Video games can get a lot of bad press coverage, what with accusations that they make people violent and such. This view is quite misguided; citing video games as a cause or inspiration of violent acts due to desensitising youths to violence, or through the process of mimicking violence viewed or played on screen.
There are cases where it seems video games are used as scapegoats or lovely big distractions by politicians so that they and they disgruntled followers can have something to be angry at together. For example in Australia this week a youth worker has been blaming video games for the growing number of kids carrying around knifes, he said ‘the amount of violent entertainment that these young people are absorbing. They lose sight of reality and become desensitized’ he then blamed this desensitisation as the reason more young people are carrying knifes.
He did also go off on a slightly bizarre tangent stating that before video games ‘Normally they’d have a fight and people might ring around them, and it would be one-on-one, and when one [child fell] to the ground it would be over.’, well I suppose Mr Youth Worker, it is a bit of a shame those days are gone.
Anyway, this is all to do with knife incidents rising in Victoria Schools in Australia from eleven incidents in 2008 to nineteen in 2009, which is quite a scarily shocking set of statistics, however education minister Bronwyn Pike publically disagreed with the youth worker saying that ‘there was a slight increase’ before adding ‘these figures do go up and down a bit, but there hasn’t really been an overall trend of increase’.
I think I have to agree with the education minister here, although some media may make it seem normal to carry weapons I expect there are more complex social issues at work; as well as this Australia bans most violent video games and will often only let them in if gore and violence is reduced, i.e. Left 4 Dead 2. Australian politicians have been so strict on video games it would be slightly embarrassing to blame violence on video games whilst other countries do not.
This is not all to say I do not think video games cause violence, I just think the violence is not a result of mimicry but more likely of obsession and addiction. This week a World of Warcraft player beat up his mother, head butted a wall and got shot. I would like to say that there was a long story behind this but truth is at 10pm his mother told him to turn the volume of his game down; the 27 year old, who had been getting drunk whilst playing, did not like this at all and so attacked his mum and little brother.
When she tried to call the police he ripped the phone off the wall, repeatedly head butted the empty spot on the wall, then choked his mum into near unconsciousness. This was when his Granddad got involved who had to get a gun, after a wrestle over the gun it went off and shot the WoW player in the head. I would hate to know what would have happened if the player got it.
Living at home at 27 years old, playing a game and getting drunk, really makes it seem that this addiction to WoW must have frustrated him to the point of a mental break down. I believe that, like many things, this level of addiction is when video games cause harm; I also think that sadly a politician isn’t going to bag many more votes by saying “I want to help that small proportion of gamers who have a real addiction and who may cause harm to themselves, or those around them”.
Honestly I don’t even want to hear that, but if someone wants to tackle harm caused by video games that is where to look. In the same week Blizzard, the people who make WoW, donated 1.1 million dollars to the Make-A-Wish Foundation; there is no denying that this is an impressive and generous act. It might be worth mentioning that people who play World of Warcraft can buy digital pets that follow them around; this money was raised over two months from half the sales of one digital pet.
With well over 11.5 million paying subscribers, many of whom may purchase other transactions in the game, it is difficult to fathom how much money this game must be churning out as well as how much it must cost to run. It is great to know that in this process some money is going to charity.
Daniel Rowbotham
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