We need deeper thinking about video games and violence

Everyone who thinks that video games cause violence is wrong. 

Everyone who thinks video games have nothing to do with violence is wrong. 

Before I proceed, I will set forward the idea that any school shooting, any kind of attack like this is tragic and unacceptable and we need to do things as a society to ensure that we are doing everything that we can, not just to prevent them, but providing care and concern so that no one even thinks about doing this to other people. 

But I want to focus on technology and tech policy, and to look at the kinds of arguments we are having, and the ones that we should be having. 

Knee jerk responses

In what might be considered knee-jerk response, DILG Sec. Jonvic Remulla called for the banning of first-person games. Similarly, Sen. Robin Padilla is condemning game developers for inspiring school shooters. This isn’t much different from the responses to the tragic school shooting only months ago in Tacloban. 

In equal knee jerk response, we have lots of people saying that if it were true that games caused violence, then why isn’t there more violence? I come from the generation that played the first FPS’s, and I’ll be honest that this too has been my gut reaction. The corollary then is, if I and all the people around me who ever played violent games have not done anything, then games have nothing to do with it. 

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Here’s what I think each side is getting wrong. 

The “video games make people violent” side join a long tradition of moral panics. Just this weekend I was in a board game cafe filled with people playing Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering; these days considered harmless pastimes but when I was younger, we were warned that playing these games would lead us to Satanic rituals. It’s hilarious to watch 90s videos of fundamental preachers warning against the new threat of this Satanic force called Pokémon. I’m old enough that in Catholic School we were warned about the Satanic messages in the music of Led Zeppelin and Queen, which could be revealed by backmasking cassettes. 

Moral Panics and Genuine Concerns

The targets of such moral panics have shifted as culture and media have evolved. Whether it was worry over slasher films, punk music and gangsta rap, to Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, to tabletop and video games, it’s been a move by moralist sides to blame pieces of culture for potential or actual harmful behavior. Looking at it with a broad historical scope, the argument falls apart and gets exposed as, well, silly. 

However, it is worth noting that there are some points of concern that have merit. While it’s too much to believe that there are “corrupting forces” in these things, and therefore we must protect our children against them is a stretch, what is worth acknowledging is that they are correct in noting that there are some kinds of media and culture that kids should not be allowed to engage with. There’s a reason for ratings systems, age limits, and the like. While those systems and limits will constantly be shifting given societal norms, they are important. You can’t just expose kids to everything and hope for the best. 

Which brings us to what the “I’ve played video games and I haven’t shot anybody” side gets wrong. Those of us who lived through the moral panics against Diablo, Mortal Kombat, and Counter-Strike came up in a world with a very different gaming culture. We trash-talked people in front of us (or beside us, trying to keep our spot as challengers stepped up and dropped coins), played in rooms connected via LAN. These days, we aren’t playing inside of the same kinds of games, and if we are, there are rooms that are separate from our experiences. 

Games are so different now

This is to acknowledge that the worlds inside of video games today and the experience of games is so different. The scale of the social aspects of games is drastically different from what past generations experienced. We might have been the first to inhabit the MMO worlds of Ragnarok: Online or World of Warcraft, but the social aspects of games like Fortnite and Roblox are something else. 

What we get wrong is that when someone says something against video games, they might be getting something right. Broadly video games don’t cause violence. However, it cannot be denied that video game spaces are spaces where sexual predation and radicalization can occur. The games themselves might not be designed as vectors for spreading violent and radical thinking, or as a space for predators to take advantage of children. But that doesn’t mean that bad actors aren’t using the social aspects of those games to do things that were never in the game’s original plans. 

Some might want to shift the blame to parents. This interview with a game developer who worked on Roblox encourages parents to be watching their kids “24/7” if they are on Roblox. One can imagine the world of content just twenty years ago, movies had age minimums, video rental stores had sections with the movies marked for age, and in general we had a sense of where kids could go and what kind of things they were exposed to. But now, kids can log on and they have access, and also become accessible, to content and individuals that their parents would have no way to watch let alone control. (Also, what kind of life would it be if every movement done by young people was done under the surveillance of their parents? A different issue entirely, but something worth thinking about as we think about giving parents more control and shifting more responsibility to them.)

Very clearly parents need to play a part in watching what their kids are exposed to. But parental guidance is not enough, and so there needs to be a whole of society approach to this. We need our regulators to actually be regulating the right things. Rather than asking for blanket bans on FPS games, we should be asking our regulators to set expectations on platforms that host games. 

You wouldn’t leave kids in an arcade 

I will try and make a simple analogy here. If I were running an arcade which allowed small kids to play certain games, then I should be expected to not put extremely violent games or sexual games within access of those small kids. Maybe I need to have a separate room for those games–I’m allowed to offer them and to let age-appropriate people play the games. More importantly, if there are creepers who are trying to isolate young children or radicalize troubled teens, then I should have a responsibility to protect those kids. Even better, I should have a connection with regulators so I know who to report them to. 

But what the analogy shows is that it isn’t just parents, or platforms, or regulators, but everyone working together to address this at the various layers. Games and all other content should have some kind of recommendations or verification limits (if you are playing on Steam you run into these all the time). 

To the best of their ability, parents should help guide their children’s online behavior. To continue the arcade metaphor, you don’t just drop them off and hope for the best. If they are small you go and join them, if they are older, then you decide how much you can trust them. But then the platform has to step in. Once a parent trusts a platform enough to allow their children to use it, then the platform has a duty of care to the child. And beyond that, we do need regulation that holds platforms accountable. 

It’s not just banning video games. And it’s not that video games have nothing to do with violence. We need to be talking more deeply and exploring in a more thoughtful way what we can do here. I know that I might be talking about an internet that doesn’t exist anymore, given the levels of danger and toxicity we see in so many platforms. But I still think people can turn to online games to discover their people, have great experiences, and enrich their lives. 

Parents need to provide support for their kids and help them through what they can and should be playing. Platforms need to provide great spaces where kids can have fun, safe experiences. And regulators need to provide frameworks for platforms to adhere to and establish what the bounds are to hold them accountable. It’s going to take a lot more than blanket bans to get us to a better, safer place. 

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