the lost and the damned and ethics
by Orion Elenzil · in General Game Discussion · 05/04/2009 (11:05 am) · 75 replies
moved from a blog post.
as mike perry has pointed out, these discussions tend towards flame-wars and i'll admit that my post is itself a bit inflammatory, so i'll just uh remind everyone to try to keep their head above the emotional waters here.
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just a quick note on The Lost and the Damned.
i live in San Francisco's Mission district, which last year suffered several motorcycle-gang related murders. just amongst my circle of friends (which let me assure you contains not a single gang member nor probably anyone who even knows a gang member) one friend had a brutal killing in the apartment just below her, and one witnessed a dead body shot across from a popular local bar, both gang-related incidences. as i recall there was a rash of six or so related killings around that time, and at times word was actually "out on the street" along the lines of "avoid the mission tonight; shit's going down". (in that particular case, shit did not in fact go down, but you get an idea for how the community had been affected)
then just a few months ago rockstar games releases TLATD, and up go the huge posters advertising this game. so now, in the mission district in san francisco, you can stand on a corner where a dude was literally gunned down in gang violence just a few months before and look across the street to the huge posters at the bottom of this post.
these and other large posters appeared next to grocery stores, outside bars, on busy streets, on quiet streets, all throughout this neighborhood which is full of young people, old people, families, children, and computer programmers.
now i know this is a very unpopular stance amongst gamers,
but seriously, wtf ? here we have a case where the exact violence which rocked a community one month is commodified and presented as a cool new "rockstar" game the next. the gaming community loves to take the stance that glorifying violence doesn't lead to a societal increase in actual violence, but i call bullshit.
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as mike perry has pointed out, these discussions tend towards flame-wars and i'll admit that my post is itself a bit inflammatory, so i'll just uh remind everyone to try to keep their head above the emotional waters here.
------------------------------
just a quick note on The Lost and the Damned.
i live in San Francisco's Mission district, which last year suffered several motorcycle-gang related murders. just amongst my circle of friends (which let me assure you contains not a single gang member nor probably anyone who even knows a gang member) one friend had a brutal killing in the apartment just below her, and one witnessed a dead body shot across from a popular local bar, both gang-related incidences. as i recall there was a rash of six or so related killings around that time, and at times word was actually "out on the street" along the lines of "avoid the mission tonight; shit's going down". (in that particular case, shit did not in fact go down, but you get an idea for how the community had been affected)
then just a few months ago rockstar games releases TLATD, and up go the huge posters advertising this game. so now, in the mission district in san francisco, you can stand on a corner where a dude was literally gunned down in gang violence just a few months before and look across the street to the huge posters at the bottom of this post.
these and other large posters appeared next to grocery stores, outside bars, on busy streets, on quiet streets, all throughout this neighborhood which is full of young people, old people, families, children, and computer programmers.
now i know this is a very unpopular stance amongst gamers,
but seriously, wtf ? here we have a case where the exact violence which rocked a community one month is commodified and presented as a cool new "rockstar" game the next. the gaming community loves to take the stance that glorifying violence doesn't lead to a societal increase in actual violence, but i call bullshit.
About the author
#62
Violence has been an issue in the States, and just about everywhere else, from long before there was ever such a thing as a video game. On the other hand, violent crime rates in the US have been on a fairly steady decline since the early 1990s, and video games have gotten steadily more violent since then, so it would be pretty difficult for you to convince me that the reason there is a violence problem in the US is because of video games.
If anything, this would suggest that violent video games reduce real violence by giving people an outlet that doesn't hurt any real people. I'm not ready to make that leap just yet, but it seems just as feasible to me as what you're suggesting.
05/05/2009 (4:15 am)
Oh yeah,Quote:Make them fantasy characters damn it and I'll understand but look around the States and see if violence is an issue or not.
Violence has been an issue in the States, and just about everywhere else, from long before there was ever such a thing as a video game. On the other hand, violent crime rates in the US have been on a fairly steady decline since the early 1990s, and video games have gotten steadily more violent since then, so it would be pretty difficult for you to convince me that the reason there is a violence problem in the US is because of video games.
