10.5 Controversial Issues

The increasing realism and expanded possibilities of video games have inspired a great deal of controversy. However, even early games, though rudimentary and seemingly laughable nowadays, raised controversy over their depiction of adult themes. Although increased realism and graphics capabilities of contemporary video games have increased the shock value of in-game violence, international culture has struggled to come to terms with video game violence since the dawn of video games.

Violence

Violence in video games has created controversy from its earliest days. Death Race, an arcade game released in 1976, encouraged drivers to run over stick figures, which then turned into tombstone Xs. Although the programmers claimed that the stick figures did not depict humans, the game caused controversy, making national news on the TV talk show Donahue and the TV news magazine 60 Minutes. Video games, regardless of their realism or lack thereof, had added a new potential to the world of games and entertainment: the ability to simulate murder.

The enhanced realism of video games in the 1990s accompanied a rise in violent games as companies expanded the market to target older demographics. A great deal of controversy exists over the influence of this kind of violence on children. Critics linked real-life violent acts like the 1999 Columbine High School massacre to the teenage perpetrators’ enthusiasm for video games. The families of Columbine victims brought a lawsuit against 25 video game companies, claiming that if the games had not existed, the massacre would not have happened (Ward, 2001). In 2008, a 17-year-old boy shot his parents after they took away his video game system, killing his mother (Harvey, 2009). Also in 2008, six teens arrested for attempted carjacking and robbery stated that they had attempted to reinvent scenes from Grand Theft Auto (Cochran, 2008).

While young men make up a majority of the crimes related to an obsession with video games, the controversy remains unresolved regarding the influences behind these crimes. Many studies have linked aggression to video games; however, critics take issue with using the results of these studies to claim that video games cause aggression. They point out that people who enact video-game–related crimes already have psychopathic tendencies, and that the results of such research studies prove correlation rather than causation—a naturally violent person would likely want to play violent video games (Adams, 2010). Other critics point out that parents should enforce stricter standards for their children since violent games, like violent films, are designed for adults.

The problem of children’s access to violent games remains a large and complex one. Video games present difficult issues for those who create the ratings. One problem is the inconsistency that seems to exist in rating video games and movies. Movies with violence or sexual themes receive either an R or NC-17 rating from the MPAA. Filmmakers prefer the R rating over the NC-17 rating because NC-17 ratings hurt box office sales, and they will often heavily edit films to remove overly graphic content. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) uses two restrictive ratings: “M” (for Mature; 17 and older; “may contain mature sexual themes, more intense violence, and/or strong language”) and “AO” (for Adults Only; 18 and up; “may include graphic depictions of sex and/or violence”). If movies replaced their system with this, a great deal of R-rated films would receive the AO rating. An AO label can have a devastating effect on game sales; in fact, many retail outlets will not sell games with an AO rating (Hyman, 2005). This creates a situation where a video game with a sexual or violent scene as graphic as the ones seen in R-rated movies becomes difficult to purchase, whereas consumers can purchase a pornographic magazine at some convenience stores. This issue reveals a unique aspect of video games. Although companies design many of these games for adults, the distribution system and culture surrounding them remain largely youth-oriented.

Video Game Addiction

Another controversial issue is the problem of video game addiction. As of the print date, the American Medical Association (AMA) has not created an official diagnosis of video game addiction, citing the lack of long-term research. However, the AMA uses the term “video game overuse” to describe video game use that begins to affect other aspects of an individual’s life, such as relationships and health.  Studies have found that socially marginalized people have more of a tendency to overuse games, especially online role-playing games like World of Warcraft. Other studies have found that patterns of time usage and social dysfunction in players who overuse games resemble those of other addictive disorders (Khan, 2007).

