Violence And Video Games

Since their inception in the 1970s, video games have often been criticized by some for violent content. Politicians, parents, and other activists have claimed that violence in video games can be tied to violent behavior, particularly in children, and have sought ways to regulate the sale of video games. Studies have shown no connection between video games and violent behavior. The American Psychological Association states that while there is a well-established link between violent video games and aggressive behaviors, empirical research finds there is little to no evidence connecting violence to video games.

Background

The Entertainment Software Association reports that 17% of gamers are boys under the age of eighteen and that 36% are women over the age of eighteen, with 48% of all video game players being women of all ages. They also report that the average age of gamers is 31. A survey of 1,102 children between 12 and 17 years of age found that 97% are video game players who have played in the last day and that 75% of parents checked the censor's rating on a video game before allowing their child to purchase it. Of these children, 14% of girls and 50% of boys favored games with an "M" (mature) or "AO" (adult-only) rating. 64% of American adults and 70% of those under 18 play video games regularly as of 2020.

Since the late 1990s, some real acts of violence have been highly publicized in relation to beliefs that the suspect in the crime may have had a history of playing violent video games. The 1999 Columbine High School massacre created a moral panic around video games, spurring research to see if violent video games lead to aggressive behaviors in real life. Some research finds that violent video game use is correlated with, and may cause, increases in aggression and decreases in prosocial behavior. Other research argues that there are no such effects of violent video games. This link between violent video games and antisocial behavior was denied by the president of the Interactive Digital Software Association in 2005 in a PBS interview. In the interview, he stated that the problem is "vastly overblown and overstated" by people who "don't understand, frankly, this industry". Others have theorized that there are positive effects of playing video games, including prosocial behavior in some contexts, and argue that the video game industry has been used as a scapegoat for more generalized problems affecting some communities.

History

Before video games

Elements of the type of moral panic that came with video games after they gained popularity had previously been seen with comic books. Through the 1950s, comics were in their Golden Age, having become a widely popular form of media. As the media expanded, some artists and publishers took more risks with violent and otherwise questionable content. Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist, wrote ''Seduction of the Innocent'' in 1954, which outlined his studies asserting that violent comics were a negative form of literature and led to juvenile delinquency. Even though some of Wertham's claims were later found to be based on bad studies, the book created a moral panic that put pressure on the comic book industry to regulate their works. Later in 1954, the comic industry issued the Comics Code Authority (CCA) which put strict regulations on content that could appear in comic books sold at most stores, eliminating most violence and other mature content via self-censoring. The mainstream comic industries waned as comics had lost their edge, while an underground market for the more adult comics formed. The comic industry did not recover from Comics Code Authority regulations until the 1970s, when adherence to the Authority was weakened. By the 2000s, the Authority was generally no longer considered. Modern trends of targeting violence in video games have been compared to these events in the comic industry, and video game industry leaders have specifically avoided the use of self-censorship that could impact the performance of the industry.

Pinball machines had also created a moral panic in post-World War II America, as the teenage rebels of the 1950s and 1960s would frequently hang around establishments with pinball machines, which created fear across the generation gap of older Americans unsure of the intents of this younger crowd. To some, it appeared to be a form of gambling (which led to machines being labeled "For Amusement Only"), while more religious people feared pinball was a "tool of the devil". Because of this, many cities and towns banned pinball machines or implemented strict licensing requirements which were slowly lifted in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Notably, New York City's ban on pinball machines lasted until 1976, while Chicago's was lifted in 1977. The appearance of video games in the early 1970s overlapped with the lifting of bans on pinball machines, and when youth were drawn to arcade games, the same concerns that were initially leveled at pinball machines as gambling machines and immoral playthings were also made about video games.

1970s–1980s

After ''Pong'' exploded onto the arcade game market, arcade game manufacturers were aware of the attention that video games were getting and tried to position games as entertainment aimed at adults, selling units preferably to bars and lounges. This gave them more leeway with content, but still which drew criticism from some. Two arcade games had already drawn attention for amoral content prior to 1976. Atari's '' Gotcha'' in 1973, a maze game, initially shipped with two joystick units that were covered in pink domes as to represent women's breasts, but which were removed in later makes. The 1975 '' Shark Jaws'', also by Atari, was an unlicensed adaption of the film '' Jaws'' and attempted to play on the film's violent context, though here, the player was hunted by the shark. As arcade games spread into more locations, the ease for children to access the games also elevated concerns about their potential impacts.

The 1976 arcade game '' Death Race'' is considered the first game to be targeted for its violent content. The game, like ''Shark Jaws'', was an unlicensed adaption of the 1975 film ''Death Race 2000'', a violent film centered on driving. Within the game, the player was challenged to drive a car and run over simulated gremlins scoring points for doing so. Besides the game's simulated content, the game cabinet was also adorned with imagery of death. The game caught the attention of an Associated Press writer, Wendy Walker, who had contacted the game's manufacturer, Exidy, with her concerns that the game was excessively violent. Walker's concerns spread through other media organizations, including the National Safety Council, who accused the game of glorifying the act of running people over when at the time they were trying to educate drivers about safe driving practices. While some arcades subsequently returned the ''Death Race'' machines due to this panic, sales of the game continued to grow due to the media coverage. It was recognized that many other competing arcade games at the time, like ''Cops 'n' Robbers'', '' Tank 8'', and ''Jet Fighter'', all games equally about violent actions, saw little complaint. Nolan Bushnell of Atari said that "We Atari had an internal rule that we wouldn't allow violence against people. You could blow up a tank or you could blow up a flying saucer, but you couldn't blow up people. We felt that that was not good form, and we adhered to that all during my tenure."

