No Russian (My personal opinion)

Zarni made note of this in his recent post, but for those of you who do not know, No Russian is a level in the game Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. The mission situates the player as one of five members of a Russian terrorist group that is tasked with causing carnage throughout one of Russia's international airport.

This is his post: http://ftvms212-328-2012.blogspot.com/2012/01/violence-and-controversy.html

Zarni noted that Call of Duty's No Russian exemplified the relationship between game violence and their appeal to gamers; namely the controversial “virtual slaughter” and the media hype surrounding it 2 weeks before its release. Undeniably, this seriously helped in raising attention about this game's release to everyone; unsurprisingly, sales soared. A key note in his article was that this particular mission demonstrates choice on behalf of the player: whether to partake in the slaughter of innocent civilians, to refrain from shooting at all, or to skip this sequence entirely.

When I played through this mission, I had an odd gaming experience.

1. On the one hand, I felt somewhat compelled to join in with the shooting, as if I was an actor in a role. I felt this bizarre urge participate in the sequence as if I was deeply associated with the narrative, and that my unwillingness to shoot would seem unfulfilling to the story. The fact that the game limits you to walking the same pace as the other characters made you feel even more apart of the sequence. Imagine I was acting in a dramatic scene in a film where I decided not to speak and just stood there; it was that exact feeling.

2. On the other hand, my desire to not shoot the civilians rested on my personality. Whenever I play any moral-choice game, I typically follow the path of the “good guy”. Shooting the civilians thus flew in the face of that decision.
3. Also, skipping the whole sequence was unthinkable. I paid $100 for a game and refuse to play an important sequence like this? Ridiculous. Besides, even though it is violent, it was one of the most emotionally charged pinnacles of the series.

What is common among these three options is this: I was always fully conscious of knowing that what I am playing a purely virtual world, and in no way real. I knew I wasn't shoot real people, or doing any harm to anyone.

Actually, speaking of which, I thought I might as well also mentions something which constantly bugs me. A lot of people that are against FPS games say that these games train teenagers to shoot and kill people. HOW!? Anyone who has ever picked up a pistol and fired it would know that the dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and simple feel of it is totally different to pushing some buttons on a keyboard or controller.

If anything, the remote control that we use to change channels on a television has more potential to train us to handle weapons.

I have a new boyfriend. His name is Unemployed

In yesterdays lecture Kevin showed us the game Lady Popular and although I laughed at how absurd it looked I found myself wanting to play. Let’s say for research purposes.

Once I created my character my first task was to change my hair to black pigtails and upon doing so I received 40 points. Yay! Next I must buy a piece of clothing. I buy a football top that resembles the uniform of Argentina. Possibly one of the least sexy things I could buy.

Then I must rent an apartment and Congratulations I have new found independence!! Life is good. But after these 3 tasks a new list comes up, and these look challenging. I’ve been invited to a party, but I have no boyfriend and obviously I would never go to a party without a hunk of spunk. “You don’t have a boyfriend at the moment! Visit the Club and go flirting, you might meet someone hot”. I certainly hope I do otherwise my task list will be incomplete.

So I hit the club and straight away I have a new boyfriend, oh if only life were this simple! Unfortunately his name is Unemployed (I hope his last name isn’t Permanently), but he gives me $50 a day so a task is completed. Awesome. After this I take another look at my profile and see I’ve been given an IQ of 60 and the “perfect weight” of 57kg. “Don’t forget the perfect weight of your lady. If she becomes too thin, or too fat this will affect her happiness”.

I looked this up and found out that “5% of people have an IQ under 70 and this is generally considered as the benchmark for "mental retardation". Ouch. But it’s possible for me to increase my intelligence by playing mini games or going to the library, phew. I was afraid my character would remain so unintelligent that if she did happen to gain a few kilos she would lack the intelligence to realise!

