The Myth of the Media Myth

"There are six of us around the table, and the conversation turns to what I do for a living, also known as 'my field of study' in academia. 'I'm a game designer and a professor,' I say. The dinner had been arranged by a third party in order to connect academics from various institutions for networking purposes.

"'You mean videogames?' one of the teachers asks. It's said with the same professional and courteous tone that one might reserve for asking, 'Did you pass gas?'"

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Good read, it captured the tireless struggle of being an adult and carrying the video game with you. I've met parents who were for games and ones who were against it, so I will say it sounds like your dinner party was a bit biased.

It's interesting to think about trying to include older people into the scene. The ex-core and non-gaming crowd is a strange beast that wants a lot of compromises in game design. Short, easy to learn & play, and more mature content. That's a lot of changes that most gamers aren't going to like.

Great article. I tend to pose this question to most parents and adults I encounter who are prejudiced against violent or sexually explicit videogames: Would you ban your child from the library because there are some books about war, death, sex and rape?

The hypocrisy of videogame hate never ceases to amaze.

Brenda - great article. I'm forwarding this to a few anti-game, but otherwise open-minded people, I know. Often awareness of one's bias can be enough to shift the bias...

As a consumer I find it hard to understand why people fuss so much about the acceptance/non-acceptance of videogames in general.

Besides, many critics may be right, we probably spend to much time in our imaginary worlds and maybe Manhunt is to violent for us.

Cant we just explain ourselfs by saying "Its fun" and let the nutters yell themselfs hoarse?

Excellent article Brenda! And congrats on the IGDA directatorship!

sammyfreak:
Cant we just explain ourselfs by saying "Its fun" and let the nutters yell themselfs hoarse?

Sure we can, if we want to risk videogames ending up like comic books. And if we really think that the people that work in the industry are innately wrong for doing so. Sure, Rock and Roll emerged from similar turmoil, but that was because it had plenty of supporters working to change its perception.

Perception means a lot.

The most telling part is that many of the people who speak out against videogames have also grown up with them. Instead of growing up with an acceptance, they've been alienated in some way, and that's a very bad trend for an emerging industry.

I really enjoyed reading your article - thanks very much.

I have a few points to make, in no particular order:-

1) Games are definitely addictive I know because I have been addicted to them and playing at 4am when I have to go to work 4 hours later. There again, I suspect that virtually all pleasurable sensory activities are addictive. If a person was not addicted to games they may well be addicted to something more harmful.

2) What parents probably will not say is how pleased they are that they know where their kids are and know that they are keeping themselves occupied and not being a pain around the house.

3) The media is the source of the problem, their objective is to sensationalise everything. Only emotions sell papers and gain viewing figures. Think of some of the seven deadly sins (no I am not at all religious), these are the media's tools to sell advertising space. Hate, lust, envy, greed... and anything else that gets the emotional juice flowing will lead to repeat newspaper purchases or more TV viewers. The media drives opinion far more than it represents opinion.

4) Games are an easy target because they are typically believed to be played by younger people and younger people typically have less of a voice. They certainly do not populate the upper echelons in the media industry.

5) The damage that games do (and let's face it they do some damage because there is rarely smoke without fire), is negligable in comparison with the damage done by false media representation (eg. pretending crime/terrorism/the economy/disease etc is worse than it really is).

6) Hollywoood, the film industry and popular culture does far more to harm society than games ever will. We rarely see the amount of fuss made over films which glorify violence and yet these are real people performing imaginable acts which cause pain and suffering and in some cases depicted as the heroes/heroines for doing so.

7) Games can be very educational. My personal obsession was with WWII games and I actually learnt a great deal about the conflict by playing them. I also taught myself to program because of my love for games and wanting to replicate them.

8) Games are a great deal of fun. I have had many gaming highs and not very many lows. I have also made friends through games and was an active part of a large community in a perpetual online fantasy game. I got to know my compatriots so well that I feel we actually enhanced the quality of each others lives through our shared experiences online - yep, I really mean it.

9) Games definitely result in less exercise and less face to face socialising - let's face it, it's a fact. It only becomes harmful though if people spend all day doing nothing else. I do not see the same level of criticisim levelled at people who just watch TV all the time. I'd sooner my child was playing games than watching TV because they are actually doing something rather than doing nothing or being indoctrinated by the box in the corner of the room. Although, having said that, I'd sooner my child did a mix of several things rather than just watch telly or play games.

