The entertainment news media continues perpetuating a ‘violence resulted from video games’ dogma to propogate an agenda.
Occasionally I joke that each morning I read the right-wing broadsheet The Telegraph and left-leaning The Guardian, then assume the truth is somewhere in the middle. Chuckle chuckle, ho ho. There is usually some kernel of truth in jokes, which is why they resonate, but my humorous description perhaps makes my reaching of my own conclusions sound easier than it is.
Frankly, it can be a rollercoaster reading news media these days. I was generally encouraged by Simon Parkin’s article in the Guardian on April 20th on story-telling in videogames. This was a national newspaper piece on a broad topic which gets regular discussion in the videogames press: are videogames visual art, literature, or a mixture of both? The article references recent hits like Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, indie hit Gone Home and even ageing and frequently re-made classic The Secret of Monkey Island. Parkin’s article is titled Beyond the Shoot-em-up but frankly even the FPS genre has had attempts at serious story-telling, such as the much noted moral ambiguity of Spec Ops: The Line. Sure, there’s the big studio bluster of the Call of Duty series, but then again in other media – novels, TV shows, cinema – there’s populist pap, provocative high-art, and occasionally, inspired and intelligent drama. The videogame as a medium is no different; for every Spec Ops: The Line there are ten Call of Duty clones.
Parkin’s article also references Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2, which rightly gets honourable mention for its approach to story-telling, which is discovered and observed, rather than narrated and dictated. I like the Dark Souls games because they obviously buck a particular narrative in Western gaming media these last few years, which seems determined to talk the Japanese games industry to death despite the obvious dearth of creativity from the major US studios.
I was appalled, then, to see that in the wake of a horrific murder in the UK, both the Telegraph and The Daily Mail prominently mention that the perpetrator played Dark Souls. The Telegraph article reports that Dark Souls is “a violent video game marketed with the slogan ‘prepare to die’,” and that the game is “a 15-rated ‘death-laden’ fantasy game in which a cursed character uses medieval weapons to kill others.”
This is both disingenuous and ridiculous. The ‘prepare to die’ tagline is not projected outwards from the protagonist to other characters; it is not telling you, the player, to go kill. It is a reference to the series’ renowned difficulty – it is you the player who must prepare to die. I note also the journalist, Gordon Rayner, has put ‘death-laden’ in inverted commas, which is usually an indication of attribution, without any such attribution.
That’s the disingenuous part. Unless the Telegraph has a solid readership of zombie parents, who are mortified to see this game encouraging violence against their moral and upstanding zombie offspring, or a similar broad base of dragons worried about their personal safety, describing Dark Souls as a violent game, in which the player uses medieval weapons to “kill others” is ridiculous and possibly dishonest, not least as the Telegraph is so editorially ecstatic about Game of Thrones, a violent TV show in which cursed characters use medieval weapons to kill others.
The Telegraph does have a follow-up blog by Tom Chivers which does at least mention that the link between violence and violent games is “highly disputed,” but even this blog is essentially weak. Chivers asserts that “It might be the case – we don’t know – that murderers as a group are more likely to play violent video games than the rest of the population. But even if that were the case, would it be surprising if violent fantasists are attracted to violent fantasies?” Also he quotes a study that shows there is a brief spike in aggression after playing violent games.
What he fails to mention is that the same report noted there is a brief spike in aggression after watching TV news. Do we have headlines “Another murderer noted as regular watcher of CNN?” No. Would we see an opinion piece “it might be the case – we don’t know – that murderers as a group are more likely to read the Telegraph than the rest of the population. But even if that were the case, would it be a surprise if violent fantasists are attracted to newspapers which pander to their beliefs?”
Because that’s the big old elephant in the corner that Chivers doesn’t mention, and indeed cannot for obvious reasons, in noting that both the Telegraph and the Daily Mail reported that the suspect in this horrible crime played games: to do so supports the narrative that those newspapers wish to maintain. 24-hour cable news shows need to keep your attention. This led in the first instance to the sensationalisation of news, as well documented by Charlie Brooker in a number of his shows and written works. Fox News took this further by deciding to pursue a particular political bias. As print newspapers struggle in the internet age, they also are driven by purely commercial imperatives.