Upon finding this in the game I decide to stop my experience. It’s just a little too disheartening for me to see the framework of this game. Some aspects of it are pretty harmless like choosing an apartment, clothes or a job, but actually defining what the perfect weight should be is horrifying to me. There’s enough pressure from the media about how to look without a game defining what the ideal weight is. When I was creating the image of my character I was trying to get her to look as similar to me as possible, which turned out still didn’t really resemble me. But I don’t appreciate the game telling me I can choose most things about myself, but if I dare change my weight my character will be unhappy. Seriously? I think I prefer games where I get to shoot things.

Here's a quick look at the game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBl5VzkRcHM

The actors new frontier = Video Games

I thought it was interesting to bring to attention a new phenomenon sweeping the media landscape. Namely, it is not foreign to us that stage and film actors haven't had the easiest profession to enter. We constantly hear about the high demands of the job, the difficult road to success, and limited places to be hired. It is not an easy lifestyle to live, that's for sure.

But as of the past three or so years, there has been a major breakthrough in the acting world; atleast, in my opinion anyway. After playing LA Noire, I was blown away by the high level of facial recreation ingame, and the immersive world which it forms.

It hadn't hit me until I ended up watching Mad Men a couple months after that it really took me by suprise. I shot out of my chair and screamed at the television screen "oh my god! That's Cole Phelps!"

What I am mainly trying to address here is that no longer do actors have to limit themselves to finding jobs in film sets or the latest drama television show. And with the booming world of the video game industry, it's almost a no-brainer that actors should consider a career in videogame acting.

It is drastically different to voice-acting mind you. Before, actors were only limited to projecting their voices through a digital avatar. There was little recognition to who they were as actors other than the style of their voice. However, we have now reached a point where games value the actors themselves to form their cast. Their face as much as their voice is highly prized. It offers them with not only their name as recognition but also their appearance.

Things to take from this: Actors, to some degree or another, have taken a gigantic leap deeper into inhabiting the world of the game. They can work in a much wider variety of imagined worlds and spaces. They can offer a more crafted and immersive performance for game narratives. And to some extent, it blurs the lines separating television from games. My father walked in on me playing LA Noire and sat down with me, assuming he was watching a 1950s Crime film before five minutes later wondering why maps, health bars, and compasses were hovering around the screen.

I personally hope there will be more LA Noire-type games in the future. I realise there are alot of claims about the facial capturing running-smack-into-the-wall of the Uncanny Valley. But you can only get better by improving. I for one love how this changes the playing-field.

Hopefully not too long until we see Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro etc starring in the latest game titles.

Facial Recognition and the future of gaming avatars?

I know this article isn't directly related to our course but some of the points remind me of yesterdays lecture. An interesting point in the lecture was made about having customizable avatars and this quote makes me think of the avatars in games.

"When Jean-Paul Sartre famously said “hell is other people,” he meant life can suck when others don’t affirm our idealized self-conceptions. Advertisers know this. Translating vanity to the visual, they could go with idealized avatars—slimmer, smoother-skinned versions of their real customers. While flattery isn’t inherently a problem, too much distortion can be dangerous. If idealization sucks the viewer in too deeply, the problem of deceptive practice, already at issue in the controversy over “magic mirrors,” could become a hot issue. Shirts simply look much better on the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie avatar versions of us—perhaps too good."

Do players pick avatars that resemble themselves? Or do they pick them to resemble celebrities or something else. I do think the point made in the lecture that the options for black avatars really is a black version of a white face and that maybe players do want their own faces in the games. I remember when "Tony Hawk's American Wasteland" used the eyetoy for facial recognition and would upload your face as the avatar for the skater but I don't believe it was very popular. Even though race is important I think the previous quote does make a good point that players may not like their own appearance and would prefer to play a better looking version of themselves. That is why I believe games like final fantasy or games with animals as the protagonists are popular as the characters already have their own personality and overall aesthetic and so the player is not limited to one specific race or even too grounded in reality.

Jacob Hui

SOPA - What is it?

This happy hyper guy is against SOPA.

Listen to his 15 minute rant:

Stop SOPA!