If anything, this would suggest that violent video games reduce real violence by giving people an outlet that doesn't hurt any real people. I'm not ready to make that leap just yet, but it seems just as feasible to me as what you're suggesting.
#63
You're not making any sence.
Violent games are no meant for kids - fantasy based or not - and that's the problem. Kids just don't get supervised properely.
When a child plays a fantasy violent game he doesn't learn that violence is ok if it's fake - just learns violence.
Fantasy or not is not an issue since kids haven't yet learned the difference between fantasy and reality
05/05/2009 (5:23 am)
On the subject of fantasy characters - so to you violence with fantasy isn't violence?You're not making any sence.
Violent games are no meant for kids - fantasy based or not - and that's the problem. Kids just don't get supervised properely.
When a child plays a fantasy violent game he doesn't learn that violence is ok if it's fake - just learns violence.
Fantasy or not is not an issue since kids haven't yet learned the difference between fantasy and reality
#64
Of course it's an issue here, much like it is an issue most other places. The U.S. has made great strides combating violent crimes. Here's an illustration:
As you can see, Violent crimes have declined here over the last several years. This, runs contrary to correlations between violent crimes and violent video games. Say what you will, but these are statistical facts.
As far as the U.S having a problem with violence, of course we do, though we are not top on the list per capita of people:
Does violent video games cause people to go out and kill? I think it has happened.. the same way it has happened historically from people listening to Rock music, watching specific movies, TV shows.. etc.
Should changes take place in reference to advertising? I think so. (Quite frankly, along with violence, I'm pretty tired of trying to explain to my 8 year old what items like extenze and viagra are and why they want you to bug your doctor to get scripts for them.) Should the age guidelines be enforced better around the world? I think so here as well. Should we start banning things because it makes us feel better based on nothing else? No.
05/05/2009 (5:46 am)
Quote:look around the States and see if violence is an issue or not.
Of course it's an issue here, much like it is an issue most other places. The U.S. has made great strides combating violent crimes. Here's an illustration:
As you can see, Violent crimes have declined here over the last several years. This, runs contrary to correlations between violent crimes and violent video games. Say what you will, but these are statistical facts.
As far as the U.S having a problem with violence, of course we do, though we are not top on the list per capita of people:
Does violent video games cause people to go out and kill? I think it has happened.. the same way it has happened historically from people listening to Rock music, watching specific movies, TV shows.. etc.
Should changes take place in reference to advertising? I think so. (Quite frankly, along with violence, I'm pretty tired of trying to explain to my 8 year old what items like extenze and viagra are and why they want you to bug your doctor to get scripts for them.) Should the age guidelines be enforced better around the world? I think so here as well. Should we start banning things because it makes us feel better based on nothing else? No.
#65
05/05/2009 (6:17 am)
Some more interesting facts courtesy of PBS:Quote:Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population.
Quote:According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure.
Quote:In these studies, media images are removed from any narrative context. Subjects are asked to engage with content that they would not normally consume and may not understand. Finally, the laboratory context is radically different from the environments where games would normally be played. Most studies found a correlation, not a causal relationship, which means the research could simply show that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment. That's why the vague term "links" is used here.
Quote:Already 62 percent of the console market and 66 percent of the PC market is age 18 or older. The game industry caters to adult tastes. Meanwhile, a sizable number of parents ignore game ratings because they assume that games are for kids.
Quote:The Federal Trade Commission has found that 83 percent of game purchases for underage consumers are made by parents or by parents and children together.
Quote:Classic studies of play behavior among primates suggest that apes make basic distinctions between play fighting and actual combat. In some circumstances, they seem to take pleasure wrestling and tousling with each other. In others, they might rip each other apart in mortal combat.
Quote:Media reformers argue that playing violent video games can cause a lack of empathy for real-world victims. Yet, a child who responds to a video game the same way he or she responds to a real-world tragedy could be showing symptoms of being severely emotionally disturbed. Here's where the media effects research, which often uses punching rubber dolls as a marker of real-world aggression, becomes problematic. The kid who is punching a toy designed for this purpose is still within the "magic circle" of play and understands her actions on those terms. Such research shows us only that violent play leads to more violent play.