United States Surgeon General C. Everett Koop was one of the first to raise concerns about the potential connection of video games to youth behavior. In 1982, Koop stated as a personal observation that "more and more people are beginning to understand" the connection between video games and mental and physical health effects on youth, though that at that time, there was not sufficient evidence to make any conclusion.

1990s

''Mortal Kombat'' and congressional hearings (1993–1994)

The fighting game '' Mortal Kombat'' was released into arcades in 1992. It was one of the first games to depict a large amount of blood and gore, particularly during special moves known as " Fatalities" used to finish off the losing character. Numerous arcade games that used high amounts of violent content followed in ''Mortal Kombat'' wake. However, as these games were originally exclusive to arcade machines, it was generally possible to segregate them away from games aimed for younger players. Eventually, there was significant interest from home console manufacturers in licensing ''Mortal Kombat'' from Midway Games, particularly from Sega for its Sega Genesis platform and Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. At the time, Sega and Nintendo were in the midst of a console war to try to gain dominance in the United States market. Sega's licensed version of ''Mortal Kombat'' retained all the gore from the arcade version (though required a use of a cheat code to activate it), while Nintendo had a version developed that removed most of the gore, recoloring the blood as grey "sweat" and otherwise toning down the game. Sega's version drastically outsold Nintendo's version and intensified the competition between the two companies.

The popularity of ''Mortal Kombat'', along with the full-motion video game ''Night Trap'' and the light gun shooting game Lethal Enforcers, gained attention from U.S. Senators Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl. This resulted in two congressional hearings in 1993 and 1994 to discuss the issues of violence and video games with concerned advocacy groups, academics, and the video game industry. Sega, Nintendo, and others were criticized for lacking a standardized content rating system, and Lieberman threatened to have Congress pass legislation requiring a system that would have government oversight if the industry did not take its own steps. By the time of the second hearing, Sega, Nintendo, and other console manufacturers had outlined their agreed-upon approach for a voluntary rating system through the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), which was in place by the end of 1994. This also led to the establishment of the Interactive Digital Software Association, later known as the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a trade group for the video game industry that managed the ESRB and further supported trade-wide aspects such as government affairs.

Jack Thompson lawsuits (1997)

American attorney Jack Thompson has criticized a number of video games for perceived obscenity and campaigned against their producers and distributors. He argues that violent video games have repeatedly been used by teenagers as "murder simulators" to rehearse violent plans. He has pointed to alleged connections between such games and a number of school massacres.

Columbine High School massacre (1999)

The Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999, reignited the debate about violence in video games. Among other factors, the perpetrators, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were found to be avid players of violent games like ''Doom''. The public perceived a connection between video games and the shooting, leading to a Congressional hearing and President Bill Clinton ordering an investigation into school shootings and how video games were being marketed to youth. The report, released in 2004 by the United States Secret Service and the United States Department of Education, found only 12% of perpetrators in school shootings had shown interest in video games.

In the aftermath of the Columbine shooting, previous school shootings were re-evaluated by media and connections were drawn between Columbine and the Westside Middle School massacre of 1998. Although video games had not been identified as a factor at the time of the Westside shooting, media discussions of Columbine pointed to Westside as a similar case in that the two student perpetrators had often played '' GoldenEye 007'' together and had enjoyed playing first-person shooter games prior to the shooting.

2000s

''Grand Theft Auto III'' and further lawsuits

In 2001, Rockstar Games released the PlayStation 2 game '' Grand Theft Auto III''. The game gave the player control of an unnamed protagonist in a contemporary urban setting taking on missions within the city's criminal underworld. The game was one of the first open world games and allowed the player to have nearly free control of how they completed missions, which included gunplay, melee combat, and reckless driving. The game was widely successful, selling over two million units within six months. Its popularity led several groups to criticize the violence in the game, among other factors. Rockstar subsequently released two follow-up games, '' Grand Theft Auto: Vice City'' in 2003 and '' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas'' in 2004, the latter becoming controversial for the sexually explicit ''Hot Coffee'' mod. After this incident the government decided to take action. In 2005, California banned the sale of violent video games to minors.

In the years that followed, a number of fatal murders and other crimes committed by young adults and youth were found to have ties to ''Grand Theft Auto III'' and later games that followed in its footsteps. Jack Thompson became involved to try to sue Rockstar, its publisher Take-Two Interactive, and Sony on behalf of the victims for large amounts of damages, asserting that the violence in these games led directly to the crimes and thus these companies were responsible for said crimes. These cases ultimately did not lead to any action against Rockstar, as they were either voluntarily withdrawn or dismissed before judgment. Thompson agreed to no longer seek legal action against Take-Two's games, and ultimately became an activist to highlight the issues of violence in video games. The events of this period were made into a BBC
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