Goldstein’s article on Violent Videogames

In Goldstein’s article, Goldstein argues that discussions of videogames have been clouded by ambiguous definitions, poorly designed research and confusion of correlation with causality. The following points were what I found interesting/stood out from the article:

-      "The context of violent stories vary along dimensions of realism, involvement, excitement and how violence/conflict begin and end, whether they are presented in an erotic or a humorous context."

-       Variations of violence are seldom studied, lowering the suitable results which can be used for critical analysis.

-       “Meanings of Violence in Video Games” introduces a couple interesting ideas. First Goldstein talks about the Third-Person Effects in Media Research, which is the idea that media affects others, but not oneself. Additionally in this section he proposes the idea that the exaggerated use of violence in video games, film and other media is a product of the American society. I.e. in one the studies it showed non-Americans watched sessions of American television and after surveys it has been shown that they perceived the world as a scarier and meaner world. (…Maybe that’s why we’ve seen an increasing amount of drama shows about war/alien take over - i.e. the cheesy Falling Skies (2011) - to install a sense of patrioticism to those watching the show!)

-       Studying the effects of violent video games usually comprise of 3 research approaches: “correlational studies, experiments, and meta –analysis.”

-       First he goes into correlational studies and addresses right away that there is little causal information that can be pulled from these studies. Any study he mentioned, Goldstein would reinforce the view that “no significant relationship could be concluded”.

-       The more detailed and informative section is when Goldstein talks about the experiments. In one of those studies, a study conducted by Craig Anderson and Karen Dill where they tried to find two video games – Wolfenstein 3D and Myst - similar in everything but violence. Even though the experiment found some interesting things, it was criticized by Goldstein because the games, which were supposed to be similar other than violence, were not.

-       He also takes us through multiple experiments and for each of them presents their failing. Even in the meta-analysis, which is when you take the data from many studies and try to find conclusion with all of the data clumped together.

-       At the end of the article Goldstein concluded that, “the research is too inconsistent and insubstantial to allow any conclusion to be drawn.”

Overall the article is an overload of information and/on experiments about video games and violence, but it makes no conclusions. Goldstein has placed each of these studies in scrutiny of their weaknesses and strengths and according to him it has become clear that we really don't have the one solid piece of evidence that links violent games and violent behavior. 

2012, Not the End of Mankind but End of the Cyber. Latest Update on SOPA

Let the video speak for itself. 

Support Anonymous? or the SOPA? What would you say?

This is interesting. Back in the PSN hacking, I thought the Anonymous stands for evilness, however, until this video was found, I kind of change my mind. What do you think of SOPA? Which side do you support?

This is probably the first time I heard someone on the side of Hitle. The following video is funny, but also worth thinking.

Games vs Movies.

We all watch movies. No one can deny that. So how do we feel when our beloved movies are turned into a game, or better yet when our beloved games are turned into movies? Personally, I love it. Harry Potter for instance- when the first game came out on Play station I would find myself glued to my T.V in my room for hours on end just trying to get past a certain level-the hardest being chasing the Peacock around. The frustration I felt when failing to capture these feathers and having to restart the level over and over immersed me in an experience that the movie couldn’t give me. I was actually a part of Hogwarts and controlling the characters. Now movies are not only being made into games, but games are being made into movies as well. I am unsure whether this clip is legit but it got me thinking whether a world that was entirely a game controlled by players was possible to be transformed successfully into a movie. Halo- a world in which players control and anything can happen in depending on how the player’s play- at least that’s what I am assuming from what I have seen of it through watching friend’s play (like I said in my previous post I find the controllers too hard to control the characters with). My question is, is it possible to control this world in a movie where viewers aren’t able to control what happens and will it be a success? I believe that it will. Gamers who play this game- like people who watch movies-like Harry Potter- are obviously going to go and see the film in order to experience the world in a different way. Whether they enjoy it or not is for them to decide but they will always have the game to go back to.

Some Statistics...