#66
But do these "incidents" fall outside of the "magic circle" as referenced above?
Context is needed here: The aggression in Call of Duty is that of a soldier in a warzone. Should that soldier be punished for killing other soldiers during a war? We are assuming that the kills fall within the laws of war, just so that we're not opening other debates. Again, if in a game containing criminals trying to kill a cop, and the player- as the cop- kills the criminals, should the cop/player be punished for these actions? This "fact" does not distinguish.
See my comment above.
Stalking in the context of combat is a logical and very smart way to fight, especially in low-intensity conflicts. Of course, the other definition of "stalker" are the guys who react to rejection with violence and wind up killing some poor girl on her doorstep- but how many games portray that kind of stalking behavior as opposed to the stalking a sniper executes? Both have the same name, and yet both have very different reasons (and methods).
Again, this fuzzies my brain (admittedly not hard to do, but still)... As a bullet-point, it seems to suggest that the video game "perpetrators" should show good and prosocial qualities, but then again, this was at the bottom of a list from which the previous quotes were taken. So the question is: Do we want these "perpetrators" to have good and prosocial qualities that may be more appealing, or do we want them to remain either partially or wholly unsavory? This bullet point only raises questions.
That's random rabbit-out-of-the-hat picking of a group, but it did rank rather high on Google. As far as talking points goes, it gets points for going for the heartstrings, but the facts on the site are designed to make the maximum emotional impact while expending as little mental energy as possible (like the media does with soundbites, and we all complain about the problems those cause).
It's safe to say that the person who looks at violence in a medium such as TV, movies, books, comics, theater, or a video game and says "wow, I bet that would be cool to do" probably has issues that are deeper than the media he/she chooses to consume. And remember: There are plenty of non-violent video games out there, and the games bought are conscious choices by those who buy them, and reflect what they are looking for rather than what is looking for them.
05/05/2009 (6:50 am)
Now some facts I'm getting from Lions & Lambs, and anti-videogame violence organization I found on Google:Quote:Boys who play Teen or Mature-rated games for a minimum of 40 minutes a day may witness over 180 incidents of aggression per day, or 5,400 incidents per month.
But do these "incidents" fall outside of the "magic circle" as referenced above?
Quote:In 98 percent of the games surveyed, aggression went unpunished. In fact, in more than half the video games the perpetrators were rewarded for their aggressive actions.
Context is needed here: The aggression in Call of Duty is that of a soldier in a warzone. Should that soldier be punished for killing other soldiers during a war? We are assuming that the kills fall within the laws of war, just so that we're not opening other debates. Again, if in a game containing criminals trying to kill a cop, and the player- as the cop- kills the criminals, should the cop/player be punished for these actions? This "fact" does not distinguish.
Quote:The basic prototype for aggression in Mature-rated video games involves human perpetrators who engage in repeated acts of “justified” violence involving weapons.
See my comment above.
Quote:In almost a quarter of the violent interaction in mature games, players perceived themselves as stalkers.
Stalking in the context of combat is a logical and very smart way to fight, especially in low-intensity conflicts. Of course, the other definition of "stalker" are the guys who react to rejection with violence and wind up killing some poor girl on her doorstep- but how many games portray that kind of stalking behavior as opposed to the stalking a sniper executes? Both have the same name, and yet both have very different reasons (and methods).
Quote:Only 10 percent of all video game perpetrators possessed “good” or “prosocial” qualities.
Again, this fuzzies my brain (admittedly not hard to do, but still)... As a bullet-point, it seems to suggest that the video game "perpetrators" should show good and prosocial qualities, but then again, this was at the bottom of a list from which the previous quotes were taken. So the question is: Do we want these "perpetrators" to have good and prosocial qualities that may be more appealing, or do we want them to remain either partially or wholly unsavory? This bullet point only raises questions.
That's random rabbit-out-of-the-hat picking of a group, but it did rank rather high on Google. As far as talking points goes, it gets points for going for the heartstrings, but the facts on the site are designed to make the maximum emotional impact while expending as little mental energy as possible (like the media does with soundbites, and we all complain about the problems those cause).
