Some Thoughts On Games Part 2: Violence In Games

Saddle up, this shall be as long as it is informative.

So last week I discussed the game BioShock Infinite in-depth (though I dared not go as deep as I could, for that well is seemingly infinite, pun intended) and I hope I shed some light on just how artistic games can be.

However, that's not to say all games strive for that accomplishment. Indeed, in most cases a developer/publisher's goal is to sell games and consequently make money. Lots of money, if possible. How does one sell loads of games and make bills upon bills? Violence, bro, violence. (And sex but we'll talk about that next week.)

Consider the most popular (and by that I mean the one that has sold the most games) franchise for the past four years by a large margin: Call of Duty. Call of Duty initially became popular with the 2007 installment Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

This was a great game in its own right, pioneering a console engine that ran at 60 frames per second (twice as fast as normal engines) to simulate life-like soldier movements and give the player a very real "modern warfare" experience. Aside from the technical achievements, Infinity Ward (the developers who made the game) wrote a terrific script for the "Campaign Mode" (the one with a story and plot) that was all at once engaging, thrilling, action-packed, and also morally inquisitive--a surprising touch for war-time FPS.

This screen is from the most refreshingly unique missions I've ever had the pleasure of playing. The player is dressed in a ghillie suit and must stealth his way through enemy lines, taking care not raise any alarms and leaving live witnesses. The strategy and tactics that went into completing this mission were incredible.

Modern Warfare  also had a spectacular, innovative, simplistic yet in-depth online multiplayer system that reinvented console FPS multiplayer. I won't bore you with details, but something of the ideas they pioneered have changed the multiplayer landscape so now even games like Halo 4 (a far cry from CoD) use these elements in some way, shape, or form.

Modern Warfare redefined the war FPS genre in a good way and its unexpected success led to large demand from the gaming community for a sequel. Welp, Infinity Ward delivered and thus started a chain reaction that led to what I think is the bane of gaming: annual releases of Call of Duty games intended only to attract the "bro gamer" crowd and sell assloads of games.

These yearly installments do nothing to try and innovate the genre like the original Modern Warfare did, instead they focus on ideas that will sell as many games as possible while offering minute upgrades in the multiplayer experience. The "changes" they make year-to-year center around different stories in the Campaign mode and these "stories" consist largely of bombastic, action-packed, "Dude that's f@&$ing awesome", Michael Bay-esque missions that have these incredibly violent, epically-scoped moments of death, destruction, and chaos. The player goes through these missions killing countless enemies with no regard for the morality of their actions; they are just trying to reach their objective to get to the next jaw-dropping moment. These moments are not included for art--they don't have a theme or a purpose or a deeper meaning--they are intended only to "wow" the player and make those 19-year-old dorm dwellers high five each other and say, "Bro, that  was awesome."

This is what I'm talking about. The screen above is from MW3, in which the Eiffel Tower is blown up and the screen below is from MW2, showing a desecrated Washing Monument. "Woah, bro, they f&$#ing blew up D.C.! Sick!"

 

This is not what video games should be about.

Think about successful action movies like Fast and Furious, Transformers, and Avatar. These movies have little to offer in terms of art and they do not in any way exemplify what the medium of film can accomplish in terms of art. However, these movies are action-packed, visually stunning, and most of all, they make money. This is similar to formula games like CoD follow; empty yet thrilling action intended to wow people into buying and playing the game. Again, this is not what games should be about and it's certainly not how violence should be handled in games. But sadly, this is the way of the world.

Don't get me wrong; CoD games are well-made, finely-tuned products and they are loads of fun, much like how action movies are entertaining and pulse-pounding (albeit implausible). But, being the most popular and polarized, these games give people the wrong impression of violence in games.

In the case of BioShock Infinite, violence is almost instantly regarded as a tool--a means of survival. The first time you have to kill an enemy is right after the "raffle" scene I described last week. The player is confronted with a choice to either throw the ball at the bound interracial couple or throw instead at the announcer onstage. After the player chooses (and 99.9% of players choose the announcer), he winds to throw the ball but his arm is caught by one of the constables (policemen) nearby and the player (Booker Dewitt) is recognized as an enemy of Comstock (the prophet guy that's ruling Columbia). The player escapes the constable's clutches, grabs hold of a weapon and fights his way out of the predicament in order to avoid being captured.

