I should start off by saying that I am more than little biased when it comes to video games and their popular perception. I have been in love with video games from the day i first picked up a Nintendo 64 controller, and that love has continued to this day (at the expense of my bank account and social life). So, whenever I read commentary or criticism like that of Kocurek, I tend to get a little defensive. Okay. With that out of the way, on to my actual post.
One question I had when reading the article was what about movies? It seems to me there is a difference in perception as to how we judge violence in movies versus violence in video games. Why is it okay for Bruce Willis or Tom Cruise to kill/injure/generally maim wave after wave of generic “bad guys” in action movies, yet it’s not okay when I do it at home on the couch? We don’t question any of that. We just assume they’re “bad guys”, because obviously they’re somehow working for the antagonist. The level of violence and bloodshed is still there, sometimes even more so, but because it’s in a movie, not a video game, it’s somehow more acceptable. Here’s a video showing Sylvester Stallone’s killcount in the fourth Rambo movie (I know, I thought they stopped at three too):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=huejDD4znaE
As you can see, bloodshed is not unique to video games. So why the focus on them? One obvious answer is the factor of player choice. Instead of being a passive audience, gamers (a term I really dislike, but that’s another discussion) make conscious, active decisions that directly affect the game world. When you play a game like Call of Duty or Halo, you quite literally make the decision as to whether or not to pull the trigger. In that regard, I can see why people might have reservations about allowing young children to play particularly violent games. Yet as Peter mentioned in his post here, is that the child’s fault? There is already a rating system in place for video games, much like the one for movies, and you can’t legally buy a “Rated M” game (the equivalent of a rated R film) without showing ID. Kids will always want to play what’s cool or new, but isn’t it the parents’ job to filter and decide what content is suitable for their children?
I stated this at the beginning of the post, but I’m obviously pretty biased here. To me, the notion that playing first-person shooter games when I was younger (or even playing them now) somehow has caused me to become more violent in real life is ludicrous. I play NBA 2k and Madden NFL, I don’t suddenly become a better athlete; I play car racing games, I don’t break 100 mph on the way to Chipotle. To me, Kocurek’s article felt like it was written specifically to scare suburban soccer moms into throwing away their children’s gaming systems. I’m exaggerating of course, but at the end of the day what Kocurek calls “the monstrous” in video games, I just call “obstacles”, or “part of the plot”. You have to create some challenge for the player to overcome in order to advance, that’s the entire point of the medium. Whether it’s demons in DOOM, natives in Lego Indiana Jones, or zombies in Red Dead Redemption, I find no difference between the “bad guys” in video games and the “bad guys” in movies. So why are we only concerned about one of them?