Re: Murder Simulators and You

Maleficent has covered the (very true) angle that the real solution to most problems which might arise from kids being exposed too soon to extremely violent games is greater interaction between parent and child. However, since I am deeply committed to the idea that games have no greater causal link to acts of violence than do movies, books, television or even seeing acts of violence performed on the playground, I wanted to add a few comments to the discussion, mostly of a philosophical nature.

First of all, the philosophy of science is full of interesting material on the nature of causation, and the anti-game community (and this includes the supposedly reputable scientists who provide them with data) is either ignorant of this literature, or conveniently ignoring it. David Hume famously argues that cause and effect reasoning is totally unjustified, because while we can observe events which are constantly conjoined (such as a transfer of motion when two billiard balls collide), what we cannot observe is the causation. In other words, we see two balls colliding and moving apart, but we do not see cause and effect. Those who are uncomfortable with Hume's stringent empiricism are still not justified in jumping to conclusions about what causes what. Frank Jackson, who few would likely call an arch empiricist, marshaled a Humean argument in making a case for epiphenomenalism, which would also be applicable here. While thunderstorms are always preceded by falling barometers, nobody believes that falling barometers cause thunderstorms. Applied to the case of games supposedly causing violence, even if a serial killer played Postal before each and every murder he committed, the conclusion that the game caused the killings would not be rationally justified. There would have to be some serious work done to show that there was nothing wrong with the killer prior to playing Postal, and that there was no other pattern to the killings--and this is just for starters.

While I'm not exactly on board with Hume, I do agree with Jackson's point that causality is far more complex than most realize, and while there is often a "clear" causal connection, even a moment's reflection (which, of course, requires a fair-minded approach to problem solving--generally not a virtue of those who want to see video games eradicated) is usually enough to cast doubt on this supposed clarity. While this sort of methodological irresponsibility is par for the course with political crusaders of all stripes, we should demand more of those who call themselves scientists.

Of course the gaming community deserves some of the blame here, as well, because in general, our responses to the pseudo-scientific studies condemning our hobby go a long way in validating their results to the very people who are most inclined to accept them. Next time Jack Thompson or some guest on Nancy Grace starts ranting about how games will be the downfall of civilization, think twice before jumping on a message board and spewing out some obscenity-laden tirade. While the ultra-conservative (and even some ostensibly liberal) crusaders are misinformed and trigger-happy, the fact is, there are a lot of interesting ethical issues raised by violent games. But until gamers start acting like intelligent adults, these issues won't come out, and the anti-game zealots will be able to go right on defaming what most of us know from experience is a harmless hobby.

The fact is, there is an element of violence in human nature, and exploring it is part of our development. This is not to say that children should really be allowed to hurt one another, or that M-rated games are fun for the whole family. But on the other hand, pantomimes of violence should not be (and have not historically been) so quickly discouraged. Long before there were video games, kids were playing "cops and robbers" or "cowboys and Indians", roleplaying violent, ethically complex situations. This was in a time before conservative punditry was a cottage industry, but it was also a time before attentive parenting was considered optional. Good parents strike a balance between being too hands-on (snatching a game away from little Billy and yelling at him for playing it without telling him why he shouldn't) and being too hands-off ("Oh, you need GTA IV? Let daddy run to the store and pick that right up!") There's a happy medium between forbidding any exploration of violent behavior and allowing sadism to develop unchecked. In other words, "bang bang, you're dead" is not cause for alarm, but "now I'm going to hook you up to the car battery" is.

If all this is not clear enough, let me offer an example from my own childhood. My friends and I all owned the NES when we were kids, but we also owned G.I. Joe action figures and toy guns, and these saw almost as much action as our game consoles. In fact, nearly every sleep-over culminated in the lot of us running around in the dark of night, plastic firearms in hand, playing a game we called simply "guns", which was more or less Metal Gear LARPing. Between games like Contra and Ikari Warriors, our G.I. Joe toys and frequent sessions of "guns", my pre-adolescence was laden with the sort of simulated firefights of which today's "concerned citizens" live in abject terror. But despite all that, most of us have not so much as fired a real gun at a target, let alone another living creature.

Now it would be hypocritical of me to start tossing out theories of causation here, but I will offer some data that I think will illuminate why there is not an interesting causal connection between simulated violence and actual violence: Grand Theft Auto games have sold in excess of 30 million copies on the PS2 alone. Now if violent games really were encouraging copycat behavior on any sort of noteworthy scale, one would think that, at least, 1 in 100 GTA players would commit an excessive act of violence with a direct connection to something in the game. Of course nothing remotely like this has happened. But that fact has not, so far, prevented anti-game partisans from claiming a direct causal link between game violence and real violence, nor is it likely to in the future. But all responsible gamers have an obligation to speak up--without obscenities or ad hominems--and set the record straight whenever such claims are made. Gamers, by and large, are not criminals; and those who are would have been whether they ever played a game or not.