Video game controversy





Computer games and video games have been the subject of frequent
controversy, often involving religious figures, parents' groups, or
politicians. The video game controversy outside the video game community
usually originates from religious discourses, assemblies, and publications,
political speeches and publications, and the news media.

Criticism of violence and crime in video games

Video and computer games are periodically criticized in the media by some
parents' groups, psychologists, religious organizations, or politicians for
the level of violence, cruelty, and crime that some games allow players to
act out. Examples are trivial to find, including Mortal Kombat and its
sequels, a series of fighting games by Midway Games which since 1992 has
rewarded players for beating up an opponent with martial arts moves, and
then for executing a "Fatality" move, a particularly gruesome killing of the
defeated character, in which the head and spine of the victim is ripped out
of his body, the victim is beheaded with blood gouting out of his neck
stump, and so forth. Another frequently-cited violent game is the extremely
popular Grand Theft Auto 3 ("GTA 3") by Rockstar Games, in which the
principal game activity is carjacking, and once a car is stolen, the player
is rewarded for running over pedestrians and shooting rival gang members to
death as he runs missions for crime bosses. It is sometimes claimed in the
media that in GTA 3, players have to steal a car, pick up a prostitute, have
(implied) sex with the prostitute, then kill her and steal her money. All of
this is indeed possible in the game, but the player is not actually required
to do so.

Critics of video game violence generally agree that violent video games are
at least as bad an influence on children as are television shows with the
same level of violence and cruelty, and most seem to believe that video
games are more threatening to a child's well-being, because the video game
player uses the controller to make his on-screen persona act out the
violence personally. It was widely reported that the killers in the
Columbine High School massacre were fans of first-person shooter games, and
had recorded a videotape before the massacre in which they said they looked
forward to using their shotguns just as in the game DOOM. One former West
Point psychology professor, seen to be interviewed several times after
school shootings in the United States, has repeatedly used the term "murder
simulator" to describe first-person shooter games. He argues that video game
publishers unethically train children in the use of weapons and, more
importantly, harden them emotionally to the task of murder by simulating the
killing of hundreds or thousands of opponents in a single typical video game.

Defenders of video games in this respect, and video game publishers, state
that video games are harmless entertainment, similar to the previous
generation's childhood "violent" play of "Cops and Robbers", and that
playing video games does not cause acts of violence. They say that video
games are sometimes singled out unfairly from other violent forms of
entertainment, such as movies, television shows, and even the news, which
suffuse the culture, and that even if exposure to violence in the media were
proven to cause more violent behavior, then video games should be subject to
no more restriction or scrutiny than movies, television shows, or the news.
They note that millions of children and adults enjoy video games every day,
and the vast majority of them do not become criminals; and that no
correlation has ever been shown between the rise of video game popularity
and crime statistics. They also note that using a video game controller's or
a mouse's buttons to shoot an opponent on a screen is a far different
experience than shooting a man with a gun in the real world, and that it
seems far fetched to believe that this would harden one to killing or
qualify as a "murder simulator".

Data on the effect of video game violence is scant. To date, some studies
have shown that correlate children's exposure to violent video games and
violent television shows with increased aggression on the playground, but
studies have not focused on video games alone.

In the United States, the ESRB ratings system was established in 1994 as the
video game equivalent to the MPAA film rating system. The ESRB was created
as an industry response to criticism from politicians, notably Senator Joe
Lieberman, over the easy availability of violent video games such as Mortal
Kombat to children and over the resulting alleged corruption of public
morality. At the time, some politicians who lent their voice to this cause
threatened legislation relating to video game violence. Nearly all video
games are now rated with ESRB ratings, which are primarily intended to
inform parents about the content of the games that their children have
purchased (or are begging to purchase). Some important retail chains, such
as Wal-Mart, have a policy to check the identification of young purchasers
of games rated "Mature" to ensure that the purchaser is at least 17 years
old as recommended by the "Mature" rating. Senator Lieberman stated in 2002
that the video game industry's rating system is currently the best of all
the forms of media which use a rating system, including the film industry.

