My Experience With Violent Video Games

   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).

   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.

Change and Batman

     I am currently playing Batman: Arkham City. It is probably the greatest video game since Tetris. Between playing a Batman video game, avoiding previews for the new Batman movie and planning to head to Barnes and Noble to catch up on my Batman reading, I've got a lot of dark brooding on the brain.

     When I subbed last week, a student asked me who my favorite superhero is. When I replied with "Batman," he rolled his eyes and informed me that I had made a boring choice. I told him what I tell everyone who will listen:

     Batman is the only character that can change.

     Change is death in a serial story. Think about all of the sitcoms you have watched. When things start to really, fundamentally change, the show goes downhill. Chandler and Monica get married, House gets fired, Monk solves Trudy's murder. All shows that aren't meant to tell a finite story, but instead intend to last for as long as they possibly can, have to avoid change for as long as possible. If you want to have a sitcom that can last for 12 years, you need to have stable characters that new fans can jump in to and immediately understand what's going on. In my mind, The Big Bang Theory is the perfect example of this today. If you turned on a new episode, you'd get there are 4 nerds, one who is smarter than the rest, one who is Indian and shy, one who is Jewish and horny, and one who is trying to be sort of normal. There is a cute girl across the hall. Hi-jinks ensue.

     The Simpsons is the prime example. Lisa is the smartest person in Springfield and has been in grade school for over 20 years now. No matter how an episode ends, you know the next one is going to start with everything back to normal. The show can last as long as it has because nothing ever really changes.
     This is especially true for comic books. Spider-Man and Superman can't evolve and grow as characters. Why? Because they are supposed to appeal to kids, really. Kids aren't concerned with character growth or development, but with cool fight scenes and funny jokes. More importantly, if the characters change and grow, new fans can't adopt as easily. Comics are in a state of trying to balance their adult fans with finding new, young fans for their future. They do this by "rebooting" their comic lines every decade or so.
     So Superman is always going to fight Lex Luthor. Spider-Man will always have trouble balancing work, school and hero-ing. Things external to them can change - sometimes Lois and Clark are together or aren't and sometimes Spider-man can't make any webbing - but the characters themselves change little.

     This is not the case with Batman, and the world he inhabits. He's always mad and dark and essentially ageless. But, he changes. There have been periods where he is intensely paranoid, not trusting anyone not named Alfred. Sometimes he works to rehabilitate Two Face, while other times the beats he crap out of him. The Riddler turns from a villain to a Private Investigator, because he loves the puzzles. Gotham had a devastating, crippling earthquake. Currently, there are actually two Batman's (Batmen?) if I understand correctly. Bruce Wayne is Batmanning all over the world while the first Robin is Batmanning in Gotham. Change happens.

That Batman up there? That's the original Robin.
That Robin? Bruce Wayne's son. That's  what I call change.

     Part of why I am so fond of the Dark Knight is because of the complex nature of Bruce Wayne. But the main reason I can keep reading Batman is because there's a progression. He will become more and more obsessed with stopping crime, then something happens and he becomes more focused on using his resources as a billionaire to aid Gotham, and then he works to train those around him (like Robins and such) to be more effective.
     There are things that can't change. Bruce Wayne can't really age, because that means that an end is in sight. He can't reveal his identity, because then everything's fundamentally different. He can't really die. But, beyond the major, the sub-major is in flux.
     I haven't really read a new Batman comic in a couple of years. Borders bookstores closed (maybe I should have bought some of those comics?), a baby came, etc. Next chance I get I want to catch up. That's the point, though, I have stuff to learn. I can tell you right now that Spider-Man is struggling to balance his life and Superman is fighting some enormous ideal, because that's what they've been doing for my entire life. No change. The change is what makes Batman unique and worthwhile.

Fantasy Sports = Dungeons and Dragons

     I am about to write at length about topics I have never actually experienced on my own. I have been invited to join several fantasy football and fantasy basketball teams and decline every time. I decline because I tend to to obsess over things, and I know that if I started doing fantasy sports I would never stop. That obsessiveness is the same reason I never picked up World of Warcraft, the computer game that ruins lives, wrecks marriages and has actually killed people from playing it too much. Once I started playing it, I would never stop. I also have never played Dungeons and Dragons, but that's only because no one ever invited me to...

