The State vs. Video Games!

USA Today's cover story (today, full text here) was concerning the continuing violent video game drama in California. You should probably read it before going any further.

You're going to let this guy in a courtroom?

The most troubling part of the article is the way the accusers (primarily the contested bills author Sen. Leland Yee, D.) exaggerate the violence in video games. They do this by citing Postal 2 as their chief example... Yeah, we're going there. In the entire article the ONLY video game mentioned by Leland Yee's camp is, in fact, Postal 2. The Postal series is not representative of the state of violence in gaming. The Postal series is a joke. It's a sideshow. It's got a level of respectable (and sometimes brilliant) satire, true. However, that's obviously not the focal point of the experience. People who decry Postal and the violence in video games are missing the point. They call this technique selection bias.

Digging deeper into the article, something else disturbing reveals itself. The anti-video game crowd attempts to bolster their claims with statistics. Of course, I found no mention of the specific studies in the article. However, the online version (the one I linked to earlier, I read the print version) contained a link to one such study. If you read the first two paragraphs and set it down, you may agree with Senator Yee. However, if you read the entire article, it's likely that you won't be convinced. Here's the first two brief paragraphs in their entirety:

A new review of 130 studies "strongly suggests" playing violent video games increases aggressive thoughts and behavior and decreases empathy.

The results hold "regardless of research design, gender, age or culture," says lead researcher Craig Anderson, who directs the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University in Ames. (link here)

Sounds compelling, yes? Well continue reading the article and you get this:

But Christopher Ferguson, an associate professor at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, says in a critique accompanying the study that the effects found "are generally very low." He adds that the analysis "contains numerous flaws," which he says result in "overestimating the influence" of violent games on aggression.

Ferguson says his own study of 603 predominantly Hispanic young people, published last year in The Journal of Pediatrics, found "delinquent peer influences, antisocial personality traits, depression, and parents/guardians who use psychological abuse" were consistent risk factors for youth violence and aggression. But he also found that neighborhood quality, parents' domestic violence and exposure to violent TV or video games "were not predictive of youth violence and aggression."

That's the best they got? Flawed methodology? Weak correlations that may not ever exist? That is all these anti-video game violence movement has always had. They've always been flying in the face of science and reason. Ever since Mortal Kombat... the game that, supposedly, stole away the innocence of so many victimized children. Now, the study did contain a cultural bias, note the words "predominately Hispanic". I'm not convinced that it in any way affected its integrity

And even the statistics that "strongly" support video game violence leading to aggression turn out to be... well... not so strong after all:

Anderson says his team "never said it's a huge effect. But if you look at known risk factors for the development of aggression and violence, some are bigger than media violence and some are smaller...

Smaller than say "delinquent peer influences, antisocial personality traits, depression, and parents/guardians who use psychological abuse" as noted by Ferguson earlier in the article? Yeah.

"...If you have a child with no other risk factors for aggression and violence and if you allow them to suddenly start playing video games five hours to 10 hours a week, they're not going to become a school shooter. One risk factor doesn't do it by itself."

The proponents of the anti-video game campaign would like you to think otherwise. Ironically, their own statistics work against them.

 But he notes that video game violence is "the only causal risk factor that is relatively easy for parents to do something about."

These guys get to decide.

 Which is why this debate is completely pointless. The State does not need to be involved. Parents get to decide what is suitable for their child. The video game industry has a self-regulating rating system that aids parents in finding suitable video games for their children. You legally cannot purchase a video game rated "M" (Mature) unless you are 17 years old or older. I was denied sale of God of War II (a "M" rated game) when I was 18 because I had accidentally left my ID at home. It is enforced.

 The use of misleading words like "strongly suggests" in the Anderson study gives people like Yee the ammo they need to win rhetorical bouts. However, the strong suggestion that Anderson makes is akin to seeing someone soaked from head to toe "strongly suggests" that they jumped in a lake.

Mega Man: Mass Murderer

I found a common theme in both Anderson (from the "New analysis reasserts..." article) and Yee's comments. Both claim that even though games are rated and regulated, games rated "E" (Everyone) still contain violent content. Yes, they may. I've blown up thousands of robots in Mega Man games. Is this violence realistic? persuasive? Of course not. Violence ABOUNDS in children's literature. Even fairy tales! Lest we forget the Big Bad Wolf eats Grandma and attempts to consume Little Red Riding Hood. Nor should we forget that the kind hunter cuts the wolf open and rescues an unharmed Grandma from its belly. Or, since this is America, how about the Bible? Remember the Flood? That was only the complete destruction of the known world and the death of every living thing that was on Noah's Ark? Or perhaps the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in which God personally decimates two cities, sans one family. This is the kind of stuff I was taught when I was growing up. I read Harry Potter. I read about the Basilisk tearing through Harry Potter's arm with its fangs. I read the Redwall series in elementary school and can clearly remember Constance the Badger tossing an unlucky rat from the top of Redwall, crushing his bones. I've killed my fair share of police officers in Grand Theft Auto. I'm decapitated zombies in Resident Evil with a shotgun. I'm killed hundreds of Nazis in Call of Duty. I played all these games in some shape or form before I was a freshman in High School. I'm not a violent person. Most people aren't.

What is the real problem here? Perhaps it the variety of risk factors that Ferguson mentioned. He certainly has evidence on his side. Whatever the problem may be, it certainly isn't violent video games. It wasn't in 1994 when the ESRB was founded and it's not in 2010. We cannot allow our state governments to arbitrarily decide what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to a First Amendment issue.

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Image of parents and child from Daily Mail online (link here)
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