Groups such as Online Gamers Anonymous have developed a 12-step program similar to that of Alcoholics Anonymous to help gamers deal with problems relating to game overuse. Former online gamers and family members of those affected by heavy game use run the group (On-line Gamers Anonymous). In the early 1990s, many stories surfaced of individuals dropping out of college or getting divorced because of addiction to MUDs (Greene, 1998). In addition, heavy video gaming, much like heavy computer use in an office setting, can result in painful repetitive stress injuries, or even worse, the rare instances of death resulting from video game overuse. In the early ’80s, the video game Berzerk had two deaths linked to it. The players, both in their late teens, suffered fatal heart attacks while struggling to achieve top scores (Arcade History). The issue of video game addiction has become a larger one because of the ubiquity of video games and Internet technology. In countries that have a heavily wired infrastructure, such as South Korea, the problem has more significance. In 2010, excessive game use caused such problems that the South Korean government imposed an online gaming curfew for people under the age of 18 that would block certain sites after midnight. This decision followed the death of a 3-month-old baby from starvation while her parents played an online game at an Internet café (Cain, 2010).

Jim Rossignol’s book This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities describes that author’s job as a journalist for a financial company and his increasing involvement with Quake III. Rossignol trained a team of players to compete in virtual online tournaments, scheduling practices and spending hours afterward analyzing strategies with his teammates. His intense involvement in the game led to poor performance at his job, and he eventually lost his job. After his firing, he spent even more time on the game, not caring about his lack of a job or shrinking savings. The story up to this point sounds like a testimonial about the dangers of game addiction. However, because of his expertise in the game, a games magazine hired him and he gained full-time employment writing about what he loved doing. Rossignol does not gloss over the fact that games can have a negative influence, but his book speaks to the ways in which gaming—often what people would describe as obsessive gaming—can cause positive change in people’s lives (Rossignol ).

Sexism

Young adult men make up the majority of video gamers. A study in 2009 found that 60 percent of gamers were male, and the average age of players was 35 (Entertainment Software Association, 2009 ). In the past 30 years, video gaming is still in many ways a male-dominated medium.

Male influence manifests itself throughout the industry. Women make up less than 12 percent of game designers and programmers, and those who do enter the field often find themselves facing subtle—and not so subtle—sexism (Media Awareness Network).  When Game Developer magazine released its list of the top 50 people in the video game industry for 2010, no female developers appeared in the list (Doctorow, 2010). In 2007, a scandal erupted over a pornographic comic featuring Jade Raymond, current managing director of the French video game publisher Ubisoft, that surfaced on an online forum. The motivation behind the comic alleged that Raymond did not deserve her position at Ubisoft because she earned it based on her looks, rather than on her abilities and experience.

Sexism in video games has existed since the early days of the medium. The plot of the infamous Custer’s Revenge, released for the Atari 2600 in 1982, centered on the rape of a Native American woman. Popular NES games such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda featured a male figure rescuing a damsel in distress. Both the protagonist and antagonist in the original Tomb Raider game had hourglass figures with prominent busts and nonexistent waists, a trend that continues in the franchise today. In 2003, the fighting series Dead or Alive released a spin-off game titled Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball that existed to showcase the well-endowed female characters in swim attire (Strauss, 2010). The spin-off proved so popular that it spawned several other similar games.

Some note that video games, like movies, television, and other media forms, often fall back on gender stereotyping to engage consumers. Defenders point out that many male video game characters also face lewd depictions. Games such as God of War and Mortal Kombat feature hypersexualized men with bulging muscles and aggressive personalities who rely on their brawn rather than their brains. How do these stereotypes affect men? Laboratory studies have shown that violence and aggression in video games affect men more than women, leading to higher levels of male aggression (Bartholow & Anderson, 2002). While sexism certainly presents itself in video games, it seems sexual stereotyping affects both genders negatively.

In recent years, game designers have sought to move away from these clichéd representations of gender . The popular game Portal, released in 2007, features a female protagonist clad in a simple orange jumpsuit who relies on her wits to solve logic puzzles. Series such as Half-Life and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney star male heroes who use their intellects to overcome obstacles. Other games, like the Mass Effect series and Halo: Reach, allow gamers to choose the gender of the main character without altering elements of the plot or gameplay. However, despite recent strides forward, the video game industry continues to evolve, so too will the issue of representation.