After today’s rather enlightening lecture on representations of a ‘gamer’, I felt compelled to search up some recent statistics. Here are the results from http://www.onlineeducation.net/videogame (the site provides graphs and charts):

“Video games have become quite popular over the last 30 years, so popular in fact that that fully 65% of American households play video games and this number is growing. Video games are now more portable than ever with handhelds and even phones becoming commonplace for gamers. The term “gamer” to refer to those that play video games is quickly becoming a misnomer because so many people fit this categorically. Let’s have a look at some statistics about the proliferation of video games and the distribution of this population segment.

Of that 65% of the US population, 18-49 year olds make up the largest percentage of gamers at 49%. In times past, it was assumed that the gaming population was children under 18 but today they only make up 25%, perhaps more surprising is the fact that there are more people over 50 that play that children at 26%. The average age of a gamer is actually 32 years old. It was also a common stereotype that men predominated in video game consumption but the numbers are now evening out as 2 out of 5 gamers are female. The average Gamer spends about 18 hours a week playing video games.

Gamer is broad term so let us look at the breakdown of gender versus console preference. Females just love Nintendo’s Wii with 80% saying that it is their primary console, or console of choice. Just 11% play Microsoft’s Xbox360 and even fewer (9%) play Sony’s Playstation3. Males are more divided in terms of console preference. 41% still play the Wii primarily but fully 38% prefer Xbox and 21% like the Playstation3.”

Although these findings are only focussed on the American populace, I was still quite surprised by the large percentage of households who play video games as well as the fact that almost 40% of gamers are female. If this is the case, then it definitely highlights the changing gender demographic and reinforces the need for game designers to consider this change – especially in regard to the other fact, that the majority of females prefer Wii (which has been discussed in class as a console that disregards skill to play). In this light, are most female gamers then considered less skilled when it comes to skill-based gaming, or is there simply not enough effort in promoting skill-based games (aimed at men and women)? Of course, because video games are considered B-grade entertainment, it figures that stereotyping of any kind (gender/culture/class) is expected. However considering the industry’s intensive and rapid growth over the years, I truly agree with today’s lecture discussion that there needs to be a definite shift on the marketer’s end of the spectrum – particularly if one day we wake up and find the whole world hooked to a console/computer/game device shooting down zombified black people as an avatar in skin-tight bikinis.

Violence and controversy

Violence has always been one of the allures towards video games, but not because people are violent. Virtual violence can be a way for a person to vent what could otherwise turn into real violence, in a controlled virtual environment. In addition to this controversy, usually over excessive violence is a very common occurrence; however this only increases the (intended audience’s) desire for the game.

This generated “controversy” was used in the advertising for Dead Space 2, with a series of videos titled “Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2” in which mothers are made to watch footage from the game and comment on it in a “market research” environment.



Using the idea that when something is forbidden it becomes more desirable to the younger audience made this an effective marketing strategy for the game

Another controversial story in videogames came with the launch of Left 4 Dead 2 in 2009 where it went up for classification by the Australian “Office for Film and Literature Classification” and was promptly refused. This is due to Australia not having an R18 rating for videogames. The game had to be heavily censored, with elements such as "decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies" being removed, along with the “riot cop” zombie, because it is bad to shoot zombie police (?).



Finally, a video game that partially deserved its controversy would be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This game had a sequence where a group of terrorists shoot up an airport full of civilians. This scene was leaked about 2 weeks before the game was due to launch and sparked massive debate whether the game “glorified terrorism”. However, the leaked footage lacked context, which we know is incredibly important for videogames, especially violent ones. Because of the missing context the moral panic was even greater. The context being that the character you were playing is an American CIA Agent is undercover in the Russian terrorist group.

This part of the game can also demonstrate choice on behalf of the player. Not only can you choose to not shoot anyone throughout this sequence, but you can also skip this sequence entirely.

Here is the video if you are interested.

Capcom's ultimate punishment !!!!!!!

What the hell is this? What is wrong with P.Anderson? I want to kill myself! 

Defending the Good Name of Capcom…

          

During the lecture today, after watching the trailer of Resident Evil 5, someone in class were not only showing the emotion of anger, but even fury at some stage, about the misrepresentation of the native Africans which Capcom have done so badly in their game. At some level, my passion is with the minority. At that moment, I too want to condemn Capcom based on how they re-mediate the image of native African in an extremely negative, aggressive and violent way. It seemed like the production team behind Resident Evil 5 was totally irresponsibility. How could they show the gaming community the wrong image of the resident who they themselves didn’t even know about? However, after I calmed down, I found myself in a position of understanding and forgiving. It is really not their fault.

