Fake Blood On My Hands

Perhaps the most common -- and certainly the most annoying -- criticism leveled by non-gamers against games and the people who play them is that games are steeped in violence, and gamers are blood-obsessed barbarians. I have just claimed that any such criticism is "most annoying", but I wish to state clearly that I am not annoyed for the same reason as most gamers. You see, I am fully willing to concede that most genres of gaming are broadly permeated by violence, and that, nearly by definition, many gamers are fascinated by violence. Insofar as the detractors of gaming make the above two claims, I find little ground from which to mount an objection. I do, however, resent any further implication that the prevalence of violence in gaming, and our coincident fascination with it, is a bad thing.
With respect to the claim that violence in games is "bad", I do not necessarily speak of "badness" in a moral sense -- although many people do think that violent games violate some moral code or another. I use the word "bad" as a stand-in for "objectionable" in the broadest possible sense; for it is my ambition to render all such objections untenable. Let this document serve as a source of refuge and refutation whenever the non-violent non-gamers come calling for your head on a pike.

If violence in games is a bad thing, it may be said to be bad in an intrinsic manner, or in an extrinsic manner, or in a manner that is both intrinsic and extrinsic. If violence in games is intrinsically bad, then there must be something about the violence per se that makes it bad; which is to say, it must be bad in and of itself, without reference to any other effects, phenomena, or considerations. Perhaps there is room to argue that real-world violence is intrinsically bad, but I detect no such leeway in the realm of fictional violence. And violence in games is, after all, entirely fictional.

Things become more complicated when addressing the issue of the extrinsic badness of violence in games. It is said that violent games may have a wide range of negative effects on young people whose parents are too busy with other affairs to bother with parenting. Many gamers refuse to be moved by this claim (for the obvious reason), and they often voice their rejoinders quite bluntly... and appropriately so. Rather than proceed down that familiar road, I'd like to pursue a different tack and explore some of the extrinsic goodness that violence in games may hold. Consider the following argument:

1. Gaming violence is a type of fictional violence (i.e., the persons and objects harmed in violent games are not real).
2. All types of fictional violence are, at least on occasion, extrinsically valuable.
3. We ought not to oppose any general category on the whole, if any of its member species are sometimes extrinsically valuable.
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4. We ought not to oppose fictional violence on the whole.

Few people would argue against this conclusion; for most recognize the important role that violence has played in literature, theater, and art throughout the ages. Artistic pacifism is not, in my view, a respectable position. Or would you prefer that Sophocles had granted Antigone a long life, free from turmoil? I hope not. Depictions of violence can enthrall us and motivate us to (ostensibly non-violent) action; they can sicken us, sadden us, and sober us; they can give us cause to reflect on the most important things in life; they can even make us sing or laugh with glee. Don't believe me? Try watching Pulp Fiction with me during the scene when Marvin gets shot in the face.

Enough said about fiction in general. What, then, of gaming in particular? Is gaming one of the avenues of fiction wherein depictions of violence are occasionally justified, for one reason or another? If not, then the enemies of gaming may yet retain some sparse ammunition.

First, it is worth noting that there is nothing essential to games that would indicate that they are any less fit for mature subject matter than other expressive media. However, my hypothetical (yet all too real) opponents will likely call out for a specific example of game violence as high art. If I were to claim significance for any of the violent acts that my virtual avatars have inflicted over the years, my opponents could easily respond with a simple "Nuh-uh!" However, at this point in the argument, I have already won -- for reasons that Elysium has already explained. (Yes, I intend to make a habit of linking to Elysium's article on objectivity and art. Yes, there was an exchange of money involved. Smears of lipstick, too.) In short, I am the only person qualified to say what strikes me as important, noteworthy, or valuable when it comes to matters of aesthetics and art. I and my opponents will therefore cancel each other out on this matter, and the only thing remaining will be my initial (and entirely logically sufficient) claim that there's nothing preventing games from being every bit as weighty with respect to violent subject matter as the various, more aged forms of expressive media. A universally recognized example is not only unnecessary; it may even be infeasible.

My opponents will at this point be tempted to say that the problem is not violence at all, but only violence that crosses some (arbitrary?) line of decency. To which I may once again reply by linking to Elysium's article. Nor can my opponents fall back on the notion that communal standards of decency should apply, since the violent content of any given game is only ever viewed under private circumstances. In other words, my playing violent video games is not in any way analogous to my engaging in public sex acts with another consenting adult... say, Elysium. The latter is objectionable on grounds of communal decency, but the former is not.

