We should stop caring if video game violence makes people more violent in real life. I don’t say that to be callous or incite anarchy. It’s simply not worth the effort to find out. Two reasons why:
- There is no problem. There is no significant increase in crime or mental health problems since the advent of violent video games.
- It’s not worth the effort. There is no ethical and realistic research setup that can prove video game violence makes people more violent in real life.
Bold claims, you say? Let me prove it to you.
Violent video games have been around awhile, but it’s reasonable to say that only around the mid-nineties did they look ‘realistic’ enough to pose any threat to our own aggression levels. Now take Grand Theft Auto. It’s a fairly violent game played by many, many people. CBSNews covered a story back in 2003 where GTA developer Rockstar got sued for “training” Devin Moore to shoot 3 officers. They lost the case.
Nonetheless, stories such as this one are horrific and can easily scare people into concluding that violent video games are indeed murder simulators. However, if that were really so then crime rates should have gone up with our increased exposure to more violent and realistic games throughout the last decade. Yet no amount of googling shows any such link. The same argument holds for mental health problems. All in all, we can conclude that even if violent video games make us more violent in real life, then it must be so little that it does not matter.
Still, I agree, it would be interesting to know what link does exist and what the details of it are. So far we know that there is a link between playing violent video games and acting violent. The link is weak, but there. A book called “Grand Theft Childhood” contains some interesting findings concerning this. Note how their research was only focused on children. The findings do not generalize to grown-ups.
These correlations are of course interesting in themselves, but one of the first rules of good research is: “Correlation is not causation”. The fact that violent people play violent video games does not automatically mean that video games made them that way. There might have been a third factor that both makes people violent and want to play violent games. Another option is that people who are violent in the first place like to play violent video games.
So how do you find out if violent video games really make you violent? You’d have to take non-violent people, make them play violent video games, and then see if they commit real life violent acts. All of this should take place in a controlled environment and with a representative sample and control group. I wonder how many people would sign-up for research that aims to find out if it can turn you into a violent offender. Any volunteers?
Despite this, there seems to be enough research out there that claims to support the causal link between violence in games and real life. However, none of them hold up to scrutiny. “Don’t shoot” is an especially interesting article where the writer concludes that all research supporting the causal link between violent video games and real life violence is flawed. Now the interesting bit: she also claims that enough flawed research put together actually proves the point anyway. Powerful reasoning!
There is a research paper that almost convinced me though. They did all the right things (sample size, control group, controlling for base aggression levels, etc.). In their design, subjects would play violent video games against each other. The winner got to “punish” the loser by blasting a loud sound at them. The winner could control the volume and length of the blast. The researchers found that more violent video games made subjects more “violent” blasters. What’s wrong here?
Blasting a horn is not real life violence. Even though a long and loud blast might be unpleasant for the loser, it will not hurt him. It can all be taken in good sport and seen as part of the game. And here is the real problem with any research on the topic. This is why I say: “Don’t bother”. It would be unethical to use a measure of actual real life violence in our research, but substitutes don’t prove anything.
Of course, maybe there is some expensive and convoluted way of researching this issue anyway , but why bother? There isn’t a real problem in the first place.
As a parting note, while researching this article, I found this case study about a child that benefited immensely from gaming. It’s on a psychiatric practice website, so no bogus-miracle-story. Check it out if you’re interested in that sort of stuff. Scroll down to the bold text three quarters down the page: Children and Video Games: How much do we know?
It’s kind of ironic that you publish this right after your article about ‘games replacing textbooks’…just sayin
hmm, Interesting point. I hadn’t really made that link. I’m pretty sure realistic war shooters will teach players a bit about military weapons. They might even improve their real life aim. However, I don’t see them teaching people shady morals about it “being okay” to act out violently in real life. If that were true, then we’d see that problem in the crime statistics, right? So I guess my point is that you can learn facts and even some skills from video games, but you don’t copy the in-game morals because you realize those are “part of the game” and not accepted in real life. Makes sense, don’t you think?
Perhaps…I could make you used to it on a subliminal level.
Gaming keeps getting more realistic and that is scary.
For instance, if you have a look at charity commercials over the past 10 years. You will notice that they have become quite..blunt over time. I think that is just because people get used to the idea of people starving in Africa. And I would go as far as to say that the same goes for gaming, which is, in my opinion, a bad thing.
Take a game like ‘red steel’; waving around a wii-mote pretending to hold a samurai swords…don’t know about that…
Back-in-the-days you would blow up a collection of vertices to pixels press left- and right-arrow…today’s game are might as well been seen as seen as combat-simulators.
The brain is a sensitive piece of bio-technology which can easily be fooled. That’s a fact. So if I can’t tell the difference between actual violence and a game…how should my brain be able to? Nobody has full control of his or her own mind so people should be careful with these kind of games.
Years ago when I was working on a college research paper I found statistics that showed a corellation between violent crime among youths and the rise of video games based on FBI stats. The correlation is inverse. Basically with video games becomeing more pervasive and “realistic” violent crime has gone down overall among youths.
Found the link: http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/violence_and_videogames
@TheGameCritique: What a great article
Thanks for the tip!
