VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES

VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES

One of the newest forms of media violence, video games, is causing great concern among both scholars and parents, especially since the discovery that certain celebrated teen killers like the Columbine High assassins of 1999 were apparently obsessed with very violent video games. Unlike TV, movies, or print violence, video games are interactive and allow the viewers to participate in the violence as aggressors themselves (Grodal, 2000). Video games are particularly popular with college students, with about 70% reporting playing them at least “once in awhile.” Although men and women play video games equally often, in terms of uses and gratifications, men are more likely to play for fun (45%) and women because they’re bored (33%), Gaming is more social for men, with 51% of men but only 34% of women believing that gaming improves their friendships, contrary to the alienated social misfit image sometimes associated with video games. Interestingly,

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more women than men (60% vs. 40%) reported playing computer and online games like Diamond Mine and Tetris, perhaps in part because they don’t require the player to choose a character (Weaver, 2003b).

Probably the major concern with video games is the high level of violence. For example, Grand Theft Auto 3 allows you to commit carjacking and murder police officers as you drive through a virtual criminal playground of Liberty City. You can pick up a prostitute and take her to a dark alley. She takes your money (as the car rocks excitedly) but you can get it back by killing her. In Postal 2, you become a paranoid psychopath and kill hostile people, with no penalty for shooting innocent bystanders. Once someone is wounded, you can stand above them while they beg for mercy and then shoot them (Crockett, 2002). Night Trap features vampires who attack scantily dressed young women and drill them through the neck with a power tool. Splatterhouse 3 features a man wearing a hockey mask who uses meat cleavers and knives to attack flesh-eating monsters (Strasburger, 1995). Quake II features a machine that consumes humans and spits them out in bits and pieces. A French video game by BMG Interactive called on players to become public enemy number 1 by stealing, murdering, and drug trafficking. Paris’ largest police union called for the game to be banned (Hamilton, 1998). In Carmageddon, one tries to knock down and kill innocent pedestrians. In Duke Nukem, the shooter shoots posters of scantily-clad women and then moves to murdering female prostitutes, who are often naked and tied to columns pleading “Kill me, kill me.” In Outlaw Golf, players build their skill by punching their caddies in the stomach and smashing car windows. Players of Manhunt stalk gang members trying to kill them before they kill you.

Media violence research and its theories have guided the more recent research on the effects of playing violent video games. Following predictions from social learning/cognitive theory (Bandura, 2002), game players learn shooting behaviors from playing the video game and imitating violent characters in the game. Children behave more aggressively after playing a violent video game than a nonviolent one (Anderson & Morrow, 1995; Bartholomew & Anderson, 2002; Bushman & Anderson, 2002; Kirsch, 1998; Lightdale & Prentice, 1994). Playing violent video games also raises the overall arousal level, thus raising physiological indicators like heart rate and priming the person to behave violently with relatively less provocation than would otherwise be the case (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Ballard & Wiest, 1996; Fleming & Rickwood, 2001; Panee & Ballard, 2002). Playing violent video games can also engender hostile expectations, leading one to expect that others will respond aggressively (Bushman & Anderson, 2002).

Sherry (2001) and Anderson and Bushman (2001) independently conducted meta-analyses of 25–35 studies conducted between 1975–2000 on the effects of violent video game play on violent behavior. Results showed a

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consistent effect of playing violent video games leading to more violent behavior, stronger for fantasy and realistic-violence games than for sports games. Violent video games also increase physiological arousal and aggressive affect and cognitions. Interestingly, Sherry (2001) found that the effects became less the longer the games were played, unlike findings from TV violence research exposure. See Griffiths (1999) and Bensley and Van Eenwyk (2001) for reviews of the literature on the effect of playing violent video games on violent behavior.

The type of video game of perhaps the greatest concern does not yet have too much empirical research as to its effects, but the need for this is great. These are the first-person shooter games, located in arcades, where the player controls interactive guns that they have to learn to hold, aim, and fire at a moving target. In House of the Dead, players fire at zombies and monsters that attack. In Time Crisis 3, the game has a kickback function to simulate the feel of a real weapon. The player also has a foot pedal that can control when the character takes cover to reload or steps out and shoots. In Play Station’s Operation Desert Storm, the player shoots Iraqi soldiers, Home video systems are increasingly able to add features to approach the arcade game level of realism. For example, some games have a built-in vibrating system called a rumble pack, which vibrates the controller whenever a bullet is fired. The expectation is only for these games to become more violent and more realistic with improvements in technology in coming years. The games will be more easily customizable, where one can scan in photos of one’s school, neighborhood, or “enemies.” Even back in 1999, the computer of one of the Columbine High assassins contained a customized version of Doom, where the killer had scanned in photos of his school and classmates he despised so he could practice killing them.

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