Getting Real

I decided to follow up on violent video games as an issue of modern life, but I'm also interested in links between violent video games and violent behaviour in society, so I went to The New York Times and entered the search words: "violent video games violence". This worked well. There were a few articles at the top of the list returned from the search that looked interesting. The one at the top was "Makers of Violent Video Games Marshal Support to Fend Off Regulation", which was published on January 11 this year. But in the end I decided that an article a bit lower down was more interesting to me: "Game Theory: A Year When Real-World Violence Crept Into Play".

Writing in "Game theory: A year when real-world violence crept into play", a largely personal reflection,  Chris Suellentrop argues video games are a communication medium able not only to thrill but to move players to tears as they address not only war but also relationships, and in so doing contribute positively to the lives of players. Suellentrop also admits and reflects on the issue of violence, often extreme, that is to be found in many video games, but here he also emphasis that research has not established any causal link, nor indeed even any correlation, between playing extremely violent video games and committing acts of violence in real like, leaving Suellentrop puzzling over why exactly he worries about allowing children to play such games. 

Having chosen this article based on a cursory skimming, when I came to actually read it I was first amazed at how little, really, really little, I know about modern computer gaming. I didn't know the names of the games or the people that Suellentrop refers to, and I had never realised that there was such a sophisticated discussion going on about the different values, effects, and other aspects of games. In my entire live, I've played one of these types of games - and that was about 15 years ago. I'm sure that what is available today is vastly more complex, and if Suellentrop is to be believed, and I assume he is an expert who knows what he's talking about, modern video games also now aspire to the status of an artistic medium. I'll probably take his word for it, but then again, I have this powerful computer I'm sitting in front of, and an equally powerful notebook sitting on the desk beside it: running a game or two might use up a bit of the available processing power that I probably never push to more than some small percentage of what is possible. I believe the tablet beside my bed (in case I want to do some quick research when reading in bed) can also play games. But they've just never excited me that much. 

The fuss about games, in contrast, does interest me. They are, like drugs, an issue of modern life where many people seem to prejudicially decide what must be right based on no good reason at all, and having invested a great deal of faith in that position, they resolutely ignore both reason and relevant facts as they set out on a crusade to safe other people, usually the youth of their society, from certain damnation. Sadly, this possibly well-intentioned (?) effort at redemption turns out like most: the victims to be saved end up as sacrifices to the ignorant, dishonest and unjust propaganda and laws of their would be saviours. The Jewish, Christian, Moslem and other churches, as law reminds us, often loved to "save" society and people from sin and from hell, even if that meant torturing and murdering many, as they also had ugly blasphemy laws made to protect their religions and themselves from any contact with evidence, with reason, with honesty or with justice and moral right. As Suellentrop concludes, although we might find the idea personally distasteful for some reason, is there actually any good reason not to allow kids to not only play video games, but to play extremely violent video games? 

Actually, I think that there might be a reason for saying, "Yes," that there is a good reason for restricting extremely violent video games, especially those with sexual content, to children over the age of abut 15, but I haven't thought it through in detail yet. In fact, it's an idea that might make a neat topic for a research paper: it's an idea that I might enjoy exploring as I learned more about it and the terrain it covers over a few weeks. 

I'm also wondering what other people think. Is there any good reason for banning extremely violent video games? Or any other sort of video games? Or indeed for banning films, and, to be up to date, TV soap operas of very doubtful merit? 

__________

Reference

Suellentrop, C. (2012, December 24). Game theory: A year when real-world violence crept into play. The New York Times Arts Beat. Retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/game-theory-a-year-when-real-world-violence-crept-into-play/