It's safe to say that the person who looks at violence in a medium such as TV, movies, books, comics, theater, or a video game and says "wow, I bet that would be cool to do" probably has issues that are deeper than the media he/she chooses to consume. And remember: There are plenty of non-violent video games out there, and the games bought are conscious choices by those who buy them, and reflect what they are looking for rather than what is looking for them.
#68
05/05/2009 (9:49 am)
hey folks, it's been great but i'm unsubscribing from this thread. the monty python argument sketch is a classic, but i'm going to pass on watching it again. thanks for keeping it civil and more-or-less rational.
#69
05/05/2009 (9:57 am)
@Orion: Sorry to see you unsubscribe. While we disagree, I think that the debate is very important for people on both sides of the argument, and it was good that you brought it up. I also have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised that the thread has remained so civil for so long.
#70
for those who may not know it: the monty python argument sketch.
05/05/2009 (10:16 am)
ted, totally agree. i think i've pretty much expressed myself tho.for those who may not know it: the monty python argument sketch.
#71
Apparently there is no way to make a FUN game without and severely addictive element on it... if you want to success. I guess soccer, football, and many other games, were brought to earth by alien species.
On the other side, we are still trapped in this double morale dilemma of "violence in game is the evil incarnated", against the "arms manufacturer speech".
You know guys, is weird to see so many smart people sustaining such a polarized discussion.
Edit: @Orion, LOL.
05/05/2009 (10:16 am)
Well I dont know what Orion means by "the monty python argument" but I agree on the debate failed to get outside of the stereotyped stands, which from my view point, are repetitive, vicious and inmature.Apparently there is no way to make a FUN game without and severely addictive element on it... if you want to success. I guess soccer, football, and many other games, were brought to earth by alien species.
On the other side, we are still trapped in this double morale dilemma of "violence in game is the evil incarnated", against the "arms manufacturer speech".
You know guys, is weird to see so many smart people sustaining such a polarized discussion.
Edit: @Orion, LOL.
#72
Marcos PM'd me in email and said he'd like to hear a summary of my view, which i wrote up and then thought maybe i'd post here.
okay, now i'm really tuning this one out for a while and going back to work. cheers y'all.
05/05/2009 (11:19 am)
okay, well maybe just one more post.Marcos PM'd me in email and said he'd like to hear a summary of my view, which i wrote up and then thought maybe i'd post here.
Quote:
> I would have preferred to read something more on how you
> summarize your opinion (if you have one). This is an interesting topic,
> and any new stand outside of the mediatized debate is good for me.
hey Marcos -
well,
it's a complex issue.
kids are pretty smart, which is sort of good and bad.
they're smarts are good because they do have powers of recognizing fantasy as fantasy. - that is, kids Play. that's what that stage of life is all about: role playing. and i do believe they're well-equipped to separate fantasy from reality, but in the case of hyper-real games like TLATD (hyper real because it features the violence and other serious issues which are very, very real and present in many communities) i worry that even children's capacity for keeping Play and Reality in separate compartments may be strained.
kid's smartness can be bad because they pick up on what's cool. even if they don't have access to inappropriate materials they're still going to be aware of those materials and get an idea of the content and the message that this stuff is a game is still going to come through.
with regard to studies on the topic, i don't think we've seen sufficiently rigorous studies on either side to really rely on them, and in that situation i believe that we should error on the side of caution. look at marie and pierre curie, for example. in addition, any studies which may already be completed can't possibly sufficiently study the impact of the hyper-real genre of games like any of the GTA titles, and especially TLATD, because this level of thematic and graphical realism and fidelity is only a few years old. it's impossible to claim to know the long-term effects of something which has only existed a short while.
with regard to putting all the responsibility on the parents, of course parents have the final responsibility to educate their children on issues of fantasy/reality and how to behave, but that in no way means that the rest of us have zero responsibility and can just go and provide role-models as poor as we please. everyone has to chip in. in addition, the reality is that very many parents are simply not equipped in various ways to fulfill their parental responsibilities in this department, and so just laying the responsibility at their feet and closing the lid on the box is ignoring the larger and more complex societal picture.
cheers,
ooo
okay, now i'm really tuning this one out for a while and going back to work. cheers y'all.