Well, that's all I can think of right now. Just thought I'd get that off my chest !

I'll be back :)

An interesting and thought provoking read though there are definitely dangers to video gaming, why just this last weekend I missed out a roast dinner because my mother was too busy playing her DS to prepare it (granted I did buy her the DS so i did indivertibly sow the seeds of my own discontent) the story has a happy ending though as she decided to go and buy a KFC in recompense.

In the article, you quote Alexander Sliwinski saying that only 6% of games are M-rated as an argument against the assertion that games on the whole are violent. This seems like a spurious argument - Streetfighter contains violence, and isn't M-rated. A better stat might be the percentage of games that contain no violence (shooting, hitting, killing, blowing up, etc.), or, better, even the percentage of revenue that the games industry recieves from games that contain no violence. Do you, or anyone else, have an idea of what those numbers might be?

For a reasonable guesstimate, taking all PS2 titles that sold over 1.5 million copies gives 89 million copies that don't feature violence, compared to 153 million copies that do. The games on the nonviolent list are racing games, sports games, the Guitar Heroes, Kingdom Hearts (and that one's debatable), and the Eye Toy pack. Taking these numbers, almost 2/3 of all PS2 games include violence.

Good article and a fine summary of the issue.

My take on the issue is that Games appear to be more all consuming than say, film, as they are longer. If you had a film that was really good, and lasted 20 hours, wouldnt you want to spend as much time as possible focused on completing it?

We need to validate it as art through language, act haughty, create an indecipherable nomenclature for the elements of video games and obfuscate, you'll get credibility and noone will be able to argue with you.

the_carrot:
We need to validate it as art through language, act haughty, create an indecipherable nomenclature for the elements of video games and obfuscate, you'll get credibility and noone will be able to argue with you.

Hell yeah, video games need an Andy Warhol figure to come and save them.

the_carrot:
We need to validate it as art through language, act haughty, create an indecipherable nomenclature for the elements of video games and obfuscate, you'll get credibility and noone will be able to argue with you.

Lol, what a great suggestion :)

Games will become... intellectually untouchable !

pbar - by far the vast majority of games are rated E (59% in 2007), or E 10+(15% in 2007), (for a total of 74%). And T rated violence is on Power-Ranger levels (funny, I remember when that was a big deal to have kids watching/emulating that). Your numbers are false and arbitrary. Your "guesstimate" is not reasonable or even remotely accurate. Its probably more "2/3rds of games dont feature any, or a miniscule amount of violence of any nature." Also, KH features combat, I dont even know why you would include it in that list. It also depends, do you consider mario stomping on abstracted mushrooms and turtles to be violent? I dont. Many of the "skateboarding" or other "extreme sports" games get rated T, yet feature no violence (other than falling down). I would argue that Madden is more violent than say, Mario, but whatever. Your guess is flat out wrong. Please do the MINIMAL bit of research it would take to find out information along those lines (protip: www.esrb.org)

Anyway, on the subject of the article:

I think whether people admit to it or not, popular media has done more to ruin the reputation of video games and video gamers than anything else. Hell, even D&D was demonized back 25-30 years ago. I would think most "academics" would consider themselves current on the news, so they watch their news channel of choice, and absorb it all. How many of them even know what Shadow of the Colossus is? Ico? None of the games who so redily put forth the idea of games as art ever get mentioned on the news. Manhunt and GTA do, because they are blood soaked gore fests turning our children into mindless killing machines! The games industry is hardly helping, such as Mass Effects development "leaking" knowledge of human-alien lesbian scene. But, to make an analogy, the games industry can hardly be blamed for making a popular, potentially addictive product. Just as Budweiser is free of blame for alcoholics, you cannot blame Blizzard or Take2 or whomever for making a product that YOU got addicted to. As mentioned in previous posts, Popular media sensationalizes anything they can get their hands on, just watch ANY TV between like 5pm and whenever the news comes on. You get brief spots designed to "scare" you into watching the news at 10 or 11 or whenever. "COULD THE NEIGHBORS CHILD NEXT DOOR BE A MASS MURDERER IN WAITING?" "COULD SOMETHING IN YOUR HOUSE BLOW UP TEH PLANETS??/" "WHY YOU MITE DIE IN YOUR SLEEP!!1" and such.

