The Gamer's Quarter

[EightBit]

Well, I have a bunch of things I wanted to post, so instead of several threads, I decided to do an editorial type thing since, while being seperate articles a common theme still runs through them.


Anyhoo... first interesting thing I found recently was the excelent article at Gamasutra regarding morality in videogames, and what the actual game designers had to say about it. the article simply asks, "Do game creators have any moral responsibilities in teaching values to their audience?". The responses are pretty much "Yes" or "No" and a few honorable mentions at the end. Worth noting is the fact that alot of the one's who responded "No" remained anonymous.



Continuing the theme of morality and violence is this lovely article. Which describes the actions of several young boys in Russia. The boys had learned moves from the fighting game Mortal Kombat(they didn't specify the version) and decided to try these new moves out on their victim, including a scissor kick attempt to break the boys neck. They then threw the boys body into a nearby river.

Remember all the hooplah when the first game came out? My mother was a sensible person who got me the game and explained the difference between videogame violence and real violence. I dont think I've ever caused bodily harm without justification. Still, my cousins and several of my friends werent allowed to come over my house to play the game because the news media had infected their parents minds.



Lastly has to do, not with direct moral values set forth by the designers, but the evil and devious designs of an individuals actions in an MMO game. The article is terribly old, and terribly long, and yet terribly interesting. It's about a person who decided to scam people within the massivly multiplayer game Eve Online. The article brings up an interesting point. Can videogame companies stop this kind of scamming within a massively multiplayer game? But more importanly, should they? Playing an MMO is a great deal about living an alternate life. Dealing with scammers and thieves and generally bad people is a part of normal life, so why shouldn't it be apart of the online alternate life experience?

[Mr. Mechanical]

I can't blame the game developers for answering no to the question in the Gamasutra article. I mean, do filmmakers take on some modicum of responsibility for the actions of their audience when making a film? Do popular musical artists? More importantly, should any of these people? I don't think so, because for me it all comes down to personal responsibility.

The problem is, in America at least, too many people want to place the responsibility on the government instead which leads to legislation like this.

As for the bit on MMOs, I don't really play those types of game but I think the developers should do something about people using methods to scam other people that weren't part of the original design. When thousands of people are paying for a service it seems like it should only be fair for everyone to have the same chances, whether it goes more towards creating a more believable game world or not.

[dhex]

i'd like to do a point-counterpoint on moral responsibilty. i think that'd be fun.

not that i think we'd be able to find someone willing to go as far as to say the maker of a game product is responsible for the user's actions, even if they're not seen as being in the same league as film, music or literature.

the tobacco --> fast food --> video game chain is coming, and coming soon, as game makers push the violence envelope and become more easily soundbitten. it's only a matter of time until we enter some sort of hollywood code era, i think, which conservative gamers can look back on and go "see? all those governmental restrictions worked out just fine, didn't they?"

[Shapermc]

I may be going out on a limb, but with this quote I think I am still on topic here.

[dhex]

also keep in mind the most important thing - people are not interested in facts, or statistics, or anything complicated.

even if we could prove actual video game causation of violence, or even use the jack thompson method of 'he played a game and then hurt someone years later - VG VIOLENZ!" we're talking what?

1% of all violent crimes? .5%? .25% maybe as high as 3%?

[Shapermc]

I would sincerly doubt it was even 1%. I think it is mainly that people who think these things realise that parents don't tell and teach their chlidren the proper division of fantasy/fiction or right/wrong. Humanity at its best.

[dhex]

it's part of a larger cultural trend.

more importantly, it is impossible to actually isolate entertainment causes in juvenile violence. not that this matters to a jury, assuming someone slightly less stupid than jack thompson starts up something.

[EightBit]

Its story time!

I had to take a class on behavioral studies, and we had a class about the responsibilites of the creator. The essential theory was a social responsibility where it's, "the neighborhood that raises the child, not the individual parent". We talked about the heat that rap music got in the early nineties and the respobsibilities that the individual artists have. The problem I had with that particular theory is that if we worried about the potntiality of any individual interpreting or using as a catalyst something we've created, then nothing would ever be shown on a public scale and the world would be a pretty dull place. It's my personal feeling that an individuals good or bad actions where going to happen regardless.

One of the people in the class said that he cant keep an eye on his child all the time, so on and so forth. I only responded in my own mind because I already had gone on a five minute diatribe and didnt feel like taking up more of the class time. You may not always be able to be with your child to keep an eye on them, but the morals and values that you teach them will be. When I was at a friends house and he showed me his fathers gun, the reason I didnt play with it wasn't because my mom was standing right there(cause she wasn't) but because she had made sure that I understood the consquences that might resolve from such actions.