It would probably be prudent of me to wrap things up before anyone gets the wrong idea about me and Elysium. If I may simply reflect on where the preceding words have left us:

In typical fashion, this entire dispute may be attributed to an error in semantics. My opponents would seek to articulate the circumstances under which the following phrase might be truthfully uttered: "This game is just too violent." What my opponents fail to realize is that that sentence is effectively broken as written. It is necessary to stipulate a referent for the judgment, like so: "This game is just too violent for me." Only then is it obvious that this entire irksome affair is as much about the person doing the judging as it is about the thing being judged.

--Lobo

Comments

The true injustice about the violence in video games debate, is that there has never been one. The complainers complain, get media coverage, some politicians frown and nod their heads.

I say, let's get Lobo up there with anyone they want to debate the issue. Someone let me know how it turns-out, I'll be playing Doom.

I'm thoroughly entertained to be reading this article right after I finished God of War. If ever there was a game anti-violence folks wanted to target... (Great game, by the way, for anyone that hasn't played it. It was also violent enough to make me wince - really wince - a couple of times.) With that said...

I think you (Lobo) are missing one of the fundamental arguments that the anti-violence lobby voices: the idea that fictional violence spills over into real life. I haven't heard much objection to violence because of the violence in and of itself (save in some special cases, like the GTA:3 hooker beatings). It's much more common to hear complaints of children's behaviour being modified to mimic (fictional) violent acts. Your "people who say games are too violent are only expressing a personal opinion" argument strikes me as a straw man developed explicitly for this article.

The big-brainy guy wrote:

Or would you prefer that Sophocles had granted Antigone a long life, free from turmoil? I hope not.

GWJ: Come for the forum deviance, stay for fancy-pants references that make you feel like you should have stayed awake in college!

I just finished The Punisher. While I like the idea of grabbing a machinegun and mowing down a bunch of drug-lords and mafia bosses, reality is just not that simple.

Games are escapism. Most people with a decent emotional and mental grounding understand this. When I hear about kids emulating Grand Theft Auto, I can't help but wonder how screwed up they were to begin with. The idea that a video game ALONE influenced this behavior is ridiculous.

Furthermore, the complete pass that parents have been given for allowing their kids to play whatever they want unmonitored still baffles me. No, you can't stop them from playing it at their friends house. At the same time, at least if parents stepped up and did their jobs then kids might understand that there is something about the behaviors in the game that is not good. "Mommy and Daddy don't seem to mind me playing a game where you beat hookers and take their money. Maybe it's no big deal?"

Speaking as a gamer who has two young children both interested in gaming, I sure as hell will be monitoring their gaming choices and I do pay attention to ESRB ratings. The excuse that parents are clueless doesn't work. Parents need to educate themselves if they want to protect their kids and raise them to be stable adults. Kids are going to screw up, I get that. At the same time, the blame being placed purely on videogames is unreasonable and unfair.

The irony is having the generation that was villified for their rock 'n roll music now going after this generation's video games.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I think you (Lobo) are missing one of the fundamental arguments that the anti-violence lobby voices: the idea that fictional violence spills over into real life. I haven't heard much objection to violence because of the violence in and of itself (save in some special cases, like the GTA:3 hooker beatings). It's much more common to hear complaints of children's behaviour being modified to mimic (fictional) violent acts.

I do think you're right to mention this, Chumpy. Like many gamers, I consider this issue to be practically irrelevant; it exposes an error in parenting, not an error in game design. However, as I mentioned in the article, I'd prefer not to walk down the same path as the typical forum discussion over this issue:

Rather than proceed down that familiar road, I'd like to pursue a different tack and explore some of the extrinsic goodness that violence in games may hold.

The idea being, if we can show that fictional violence has an important and desirable place in our society, then we can conclude that blanket measures to condemn, restrict, or prohibit that violence are misguided. This strikes me as a far more promising tactic for the defender of gaming to pursue.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

Your "people who say games are too violent are only expressing a personal opinion" argument strikes me as a straw man developed explicitly for this article.

I disagree, of course. For that to qualify as a straw man, I would have to have argued against a position that I attributed to my opponents falsely. Just because I've chosen not to address one of my opponents' chief complaints in depth, does not necessarily imply that I've distorted my opponents' position. Certainly one may run afoul of the straw man fallacy through failing to mention an important part of the opponent's position and then pretending that it doesn't exist; however, I did mention it (however pejoratively), and I explained that I wasn't interested in discussing it for purposes of this article. My goal was more ambitious: to validate violence in games to such an extent that across-the-board efforts to limit that violence must seem ridiculous -- no matter what the reason.