Once the player rescues Elizabeth, violence becomes a lot harder to commit. The first time Elizabeth sees you kill a group of enemies, she runs away and hides from you, calling you a monster and shuddering at your touch. Booker, the player, then explains that violence is a necessary evil, saying something like "If I didn't kill those guys, they would take you back into custody and kill me." Elizabeth hesitantly agrees but still loathes the idea of killing. This adds a weight to killing after that, which is made heavier by emotional reactions from certain enemies who sometimes display fear and express their desire to live.

These enemies in Infinite are called Handymen. They are handicapped people augmented with these over-sized suits in order to overcome their physical limitations. However, from the things they say throughout the game, it's obvious that they live in great pain and suffering. Very heart-breaking. Very hard to kill.

Call of Duty and BioShock Infinite constitute a tiny sample of the video game industry, however. And, unfortunately, the majority of games do what CoD does and add violence for the sake of violence, coercing "gamers" into buying their game by showing off all of the "cool ways" you can kill enemies. Thus, the average citizen perceives games as these killing-simulators that teach kids it's alright to use violence to solve problems and promote the use of guns and other weapons.

With all of the tragic mass shootings taking place in America recently, video games have come under particular scrutiny for "celebrating" this kind of violence. As someone who is about as passive and non-confrontational as one can get, I strongly disagree with the stereotype of "violent video games lead to violence."

Research has been done on this topic in the past, although it is still fairly limited. However, an ambitious study conducted by Craig Anderson et al. at Iowa State University in 2003, 2004, showed solid evidence that playing violent video games, more than playing nonviolent video games, increases arousal (that is, it elevates your heart rate and blood pressure), increases aggressive thinking (subjects became more likely to predict a man's reaction to being rear-ended as aggressive), increases aggressive feelings (i.e. frustration, hostility), increases aggressive behaviors (after playing the game, children and youth played more aggressively with friends, got into more arguments, and participated in more fights), and decreases prosocial behaviors (after playing they were slower to help peers in need).

This all sounds pretty incriminating; clearly kids who play violent video games become more aggressive, right? Well, I agree, all of these things will probably happen in the short-term for most players, while the player is still physiologically aroused and images from the game are fresh in his/her head, but findings on long-term effects of play remain elusive. Also, most studies only a show a correlation to aggressive acts, meaning that playing violent video is related  to aggression, but playing them does not cause aggression. Correlation does not equal causation and again this is a common misconception in America. But still, parents will be parents...

"So, clearly from that study, playing violent video games increases the chances my son will do something aggressive."

True, kids will likely become more hostile and aggressive after playing a game, but I would argue they would become just as hostile, if not more so, after participating in any other sort of intense and arousing competition, such as a sport. What a lot of people don't realize is that these violent video games are, at their core, a competition: you are competing against the computerized enemies (or other players online); it's you versus hundreds of bad guys and the only way to win is to kill them all and complete your objective. This competition, just like any competition, instills frustration in the player if the player fails to achieve their goal. It's not the acts of killing that increase arousal, it's the thrill of the competition. Believe me, guys I play basketball with get frustrated on the court, and this frustration often leads them to swear, trash-talk, yell at the refs, slam their fists against something, and play more aggressively. Let's not pretend violent games are the only thing that can increase aggression.

After getting an and-one, Carlos Boozer of the Chicago Bulls aggressively fist-pumped and hit this poor referee square in the balls. Owie. Sorry, this is the best picture I could find of it.

Also, violent games aren't the only source of this competition. In many types of  nonviolent games, you are competing at some activity against the computer, racing against the clock (or other racers), presented with a myriad of obstacles with which you need to overcome, or tasked with solving a complex puzzle. Any game that incorporates these kinds of elements opens the door for frustration. If players repeatedly fail at the game, they will most likely become frustrated, ill-tempered, or have lower self-esteem because their lack of ability. Obviously, frustration can lead to anger, anger can lead to aggression, and aggression can lead to violence.

"Okay, well that still doesn't dismiss the fact that violent games glorify killing."

Again, this is my opinion (the opinion of an avid gamer who's been gaming since '97, mind you), but one that I know a lot of gamers share (at least the ones I interact with in my life and online share it): the violence is only a fun means to an end. We gamers realize that violence needs to be included in games like BioShock Infinite because it wouldn't make sense to progress any other way and also because the game needs to sell copies. Games need violence like Hulu and Pandora need commercials. The violence is only a fun middle-man that leads us to the next portion of the story--the real attraction to the game and the part that keeps us playing.