#73
05/05/2009 (11:35 am)
Now THATS a non polarized approach. Everyone shares responsabilty, and is just dangerous to ignore that.
#74
Totally agrred - that's why on one of my posts i didn't say parents but instead parents/familly/friends/community
What i have said is that blaming the industry is wrong. The ESRB was the entertainment industry's response to this problem. Games and movies with adult only content are clearly marked. More recently they have also been using the parental advisory logo (and big it is - can't pass unoticed)
So i think the industry HAS assumed their share of responsability and HAS acted on it.
But you can't blame them if a clerk sells an adult game to aminor or if an adult buys one for their kids. There's just no way the industry can act on those.
The Industry has assumed responsability and gave parents/families/comunities the tools they need to protect their children. But the industry can't police every copie sold. It's time the adults in charge of the children take responsability too. And if they don't have what it takes to do it then maybe they should find help.
I have made a normal inteligent 20 year old girl believe in Santa Caluse - what's to say about an 8 or 9 year old.
Why do you think kids sometimes cry when they see a guy dressed on a Mickey suit? They love Mickey on TV. - But wouldn't you be scared of a 5 - 7 feet tall mouse? if you couldn't tell it was a guy in a suite and believed him real??
05/06/2009 (4:55 am)
[quoe]the reality is that very many parents are simply not equipped in various ways to fulfill their parental responsibilities in this department, and so just laying the responsibility at their feet and closing the lid on the box is ignoring the larger and more complex societal picture[/quote]Totally agrred - that's why on one of my posts i didn't say parents but instead parents/familly/friends/community
What i have said is that blaming the industry is wrong. The ESRB was the entertainment industry's response to this problem. Games and movies with adult only content are clearly marked. More recently they have also been using the parental advisory logo (and big it is - can't pass unoticed)
So i think the industry HAS assumed their share of responsability and HAS acted on it.
But you can't blame them if a clerk sells an adult game to aminor or if an adult buys one for their kids. There's just no way the industry can act on those.
The Industry has assumed responsability and gave parents/families/comunities the tools they need to protect their children. But the industry can't police every copie sold. It's time the adults in charge of the children take responsability too. And if they don't have what it takes to do it then maybe they should find help.
Quote:kids are pretty smart, which is sort of good and bad.
they're smarts are good because they do have powers of recognizing fantasy as fantasy
I have made a normal inteligent 20 year old girl believe in Santa Caluse - what's to say about an 8 or 9 year old.
Why do you think kids sometimes cry when they see a guy dressed on a Mickey suit? They love Mickey on TV. - But wouldn't you be scared of a 5 - 7 feet tall mouse? if you couldn't tell it was a guy in a suite and believed him real??
Torque Owner Gerald Fishel
Development Ninja
Again we're back to conjecture that these games are spreading violence. There is no evidence to support that they are. Millions of people play these games and just enjoy the game. If they hurt your feelings, don't buy them, that's fine.
Why would making them fantasy characters make that much of a difference? Hell when I was growing up Dungeons and Dragons was being touted as the Root Of All Evil In the World. I actually got suspended from school for bringing a D&D book. It's just another episode of people trying to blame some external force because it's not politically correct to hold people and their parents responsible for their actions. There always has to be some other target, preferably some target with money, to blame it on.
I agree with you here, but this is an entirely different issue. Exploiting people in the making of a product is unacceptable. I'm not sure what that has to do with this topic though. Are you suggesting that Rockstar uses sweatshops?
I see public displays of a lot of things that I find distasteful outside of Rockstar games. I once got handed a bucket full of blood and bones outside of a KFC, because PETA thought it would be a good way to let me know that they don't like the way KFC treats chickens. I'm sure they traumatized a lot of kids doing that, and probably didn't save one chicken in the process, but I'm not ready to tell them they can't do it.