So, the UK has just come through some of the worst rioting it has seen in decades. For the average person in the street, it is now time to rebuild, restart, regardless of the unfairness of being the victim to someone else's actions. And there have been a lot of victims. It is naturally still a main topic of conversation in the news, and so politicians are jumping at ways of attacking each other for things they have said and done in the past, while a whole industry of social commentators is being supported by the media to fill space laying out the blame.
Still, hopefully this can be laid to rest, as the Daily Express has incitefully worked out that the things the Daily Express doesn't like (video games, single mothers, reality TV, pop videos) are the cause. Ok, I'm over-simplifying - there are also things about police powers (though you'd hope society ultimately works due to a desire for it to work, not out of a fear of the police), and street gangs - but I feel over-simplifying is a legitimate response to an article that is over-simplified itself.
There's a lot I could write about this piece, how it lays a lot of blame in a "nodding head, that sounds right" way and doesn't actually cite a single piece of evidence. Or how it lays (again by inference) the idea that most of the rioters were children, when the statistics show a majority were legally adults. But this is a gaming blog. Let's take on those comments about games.
She lays out the blame there very quickly - the first paragraph draws a parallel between the events on the news and games. Incidentally, when she says
With hooded youths in pitched battles with police, all reason gone and high on destruction, I felt for a moment as if we had stumbled into a real-life violent video game of the kind that so many of those involved are addicted to.
... I'm curious where this fact has come from. So many of those involved are addicted to? It is a very, very specific accusation. A citation would be nice, to let us know that this isn't just an opinion taken from a blurred sense of reality.
I'm not going to fault Ms Frost on drawing that parallel though - it is natural to draw parallels between things we know... I would try and explain Baudrillard and his philosophy of the Simulacra, how living in a mediated society the lines distinguishing what we see at real and fiction become blurred. It's a big topic, but in summary it is not new to see something real and immediately associate it with something unreal that has been seen before. An important distinction must be made, though - this doesn't mean it is as simple as cause-and-effect.
Anyway, she carries on
These horrific games where points are given for burning, shooting and killing, where the graphics are so realistic you believe that they’re real scenes of carnage, where those who play fantasise they have the power of life and death, are so brutal they completely desensitise anyone taking part.
Research shows that within 15 minutes of playing one of these games young men become highly aggressive and lack empathy in normal situations. It is not too fanciful to suggest it’s a short step from being immersed in this war-like world to taking that nightmare mindset on to the streets with all the consequences of anarchy and violence we saw rip apart cities.
Once again, lacking references - so I'll help out. A 2006 study done by Iowa State University seems to be one of the most commonly referenced ones in recent years for desensitisation, and I don't pretend it is the only one. However, it would be equally wrong to pretend that it is voicing a unanimous verdict - there are other studies that have found the exact opposite, and it is extremely convenient to ignore this, as Ms Frost does.
Yes, I'm here to defend games from these accusations, but I'm not going to pretend people haven't disagreed with me. There's far more out there, on both sides of the debate. I just don't feel that using the media to just state that one side of an argument exists is valid.
Personally, I have played games for over two decades. I have racked up enough virtual kills to (de)populate a fair sized country, and I recognise that games are all about active participation - I perform the actions, I cause the consequences - and yes, I have the power to avoid dealing with these consequences by pressing an off switch. I've even let real life spill into games, burning off aggression after a bad day You know what? I wasn't out in the streets causing chaos. For all the on-screen bloodshed I've caused, I still know the difference between right and wrong, and between an unreal or real person's well being.
I think blaming games is extremely superficial... ok, that's an easy thing to say when faced with an article which, as I said at the start, seems to thrive on applying superficial blame on the parts of society disapproved of by the newspaper's key readership. But the violent games = violent people argument only holds up for a while - if you read some of the articles which do cite games as an influencing factor in causing aggression they also often add the clause that it more significant in increasing aggression in those who already have tendencies that way. Not all studies do - but enough.
Some people playing games become aggressive - or indeed, actually violent as the article in the Express tries to connect - while some don't (for example, Call of Duty: Black Ops was the biggest selling game of 2010; sales to date have reached 25 million copies. Even ignoring the safe assumption that due to second-hand copies, game lending between friends, piracy and even good old socialising with a console round someone's house far more than 25 million people have actually played it... well, I don't believe anyone will seriously try and claim that all 25 million people referenced will be going out more violent people than before, else the riots would have been the least of our worries).
What does that prove? Well... nothing. It can be summed up with the entirely non-committal statement "Video games may or may not cause violence, in some but not all people". And if they may cause violence in people with underlying aggression issues, might it be more productive to consider how to deal with these aggression issues than make sweeping statements about the games themselves? Otherwise, we'll end up sterilising society to protect ourselves from the ambiguous (and usually rather patronising) "some people" who aren't equipped with the social or emotional skills to distinguish between real and unreal.
It's too tempting to find simple answers to the cause of the riots - something quick and crowd pleasing, and unfortunately we're getting that from too many people and organisations with the power to influence us already. It especially doesn't help when those who have the power to project their voices loudly use that to forward their own ideals, above any actual debate.
I'm cynical. I foresee lots of superficial decisions coming soon. This just highlighted the sort of thinking that some of them will come from.
Addendum: one extra paragraph worthy of note
And those horrific video games which I mentioned earlier must be brought under control. Their content should be subject to censorship and the age at which they can be bought tightly controlled. Shopkeepers should demand proof of age and where they ignore this and break the law by selling them to children they should be fined.
Except... here in the UK, games are reviewed by the BBFC, and given legally enforceable age ratings and censorship rulings.* Shops nigh on always have publicly visible signs saying they will ask for proof of age; if they sell something to someone under age, they are open to fines of up to £20,000 and there is an additional threat of potentially two years imprisonment. There is already a structure in place to deal with under age sales. The tone of this paragraph makes it sound like any child can walk into a shop, and walk out with any game regardless of content. No. This is not how it works.
Plus, as the average gamer is now 37 (I thought it was 35, and found articles supporting this... from two years ago. Go, maths), and as cited the majority of rioters were adults, does this really have anything to do with anything? No, this comes back to the inference that it is about children in the streets, which is not supported by the facts.
* = it should be noted that the law is mildly ambiguous here - games are not legally required to be rated, but that exemption can be removed depending on the content. To quote the BBFC's FAQ on the subject
Under the Video Recordings Act, most video games are exempt from BBFC classification. However, they may lose this exemption - and therefore require a formal BBFC classification - if they depict, to any significant extent, gross violence against humans or animals, human sexual activity, human urinary or excretory functions or genital organs, or techniques likely to be useful in the commission of offences.Or to look at it another way - games do not need to be rated, except for the ones that do - and any game with enough violence to shock the Daily Express is already going to have had that exemption removed. To all intents and purposes, games are rated, it is just a technicality that makes it seem optional.