It is quite ridiculous. Obviously it gets people to watch, which, to them, I suppose is all that matters. Ill stick with BBC news and other news sources from around the globe, thanks.

Any parent who fears video games is delusional, and should be forcibly shown the ratings system. I do agree with the assertation that parents will be against ANYTHING that children are in to or do, but I think video games are still a special case. Any parent who makes it "impossible" for their children to play video games at home, is essentially casting them to the world for the world to educate them on the content in video games. Are parents really so delusional to think that if they ban video games in their house, that their child won't go out and find their own way to play? Be it a Gamestop store, or more likely, a friends house. Forbidding children from having things due to (soley) some moral ground is (IMO) a poor developmental stance. (Which isnt so different from parents forbidding their children from having sex, without giving any education on the matter)

It is a pompous and ridiculous attitude to take that games are for children. Its even more ridiculous to think that games cannot be "Art." Anyone who holds these attitudes should be locked in a room with Shadow of the Colossus and Grim Fandango, and they cannot come out until they beat them.

Of course games are addictive and have adverse effects upon behaviour; they even skew socialisation in youth and adults. This has been shown true many times over for hockey, football, soccer, rugby, lacrosse... what, I'm supposed to stick with just the video varieties?

(And why is it any more acceptable to waste your time vegetating in front of a TV watching some other people play than it is to do so while playing a game oneself?)

-- Steve

It's been interesting, growing up as a gamer from the age of, oh, five or so, and seeing the effect it had on my parents.

By the age of ten, I was meeting resistance as I dossed away on my SNES and Master System, they insisted I go out and play with my friends, ride my bike, anything but sit on my arse, playing games.

When I hit fourteen, something changed - with the arrival of my PS1 and my brother finally grasping the finer points of Mario Kart, my mum and dad because more understanding. Thanks to the multitap, we could play together. Indeed, a very fond childhood memory of mine was my mother cackling with glee as she lauched a red shell into my unsuspecting exhaust pipe. My father was digging up my Starfox cartridges and having a blast - being a big air-combat entheusiast.

By playing with us, instead of watching, they began to see the appeal of it, how gaming and be fun, and bring people together.

Now, I've hit 20, my dad owns his own 360 and every Tom Clancy game under the sun, and my mum, whilst drifting away from our gaming sessions, is still understanding and considerate. In return, we're always there for four or five hours of evening family time.

Moods are changing, but I think it takes a little effort on the part of the gaming kids to show their parents that they aren't the twitching, reclusive demi-psychopaths that the media portray them as.

Well, except people who play CS. They're freakin' nuts.

It's not all bad, the media focus I mean. I remember not too long ago reading about a man who managed to provide medical aid to victims of a car crash, he was able to do so because of what he had learnt in the game. (Americas Army, I think it was) But... ask me to think of any other positive news feeds on gaming and I think I'll come up short. Especially in comparison to all the negative tales I could tell (and of course, their alleged authenticity).

Unfortunately It's more likely that as a society we focus more on the bad than the good. As an example... if somebody makes a purchase, of anything... and that purchase goes a little south for whatever reason... 'not as described', 'postage took forever' etc... people will hear about it, they will tell all their friends not trust 'so and so'. But when that purchase goes as smooth as a well oiled machine, there is no 'after'... no telling people about an amazing transaction, just silence. Everybody continues as if nothing had ever happened. We simply expect the natural order of things to be "good", so when it is, we carry on... (thus, others never really hear about it) and when it isn't, we slam on the brakes and get pissy.

As for the general attitude of non-gamers on the topic of games. From my experience I've not had any problems with simply talking about games, I think most people I know play games, some more than others, some hardly ever. There's no hate there though.

However,

When it comes time to tell people what it is I do with my life, and where it is I would like to end up, there is most certainly a change in tone. I'm at that point right now where It's likely for me to meet up with old school friends who I've not seen in years and somewhere at the very beginning of all first (re)conversations comes that question that I'm never really sure how to answer. "So, what are you doing with yourself nowadays buddy?"

For the record, I'm not in the industry 'yet', I start applying for 3D Artist positions in about a month or so (hopefully less... need to work faster).