World of Warcraft = Dungeons and Dragons = Fantasy Football

     There was a time - a short, brief period a long time ago - when video games were for nerds and geeks only. This was before my time. Video games used to be text based, and involve exploring dungeons, finding treasure and weapons and being a hero. You would read some information like You enter the dungeon and see a torch, a skull and some bats. There are doors to the north and west. Then you type something like "grab skull" or "eat bats" and the game progresses until you die (which happens often) or you get to the dragon. So, basically, it was a computerized version of Dungeons and Dragons, the ultimate geek game. These days the game World of Warcraft is almost exactly Dungeons and Dragons, just on the computer. It makes sense, then, that geeks and nerds and dorks enjoyed video games, and the big stupid mean jocks made fun of those that played them.
     Today, of course, every dude in the country loves video games. You can play sports or kill terrorists or hunt dinosaurs and do any and everything in-between. Video games are no longer for dorks. In fact, video games continue to be one of the fastest growing and most profitable industries in the country.

     Fantasy sports have also had astounding growth in popularity over the last decade or so. Fantasy football - where people pick players from different teams and combine their yards, points, tackles, receptions, first downs and hairstyles and add them up to see who won - continues to grow in popularity and profitability every year. Most people that play fantasy sports have several teams in several leagues and cost their employers billions in wasted work time.
     Guess what. Fantasy Football and Dungeons and Dragons are the same thing. I've already stated my case that Twilight = Girl Porn, let me try to convince you of this as well.
   
     Dungeons and Dragons gives people the opportunity to do what they probably do often anyways: pretend to be something they aren't. Pretend to be a hero, saving a hottie, and winning fame, renown and riches. It's also just plain fun. You don't have to be a stereo-typically lonely, sad teenager to want to be someone else. I think everyone has an idealized version of themselves with better jobs and more money and popular friends. D&D just turns that into a game.

Clay Matthews = Orc with a +2 Hairstyle of Anger

     Fantasy football allows guys to identify with the heroes of the gridiron in a way that is much more intimate than just rooting for them. When someone picks Adrian Peterson to be their running back, they are definitively stating a preference for that running back over all other running backs. When boys are young they often want to root for the best teams and the best players, because they feel they have some sort of claim or ownership to the victory. I was rooting for the Yankees and the Yankees won so I am superior as well. It's essentially a role-play, just like Dungeons and Dragons. For many people, that role-play continues into adulthood through sports - failed high school athletes trying to recall some glory years or missed opportunities.
     I don't think that all, or even most, people really think along those lines. I think most people find sports and feats of athleticism to be very entertaining, and whichever team is closest to you is probably on tv more so you probably follow them more closely. And I think most people do fantasy sports because they are fun and a good waste of time and a great way to keep in touch with friends (kind of like video games).

     The role-play aspect of D&D and FF aren't their only similarities. In fantasy football, participants try to field their best teams based on matchups. Say the Packers are playing the Tennessee Titans, who are known to give up a lot of sacks. A smart FF player would start Clay Matthews over some other linebacker in hopes he gets more sacks. And if you have two running backs, you'd start the one who is playing the worse run defense. In D&D (and role playing video games like World of Warcraft, which is essentially D&D in video game form), you have a bunch of swords to choose from, and you are going to pick the sword that does poison damage to fight the dragon that is weak against poison.
     Don't you see!? Defenses in football are like armor in D&D, and offenses in football are like weapons in D&D. Getting a stronger, sharper, more magical sword is like trading Matt Ryan for Tom Brady. You look forward into the NFL teams' schedules to see who they play and equip accordingly, just like you would if you are going to raid Medusa's Lair.
     Fantasy sports is Dungeons and Dragons which is World of Warcraft.

