I've been thinking about writing on violent video games for a while. Years, really. I probably haven't written anything because there's a bit of shame involved, but I also don't think that anecdotal experiences are very worthwhile in discussions of such enormous gravity. Still, I want to share a couple of stories from yesteryear that might inform a few opinions on the issue.
I'm not a "gamer" in the sense that I don't spend all my time playing video games, I don't get all of the new video games, and I don't play all the major games out there. I can list off my favorite games, but the words Metroid, Smash Bros, Red Dead and Resident Evil don't mean a lot to people that aren't "gamers," even though you recognize games called Zelda and Mario, which I also adore. So let me make this a bit more accessible for those of you that don't own a console (if you don't need a primer on the basics of games, skip the next four paragraphs).
There are, in my opinion, four main brands of violent video games: War games, zombie shooters, sci-fi shooters, and GTA. (I'm not including fighters like Street Fighter or Soul Caliber because I don't think they apply here).
War games, the most famous being Call of Duty, involve playing through a battle scenario. They put out a new Call of Duty game pretty much every year. These games originally took place during WWII, but now have a modern-day feel fighting terrorists or Russians or whoever. They are huge sellers and everyone plays them, and lots of virtual people get killed.
Zombie shooters have a me-against-the-world mentality, and the main game in this genre is Resident Evil. They put out a big, new RE game about once every other year, though there are lots of smaller games all over the place.
Sci-fi shooters are like the Call of Duty games, only they involve killing aliens and people instead of just people, and don't use realistic weapons. This is the Halo genre.
Finally, there's Grand Theft Auto. The general genre here is called "sandbox" because its an open world you explore and play in. GTA games take about 4 years to make because they are so vast and expansive. These games center on a character that the player becomes. He runs errands and completes missions, but much of the game involves stealing cars, running over strangers on the street, and killing whomever you want. The phrase "pistol whipped a prostitute to death" could be used at any time to describe a recent event, if the player so chooses.
There's lots to explore and discuss, but I want to tell a couple of stories about violent video games and me.
Story 1: I've never played Grand Theft Auto. I've played the wild-west version, made by the same company, called Red Dead Redemption. In high school, a friend of mine was playing GTA every free moment he had (it's a very immersive, addictive game. Lots of people play it in long streaks). He's a nice, normal guy and was a nice, normal kid. We were walking to lunch on the sidewalk one day and he looked at me and said "Wow, I've been playing so much Grand Theft Auto that I just had the urge to run to that car, pull the driver out of it, beat him up and drive off." (That happens innumerable times in the game).
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Story 2: Resident Evil 4 is one of my favorite games ever. I don't play violent games much (never played GTA, never played Call of Duty, played very little Halo). In RE4 you progress through a world killing zombies by the skin of your teeth. It is absurdly fun and immersive, to the point that one night, after having played it for hours, I came across this terrifying zombie. It was probably 1:30 in the morning. I couldn't kill it so I ran from it. I turned a corner and there was another one that started to eat my neck. I got so scared I turned off the console at that exact moment and put in a Mario game. I played it for an hour just to try and calm myself down.
That's not the story. That just tells you how awesome this game is. I've grown up around guns and am very comfortable around them. I don't live in the country, so only ever shot them a few times a year when camping or hunting or something, but I know how to handle them and how to be safe. In college I went shooting with my dad, sister and brother. I'd been playing Resident Evil for a few weeks. As soon as I had a little .22 rifle in my hand and I saw my brother a few yards away, I had this sudden urge. My brain screamed "shoot him!"
Seriously.
It only happened for a split second. It's not like it affected my actions at all, or was even close to happening. I felt sick about it, in fact. I wanted to throw up just for thinking it. Only recently have I thought about that moment and not felt sick to my stomach.
Two stories about how playing some of these games can potentially effect your brain wiring. If you were to talk to a gamer about things like this, and if they were honest with you, I bet they'd tell you that little moments and thoughts like this happen. Obviously, being two well-adjusted, grounded-in-reality, having-good-parents kids like my friend and I, it's not a big deal. But put games like RE4, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto in the hands of someone unstable, isolated and angry, and, I dunno, maybe that's not a good thing?
I write this because I hear a lot of external talk about this issue. People who haven't played or don't understand video games have conversations about them. It occurred to me that video games are so stinking new, that it's not like the whole of society can relate to them in the same way. Playing a video game is different from watching a movie or television show. As my brother can attest, when I was young and Power Rangers came out, I would get more aggressive and violent after watching it. I wanted to do karate and kick things and he was my little putty (if you get that reference, well, you probably won't admit it). I never hurt him or actually kicked him, I just liked pretending I could do those things.
In video games, there's less pretending. In the very realistic, immersive games, you start to think like and identify with the character you become. In a game like Grand Theft Auto, the first time you beat someone up and steal a car, you feel kind of gross. Then you remind yourself "they aren't real people," and you realize this game lets you do things you wouldn't do in real life, not just things that you couldn't do like fly a spaceship or break bricks with your head. That's a dangerous combination: things you wouldn't do in the real world, done in a world that feels real.
I'm not an expert, so don't bother citing me anywhere, but I think it's worth knowing that these things can happen. My kid won't be playing anything violent at my house for a long, long time, that's for sure.
