Game Stooge

Video Game Violence - Topic Of The Week

• Scribbled on April 21st, 2007 by Derrick Schommer
• Filed in Editorial Content, Stooge Weekend Review

This week, gamestooge.com received many gamers willing to share their views on the VA Tech Shootings. Comments to Rush Limbaugh talking about the situation, Dr. Phil’s opinions and of course Howard Stern bashing Dr. Phil! The articles were such hot topics that GameStooge found itself screaming in pain from the network traffic.

We worked hard to keep the server alive so readers could respond to the topics. Many of which, responded with intellectual arguments and examples of how they are avid gamers whom of which play violent games and have never felt the need to massacre anyone. Points on both sides of the argument were made and in the end, everyone agrees it was a very sad day in US History.

No matter what triggered this killer to end the lives of so many vibrant individuals, we all can agree that the killer had some internal issues. These issues resulted in a violent act which made us sick to our stomach. Video game violence comes into question yet again; is it our fault as gamers that violence exist?

Some say video games do not create killers, they simply make killers more creative. On the flip side, reporting the massacre on the news can inspire other unstable individuals to copy-cat murder. Should we fail to communicate the situation on the news in order to stop copy-cats? Should we stop publishing violent games in order to stop creative killing? Answers that are very hard to establish.

There are many video games on the market which display ugly acts of violence and have a rating established to reflect this violent content. Many people are quick to point out the Grand Theft Auto series, Saints Row and a few others because of their violent content. Believe it or not, these games do not display some of the most violent content on the market. They do, however, happen to cover a lot of hot topics all in one game: sex, prostitution, gang activity, guns, beatings, racism and questionable language all wrapped up in a single title.

In November 2005 gamespot reported on the ten most violent games listed by the Family Media Guide:

• Resident Evil 4
• Grand Theft Auto
• God of War
• N.A.R.C
• Killer 7
• The Warriors
• 50 Cent
• Crime Life
• Condemned: Criminal Origin
• True Crime: New York City

Top violent games of all time? No, not by a long shot. But they undoubtedly contain violent material, much like the hit shows CSI, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. Or, of course, The Sopranos. None of these game titles really can live up to the level of violence in American movies and TV. Although TV and movies have had their share of nay sayers and activists in its dark past.

Doubleviking.com has it’s own list of top ten violent games to add to this list. Some, like GTA, overlap on many lists. You can add to the long list of violent video games: Gears of War, Thrill Kill, Manhunt, Soldier of Fortune, The Punisher, Loaded and of course the infamous Mortal Kombat (the game that inspired the ESRB ratings).

To enlist a more creative design to the violent genre we go to Running With Scissors for their game titles Postal and Postal 2. Both games rank very high on gamers “Wow, this is violent” meter. Jennifer Ho, editor at Gamespot said this about Postal:

There are two games, neither of which was very successful or memorable, that left a big enough negative impression on me for me to have been disturbed. The first game is Ripcord Games’ Postal from late 1997. The game was banned in more than ten countries, but not in the US. I can remember playing the demo for the first time, and I was pretty surprised by the game’s concept, which is basically walking your player-character called “Postal Dude” on a psychotic rampage and killing every person in sight. One of the things that bothered me was how your dying victims would crawl on the ground and utter, “I can’t breathe….” I guess what disturbed me the most about Postal was that the plot seemed so flimsy and didn’t provide a very cogent reason for Postal Dude’s paranoia or psychosis; paranoia that leads to indiscriminate killing really doesn’t make for a good story at all.

When an editor in the gaming industry is disturbed by a game, you know it’s up there on the violent meter. As gamers we’re probably a little desensitized by the violence in many (but not all) games. We see it all the time, we play it, we read reviews on these games and we choose to buy or pass on them.

These violent titles do not break our sanity and drive us to shoot up a neighborhood of innocent children… well, most of us. Those that do consider this course of action may have a disturbing past history to go along with their disturbing ideas of a good time.

I’m a gamer and I’ve grown up on games like Super Mario Bros., Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Zelda, Ikari Warriors, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, Final Fantasy and many others. Although my parents didn’t pre-screen the games I played as they did the movies I watched, it is a different time; we’re not in 1985 anymore and we must respect that and look to the future.

The future has much in store for us in the gaming world, one of which will be excessively violent games with better graphics, sound and realistic scenarios that may or may not be fit for children under the age of 18. We must rely on our parents (that may be you) to raise our children under supervision, wait until they’re not as impressionable to show them violent content and discuss with them the questions about violence, war, terrorism and many of the realities we live with day-to-day.

Many of us, in North America and other established countries do not face violence in the streets each day. We are thankful of that I’m sure. We may, however, see it on news broadcasts, video games, movies and other mediums. We must prepare our children for what lies ahead as they grow older. In the end, we must recognize games have ratings and decide when our children are ready to play these mature rated games.

Raise our children right as compassionate caring individuals and let them decide for themselves what level of violence they are willing to except when they hand over their own hard earned cash to buy a video game. Let us prepare them for these future decisions.

I would like to thank those that expressed their comments to our controversial articles in a well educated manner, using kind words, discussing hot topics with respect and low to moderate curse words. Although we enjoy our occasional curse word, we feel there is no value-add to gamers cursing like pirates at fellow gamers or individual like Dr. Phil and Howard Stern. To those of you that chose this clean course of action: we solute you!