Are Violent Video Games Bad For Us?
I believe Mr Vaz has a point regarding the classification of video games. His speech on Wednesday, 1st March 2006 made the point that a large section of games are not subject to the BBFC, rather using the voluntary ELSPA classification. These 2 forms of classification just add confusion to the sale and purchase of games, with the BBFC classification residing prominently on the front of the box, whilst the ELSPA recommendation lies on the back. 98% of games use ELSPA, but the age set by it is only a suggestion, which means that lot of games that are not appropriate for young children are easily available to them. This is something that should be addressed, and I applaud Mr Vaz for bringing it to the House’s attention.
However, there are some other points made by Mr Vaz that raise some concerns. For one, some of his requests to ban games. He has requested that both ‘Bully’ (produced by Rockstar) and Reservoir Dogs (produced by Eidos) be. It is the responsibility of adults to decide whether something such as this is suitable material for them or not. We allow this decision regarding violent or morally questionable movies, pornography, and written materials. We see it as a right that we are able to decide for ourselves whether to view this material. Games are a newer form of expression, but they lie in the same category as movies, paintings, music, and books. We see all of these as ‘art’, a form of expression. Games can tell a story just as well as any movie or book – there are many games with twisting and intricate storylines, just as there many movies without one. The graphics within games have reached an extremely detailed level, often being described as lifelike – a word used by both its detractors and champions. As the methods of producing games become more and more advanced, it becomes harder to produce something that stands out. We take for granted the advancement in programming – we should be applauding the achievements of such programmers, as not any single person, nor a team of untrained individuals produce anything as advanced as what we see now.
I would also like to point out the Mr Vaz had ‘jumped the gun’ in relation to the Bully game by Rockstar. In a Commons debate (25th January 2006) Mr Vaz called for the banning of said game, due to its inappropriate content. He also mentioned it again on 1st March, noting how 50 members had signed an early-day motion calling for its banning. In actuality, you don’t play a bully within the game. Instead, you are a victim who is tasked with ridding the school of the undesirables. Newspapers and IGN phrased it perfectly – ‘This probably isn’t the game you thought it was’.
In reference to his claim that research proves that there is “a link between the playing of violent video games and a propensity to commit aggressive acts”, I am, frankly, offended. I am a gamer, and spend a large portion of time (in excess of the 8 hours that the majority of people aged between 7-17 are supposed to play) and I do not find myself becoming aggressive. I am a well mannered individual, do well in my lessons and am very active within my community. To claim that such a thing is a fact based purely open one single experiment is bad science. As Mr Vaz said himself, the only way to fully prove any sort of link would be through a longitudinal study over many years, assessing multiple groups, (and denying such games to a control group) using multiple games, with varying situations and controlling factors. The study itself would be unethical, thus the reasons for it not being used. There are very few studies correlating the relationship between violence and videogames, and none of them are conclusive. Those that show that people are more violent after playing are also inconclusive. Not only do none of them show that this aggression carries on for an extended period of time after game play, they don’t take into account the persona of the person involved. The same results could just as easily show that violent people prefer violent videogames, not that the videogame necessarily makes them violent. Maybe, for some people, gaming is a ‘trigger’. But that could be said for anything. If they hadn’t played that game, it could have been a scene in a film, or a passage from a book, or a painting in an art gallery. We cannot solely place blame upon videogames. Look back – at one time we blamed films, another we blamed the roleplaying game Dungeons And Dragons. We no longer have a problem with such things, in the case of Dungeons And Dragons it is oft seen as the preserve of ‘geeks’. That view also applies to gaming.
It may also interest Mr Vaz to know that the average age of a gamer in the UK is 28 - over the age of consent for all video games, no matter how violent they are. To ban a game because you feel that it would adversely affect the youth is to ignore the fact that people under the age of 18 do not constitute the majority of the market. A BBC study carried out in 2005 showed this, and that 59% of the population are gamers – roughly 29.6 million people.
Correlation does not imply causality.
