Troy GilbertGamedev 2.0

Another suit (from Jack Thompson) against Take-Two/Rockstar regarding GTA and a murder. The standard “informed” rebuttal: games don’t make people killers… if he didn’t have access to guns… it’s the parent’s responsibility… he was a 13yrold playing a 17+ M rated game…

The problem: arguing that he’s a 13yrold playing a 17yrold’s game kinda concedes the point that the game may have caused the problem. While that may be possible, I kinda doubt it…

Another problem: arguing that playing a game can’t have a negative impact on you (can’t make you a killer) kinda goes against the assertion that games are art and can have impacts on the audience, express emotion, etc.

We can’t have our cake and eat it, too: games either have emotional/psychological impacts or they don’t. And if they do, the question is whether the game in particular has a positive or negative one (or if its even related to the case). Of course games have emotional impacts. The best ones aim for it. That does not mean they bear responsibility for its audience’s actions.

Games, like all media, broaden the consumer’s palette of experience. It’s experience-by-proxy. I wasn’t alive during WWII, but I feel as though I have some degree (incredibly slight, to be sure) of experiential understanding of it due to movies like Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, or video games like Medal of Honor. We have to admit, though, that 2 hours of Saving Private Ryan delivers a far deeper emotional impact than 20 hours of Medal of Honor.

Of course, most video game players focus on the mechanics, with the thematic elements being secondary. Thematic elements become repetitive. Much like a movie may revolve around its characters and their development, a game revolves around the mechanics and their application.

Of course, someone predisposed toward violence or who is desensitized to it or amoral for whatever reason may focus on the thematic elements. In fact, they may be attracted to the game because of the thematic elements, as opposed to the mechanics. And if they play obsessively, it may be a kind of “wallowing” in the themes, as opposed to “exercising” the mechanics.

Porn is an apt comparison, a slightly more socially acceptable pursuit that most males will (hopefully) have more experience with than violence. It’s base, just like violence, and is considered a socially undesirable (if not wholly unacceptable) recourse for certain “urges”. One can probably see the distinction between viewing porn “to get your rocks off” as opposed to becoming obsessed and entrenched in it. There’s a difference between getting aroused by hearing a woman moaning as she’s brought to (a likely faked) climax and being aroused by the male-dominating, misogynistic “fake rape” that can be found in some dark corners. It may be a thin line from some perspectives, and their may be no distinction in the eyes of others, but I’d guess most guys can see the difference.

The same applies to video games… the vast majority of the consumers are relishing the mechanics primarily and the themes secondarily. It’s not the life of a real mob assassin that we’re enjoying thematically, it’s the idealized, sanitized version. And we know it’s different. Hell, a 13yrold should know its different. If he can’t make that distinction, then there’s something wrong. A parent shouldn’t be oblivious to that.

So the parents do bare some responsibility, not so much for the child’s actions, but for the contributing factors to those actions. Now, if Rockstar was advertising GTA during Saturday morning cartoons, including it in cereal boxes, and distributing demos at elementary schools, then they’d be doing something wrong (though still not *responsible* for the actions of the players). But rating a game as M, selling it for $60 for a $200 game machine puts reasonable barriers to entry up, particularly for a 13yrold.

In other words, I’ve got absolutely no problem with the existence of pornography. I would absolutely have a problem with my 13yrdold son watching pornography. But if I bought it for him, and let him watch it, could I really turn around and sue Vivid when he got a girl pregnant? Could I honestly blame the makers of the porn for that?

Please note my comparison between porn and video games: the comparison is apt because in the eyes of those defaming video games they are on equal footing, yet they would never think of suing the porn makers (or maybe they would, but no lawyer would give them the time of day ’cause they’d lose). They are not the same thing, though. Porn is like a documentary: it is real people having real sex. GTA is crudely modeled and animated, very clearly not real people doing very clearly not real things (like running from one end of a city to another, and dying, and being resurrected, and getting hit by cars and not getting hurt, etc…).

So, the next time you witness a “games don’t kill people, people kill people” kind of debate, be clear about the point you’re arguing. Don’t diminish games by arguing they don’t have the emotive substance to effect their audience. Its a double-edged sword that we must be quite careful in wielding.