I guess my point is that no, game designers shouldnt bear the responsibility of of another individuals actions. That's obviously the parents job. I alsd o think it should be the game designers choice to do so if he/she wishes.

back to the MMO thing, thats a damn tricky question. Still I think it should be allowed, if certain conditions are met. I dont want system destroying scamming. Where the scamming hurts the entire financial structure of a game. I dont want something that is aomething that the designers wouldn't want in the game. Most of the time though, I think action might be taken against a scammer because people are wussies and the game designers/publishers want to make thier customer base happy. I say they should just deal with it, and learn from thier mistakes. It encourages a greater sense of community when you have a trusted circle of friends within an MMO, and you are communicating who is and isnt a scammer with one another.

[Hero]

It's scary how much control media has over the masses. If we assume only 1% of violence is caused by videogames (using 'caused' in a very loose sense), then it's a very low number. Yet when the media covers one story of "Doom made me do it" over and over, and all the competing stations have around-the-clock coverage, all vying for your viewing pleasure...well, it looks like these things can happen to anyone, anywhere and at any time. The news knows what it needs to keep you glued to the screen - fear. And they monopolize it like no one's business, with very little 'moral' incentive to present the world in a true view. Instead we get this pre-packaged glimpse of life as being full of murder, deceit, lies and Hollywood gossip. Last time I checked, that wasn't the world I lived in.

Yet they get away with it and when parents ask 'who's the culprit?' the last thing they want to hear is 'you are, you fools.' So the media gives them a perfect sacrifice - the videogame. No, you're not responsible for teaching morals - entertainment mediums are. And they ought to know that it's their duty to the people to raise your children the right way...

What nonsense.
_________________
Stand for nothing and you'll fall for anything.

[friedchicken]

I'm not sure how I missed this discussion previously. Oh well.

Of course everyone here knows that this is a VERY old subject that is ultimately only tangentially connected to video games. Games are just one of the latest in a series of scapegoat products, and yes, it all has to do with an individual's refusal to take responsibility for their own actions, as has already been mentioned. It's interesting that it's often violence that gets the focus.

I mean, when I was a little kid, even before I got my Atari 2600, it was comic books that got a bunch of crap. Allegedly some kid had thought he could fly like Superman and had jumped off a building. Interesting, because that same sort of story still circulates, so I have to wonder if the whole thing was just an urban legend.

It's not to say that that sort of thing has never happened, but a lot of these stories really have an urban legend flavor to them-- even real events like the Russian Scissor Kick mentioned above.

The bottom line is when something awful happens-- either someone dies by violence or is just illiterate, like Shapermc's example-- peoples' first reaction is to try and explain why by shifting as much responsibility off onto someone or something else as possible. Maybe it's guilt, or maybe it's a frantic attempt to not be held responsible. Or both.

Surprisingly enough this hasn't happened so far (it's about 2pm on 3-26-05) with the recent school shooting in Minnesota, but I'll predict that video games will be montioned at some point during the media feeding frenzy that's coming up. If they haven't by now and I've just missed it, that is.

And speaking of the desire by individuals to have the government take responsibility for raising their children-- I'm always amazed at how close to a socialist country some Americans would have the US become, given how virulently we've demonized socialism in our history.

[dhex]

[dhex]

mr. thompson, enter stage left.

[friedchicken]

[Giampi]

It's really quite amazing that, despite all the guff games get about massively influencing nubile young kids to adopt radical, often Nazi-like ideals and pull firearms on their fellow man, parents still aren't actively regulating what their children play and taking responsibility for their children's actions. I'm not saying that games make children kill people--far from it, as a gamer such accusations offend me--but I have to wonder if some parents are too thick-skulled to see that maybe all these violent games that are garnering so much media attention are being played by their own children.

[Mister Toups]

Honestly I 'm more interested in the possibility of a game dealing with morality as a theme -- there being moral consequences to your actions. And not just in a "you start to look sort of evil" Fable kind of way. Given that a videogame is basically a study of cause and effect, it would only make sense.

There's some game in Japan called Michigan that's supposed to deal with that. I wonder if it's out yet.
_________________
where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[Shapermc]

[dhex]

[dhex]

http://clinton.senate.gov/~clinton/speeches/2005314533.html

nyyyyyyze.

i don't have the pathological hatred for her that many republicans and conservatives have (which tends to be matched by the no blood for freedom fries crowd) but she's a silly fuckin' git.[/quote]

[Shapermc]

dhex I hate to sound lazy, but I really have no desire to read all of that.... care to highlight?

[dhex]

it's hard being a parent cause media gives kids bad ideas.
kids spend more time listening to bad ideas than before.
the internet is very technical and it's hard on kids because porn is bad
video games are hard on kids because they're violent and training kids to be bad

[dhex]