Back in old days, this was not the first time I heard about this protest against the Ethnicity issue in RE5. Of course, someone didn’t like it because they immediately link its content to racialism, but just like coin having two sides, the argument dose too. When someone had problem, other thought it was nothing, at least nothing big enough to raise such controversy, simply because it was just a game. Beside, in this particular game, even Capcom showed the native African acting violently, but only for a reason, as they got aggressive because of the virus they carry. They were simply sick. No participant compared the in-game violent behavior among the native African to the image of African in the real world. It is our consciousness which tells us that these two images are not the same. The gamers should able to prevent the wrong impression becoming their actual wrong perceived understanding. I think they are right, but it still didnt explain why I insist that Capcom is innocent; it only explained why we should not take the game too seriously, emotionally and personally. And the following is why.

The reason I think that Capcom is innocent as always, is because they didn’t show an image they intentionally and originally created to deceive the world, but only showed an image the world already knew, the stereotype of the native African. If we turn on the TV, even though we knew that Africa hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2010, however the most common information we received was either the massacre done by one of those African dictator, or the African cannibalism in the discovery channel. When these images became cognize perceived, it was really hard to correct it. If you really want to blame someone for sending out the wrong image, I think you better blame the News agency and maybe the Hollywood, but not Capcom. After the massive amount of brain-wash broadcasting programs ironically from the land of freedom, how could the rest of world not think the native African in such horrible way? 

Motion capture in Games.

In today’s lecture when Kevin talked about the portrayal of women in video games as typically being hyper sexualised (not that it ever bothered me). Specifically the part about using motion capture technology on real people to get the realistic motion of say, a woman gyrating her hips, I was reminded of the game ‘Batman Arkham City’. I never really thought about how ridiculously over sexualised the female characters are, I noticed sure, but It appealed to me as I can only assume it was intended to. Cat woman is a leather clad dominatrix, Ivy doesn’t bother with pants, The main love interest Talia has a follow sequence dedicated to watching her bum as she leads batman down a hall, and Harley Quinn is nothing but sexual. In many of the movie style clips through ought the game Harley can’t seem to sand still, insisting on flaunting her goods in front of the player and dropping sexual innuendo into everything. I figured that motion capture had been used in the cut sequences, especially for the girls’ many gyrations but I never would have guessed who the girl behind the sexy movements was…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGL1pIQVJVo

…………………………………….  >.<  

And since then I have never looked at the characters the same way, and now when I play through again on hard, every time I see Harley or the other ‘sexy babes’ I shudder a little and think of the truth behind the wiggle.

The myth about gamer stereotypes

In the lecture on Friday, I was surprised to learn the fact that the average video game player in 2011 was 37 years old and not an adolescent.

This leads to the question as to why the media is constantly misrepresenting gamers in the modern world.

Final Fantasy Sexism

When Kevin put up the picture of Yuna from Final Fantasy X and X-2 in lecture today, it immediately reminded me of this video. Although fan-made and meant to be a joke, the fact that the girls who want to join in on the fight are rejected because "No one ever puts girls in their party" shows how the video is making a joke at the fact that the girls in the Final Fantasy games are pretty much useless...

The best example are the girls from Final Fantasy VII. You have a healer who is down-to-earth and pretty much weak, a busty (VERY busty) fighter girl. The girls of Final Fantasy fit into one of those two categories and that's it.

I am a huge Final Fantasy X fan actually but it does annoy me a bit how the girls in the game are still not as strong as the men... I mean I only have Yuna in my party because of her summoned beasts, otherwise, she's not really useful...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUB18Y8Ik0M

Out of Control

I am by no means a gamer of any sort. Button bashing in Tekken is about as far as I go in regards to boy games. My impatience prevents me from memorising any kind of combinations or tactics worth knowing, and basically my fingers will not allow it.