Ok, it's hard for me to reconcile this
image with the thesis of this post

     The internet and video games have changed all of this, but it's fundamentally the same. It used to be that fantasy sports and D&D was done on paper, slowly. Now fantasy sports is all online, and D&D has become WOW, like I stated earlier. People - smart people that used to play D&D - have realized that sports is really just a numbers game. Find people that have high probabilities of catching passes and gaining yards, get people with the best stats (like size, strength and speed), and combine them in such a way that your team is likely to beat other teams. Sports is just stats and data wrapped up in a fun, fast moving package of action. Just like video games.
     I think I can take this further, and I am assuming that most people that don't really care about WOW have stopped reading at this point, so I'm going to go for it. Each position on a football team is like a class in WOW. The quarterbacks are elves, obviously, the offensive linemen are trolls, the defensive linemen are goblins/orcs, the receivers/secondary are rangers, the runningbacks are dwarves? and the kickers are halflings. (Remember, I've never actually played WOW, D&D or football, so this might not be precise, but I bet you can clean it up).

     Right!? Fantasy Football = Dungeons and Dragons. One of those two is considered "cool" while the other isn't, but really, the demographics of both have merged with the internets.

This Post Not Written Due to Legend of Zelda

Proof that I have been busy
not playing video games.

... I mean Wyatt. I've been taking such good care of my new son Wyatt that I haven't had time to write a blog post (although I do have a couple drafts that I'm cleaning up, one on aliens and one on variables, so, um, those sound interesting, right?).

     I've also been posting some things prematurely without knowing it, drafts that aren't complete or are in an old state, and that's annoying, so I am going to be more careful. You don't care about any of this.

So I leave you with this: Hugh Laurie (of House fame) singing his song "Mystery" from his British sketch comedy show A Bit of Fry and Laurie back in the day.

Dream Living

I have simple needs. I am a very cheap person and am very reluctant to buy anything new, ever. I've been driving the same car for 8 years, and it wasn't new when I got it. I've been riding the same used bike for 8 years, until I bought an additional used one a few months ago.

Cara and I had been watching the same old TV for four years. We always figured once we got a house we'd get a nice new TV. The TV and Entertainment Center are posted at this link, which I think is pretty funny and you should read.

It's been my dream to get a nice TV, mount it on the wall and have absolutely no cords or anything hanging below it. There is a big storage/utility closet behind the TV where I want to store all the cords and equipment.

My dad came over on Monday to help me do some work in the closet (it needed cable and electrical outlets for this to work), and after a few hours of work, we got this:

No cords or anything!! If you look at the side of the TV ...

You can see that there are still DVD and Nintendo cords coming and going, where do they go? ...

Through the wall and into the closet behind!! Wahoo!!

The moral of the story: dreams can come true if you are patient, willing to work, and don't dream about things of any consequence. Now all I need is a DVD player that doesn't have a VHS player attached to it.

What "The Monster at the end of this Book" Teaches Us About Video Games

     Did you read this book when you were young? It was my favorite, mostly because Grover is hilarious. In this book, Grover reads the title page and gets nervous, because he is scared of the monster at the end of the book. He doesn't want to get to the end of the book and see the monster, so he does everything in his power to stop you from turning pages. He begs and pleads, ties corners of pages together, and freaks out everytime you turn the page. I, the young reader, have god-like powers in this scenario and continue on, until we find that Grover himself was the monster and drugs are what we should really be afraid of.

     I've been reconsidering this book, because I recently found the sequel, Another Monster at the end of this Book, which adds Elmo to the mix. When I say "found," I mean it literally: it was sitting on a projector at work and I took it, along with a couple other children's books.

     Here's what I've reconsidered: What if there was a real monster at the end? I mean, what if we got to the end and Grover was right all along and ends up stuck in a page with a scary creature? I, the almighty page turner, would be a huge jerk to do that to the poor guy. If I knew that there was actually a monster at the end of the book, shouldn't I stop reading pretty early on to keep my lovable, furry old friend Grover safe?