Interestingly, video game violence was not an issue of public concern until
the technology improved and characters started to appear more photographic
in quality. There were video games before Mortal Kombat that had high levels
of violence -- for example, The Bilestoad for the Apple II computer featured
a top-down view of two knights in combat with battle axes, with pools of
blood forming on the ground and limbs regularly amputated -- but the game
looked like an animated cartoon and not at all photorealistic. This may
imply that most people are not actually concerned about children acting out
violence as long as nobody sees realistic-looking people with
realistic-looking blood on the screen.

From time to time, local officials attempt to restrict the playing or
selling of violent video games by locals. Predictably, video game publishers
always oppose this, and retailers usually do as well. For example, the city
of Indianapolis, Indiana in 2000 passed an ordinance barring minors from
playing arcade games with graphic violence unless parental consent was
given. It was generally thought that this law was intended to target the
game The House of the Dead, in which players use plastic guns to shoot at
the game screen in order to mow down hundreds or thousands of zombies that
have returned from the dead in order to kill the player. The ordinance was
struck down at the appellate Federal court level, on the grounds that in the
United States, video games enjoy some measure of First Amendment free speech
protection because they contain real expression of ideas, and children have
constitutional rights before the age of 18, and given this, the city did not
demonstrate an overriding public interest in passing the ban.

Criticism of sexuality in video games

Video game publishers have not explored sexuality in video games to nearly
the degree seen in movies, books, or even television shows. Almost no video
games display nudity. Sexual themes are seen sometimes in role-playing
games, but are rare elsewhere.

Custer's Revenge was a game for the Atari 2600 released under the brand
"Swedish Erotica" that featured a naked General Custer advancing across the
screen, dodging arrows, until he could mount a naked Native American woman
who was apparently tied to a pole or cactus. The game was controversial for
its racism as well as its sexuality, and in television coverage in the
United States, when game animation was shown, parts of the screen were
concealed with black rectangles in order to avoid showing nudity. This seems
unnecessary from today's standpoint, because the graphics on the Atari 2600
were very crude and blocky, and one video game critic has described the
naked woman as resembling "a hot dog made of Legos".

Sierra's Leisure Suit Larry computer games were popular tongue-in-cheek
adventure games for adults in which the protagonist constantly attempted,
usually without success, to convince women to have sex with him. The games
did not excite much controversy despite showing partial nudity with
increasing graphical quality over the years.

Eidos's Tomb Raider series of games were action-adventure games which
featured a woman protagonist named Lara Croft with improbably large breasts.
The game series did not explore sexual themes at all, but Lara Croft was
featured in video game magazines as a sex symbol of sorts, and it is
generally believed in the industry that the success of the game series over
the years was due to the prominence of her breasts in the game's advertising
and packaging.

Acclaim released a bicycle motocross game called BMX XXX in 2002 which
included a topless woman as the game character riding a bicycle, and
rewarded players with video footage of topless strippers. It is generally
believed in the industry that the game was of low quality -- its average
review was about 55% in an industry where a 70% score is considered poor --
and that Acclaim decided late in the game's development to attempt to stir a
controversy and hopefully prop up sales by including some nudity. The
attempt was rather successful, with television reports that Wal-Mart, Toys R
Us, and a few other major retail chains in the United States declined to
carry the game in their stores due to the nudity. The game was banned in
Australia.

Industry response to controversies over sexuality is generally in the form
of indignation that video games are singled out where movies, books, and
television shows are not. Retailers have sold "R"-rated movies showing
nudity for the past several decades without any moral problem in doing so,
and the moral problem they claim to have over video games with nudity is
therefore hypocritical.

