Note: I haven't read this through at all and I wrote it quite late at night, so god knows what it says.

The mildly cryptic title for once hides within it the subject of this blog entry, namely the accusation so often made against video games of them causing violence. Being a game player myself and knowing others who have borderline addictions to video games, this idea seems absolutely preposterous.

Now people have levelled exactly the same accusations at TV and movies, yet particular scorn seems to be saved for the video game industry. What’s more, the level of violence (amongst other things) tends to be far, far greater in films and TV that it ever is in games. So why is it so much worse in games?

Perhaps because the people accusing the games do not play games themselves, but do watch TV and films? Perhaps they are unable to bear the thought that something they are interested in could possibly share any sort of blame.

Alright, that may be a bit unfair and is indeed an ad hominim fallacy – attacking the person instead of their arguments, and so by attempting to dismiss what they say as a result. Therefore I find myself unable to support my own argument, as in my opinion anything said by anyone can be valid in a debate, regardless of their own opinions or practises.

You can tell I don’t think these blog entries out in advance, can’t you?

Now then. One thing games have that other media does not is interaction. We watch people attack and hurt others on TV or in the Cinema, but in games we perform those acts ourselves. The difference in quite prominent. To the player, it is them pumping five tons of lead into the enemy, not just digitised image on a screen. The argument for why this is bad would seem to be as follows: by shooting five tons of lead into someone, this action no longer seems questionable as the person has gotten away with it just fine in the game. What’s more, they have enjoyed it. Obviously shooting five tons of lead into someone must therefore be an enjoyable experience, and so the person is more likely to perform such actions in real life.

WRONG!

For all it may seem like it’s the player shooting five tons of lead into someone, it is just a graphical representation of a person on a screen and the player knows it. What they are doing is not shooting people, but pressing buttons on a controller. Furthermore, while the shooting may be enjoyable, it is not the only focus of the game. Often there are objectives to fulfil, and the shooting has a purpose. Even in Deathmatches the object is not to shoot people, but to win – to achieve a certain number of points. The shooting is the means to achieving this, not the end in itself. Very important is the storyline. Most games have some sort of storyline, and if they don’t and the entire thing is the person running round shooting things on their own for no reason then there’s something wrong. It is the whole experience of the game and not just the element of shooting (or whatever it might be) that is enjoyable.

Now there are two ways you can play a game. The first is to play on your own. This generally consists of following a game’s storyline or playing through specific scenarios for personal enjoyment. Either way, the virtual environments have their own rules and objectives.

The second way is to play with other people. This may be done through one system, via a LAN or as is becoming far more common these days, online. Whatever people may say, this is social interaction. These are people interacting with each other through a video game because of the different experience it gives. Now as far as I know, shooting someone in a game is not going to make a person think that they should shoot them in real life. Multiplayer games often reinforce such values as friendship and teamwork. Is that such a bad thing?

Now it is true that, in a few isolated cases, people have been driven by things seen in a video game to perform similar acts in real life. Until the video game can be shown to have a similar effect on large numbers of people, I don’t see the problem. What I see is a person who has a problem telling the difference between fantasy and reality. Where now does the problem lie?

I would like to suggest that games in fact do quite the opposite to inducing violence. Everyone gets angry or annoyed or frustrated. In these situations, I’m sure a great many people feel driven to commit acts of violence be it against a person, specific or otherwise, or just a desire to destroy. Giving in to such urges is naturally a bad thing. Well, it’s socially accepted as being so. I’m not going to go into the precise ethical issues surrounding it (although I would like to). Fortunately, most people do not go around hitting things whenever they get angry. They either find an alternative way to vent their frustration or they wait and let themselves cool off. I would like to present games as an alternative way. When you’re angry, what could be better than running around with a machine gun shooting the living daylights out of anything that moves? How is that not good stress relief? Is it going to make you want to go out and do it in real life or will it in fact sate your desire for mindless carnage and leave you feeling calmer and content? In my experience, always the latter.

So, video games lead to violence do they? Even though it is not the violence in and of itself that makes people play the game? Even though there is a distinguishable difference between these video games and the real world? Even though video games often promote positive values and can be used as an outlet for pent up anger and stress? For the life of me I do not see how.