I’d like to add to what Shos said about learning to aim with a rifle from a videogame, it may ****may**** teach you basic principles about lining up sites, but in the game it’s automatic (i.e your character always seems to be aiming dead center down the rifle)
Pick one up in real life and it’s a whole new story, guns are heavy, especially rifles, most PC gamers wouldn’t be able to hold one up long enough to execute a decent shot without having to go prone unless they’re actually fit (something I don’t see a lot of or associate with gamers)
You also have this magically clear aim down the sites, in real life it’s not really the same, though I’ve never fired one with an ACOG or Holopoint site to comment on those.
Forgive me spelling sight as site… lol, Videogames apparently don’t help you spellcheck!
@Lee: Thanks for the input! My thought is that if you know how to handle a gun, realistic shooters (without aim assist) might improve your aim. But if you don’t know how to handle a gun, then shooters are not going to help you much. Does that sound about right too you?
If you look around on the internet there actually is a training “game” (flash-based) that calculates very well the physics of firing a weapon, If I can find it again I’ll link it here. Basically you would be informed of wind speed and direction, and distance to target was measured by mil-dots (scoped rifles use this measurement,that’s those little notches on the horizontal and vertical lines) so you really did have to use real-world practices to take an accurate shot. – This “game” was actually like being at a shooting range though, not shooting at people but targets.
And yes to a degree I believe you may be right, have a look into a Simulator called VBS2 (A military training simulator) – I haven’t had the chance to ask someone who’s used it for it’s real purpose what it’s like in comparison to real life shooting but I believe the Australian, US and UK governments are at least using it to train their soldiers in tactics etc.
(I’ve seen footage of them holding their rifles at a screen so maybe they do train them to shoot too!)
if I can find that link again I’ll provide it to, it may just prove you right
I tried replying to you Shos (through IE) and it appears it didn’t let me, (owner of the site should know it is marked as “Malicious” – I cannot figure out how this site would be malicious)
There are simulators built to teach you shooting yes, you are actually right about that, from calculating windage, adjusting your ironsights using a mil-dot system, Look up VBS2 which is a military training simulator, you’ll see some vids of soldiers holding their rifle pointed at a screen, though this is a fair bit more serious than your average CoD’s bullet physics would be (I’ve heard battlefield/ArmA etc have realistic bullet physics) but with a mouse and keyboard I feel there is something lost in translation.
I wouldn’t mind firing a real rifle again to see if I wasn’t better at it, then I could really answer your question first-hand!
@Lee: Sorry about your comment not getting through. The comment system works by letting me approve the first comment someone makes. Once I do, comment from approved commenters will always show up immediately if they post under the same name and email address. You forgot the numbers in your email address when posting the first time today, so the system did not recognize you as the same user. I approved the comment now though
As for the training simulator, I was actually in class (Computer Science) with a guy who used to work with military simulators. I’m sorry I lost contact with him or he might have had some interesting insights. I’ll have a look at that simulator you mention as soon as I can.
About getting better at aiming from gaming, I was a fair last year and they had air rifles there. I know not the same thing but still closer than video games. It was my first time shooting anything mildly gun-shaped and I actually did very well, above average. I beat all the guys, which felt like a great achievement at the time! I could only think that video games helped me out, but that’s just my personal interpretation.
actually, if you’d like to try out said simulator, lookup and download VBS2 JCOVE Lite – this is actually a “lite” version of the UK’s Training simulator, have a play in some of the missions to get a feel of it.
I think the difference between an Air Rifle and a real one is the kickback and distance the bullet will travel, other than that you’re right the principle is the same
I’d be keen to do tests on gamers to prove this as you may well be dead on the money! (maybe there’s more to be said for first person shooters than meets the eye… pun intended.)
It’s just a shame it was your first time shooting, you have no comparison of before you played an fps and then firing a gun, to playing them and then firing one.
I remember doing the same as you when I was much much younger, and yeah I did pretty well too (3 out of 3) but that was before I’d even played doom! I didn’t really feel I was any better at it later in life, but I did know to hold my breath before a shot, and definately how to line up the sights which were completely different from the Air rifle I’d used when I was younger.
@Lee: It’s true, I couldn’t reliable compare my performance with previous results. I was just impressed with myself based on stereotypes: Being a girl and beating the guys, and I also wear glasses which I found were tremendously in the way!
However, thinking about it more, I’m wondering if games train you more to shoot accurately when there is time pressure. Because, in games, the main challenge is killing the enemies before they kill you. In most shooting ranges you have all the time in the world to line up the sights.
that’s a cool point, you’ve swayed me on shooting games making a person a better shooter.
Is it proven that playing time based games (like you mentioned kill before you get killed, or beating a timer) help you to handle similar situations better in real life (massive work quota in only 2 hours kind of thing)
@Lee: I don’t actually know about any research on the relation between playing shooting games and becoming a better shot in real life. I’m just reasoning and hypothesizing about what I think is likely
About dealing with time pressure, I mostly know about research that is on topics I’ve written about. So anything that falls outside of the scope of the articles that are online now, I probably will not know. I’m just doing literature research in my free time
So sorry not to have an answer for you right now, but I’ll keep the question in mind when selecting topics for future articles!
I’d really like to get a good size group of gamers at a rifle range (people with no experience holding a real gun) and try out a controlled test. I think you might be right, I know it wouldn’t be true for everyone but we both might be surprised by the findings.
That’d be great, I’d like to see if it’d help out kids and even adults going for things like exams/tests at school or university (I had a friend who bombed tests, they’d freak out and score really low even though they’d studied hard and could use the knowledge they’d learned in real life situations)