     These sorts of dilemmas come up all the time in video games. I think it's a trope of Japanese storytelling. You'll be progressing through hours of game time, and if it's a good game you become pretty attached to the world and characters filling the game. Video games progress linearly, so for the most part you have to keep moving forward, and at some point you take an action that causes unbelievable devastation. The whole world lies in ruin, forests become wastelands, monsters roam the city, and it's kind of your fault. It's up to you (and maybe your misfit gang of rebels) to make right these awful wrongs. No one in the world ever blames you, because the bad guys were going to do bad things anyways, but dang it!! I was working so hard to get the three spiritual stones so I could protect princess Zelda, and Ganondorf wanted me to do it all along to realize his true power?! I feel so used!

     I have come to the point in a couple of games (Final Fantasy 3 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time come to mind, both truly fantastic games that you should try if you haven't) where I know that progressing in the story means things get real bad before they get good again, and they are bad for a long time. If I enjoy the world before it gets bad (which I do, it's happy and fun and the music is uplifting), why would I progress? If I am truly taken by the story, the best thing I could do for those little people is leave my game on and my character standing in a field, playing some music. This is a tough concept to grapple with when you are 12 years old.

     This method of having the hero unwittingly bring about disaster must be a flawed story-telling method, at least when the reader is an active participant. As I said earlier, in my experience it's a very Japanese approach (based on the video games I've played and cartoons I've watched, and yes I am an adult). It's different from the heroic cycle of western lore. In that heroic cycle, evil is coming towards the protagonist and he/she refuses to take action early, for whatever reason, and this leads to disaster. The refusal to take action is the problem, and the hero has to fix it. Conflict is pushed upon the hero. This is vastly different than the hero unwittingly unlocking the magical powers that end the world. As a powerless observer, watching someone screw up and try to make amends is very entertaining, but as an interactive controller of the story, this method of progression is unsettling and doesn't make me want to continue.

The Fourth Wall

     That's where video games are trying to be different. Video games work hard at being an interactive story, much like Grover and his book. Grover breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience as easily as I break his brick wall between pages. Video games talk to the main character, but tell me I am that character, which is the same thing as talking directly to the audience. They try to make the player/reader feel like he's involved and has a say in what happens. Instead of watching a movie where the hero saves the world, they let you push a few buttons (or turn a few pages) to help along that protagonist, but in truth you have little control over how the story goes (kind of like life, which is essentially a bigger world with more systems and variables at play, but the ending is going to be the same no matter what choices you make -- you will die). Games work harder and harder to make their worlds a self-sustaining story, but whatever the programmers include in their game is what dictates how the story goes. There really is no freedom (at best there are multiple endings to work towards) in a video game, much like a book or a movie (In truth, video games are fundamentally the same as those choose-your-own-adventure books that you think will be so fun at first and then you realize you'd rather just read a good story). 

Grover and I both break it (we are very strong)

     Part of the problem is just bad story telling. Video games have wonderful visuals and truly beautiful music, but the dialogue and narration are exceedingly poor (Game makers are working on that and getting better, this is after all a young medium.) When a video game does a good job of immersing me in the story, making me feel like I am the one who is going to save princess Zelda, the video game needs to recognize that I don't want to hurt any innocent bystanders, just like how I wouldn't want to make Grover run into the swamp thing either. If it wants me to truly invest in the world and become immersed in its characters and interactions, it either needs to a) not have me be the one to end the world, or b) have that end of the world come about in a way that is very consistent with the established characters and themes.

     I've thought of ways this is similar to real life. How walking down a path will take you to the end of that path. If you don't like where you're heading, turn around (if you don't want to end the world, stop playing). Predestination in life is another obvious discussion that could arise from reading Grover's book. I am sure that discussion happens all the time when little Johnny and his mom realize they actually had no control over Grover's fate, the almighty author did. I think there are lots of little pieces that have application, but nothing worth expanding upon. I suppose the nice thing about these stories is that they end and begin in very good places, you just have to get through the bad stuff in-between to finish. This is a good life lesson. Things will work out and drugs are the real monster.