As gamers, we've become desensitized by the violence that games portray. I'd bet that most gamers can remember moments when they were shocked or horrified, at least initially, by a game. I recall seeing Mortal Kombat for the first time, as a kid, and actually being frightened by the level of violence. A few bucks worth of quarters later, though, and I was ripping out spines with glee. Oddly enough, I never got into that sort of thing in real life.

In most cases, fictional violence will desensitize the viewer to similar fictional violence. It's a lot less likely to have the same effect with regard to real-world violence, though. Soldier of Fortune's chunky head wounds and shotgun amputations get less and less shocking as you play through the game, but in most cases, no amount of gameplay would prepare you for the trauma you'd be likely to experience if you witnessed such an event in real life.

Abhorrence of real-life violence and gore is certainly a desirable quality. But just about everyone will on some level admit or display a certain morbid fascination with the subjects. Hence the popularity of murder mysteries, horror films, and, of course, violent games. These fictional venues give us the opportunity to explore our fascination with such subjects in settings where the actual human and emotional consequences of the violent acts are completely removed.

Gamers fully understand the disconnect between fictional violence and real world violence. Clearly, there are plenty of people who don't. I suppose they're terrified by the human imagination, and convinced that gamers' wills are so fragile that, after enjoying Splinter Cell, they'll be unable to resist stealthily breaking their loved ones' necks. The nightly news has certainly conditioned us to expect the worst from people, so it's no surprise that the incredibly violent interactive fiction of video games gets non-gamers all freaked out.

I have to accept the fact that so many non-gamers, at first glance, are shocked and horrified at what some modern games portray. I would be hard-pressed to explain my love of Resident Evil 4 to my mother, or convince her that it was in any way entertaining. Can I fault her for that? I don't think so. If she claimed that the game was likely to inspire real-world violence, I think I'd be able to argue my perspective, and probably convince her otherwise. Would I be able to convince her that blowing off heads with a shotgun was not a morally repugnant form of entertainment? Probably not.

So, is blowing off heads with a shotgun morally repugnant? In real life, probably. In a game, I don't know. I don't think so. But that's my opinion. It's certainly not as nice as rolling a sticky ball around to make stars, or commanding a small army of tiny flower-topped creatures to pick up litter. As gamers, the best we can hope for is that the supposed correlation between games and real-world violence will eventually fall out of fashion and be revealed for the fallacy that it is, and that those who abhor violent games will come around to saying, as Lobo puts it, "This game is just to violent for me.

I'm not holding my breath.

Lobo wrote:

For that to qualify as a straw man, I would have to have argued against a position that I attributed to my opponents falsely.

straw man
n.
An argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated.

I didn't mean to suggest that you attributed false arguments to your 'opponents', merely that you created an argument that you could attack: namely, that people that "oppose fictional violence on the whole" are incorrect to do so. I don't see that position being taken by many. There are certainly specific instances of fictional violence that are offensive to some (with movies and video games taking the brunt of it these days), but I don't believe I've ever heard the cry, "Down with fictional violence!" Maybe I'm just missing the point of the article, but it seems like you're vigourously defending something that's not being attacked. Maybe 'straw man' was incorrect; maybe it should have been 'tilting at windmills'?

I'd be interested to hear more about "the important role that violence has played in literature, theater, and art throughout the ages." I don't deny that it has set the stage for some interesting and compelling art, but I don't know as that necessarily exonerates violence in fiction for its own sake. Useful for creating tension and dynamism? Sure. Handy for moving a plot along? Absolutely. Important? I remain unconvinced. I'm particularly interested in how that thoughtline relates specifically to video games (if it does).

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I didn't mean to suggest that you attributed false arguments to your 'opponents', merely that you created an argument that you could attack: namely, that people that "oppose fictional violence on the whole" are incorrect to do so.

If all that you meant is that I've sought to attack a weak argument, then I agree with you in full. However, I do not agree that I have "created" this argument to suit my own purposes (as per the straw man fallacy), or to mislead the reader in any fashion. Read on...

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I don't see that position being taken by many.

I do. You should see the list of banned books around which my mother (who teaches high school English) has to design her syllabus. Make no mistake about it, there are people who find fictional violence in ANY form of art completely abhorrent; they exist in such quantities in Louisiana that most of the public school districts here aren't allowed to teach certain works, ranging from The Iliad to some of the more violent plays of Shakespeare, such as Titus Andronicus. This is no joke. (Want to know what else is on my mother's list of banned books? Aldous Huxley's Brave New World -- I kid you not.)