As soon as I've layed my answer down, the conversation turns from full of life and excitement into a fluttering water-bound creature that has somehow managed to jump from its ocean filled home onto a hot sandy beach. "Oh,... erm... cool" is a usual response. I wouldn't say it's sarcastic, though that point could be argued. I'd say it's more so down to a lack of understanding on their part. But why should they understand? I don't know the first thing about plumbers...(aside from the nice financial reward, though I have no idea 'how' I came to know that) but if an old friend told me he was one, I wouldn't stare at him blankly or feel awkward about questioning him more on his career.

I'm beginning to lose my point here... so I'll stop. Cheers for the article, it was a very interesting read, I'll be passing it on to a few people.

Edit
Oh, and congrats on your new Chair job Brenda!

An absolutely wonderful article. Being one who's aspiring to enter the Video Game industry, hopefully some people will address this situation. I remember the very first game I ever played, Doom, when I was just three years old. I very much believe that parents can get involved with their children in video games. I used to sit down and play Mario Party 1 with my family every Friday night.

Its interesting that you mention the effect that the term 'video games' has on people's perception. In the UK, the gaming revolution began largely on the home computers, most notably the Spectrum and the C64. It was only really with the SNES and Megadrive (Genesis) that the consoles began to dent this market, and even then the likes of the Amiga were putting up a good fight. This lead to, at least initially, the term 'computer games' being more popular than 'video games.' This has now changed to a certain extent, possibly due to the greater dominance of consoles in the market place, but I still find I vastly prefer the term 'computer game' (or 'console game' if you feel computer is inappropriate for the likes of the 360, PS3 and Wii) to 'video game' as I feel that latter has always sound childish and derisive.

It'll pass. Someone will invent something new and the focus will shift. It happened with jazz, rock and roll, hip hop. It happened with Dungeons and Dragons, comics and television. It happened with almost every scientific breakthrough.

A while ago, some guy decided it'd be a lark to see where the edge of the earth was and started a world of shit, and in a few years from now the good fellows at CERN will compile the data they got when they switching on the LHC and find out some ground-breaking stuff about the creation of the world as it is and more shit will go down.

And in centuries from now there'll be new music, new illicit activities, new media, new entertainment and some old fart in what passes for a futuristic suit and Dr. Phil's Head In A Jar will try and convince the world it's destroying our kids.

StatikShock:

Just as Budweiser is free of blame for alcoholics, you cannot blame Blizzard or Take2 or whomever for making a product that YOU got addicted to.

Any parent who fears video games is delusional, and should be forcibly shown the ratings system. ... Any parent who makes it "impossible" for their children to play video games at home, is essentially casting them to the world for the world to educate them on the content in video games. Are parents really so delusional to think that if they ban video games in their house, that their child won't go out and find their own way to play? ... Forbidding children from having things due to (soley) some moral ground is (IMO) a poor developmental stance. (Which isnt so different from parents forbidding their children from having sex, without giving any education on the matter.)