The biggest immersion-killer I face is my inability to hit the correct buttons at the right time. Before I can even begin to engage with the visual properties of the game, I must overcome my controller disabilities. Frustration from focusing on the controller usually prevents me from venturing forwards to where problems like unwanted hypermediacy exist, but when I do get that far, it doesn’t get any easier. For example, when playing Grand Theft Auto III, it is not in my world of concern to know how many bullets I have left and my whereabouts situated on the map. It is in my world of interest to do NOTHING, pretending that I really am cruising round the streets of the New Yorkish city. I can do it for hours and not get bored. Real gangsters don’t need dials and maps to find his way round; they just get in the way.

My experience in Windows 3D Pinball Space Cadet, made in 1996, is a different story. The hypermediacy is contextual because it acts as a control deck for my super spaceship. All of the numbers and words inform me on how my ship is doing as I save the universe or something. I am aware of the game as a media text, and yet I am able to immerse myself in an atmosphere that becomes my own outer space. The basic control system of the pressing of two buttons to move the onscreen flippers creates both diegetic and intra-diegetic immersion, making it an overall experiential game to play.

Do video games cause crime? - An interesting graph

Not about piracy. This is about Censorship.

I thought I would talk about the ‘issue of the week’ or my fear, the ‘issue of many weeks to come’.

American government are in debate about whether to pass the “Stop Online Piracy Act”, aka “SOPA”. For those of you who are unaware, the purpose of SOPA is to pursue the following actions:

• Copyright holders (anyone who creates original content including video game companies or their publishers) or the United States Department of Justice may seek court orders against websites hosting, distributing or giving access to copyrighted material.
• Copyright holders or the United States Department of Justice may seek court orders against individuals who stream copyrighted material.
• The legislation gives immunity to internet services (your internet service provider, YouTube, Vimeo, etc) who provide information that stops the copyrighted material from being distributed or been given access to.  The bill also does the opposite and holds internet service companies liable for the copyrighted information that is distributed on their watch as long as they had knowledge that this activity was going on.
• Punishments for violating this law includes a maximum penalty of five years in prison for 10 violations within six months

http://www.newgamernation.com/?p=2457

Now this may all seem a little too technical to consider seriously, but it is very serious. If it is successful it may possible destroy the new media platform as we currently know it.

It basically gives the power for the government to shut down any website which infringes copyright, not just its users. For example, if YouTube’s users upload a cover of a song or even self-reviews of films or video games, then the bill would give the government the right to shut down the entire website.

An interesting discovery: I started doing my research on the affect it must have on the gaming industry and I was surprised to find that gaming companies such as Nintendo and SCEA are endorsing the bill through the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) Ironically, the ESA have been known for supporting freedom of speech throughout the gaming industry. This gets my alarm bells ringing. I begin to feel that it is not just an act against piracy, but an act of (what John Bain describes as) "corporate censorship". It basically shuts down any competition or freedom for the innovation of thought for new gaming alternatives and alterations.

It also restricts creativity and the future of gaming. Indie companies often lead the way in the discovery of alternative ways to play games and they often open the big corporations’ eyes alternative gaming than the mainstream. The internet gives indie companies a stream for them to advertise their products through.

ESA’s response to their stance on SOPA is;
“As an industry of innovators and creators, we understand the importance of both technological innovation and content protection, and do not believe the two are mutually exclusive. Rogue websites—those singularly devoted to profiting from their blatant illegal piracy—restrict demand for legitimate video game products and services, thereby costing jobs. Our industry needs effective remedies to address this specific problem, and we support the House and Senate proposals to achieve this objective. We are mindful of concerns raised about a negative impact on innovation. We look forward to working with the House and Senate, and all interested parties, to find the right balance and define useful remedies to combat willful wrongdoers that do not impede lawful product and business model innovation.”http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2012/01/04/fyi-video-game-companies-still-support-sopa-through-esa/

In addition to this, whole gaming industries such as Machinima and Mod for Games would affectively be shut down as it would infringe on the copyrighting act.