Nor is it the case that such people desire only to protect their young'uns from violent literature. I have personally argued with people who have claimed that violent fiction (as well as sexual fiction, and perhaps other types) is immoral. (As a side note, their arguments rested on a fallacious appeal to authority... and I bet you can guess which authority they revered above all others.)

Also, do note that my chief objective in the article was emphatically NOT to vindicate fictional violence on the whole; this was done only in service to a more pointed goal. My main intent was to show that, once certain premises have been granted, there exists no logical space for blanket opposition to violence in games. (Therefore, even the contention that violent games should be restricted for the sake of children is subsumed.)

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I'd be interested to hear more about "the important role that violence has played in literature, theater, and art throughout the ages." I don't deny that it has set the stage for some interesting and compelling art, but I don't know as that necessarily exonerates violence in fiction for its own sake.

If you're talking of exonerating violence "for its own sake", then you're talking about the intrinsic goodness of violence. Recall that by this point in the article, I'm addressing the extrinsic goodness of violence -- the existence of which you have acknowledged, even in the above quote.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I'm particularly interested in how that thoughtline relates specifically to video games (if it does).

The link that I made to video games in the article was this: if portrayals of violence are important to literature, theater, and other forms of art, then there's no reason why similar portrayals of violence couldn't be important to games. If you're asking for examples that I feel qualify as important video game violence, then I'd be happy to provide some (beginning with Planescape: Torment, most likely). Keep in mind though that, as I explained in the article, you may not agree with the examples that I choose, and there's not much that either of us can do about that. Also remember that my position is not dependent upon the need for an example. Even if I were to confess that no instance of video game violence has ever risen above vulgar and idiotic bloodshed, this would say nothing of the capability of games as a medium when it comes to important portrayals of violence.

I think you could make the argument that fictional violence affords the viewer/player/reader/etc. the opportunity to explore and examine a compelling aspect of human experience without actually witnessing, causing, or experiencing actual violence. Whether that "exonerates" a fictional act of violence depends on your perspective, and whether you even accept the position that fictional violence needs to be "exonerated."

I'd be more inclined to use the word "justified" than exonerated. I can handle a high level of violence in most of my games. Blood and death don't bother me, especially when portrayed in the highly impersonal, by the numbers methods employed by most titles. To me, the detached, impersonal, abstract, fictional violence in most games, even in its bloodiest forms, is harmless enough to be justified in the name of nothing more important than good old fashioned fun.

Games that require or encourage the player to engage in more personal acts of cruel violence or torture, however, don't appeal to me. Certain acts in Manhunt and The Punisher come to mind. Not my cup of tea, and in my opinion, not "justified" or in Chumpy's words, "exonerated." If such games took those violent acts and presented them thoughtfully, prompting insights into issues of violence rather than just cheap thrills, that would be something else. I suppose that in Manhunt there's an argument that the game takes a sort of postmodern, critical approach to media violence, but even then, for me, the game's cruelty is too over the top. I don't expect everyone to agree with me.

I think it's okay to place value judgements on games because of their content, violent or otherwise. Some may think Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball is a shameless, embarrassing, crappy title that at best provides cheap thrills to teen boys, and at worst objectifies women and serves to further the reputation of gamers as losers. Others may view it as a technically impressive, eye-catching modern adaptation of classic cheesecake pinup imagery and a celebration of the female form. Choose your opinion, express it all you like, then play the game, or don't.

I've always rejected the proposition that art or entertainment should be evaluated in some sort of moral vacuum, and that artists aren't accountable for the content they produce. It's a common attitude, but I think it's ridiculous. I'm not advocating censorship, though - I'm advocating each individual's right to make and even promote their own evaluations of content based on whatever system of values that they choose.

If you think a game is morally reprehensible, that's fine. Whether you are correct or not in your assessment is something that honestly can't be determined in any absolute sense, unless your moral criteria are universally agreed upon and endorsed by absolutely everyone (including God, if you believe in him/her). So while I take exception with the "games promote violence" arguments, I honestly think its' okay if some think GTA: San Andreas is pure evil, as long as I can still buy/rent/play it at will.

Unfortunately, as Lobo notes, those inclined to condemn books/games/whatever are often just as inclined to ban them. There's nothing inherently wrong with evaluating a game from a moral perspective, but unfortunately, in the real world, some people find it necessary to make others' decisions for them. That's fine if you're a parent. It's not if you're a politician, or a librarian, or the dean of a university. In a perfect society, people could scream and yell and debate all they wanted about the content of games or other media, but censorship wouldn't be an issue.