This is not to say that I think there should be a free-for-all in videogames, or indeed any other medium. I think that ratings systems are entirely appropriate, and should be better enforced. I think that a great deal of responsibility lies with parents, and balance in life is important. I think authors do have responsibility for what they create. And I do think that humans can become desensitised to violence, be it in games, TV shows or the news. However, that is not what is at issue here. What is at issue here is the perpetuation of a lazy journalistic shorthand.
I imagine the Telegraph likely suffers from the same problems as the Conservative Party which it supports; it is locked into a core set of political stances that appeal to a later middle-aged and increasingly white-haired section of the population. “Videogames are linked to violence” is an accepted creed, a short-hand for the worry about the decline of Western Civilisation that used to be fulfilled by the video nasty. This is not a readership that will be around forever and those customers must be replaced.
The follow-up blog by Chivers is, in my view, part of the set of columnists the Telegraph maintains to try to appeal to younger readers. However, those are the same younger readers who will instantly recognise this type of reportage as absolute bullshit. Frankly, having actual headlines linking a real murder of a real person to topics, ideas, and products for which there is no credible reason to do so not only highlights the moral vacuum of an agenda-driven editorial stance, it is downright offensive.
Originally posted on Lawrence’s blog (www.lawrenceanzen.com). Used with permission
13 responses to “Videogames and Violence: An Agenda Disguised as Reportage”
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Nail on the head.
Of course society is always going to try to find a scapegoat for the way people act. If video games weren’t the culprit, it’d just be something else; maybe even books (of course, there was a time, long ago…)
Either way, it all boils down to the same thing: society looks for these scapegoats as a way to negate responsibility. You hear about some young guy shooting a place up and they turn to video games as the reason he did it, rather than try to do the sensible thing and look at his home life. I personally largely blame these incidents on lack of real parenting. Parents have, for a while now, let technology raise their kids instead of doing any raising themselves, so of course their kids are going to turn out “unwholesome”, for lack of a better word. And society, especially the media, is going to eat it up whenever that child starts killing people, blaming the technology that raised him instead of the parents that let technology do so.
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Please do. I’d like to see it, very much.
Great article. Absolutely appalled that this is something people go to as ENTERTAINMENT, and BELIEVE.
My grandfather watches Fox News almost religiously. I wonder if he thinks I’m a murderous cult member…
Such utter bullshit.
I actually wrote a paper regarding this a while back. I wrote about the controversy of video games and why censoring them was a very bad idea that shouldn’t be done. It was as a yearly paper that we were suppose to write 6 or 10 pages on and do a lot of research, so I have a good understanding of the terror-culture that many right-wing news stations and websites are doing(should note I am an independent – I hate both sides equally
). And even did more regarding censorship the following year, albeit then it was regarding books rather than games. So this article came as little surprise to me, considering that this type of stuff had been going on since I was in diapers.
Good article by the way.
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Keep all your homework man. Put it away in a folder somewhere. I’m so pissed that I can’t find half the stuff from college. I’ve got an entire folder of songs and poems I wrote and it’s just…. GONE. Part of me died.
OT: I’ve been watching a lot of news on that shooting out in California. The media asks all of the wrong questions. They seem to go after the gun lobby, or video games, or movies, or anything else that would make one THINK. Now before I start sounding like an NRA nut, let me point out, that I’m left of center. I’m more of a liberal. I’ve never hunted, owned a gun, and have only shot a few guns at a range on one occasion. But I have common sense. We really need to start asking the right questions. Perhaps a combination of better gun control and regulation for the mentally ill. Instead of just handing out psychotropic medications and letting these people run wild, we need to evaluate the effects of these drugs, and of the severity of the illness these folks are suffering. From what I’ve heard, if you stop these drugs once you’re on them, it’s very bad. It reminds me of the Bourne movies.