I have been listening to John Bain - a UK lawyer, journalist and professional gaming commentator. I will post his youtube video below. It is brilliant if you have the time.

Here are some of his quotes that he says on the subject below:
“Think about the idea of suing Toyoto for the fact that some guy just rammed into the side of your car with a Toyota car. Is it Toyota’s fault? No”.
Independant companies using the internet for advertising:“That is a good thing for competition, innovation, consumer variety, consumer fairness and rights and the industry in general. It makes the industries more vibrant, more innovative, more creative and forces the large companies to work a little bit harder”.

If you take this away, will we all be further duped by large companies? The internet provides a space for indie games and other media platforms that wouldn’t survive in mainstream media.

If this passed, what would it mean for the future of gaming?

The fantasies of violence

An interesting point raised in the Goldstein reading is the idea of fantasy violence and actual violence. Typically the media’s perspective on violence and video games tends to draw a direct connection between the two and yet issues with how this “research” they are basing this correlation on seems to me to be flawed.

Kevin talked about the notion that telling a child to play a video game while a researcher sits there analysing them is not fair, and inaccurate because these are obviously not the natural conditions in which anyone (let alone kids) play video games. This made me think about another point where, in New Zealand typically where video games are censored based on the MPAA system – most “violent” video games (I am thinking here of first/third-person shooters) have at least an R16 or R18 rating. Because this is the case, when conducting research on kids who play violent video games surely they are unable to allow a 12-year old to play an R16 game and therefore how are they conducting this research and how “violent” are the video games that the researchers are testing kids on if technically kids cannot legally even play these games?

I began to take a trip down memory lane and assess whether or not video games I played as a kid had any kind of violent effect on me. I remember being about five or six years old and playing Sega’s Golden Axe in multi-player mode with my elder brother. The game involved our guys working their way through the medieval levels and fighting the bad guys who were trying to get in our way. Throughout the game, I’m fairly certain that your character never gets any kind of weapon upgrade, there are no guns – you are armed simply with a fancy sword. With this sword you would typically perform beheading acts in order to kill the bad guys; blood would spill from their wounds as well as your own. In saying all of this, the violence in the game to my six-year old self was not what stood out to me. Instead, from the experience I took away copious amounts of hand-eye coordination skills, as well as strategy and team building efforts (as corny as it sounds) because the focus of the game for me [my world-of-concern if you like] was to make it to the end of the level, survive and proceed onto to the next one. In this sense, I think that kids playing “violent” video games become immersed into the game in a way where they ‘become’ their character but the specific aesthetic details of the game become peripheral.

Another “more violent” game I recall playing as a kid was Wolfenstein 3D. This game was visually more graphic and gory than Golden Axe. The aspects of immersion (such as the display of just the hands on the bottom of the screen) convince you to embody your character even further. However, amidst all the killing of Nazis, this game’s violence (again) did not stand out to me as something I remember from the game. Let alone the political aspect (I was too young to even understand or know anything about who the Nazis were and why I was killing them) the gore and violence in the game fell secondary to me being so focused on getting through to the next level alive, and figuring out which doors to go through and remembering where I had already been. In this way, I think that when researchers who are trying to link violent video games onto influencing children, the link is somewhat frayed in the way that a child’s mind doesn’t really operate in the same way as an adult who is observing them play.

I recognise that nowadays games have become a lot more graphic and detailed as far as the effects of violence which they depict. The agency and freedom of actions you are enabled to commit (think GTA franchise) have allowed for much more violent acts to be committed in comparison to the beheading of medieval skeleton warriors and knights. However, I’m sure that kids who do get a hold of these games do so because their parents make an educated decision based on the maturity of their own child, their ability to handle it as well as the element of control on conditions and environment a parent is able to have. Like many people, I still struggle to understand why more research continues to be done on the links between video games and violence, or violence and any other media form for that matter. What I do know is that, my own personal experience says that those fantasy ‘violent-for-back-in-the-day-games” didn’t really seem to have any kind of actual negative effects on my behaviour.