Know Your Gaming Rights!

By Anthony Pilloud
Contributing Writer

More and more, video games continue to blossom into cultural icons as creative and artistic minds meet and develop alongside the growing technological medium. With events like the Supreme Court’s ruling of video games as constitutionally protected and the Smithsonian’s “Art of Video Games” exhibit, the stamp of electronic gaming continues to bleed into the very fabric of our artistic and social media, as well as our culture proper. Online accounts such as Steam are essentially a second social network for gamers alone, allowing all the actions of other networking applications such as Skype into a streamlined, video game orientated social network. The release of a new game sequel (such as Halo 3 or Portal 2) is often met with the level of fan commitment found during midnight film releases.

So why, in the face of an overwhelming amount of societal evidence and countless studies that point to the contrary, do we continue to stigmatize them as subliminal initiators of violence and social reclusion?

In a direct response to the serial terrorism of Anders Behring Breivik, many games that were deemed violent or instigators of societal asceticism were pulled from the shelves of retailers. The two major games in question are the first person shooter “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” (CoD2) and Blizzard’s now infamous massive multiplayer online role playing game “World of Warcraft” (WoW). The connections to these games in particular, however, are completely intentional.

Breivik cited these two games in his 1,516 page personal manifesto “2083: A European Declaration of Independence”:

Present a ”credible project/alibi” to your friends, co-workers and family. Announce to your closest friends, co-workers and family that you are pursuing a ”project” that can at least partly justify your ”new pattern of activities” (isolation/travel) while in the planning phase.

[For] example, tell them that you have started to play World of Warcraft or any other online MMO game and that you wish to focus on this for the next months/year. This ”new project” can justify isolation and people will understand somewhat why you are not answering your phone over long periods. Tell them that you are completely hooked on the game (raiding dungeons etc)
You will be amazed on how much you can do undetected while blaming this game.

Target practise is likely going to be a problem for many people in certain countries (urban Europeans like us, ouch . Consider taking a vacation to a country where you are able to train in marksmanship or join a gun club. Simulation by playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is a good alternative as well but you should try to get some practise with a real assault rifle (with red point optic) if possible.

Yes, it is clearly evident that Breivik considers these and potentially other video games as tools to be used to his own questionable ends; however that is all that even he, in this violence-mongering excerpt, is suggesting that they are. Tools to an end, not the cause of that end. “You will be amazed on how much you can do undetected while blaming this game,” he writes. Clearly, his intent was murder from the beginning; with or without these games, he would have attempted to pursue this course of action.

Yet in the wake of evidence that shouts in contradiction, video games continue to carry this blame and stigmatization, as though we are afraid to simply admit that the violence came from the person, not from the game. WoW has over 12 million active users worldwide; what kind of world would we live in if every single user was a public shooter? For that matter, what world would we live in if video games did in fact contain an unconscious, “Clockwork Orange”-esque power to transform our children into troubled youth? CoD is, in fact, one of the best-selling video games of all time, with over 6 million discs sold in less than three weeks post opening.

It is true that WoW can exacerbate social awkwardness; though in this case the subject has that underlying social inability to begin with. The game is, once again, simply a tool to be used to avoid social interactions, not a guarantee of it. Any number of pop cultural phenomenas can be used to avoid personal communication from watching moves to reading books. Moreover, Breivik’s plan was in works for nearly a decade, while CoD2 was released two years ago. In no way can a Playstation controller be replaced for theft of an actual assault rifle.

We continue to point fingers and blame this electronic entertainment. Rather than accept the harsh reality (that Breivik committed an act of violent terrorism on his own accord) we find it simpler, easier, and ultimately more comfortable to cover up what makes us wary. 72% of American households have access to and play computer and video games with 86% of parents being present at the time of a game being purchased by a child. It is about time that we accept video games as an art form and realize that the notion that clandestine forces are working subliminally in them to harm us is an ill-conceived myth. Video games, like almost anything else, can and have been used as a means to harm; however they are not the cause of it.

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