Now mind you, I would like to say that I do agree with you in part, but these two sections have me shaking my head in disagreement. I may not be able to blame a videogame designer for creating a game that is addictive any more than I can blame the Beer/Wine/Spirits industry for creating beverages that are addictive, but the principle here is a little different. The alcoholic beverages industry tells you on the bottle how much of the addictive substance is in the bottle by percent or proof, and is for sale to adults only and to be consumed by adults only as mandated BY LAW. It is assumed that adults are old/mature enough to be responsible for their own indulgences and we have consequences in place if they choose not to be.
The videogame industry is deliberately creating a potentially addictive substance/experience for children. Children, even teenagers, generally do not possess the reasoning capability to decide for themselves when enough is enough. There is biological evidence to support that brain/reasoning development continues into the late teens and early twenties. This is why we do not sell alcohol to children, setting aside that there are definite medical consequences for overindulgence. Children may or may not become addicted to videogames, just as adults may or may not become addicted to alcohol, but adults are of an age to decide for themselves just how much is enough and suffer the consequences if they choose poorly.
This brings me to the second point. Good parenting involves setting healthy limits for your children. If you believe that certain videogames are inappropriate for your child then as a parent you have the right to say that in your house your rules stand for your child until your child moves out, has their own house, and can make their own rules. If you are morally against ALL videogames ... I agree that the logic there is faulty. Banning your child from videogames will make him/her a social pariah in much of today's culture, however, there is something to be said for encouraging him/her into developing other artistic, musical, physical, and social talents instead. As a parent, it is your right and responsibility to make the best decisions for your child based on their welfare and benefit as you possibly can. It is also your responsibility to be well-educated on whatever you are making decisions on, and this applies to more things in life than just your children. Do I think that it is wrong to forbid your children to have sex while they live in your house under your roof for purely moral reasons? Absolutely not. However, you still have a responsibility to educate your children about sex because the media and culture of today are going to tell them about it and you might not agree with what they have to say. The media and much of today's culture romanticizes, rationalizes, and welcomes sexual expression and experiences. It downplays or outright ignores abstinence as a form of birth control. It devalues a very special experience that should be shared only with someone you deeply care for, trust, and value. If you've created an environment of love, trust, respect, and responsibility, then your children are going to be more likely to respect your wishes when it comes to what you do and do not want them doing and that goes for relationships/sex, videogames, drinking, drugs, and likely anything else you can think of. They may not like what you have to say on the matter, but they will respect your decision until they can choose for themselves. Forbidding your children from doing something on a purely moral ground is a perfectly good reason to do so, provided that you have done thourough research, explained to them why you have chosen this stance, and have built a home based on the aforementioned principles. If you respect your children and behave in a way that is logical and provides a good framework for appropriate behavior, then your children should model that behavior, because it is consistent with what is considered just and right. Telling your children they can't drink when you get drunk every night in front of them is a poor model for behavior. Telling your children they can't play videogames because they all contain satanic references is both illogical and shows lack of research. Your children are more likely to refrain from playing addictive games if *you* do not play addictive games and you define your reasons in logical processes. "I think we can find better things to fill your day" is acceptable because you have said "we." If they can't play videogames, then perhaps there is another place where you can steer their desires that you can find and explore together. As a family. It shows that you are interested in who they are and what they want. It's respectful of them while you ask them to be respectful of you; it's a good model for behavior.
A parent who fears videogames isn't delusional, he/she's un/mis-informed. Ratings don't cover all definitions of acceptability to all people. The child who has gone out and found his/her own way to play videogames against his/her parents' wishes has parents who have something more fundamentally wrong with them and their parenting style than an un/mis-informed ban against videogames.

This is not a double post.
[From the article] Dave Taylor: "I also feel that the game industry in its greed and desperation for sales has been negligent of this growing issue of the fallout of kids playing games. We're all about how addictive the game is, how much replayability there is and making sure it's a popular genre like FPS. That's fine and all, but the result is that you're creating a program that turns kids into game-playing automatons that spend a lot of time on it because of how addictive and replayable the games are, and that makes them very good at twitch reactions for hiding, jumping, crouching, shooting, lobbing grenades, etc. I agree that a great multiplayer FPS can teach valuable skills when it comes to teamwork and tactics ... but it doesn't improve the basics, like literacy, math skills, physical fitness and diet. These are a lot more important to responsible parents, and if your kid is either playing games all day or pining and whining to play games all day because his friends can, then you're not going to have a lovely view of the medium."

This is precisely my view of videogame development as it exists today. Videogames can be a great facilitator of various features of character education. But character education isn't all that children need to learn. When parents allow (and unfortunately in many cases it is that they simply allow and do not put a stop to) their children's *unhealthy* interest in videogames, then they are allowing their children to neglect other facets of their education. Ultimately it IS the parent's responsibility to decide what, when, and how long their children will play. However, the videogame industry isn't making it any easier on the parents when sections between saves become longer and longer, or you set up to do a raid on WOW that will take multiple hours to complete. (Not that WOW is marketed to children, but you get the idea...) Videogames for children need to have more convenient features like easy saves and pick-up-put-down playability. I LOVE Fire Emblem for precisely that reason. Saving is EASY. The pick-up-put-down is 100% there. It has GREAT replayability. Videogame designers should perhaps focus as much on who controls the purse-strings (that was an old reference...) as the audience it is trying to hook. Wouldn't parents be more likely to buy your games if they had an easier time getting their kids to finish their homework and go to bed even though the gameplay and storyline is so addicting that it'll keep the kids playing for months (and keep their parents buying sequels)? And while you're at it... throw in a line about eating a balanced diet, or about how playing soccer is a great activity when you're not busy saving the world! Hey kids, math is fun! [I'm gonna be a math teacher...] Kids generally listen to their heroes more often than to their parents anyway. ^_^

I think the writer tainted the pool anyways by asking "what do you HONESTLY think about X". I don't know why, but adding the word HONESTLY seems to make people want to give negative responses. Try a little experiment. Ask your same people what they "honestly" think about other things, particularly things that you think everybody should be okay with. I'm pretty sure that your answers are still going to be negatively slanted.

