row of cubes disappear in Tetris. Whatever - what is happening is that a feedback loop of pleasure-response "popcorn" is flooding the brain. Dopamine rules! I suspect this is the culprit with the ADD-video game accusations. Think about spending hours and hours in this world of continual adrenaline/dopamine fight/flight/hunter/gatherer tunnel-vision. The 'real world' seems dull, slow, frighteningly ambiguous, unrewarding. One has devolved to an addict to the pleasure/response/fight/flight interactive 'crack'.

4. Let's be honest: what parent can police a child with these games on his or her cellphone? Or other portable device? Or their friends'? Most parents are both working, and this technology is becoming more and more ubiquitous. Capitalism is stronger, more persistent and better funded than the best parent.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Djimnh, welcome to the forum. Hope you enjoy your stay here!

Your points are well considered, but I do have some qualms about them at least in context of discussing video games with the "uninitiated". None of your points are false, mind you, just that in the context of the current public disquiet about video games they're more likely to disuade people from making reasoned judgements on the merits (or lack thereof) of games.

Point one is certainly valid, but could be made for many hobbies. I paint miniatures, myself, while others collect stamps or build model kits. All of these induce tunnel vision and have repetitive motions not well-mapped to real-world activities as well. This is neither a positive or a negative, just one criterion for deciding.

For point two, I'd like to point to Halo (which we both enjoy) as a counter; Randall Glass' famous "Warthog Jump" video (link [http://www.warthog-jump.com/]) and the many "tricking" sites (notably "High Impact Halo" [http://www.highimpacthalo.org/]) show that "outside the box" thinking can be used in, and indeed inspired by, games. Indeed, speed-running in general rewards creative thinking. Another counterpoint is that many other games and past-times are just as prone to tunnel-thinking... to my chagrin, Lego has even made itself vulnerable by shipping models pre-built. Yes, the Lego model can be taken apart and assembled in new forms, but by exploring physics and game-mechanics (and maybe even by exploring the modder community) so can games.

Your third point is rendered somewhat moot, however, by your first... the conditioned response in this case is a thumb twitch or mouse-movement. (Or, sadly, an inappropriate vocalisation... but that's also the case from TV.) In those good, healthy sports like football and hockey, the conditioned response is an actual physical blow, and you get plenty of fight-or-flight in contact sports. I'd much rather see parents crack down on out-of-control jocks who have, demonstratably [http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=texas+%22high+school%22+football+rape], been operationally conditioned into asocial behaviour.

And the fourth point can be addressed by having the parent police what games are loaded on his/her cellphone or console. Much modern hardware has some form of "parental controls" or V-chip like manner that parents can use (if properly instructed, of course) to limit children's access to games. Remember that, even if capitalism is stronger and better funded than the best parent, it's parents who hold the purchasing power for items with price-tags like consoles and smartphones.

The points you make are valid, but they're not a clear-cut indictment of video games. They are important to discuss for all childhood activities, and parents should be aware of them in the general case and not just (unjustly) in the case of video games.

-- Steve

edited to change the "Warthog Jump" link

 

[klamonte]

I used to play computer games a lot back in the late 80's to mid 90's:
lots of Atari 2600 games, Star Control I/II, WarCraft, StarCraft, Doom
I/II, Quake I, Ultima Underworld II, Sim City, and a plethora of
"tiny" games like Tetris. I was also a programmer and dreamed one day
of working on serious games with complex physics models and superb
graphics, games that would one day lead the way to immersive VR. I
read Gibson and imagined my own interface to Walled City.

But sometime around 1999 I lost interest in computer games. Part of
the loss was lack of time, but a lot was quite honestly the rise of
the "gaming subculture(s)". I enjoy programming and playing the odd
game, but I find the black clothes semi-gothy "hardcore" geekness
thing that many gamers put out there as offputting. When I think of
"serious" games I think of EB and GameStop and 20-something guys who
know how to setup computers but can't make it through an intro
programming course. That's a _really_ snotty way for me to put it, I
apologize, but it's the real impression I have. The people in this
thread who liken it to comics are on to something I think; I get the
same feeling in GameStop as I do in a comics or anime store. I'm not
a frat guy playing a football or basketball console game; I'm not an
anime fan who nails black sheets to the living room windows to get a
dark TV room. Instead I'm a guy who loves being outside working in the
yard and taking walks around the neighborhood with my wife.

I know that games in themselves aren't really bad, though they do seem
to be split between "games you can get to playing in five minutes and
walk away from anytime" like Puzzle Fighter and "games that will suck
40-160 hours out of your life" like Metal Gear Solid with very few in
between. Maybe what games really need is to target that middle
ground: immediately playable for a few minutes, but not just a
weeklong grind to the finish, yet capable of getting more complex for
people who really want to invest the time in it. Like Guitar Hero and
Rock Band.

But at the root, I think that the various gamer subculture(s) really
have a perception issue: games equals comics equals anime equals "a
relic from the dot-com era that is sharply targeted to males aged
12-35". (And what is it with the booth babes? Not just E3, even CES
had them just last January. I can guarantee my wife will not be
encouraged to buy product from any company that thinks T&A is the best
promotion.)

Gaming companies might do really well by interviewing different kinds
of people and asking what kind of computer games they would want to
play and more importantly what kind of advertising would appeal to
them and what would turn them off of it. Here is a short list of
people they might benefit from talking to: Steve Jobs, Diablo Cody,
Amanda Marcotte, Hugh Laurie, Robin Williams, Al Sharpton. Yeah, this
is a weird mix, but every one of the people in it is very smart and
far outside the main gaming subculture(s).

 

[Aminhotep]

The idea that violent and inappropriate video games produce a generation of violent users is often regarded as ridiculous based on the idea that no respectable scientific study has ever shown it to be true. But how would such research even be conducted? One approach would be to start thinking of video games primarily as educative devices, the designs being a combination of pedagogy and curriculum. Then a study of the implied as well as intentional moral lessons derived from these games can be more easily made.

 

[Silk_Sk]

This was a refreshingly well written article and accurate except for one claim. The attitude that parents have been paranoid of what their children do is far from old. In fact it is very much a recent feature of American Culture and only goes back a few generations. Anywhere you see it in other countries is due almost entirely to American influence. Changes in mediums and attitude between generations was practically unheard of a century ago. Although it was meant to be funny, the claim that the quad to bi-ped conversion met with resistance from the older cavemen is way too fantastic even by joke standards.