Lobo wrote:
I wrote:

I don't see that position being taken by many.

I do. You should see the list of banned books around which my mother (who teaches high school English) has to design her syllabus. Make no mistake about it, there are people who find fictional violence in ANY form of art completely abhorrent.

Fair enough; chalk it up to differing experiences. I've never run into that opinion; guess that's why I figured I could extrapolate it outwards. Whoops. (By the by, I'm staggered that Brave New World would be censored because of violence. Wow.)

Lobo wrote:

I'm addressing the extrinsic goodness of violence -- the existence of which you have acknowledged, [in the quote "that it has set the stage for some interesting and compelling art"].

Is 'interesting and compelling art' a good enough reason for violence? Strikes me as a fairly... delicate... position, somewhere similar to vivisections in research, for example. Are the potential gains worth the potential harm? (I'm not taking any position on this one, merely pointing out that sometimes the end doesn't justify the means.) If we acknowledge that people can be influenced by art, shouldn't there be a line somewhere that says, "although it might make your play/movie/game/sculpture/etc better to include graphic imagery, don't, because it will also cause "? (Oh, and I don't think I did acknowledge an extrinsic 'goodness', merely a definite impact.)

Lobo wrote:

[...]if portrayals of violence are important to literature, theater, and other forms of art, then there's no reason why similar portrayals of violence couldn't be important to games.

A valid conclusion, if the premise is accepted. If. I'm still missing the 'important'. Maybe it's just a semantic thing; maybe not. What do you mean by 'important'?

TheFly wrote:

I think you could make the argument that fictional violence affords the viewer/player/reader/etc. the opportunity to explore and examine a compelling aspect of human experience without actually witnessing, causing, or experiencing actual violence.

I think the argument could also be made that this is a negative; here, come try your hand at a bit of the ol' ultraviolence, with no consequences, moral, punitive or otherwise.

TheFly wrote:

To me, the detached, impersonal, abstract, fictional violence in most games, even in its bloodiest forms, is harmless enough to be justified in the name of nothing more important than good old fashioned fun.

The "to you" part of that statement is possibly the most potentially destructive part. If you think that fictional violence is potentially bad for anyone (but are ok with it yourself), shouldn't something be done to try to prevent the anyone from coming into contact with it? Are you unwilling to go without yourself even if you think it could cause harm to someone else?

(Do keep in mind that I'm at least half playing Devil's Advocate. ;))

I suppose they're terrified by the human imagination, and convinced that gamers' wills are so fragile that, after enjoying Splinter Cell, they'll be unable to resist stealthily breaking their loved ones' necks

The word is still out on stealthily breaking arms, however

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I'm still missing the 'important'. Maybe it's just a semantic thing; maybe not. What do you mean by 'important'?

What I have in mind is portrayals of violence, by virtue of which certain stories can only be told. There are entire types of story -- tragedy and epic, for example -- that are predicated upon the deployment of violent situations, violent characters, and violent actions. I can't convince anybody who hates tragedy that tragedy is an art worth preserving, but I can at least say that without violence, there would be no tragedy.

(By the way, kudos to both Chumpy and The Fly for some really excellent discussion. This is just the sort of thing that I hope to incite whenever I sit down to type these articles.)

If you think that fictional violence is potentially bad for anyone (but are ok with it yourself), shouldn't something be done to try to prevent the anyone from coming into contact with it?

Almost any type or degree of fictional (or factual) sexual, violent, tense, frightening, disturbing, or otherwise "mature" content can be "potentially bad" for somebody. And things are being done to prevent those who may be offended/harmed from coming into contact with such content.

Last I noticed, the porn wasn't next to the coloring books at my local bookstore. It was up high, shrink-wrapped, and would likely be sold only to someone with ID. Movies are rated, games are rated, and music gets warning labels. Some retailers are more responsible in their sales of these items than others, and some parents are more responsible in screening their kids' media than others. But the basic mechanisms for making sure that mature content reaches its intended audience are in place.

Are you unwilling to go without yourself even if you think it could cause harm to someone else?

I'm not going to deny others the opportunity to view material that I think is objectionable based on some controversial, unprovable, or arbitrary standard to which I subscribe. I expect others in this society to allow me the same freedom.

Look, there are games I won't play because from a moral perspective, they give me the creeps. I don't think they should have been made, and I'd be happy if no one played them and they faded into obscurity. But I'll be damned if I'm going to tell other adults they can't play, sell, or make them.

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