Criticism related to children's social development

Some psychologists and parents' groups have criticized video games because
they believe they cause children to sit alone in the television room for
many hours in a row, interacting with a machine rather than running and
playing outside as they exercise and improve their social skills by playing
with other children. This sounds like the same effect that television shows
have on many children, but some claim that video games are more addictive to
children and therefore more likely to isolate them socially in this way.
Some studies have claimed that there is a correlation between depression and
playing computer games.

A typical industry response is that video games can enhance children's
social interaction because many video games are multiplayer games, where two
or four players can have fun competing on the same television screen, and
that if a child is isolated and antisocial, this is not the fault of video
games, but perhaps of the child's inborn disposition, or perhaps of the
parents' lack of attention to making sure their child has enough
opportunities for social interaction with other children. Presumably,
parents who allow their children to play video games too much would also
allow them to watch too much television for their own good.

Criticism from religious organizations

Much of the criticism of video games originates from religious sources. Some
Christian denominations, usually Restorationist ones such as Jehovah's
Witnesses (with December 22, 2002, issue of Awake!) and Seventh Day
Adventists, based on the teachings of religious artist Jack Chick and
preacher Al Menconi, impose restriction and scrutiny on video games. Some
video game propronents call these religious denominations as cults and as
enemies of the video game community. The criticisms originating from
religious sources include violence, crime, sexuality, rebelliousness,
materialism, and occultism. Many video game players are born to members of
such religious organizations. However, some of those video game players
decide to leave their parents' churches, move out, and go their on way of
life, because their doctrine's restrictions and scrutiny on video games are
contrary to their preferences on them.

Typical criticism within the industry

Within the video game industry, there is not much self-criticism about
excessive sexuality or violence, as it is generally believed that video game
publishers have as much right to explore adult-oriented, mature themes as do
movie studios or book publishers. Some developers and publishers find some
of this type of content distasteful and do not produce it, but in general
there is not a lot of agitation to set limits on adult content for the
industry as a whole, beyond the presence of the ESRB rating system, which
has come to be viewed by most people as a good move for the industry. There
is some criticism over the use of violence in games as a crutch for
creativity; it is alleged that if a developer cannot invent an original, fun
activity for the player, he'll end up giving the player the time-honored
task of shooting a monster.

Most criticism of video games from within the video game community usually
has to do with game quality: linear story structure without much plot, lack
of originality, lack of character development, unrealistic aspects of
graphics or game play, or simply not being fun to play.

Other criticisms include an apparent lack of games that appeal to female
video game players, and a strong and increasing tendency of video game
publishers to only fund games which are already guaranteed success in their
minds. In particular, there has been an increase in:

   * Sequels or prequels to or interquels or enhanced remakes of previously
     successful games
   * Games which use a licensed intellectual property from some other
     medium, often movies, comic books, or television shows
   * Games whose game play is more or less copied directly from previously
     published games that were successful. It is generally agreed that in
     the early days of video games there seemed to be an explosion of
     creativity with genuinely new types of game play appearing in some new
     game every month, and now a new type of game play is seen only a couple
     of times per year.

Controversial Videogames

   * BMX XXX (for nudity in the game and in video clips)
   * Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball (DOA:XBV) (for ogling
     bikini-clad women and sexual themes)
   * Doom series (for violence)
   * Duke Nukem (for violence, sexuality and nudity)
   * Ethnic Cleansing (for neo-nazi propaganda, racism and crimes against
     humanity)
   * Grand Theft Auto III (for violence, crime, and sexual themes)
   * Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (for violence, crime, and sexual themes)
   * House of the Dead (for graphic violence)
   * Mortal Kombat series (for graphic violence)
   * Resident Evil series (for graphic violence)
   * Tomb Raider series (for violence and large body parts)

Timeline

   * 1978, Death Race, an arcade game
   * 1993, Mortal Kombat, an Arcade and console game
   * 1994, the establishment of the ESRB
   * 1999, the Columbine shooting
   * 2002, Grand Theft Auto III, a PS2 and PC game