We also don't see violence as acts of killing, we see it as a puzzle; a challenge; we have to strategize our plan of attack, decide which resources (like special guns and powerful abilities that are both rare to the player) to use on which enemies, figure out the best path to take, decide on a stealth approach or a guns-blazing one, among other choices. Game developers often include a myriad of guns to choose from and abilities to use, and these require resources, which are scarce, thus forcing the player to plan accordingly and experiment with weapons to find what they believe to be the most effective.

Completing the violent sequences is a welcome challenge to us gamers; they test our skill with the game as well as our cognitive ability to attack the scenario. In a lot of cases, games also test our mental fortitude; if we keep failing an incredibly difficult sequence we have to keep replaying and trial-and-error-ing until we get it right and move on with the game. We don't see violence as violence, we see it as the element of the game that tests our prowess, ability, and ingenuity.

This game, called Dark Souls is known for being incredibly hard. The game tells you up front that you will die a lot, and it forces you to become very skilled and also learn the weaknesses of each enemy so you can figure out a strategy for defeating them.  It is not for that faint of heart but it is the most gratifying game I've ever played. 

These type of games make the player feel powerful, something a lot of us don't feel in everyday situations. That power comes through our hard-earned skill and practice at the game and leads to feelings of immense gratification at our accomplishments, again, something we don't feel everyday. There may be no greater feeling of satisfaction, relief, and achievement than completing super hard sequences in games, like beating Sif in Dark Souls.

"Well, not all games are artsy, like BioShock, and they put very brutal violence in their games just to awe the player."

I agree, some games like the God of War franchise take violence too far, putting in especially graphic and gory acts of violence that are over-the-top and almost silly. These games usually are seen as silly and rarely taken seriously by gamers. It's like watching Kill Bill or any other Tarantino film; the violence is purposely, almost satirically, over-the-top because some people just like to see blood and guts. Strangely, people are attracted to gore.

However, I am making a big assumption: when I say "we" I mean mature gamers 17 and up. I definitely do not mean impressionable kids and teenagers.

"There you go, violent games glorify killing to young people. Ha! Checkmate, gamers!"

This is something I can't argue with. I know that kids are like clay and tend to replicate what their parents do, what people on TV and in movies do, and even what people in their games do.

I recently discussed this issue with my roommate (a Psychology major who's as avid a gamer as I) and he brought up an interesting point about adolescents and how they might view games.

"My thought is that a true intellectual appreciation of gameplay escapes most adolescents. They should only be exposed to violent games when they have sufficient emotional maturity and game experience to see through the violence as many other gamers do." --Ken McGurran, Roommate. 

Essentially he's saying that adolescents don't/can't truly understand what the developer is trying to say with the game's violence beacuse mostadolescents aren't that advanced in their stages of thinking, thus any exposure to unnecessarily violent games can lead them to misconstrue the meaning of violence in games and also get the wrong impression of video games as a whole, not to mention they may try and reproduce their onscreen antics in real life.

But, for all of these parents voicing how awful, horrifying, and detrimentally influencing games can be, I have one thing to say.

DO NOT LET YOUR CHILD PLAY VIOLENT GAMES.

It's really as simple as that. You're worried that your kid might be turning into a monster because of the games he/she is playing? Then don't buy him/her games rated 17 and up!

"But video game retailers will let them buy that stuff anyway."

Not even close, dude. Now more than ever retailers are cracking down and carding potential buyers of Mature games. I would never have been able to buy an M-rated game as a kid--believe me, I tried.

"But my son/daughter has friends and I can't control what games those friends have."

True. You can't. And that's life. You can't control everything your kid is going to do; all you can do as a parent is educate your kid on what is the right thing to do and what is the wrong thing to do and hope he/she chooses the do the right thing a lot more often than the wrong thing.

Violence in games is a becoming a big issue, but very few people who are against them actually play them, thus the common perceptions of games are unfortunately skewed. Most games do not promote acts of violence and most gamers do not perceive this violence as glorified. We play to enjoy the game and we enjoy feeling powerful and skilled. Violence in games allows us to do that by challenging our aptitude and fortitude. Yes, games can have an impression on kids, but kids should not be playing games that are clearly intended for adult audiences. It is the parent's responsibility to control what they can control (whether it be video games, television, movies, internet or anything else that can "corrupt") and raise their child in the most nurturing and educational environment possible. Games can be super violent and sell a lot of copies because of that, but so do action-packed movies, just like both games and film can give violence a deeper meaning and use that to create a piece of art.

I hope you have a different perspective on video games after reading this. Video games are awesome.

Headshot. Courtesy of Fallout 3.