So, here's the thing. As someone who plays a lot of games, and has done so all my life, games frighten me. They have a power over people that I do not think any other medium has. They can convince people to spend tens of thousands of dollars they don't have on microtransactions. They can function as extremely effective propaganda, and create political identities so strong people start planning actual terrorism against anyone they think is trying to take their games away. Games cut really close to the way human brains fundamentally work, and because of this they open up incredibly dark possibilities. Games can become (and are becoming) a form of psychological manipulation, and I think one of my biggest fears is that over time more and more areas of life will be gameified into vehicles for psychological manipulation at the expense of human freedom.
That's what bothers me. There are real problems, but these people are too dumb and out of touch to even realize what those problems actually are.
Like, the weird thing is, if you were going to accuse anyone of being influenced by video games in this situation, wouldn't it be the cops? They have guns. They shot and killed someone seemingly without thinking. In the past, people in combat situations who were experiencing derealization would describe feeling like they were in a movie, now they describe it as feeling like a video game. Actual militaries invest heavily in games and keep trying to use them as recruitment and training aids. Games didn't cause people to experience states like derealization, but they do influence how we interpret the experience. This thin blue skidmark is going to go to court and claim he felt threatened and acted on instinct, where did that instinct come from?
I mean, probably not from video games, but it's still a better argument.
