Violence is not the answer

The opinion expressed by Jack Thompson got me thinking that the hype around the link between video games and the violent actions of young offenders is leaning towards the illogical. In my humble opinion it seems obvious that video games are being used as a scape goat for the blame game, instead of bad parenting, or a history of bullying for instance.

Aside from the obvious "video games are not real" argument, there is a really distinct difference between violent actions in real life versus violent actions in video games. In real life most gamers are probably in a boring metropolitan situation devoid of any real dramas, and the violent game world (such as in GTA) represents something so radically different to the average gamers life that its more escapism than anything else.

In stage 1 psychology i remember learning that the social context you are in and your past history are usually the things that can reliably predict how you will act in a situation, rather than your personality or your morals. When a player is in the context of a game, they are placed into a very specific social situation with a complex back story that explains the reasons behind the objective of the game and your mission as a player. This objective is what determines your actions as a player, and the back story and social context is what justifies it. So if you're supposed to kill heaps of people, steal money from prostitutes etc, that is sometimes justified in the game situation. It is just something you need to do to fulfill the objective of the game. And the biggest point is that the player don't decide the objective of the game, the programmers do. The objective and the means to satisfy it are already decided which pretty much carves out a pathway for the players actions, and if violence is within this pathway then that is what the gamer will end up doing

But a gamers real life is, generally speaking, is vastly different from the context he/she is put inside the game world. In real life you personally would have the capability to decide your objective or "mission", the means to achieve it and the potential ending would rest on your shoulders. Therefore it is near impossible to draw the inference that a gamer is likely to alter their humanistic morals in the real world just because they have done something violent inside a game.

I remember back when i was nine years old my brother who was sixteen at the time would make me play Golden Eye with him. The objective for us both was to find each other and kill each other. If Jack Thompson was to analyze this situation I'm sure he would have predicted either my brother or myself likely to having become violent criminals in the future. Especially me since i was 9 years old and therefore very influenceable. But neither of us have. That is just a personal analogy but by reading this blog it seems others who have played violent games like me in their youth, have come out of it …. VIOLENT?!

No.

We've come out of it just fine.

- S. Subhan