Oh, and about introducing your profession in public: I think it has more to do with the idea that games are for kids (and thus must not be healthy) that makes people cringe when they hear an adult is in that profession. I also think it is jealousy, as they wish their job was as fun as they assume yours is. They then draw upon what the media has told them in order to "verify" their opinion, so that they don't seem selfish. Getting people to actually explain the real reason they don't like something is difficult, because, often times, they don't even know themselves, and subconsciously make it up as they go along. I know I do!

trlkly:
Oh, and about introducing your profession in public: I think it has more to do with the idea that games are for kids (and thus must not be healthy) that makes people cringe when they hear an adult is in that profession. I also think it is jealousy, as they wish their job was as fun as they assume yours is. They then draw upon what the media has told them in order to "verify" their opinion, so that they don't seem selfish. Getting people to actually explain the real reason they don't like something is difficult, because, often times, they don't even know themselves, and subconsciously make it up as they go along. I know I do!

I agree wholeheartedly, though of course this is not the sole reason. But a very accurate one. Let me explain a bit:

I work for a telecommunications company that is extremely large, employs a LOT of people and basically holds a major market share of the telco industry - mobile (cell) phones, terretrial (land line) phones and the internet. We were founded by the government when Australia first got on its feet and were a government department designed and founded to create and operate the country's phones. So, being tax paid and the only one we grew strongly.

Then we privatised, got into mobiles and the internet and suddenly the media had us in their sights and suddenly the flavour of the decade was articles and media commentary on how we were a monopoly, how little old ladies got massive bills they couldn't pay and how we were more expensive than our competitors.

So now when I tell people where I work, I have to be careful or I'll get that look you get when you tell people you work for Satan and/or a telemarketing company. Of course, out of 2.5 million internet customers alone and a whole lot more land line customers, we're still number one in terms of customer satisfaction and quality - but that less than 2% that complain make our lives a misery. All because the media has instilled this opinion that my company is horrible.

Great article Brenda!
I NOTE that there will always be those who point at the new thing and find it scary (and try to capitalize on it).
I HOPE that with our persistent, informative and respectful conversations to the general non-gamer population we can defuse their concerns.
I KNOW that over time this will become a non-issue as gamers age and increase their demographic penetration to pretty much everyone.
The main concern is how can we advance that education and stop any negative legal restrictions from being implemented until games are no longer scary? We have games industry representatives at work, but everyone in gamer culture could do ourselves a favor by putting out good facts that show the truth about games. Here is the ESA link to the top 10 facts about games and gamers. http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php

As noted, you can't really explain this through any cultural/political split like Harv Smith did. It is (video game violence effects), in my experience, the one thing that all sides tend to agree on. I wrote a sociology project on my local Quake and Quake 2 deathmatch scene. This was new stuff at the time and the teachers were very encouraging. It was so long ago all the cultural criticism texts were still banging on about the 'meaning' of vast data storage like CDROMs, the simulacra of FMV games like 11th Guest etc and were hopelessly out of date (even being only a couple of years old). Academia was moving too slow to keep up. As a result what a wrote was mainly descriptive and half of the page count was an extensive appendix and glossary so people had some idea what I was talking about (when I had tried to describe online gaming in class people would go off on tangents related to Freud/Lacan film theory and Beaudrillard at what I said. I wanted to make clear that this was nothing like any medium previously seen and all current theories were inadequate.)
Anyway, after I submitted the criticisms came pretty evenly across the board; "I don't know how you can delve into a community like this and not address the terrible violence it is based upon." At the time I was stunned. I had heard such stuff before of course, but usually from bleating rightwing church going pundit types (who don't hold quite the sway in Australia that they do Stateside, thankfully). My university was notorious as an open minded, free thinking, hi