The same thing goes for gun control. In the United States, you hear a lot of right-wingers say it squashes our civil liberties. Nonsense. When the second amendment was written, everyone had guns. Now the citizens have guns, and the government has Apaches, M1A1s, bunkerbusters, tactical nukes, nuclear subs, air craft carriers, destroyers, drones, scud missles, etc. etc. Do I really need to point out the obvious here? Yet, in the media, we just find a scapegoat… When it’s all over and the same thing happens, we do it all over again. Boy, people are stupid.
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I actually wrote a paper on why video games are frequently the patsy for causes of violence. The paper also outlined the hobby’s benefits and how they can outweigh the downsides when taken in moderation. Got an A+ on that paper, and I am tempted to post an excerpt here. If only I could find it…
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In a very odd sort of way this is becoming more and more true.
Paintings and literature that depict dark, dystopian futures or scenes are lauded as genius. Yet more and more our video games are also doing this, Watch Dogs is an example of this playing off fears of the information age, and yet are not given real praise as other forms of art might.
Another game worth mentioning is Always Sometimes Monsters, a small indie title which narrates a story of a dark gritty….yet mundane story of the player characters life as they struggle through social issues, gender issues, issues regarding sexuality and discriminations, drug use and abuse, etc.
A very real reflection of the world we live in…possibly the darkest and most realistic (despite its top down almost Gameboy Colour graphics and display) game I have played recently.
Art mimics life, (most) video games are/could be considered Art, life has violence.
The end.
I actually saw that report in the daily mail (quality journalism I know) on a kid that the paper blamed dark souls for causing- amazingly the kid actually back stabbed his teacher to kill her.
Anyways they talked about how games like GTA and Dark Souls had caused his behaviour when really it was obviously due to social isolation, lack of love from parents and the resulting/compounding mental issues the kid had.
Naturally though, it’s the video games to blame, not the fact society failed him.
I had the same reaction as you lanzen. It was utterly ridiculous
Start to worry but they get seemingly innocent games and play them backwards to get satanic messages.
I vaguely remember the video nasty backlash when that poor kid was killed in liverpool many moons ago. Childs play was pretty much banned outright over it.
Thank you Anca, Tom and Ignus for responding to my article.
There is a fantastic book, sadly now out of print, called “The Seduction of the Gullible,” which is a description of the disingenuous media frenzy that descended on the UK in the wake of invention of the rental videotape, resulting in the 1984 UK Video Recordings Act. This was a result of a government-funded report on “video nasties,” which included movies which did not even exist.
Of course, I agree we want to keep certain materials out of the hands of youth – cigarettes, alcohol, movies and games with graphic content. But classification is not the same as censorship/banning. Nor is that any statement on my part I see any logical correlation between aberrant behaviour and any particular medium.
Games are the new video nasty. Since I wrote the above, we have of course seen the awful events in Isla Vista and certain outlets already report he was a World of Warcraft player. Equally unhelpful. Symptoms will change with any generation. An assault on symptoms will hardly remove the cause.
Very well written article Lanzen. This has been a topic of interest to me for quite some time. It amazes me the scapegoats that the media tries to wrangle up any time a shooting occurs. Do video games effect people? Yes, but so does everything else including movies, books, and walking out your front door. And as mentioned in the article, watching the news can greatly impact a person’s attitude and feelings.
I get upset watching CNN… The news is bad enough, but when you slant it to fit your political views, it pisses me off. The same thing applies to Fox News. You can switch back and fourth between the two and clearly see what the hell is going on. Whether something fits the mold of what I believe in doesn’t make it right. Which begs the question… Are news organizations delivering the news in a truthful matter? THAT in and of itself is more likely to make me snap than a video game.
Ridiculous. It’s funny how these people point to video games as the highest influential factor for violence when there’s numerous other forms of media that could cause the same effect. Not to mention the individual’s backround and personal life circumstances.
70’s and 80’s it was rock\metal that caused violence.
90’s it was horror movies.
00’s it’s game.
Of course violence has absolutely nothing to do with the media news turning us all uber paranoid.
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