[In our new feature, Ansh Patel explores a popular opinion of an issue — whether it’s long-standing or current — and examines it from various angles to determine exactly how much truth there is in it. By removing the layers of superficiality and bias and examining it from different perspectives, this feature aims at determining what exactly is the “Truth” and what is “Illusion”]
Violence is a product of one of the most primal emotions known to humans – that of anger and rage. For more than a century, entertainment media have given us plenty of examples that celebrate or abhor actions borne out of such emotions, be it War and Peace in literature or A Clockwork Orange in films. No culture has been a stranger to violence, and such books or movies have utilized it to entertain or enlighten us for decades.
In view of the recent Sandy Hook tragedy, senators and law-makers across America have raised their voices against games, with President Barack Obama himself asking for an investigation into games and violence. This can be seen as an escalation from the time when Jack Thompson regularly bashed the video-game industry for years for its apparent glorification of violence and sex. He rallied many such conservatives across the USA for years, but it has never led to such a strong look of disapproval as games are getting from these politicians and activists, all driven by National Rifle Association (NRA) lobbyists now.
So, where exactly have we gone wrong? What have we done differently from the older, more established mediums like literature and films that has led to such scrutiny over our beloved games? And of course, are video games really to blame for the mess they have landed themselves in?
It’s Easier to Bully a Kid
Let’s assume for a moment that these activists and politicians are bullies. Video games are a younger medium compared to films and much younger compared to literature. It’s much easier to bully a kid and shift the blame onto a medium that is not only young in the history of world’s culture but is also known for being popular among a certain age group of 16–24. At such an impressionable age, it is very easy to associate the effect violent games have on players’ minds and rally an entire generation of parents who need a scapegoat to blame for their bad parenting.
A Point Against Us – “The Need to Attack”
Video games aren’t exactly a saint and aren’t completely faultless in this either, for landing themselves in a mess that they could have *probably* avoided with a little care and thought. Just for a moment, sit back and think: most of the games we come across are designed around “the need to attack.” Games often associate players’ action with removing enemies from their path, either with or without blood. Platformers have done it for ages, and the modern action games and shooters are merely gory, exaggerated representations of it.
By reducing enemies, be it Goombas or Nazis, to mere obstacles, all of them play on the psychology of the player to progress forward at the expense of enemies. Sports, racing, and puzzle games are the most obvious exceptions to this rule, but when you see the sheer number of games that utilize this and then compare it with movies, which have plenty of genres that don’t involve violence, or literature, which has an even greater percentage of that.
What I’m saying is that the sheer volume of games that focus on killing or removing enemies, – bloodied violence or not, might give any non-gamer, especially one that’s already hell-bent on pinning blame on games, additional fuel and the belief that they are right and games are indeed the “spawn of the Devil.”
Part of this can also be attributed to the decline of the “non-attack” oriented games, particularly with the demise of the point-and-click adventure genre at the turn of the millennium. All of our major hits have revolved around a one-track association of players’ action to their “attack enemies and clear a path” mentality and maybe this has made video games a much easier prey for the “wolves”.
The Wolves Are Hungry
The wolves are hungry. They get hungry only when their backs are against the wall and they are under the scrutiny of the entire forest. That is when they get hungry. That is when the entire pack of wolves go hunting. Their favorite prey? A scapegoat. It’s when they find such a scapegoat, standing innocently in the middle of a clearing, that they all pounce upon the little creature. Every sound the scapegoat makes only adds fuel to the fire and serves to make them even more enraged. But they don’t rip the little creature apart. Instead, all that the wolves do is wipe their paws clean. Paws that have blood—others’ blood on their hands—and wipe them clean by smearing it on the scapegoat.
To the world, the scapegoat is the criminal. The blood is on it, and now the entire world is out for its blood.
Times are A’Changin (Anti-Violent and Indie Games)
One of the foremost signs of a medium maturing beyond what it previously was is that it takes an introspective look at elements that have been clichéd and excessively used up to that point. We had films go through the “maturing” phase in the 70s when a couple of anti-war movies, particularly Apocalypse Now, came a mere decade after the likes of A Clockwork Orange had shocked audiences with their unabashed celebration of violence.
Games underwent a similar phase last year when we had two games, Hotline Miami and Spec Ops: The Line, whose themes of anti-violence by a contradictory example are similar in vein to Coppola’s adapted masterpiece and perhaps indicated that our beloved medium has taken two or three crucial steps towards maturity.
When games like that start looking introspectively at violence and questioning their own players about the reason behind the entertainment they get from hours of mindless violence — even if it is equated by us as a virtual form of brain-dead escapism, it’s then that we realize that video-games have begun understanding their players’ mindset, and by introspectively looking at it, come out of the close-minded mentality that everything must revolve around “the need to attack.”
This can be seen in the rise of indie games over the last few years. What began as a simple desire to make unique games has become an important revolution that has not only helped make games a lot more diverse but perhaps even a little more mature to an extent. When you look at Minecraft and Journey, two popular and acclaimed games that revolve outside the basic necessity of the “need to attack” we can see that games have a lot more scope to them than we had earlier imagined. Not every action in games needs to revolve around “clearing” enemies from our path.
We’re Not Alone
Every medium has, at some point in their history, faced what video games are facing now: either a similar level of scrutiny or even worse, absolute censorship. History has given us plenty of examples of books being banned, with James Joyce’s modernist classic Ulysses being called “obscene” for its use of cusswords and “radical” for breaking conventions of grammar. The comics industry faced some serious issues during the 1950s with the development of the Comics Code Authority, something that was used as a template of sorts for the conception of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB). Films and TV have regularly gone through such periods of scrutiny and controversy, but perhaps in the USA, their censorship has been softened to an extent by the good relations between the owners of production houses and the politicians.
With the obscene amount that the NRA spends after lobbying, video games were always an easy scapegoat. Granted, we COULD have made it easier on ourselves by making games like Journey and Minecraft more common, but that’s hardly an excuse to bash video games.
Jack Thompson now seems just like a warning bell compared to the real issue we have in our hands now: the NRA trying their best to shift focus from the real problem and rally the conservatives and clueless and disgruntled (read: also plain awful at parenting) parents and clamping down on video games.
Worst-case scenario? In a country that prides itself on freedom of speech like the USA, I’d say the ESRB will become similar to what Australia’s OFLC board was without a R18+ rating recently.
Best case? The industry collectively as a unit sees this together as a storm. We don’t need any internal rivalry from EA, Activision, or anyone else at times when the whole herd of scapegoats—the game industry—is under possible attack from the pack of wolves. We need to stand united, watch each other’s backs, and make sure censorship never inflicts games. Not while we’re alive.
Because remember, the wolves aren’t here to kill; they just want to wipe the blood off their hands.
Reality or Illusion:
- The reality of what we’re seeing now is part of what every medium has faced in the past.
- illusion in that violence in video games is extremely high in comparison to films and TV.
- Reality is that the NRA wants to pin blame on us, and we should be worried.
- Illusion is the world the NRA lives in.
