Some historical precedent
For the next time that your friendly local government starts using your hobby as a weapon in the culture wars… Wired catalogs past “threatening” media.
It’s interesting to me the way in which control of idea flow is truly a nonpartisan concept. If it’s not the right bashing evolution, it’s the left protecting the children. Both motives flow from similar places, of course, but I wonder when the “stay out of my head” political reaction really takes hold — if ever.
After all, it is a more nuanced discussion than most game hobbyists want to admit. Recently I read a call by Ron Gilbert to “stop blindly defending video games”:
I think it’s irresponsible for the industry to bury it’s head in the sand and pretend that what we do has no impact. Like any force of popular culture, what we do does have an impact and designers need to understand that.
I am not suggesting we stop making violent games or censor (or let anyone censor) ourselves, but we do need to realize that what we do affects people, and that’s a good thing. It means we’re relevant and artistically influential, but with that comes responsibility, not only for the people making the games, but for those who are writing about them and standing up for them.
This position, which I happen to share and publicly espoused in the book, is one that doesn’t get talked about very much. Instead, it falls victim to the curse of all nuanced discussion: it’s not sensationalistic enough to really penetrate into the discourse on the subject. Instead, we get the hardline “get out of my head, take personal responsibility” sort of libertarian line, which tends to both minimize all responsibility for public reaction, and also trivializes the immense power of games as a medium.
The pendulum always swings; one decade’s morality is another’s license. The game gap is generational, primarily. The trick is to get through the next few decades. Once all the baby boomers are dead, this pretty much won’t be a political issue anymore. But it will remain a cultural issue as long as games continue to be made, just as everything in that list on Wired has remained a cultural issue, simply because games are a significant medium.
10 Responses to “Some historical precedent”
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Dude, I am so buying you a beer for that comment! =)
I do think that time is on our side here – to quote a baby boomer song. This is nothing more than a traditional reaction to a new form of media, and once the fear mongering is over it will be as normal as anything else.
Still prone to controversy, as movies, etc. can be – but also an accepted medium where the what you do with it draws the controversy, not the medium itself.
IE: In the future Rockstar can still get itself in trouble for games, but it won’t affect the rest of the industry as much.
[…] Once all the baby boomers are dead, this pretty much won�t be a political issue anymore. — Raph Koster Taken out of context this is my favorite line ever from a game developer. I may have to SIG it._________________Grimwell Member: HOS […]
It continues to blow my mind how society wants to peg all of it’s ills on some event/activity. We are always looking for something to blame. The thought runs that if we get rid of this activity our kids and our future are safe. We never look at ourselves or our humanity for the cause.
Bottom line is that it is a parent’s responsibility to know what their children are doing and to be an example of how to be a “productive” member of society. You can’t blame youth violence, underage drinking, drug use or any other deviant behavior on “the media.” Where were you when they where watching The Sopranos? What where you doing while they where playing Grand Theft Auto? If as a parent you believe these activies to be wrong why do you let your children participate in them?
If children are so important why are we letting parents duck their responsibilities?
I understand these are busy times. And the pressure to succeed at work and home are tremendous. And I know with the busy schedules of our kids it’s not possible to always be there. But you need to talk to them about things. You need to ask questions. You need to be there for them and not working overtime to advance yourself.
Sorry for the rant, I feel better now.
Spyer O’Brian
Don Quixote was about a man who read too many books and went crazy and thought he was living in the age of chivalry… He didn’t exactly go postal though.
Hmm… I wonder if you could make a game where the player’s character has played so many games that he’s gone crazy and thinks he’s in a game?
Solving problems is hard. Pretending to solve imaginary problems is politics
I have mentioned this before, putting it in terms of “free speech” for people to understand.
The problem is that video games are caught at that awkward time in the development of a medium. It’s established enough that people know they aren’t going away, and that it’s possible for the medium to influence people. (Of course, most of the moral guardians focus on how it could influence people to become depraved, even though they are more fearful that it could lead people to question the existing social order.) On the other hand, the media isn’t established enough to be considered “art” in the traditional sense.
I suspect it might take longer than just the boomers dying off for video games to stop being demonized. Witness how various forms of “rock ‘n’ roll” are still reviled by people in power. I suspect that as we experiment with games more and find new formats (like MMORPGs are a different format of computer games), we’ll find new people rising up to demonize those as well.
(With apologies to Raph’s daughter. 😉
O’Brian: “You can’t blame youth violence, underage drinking, drug use or any other deviant behavior on ‘the media.'”
Naturally. But can we blame good morals, accelerated learning, and positive responsibility on “the media,” when such things surface as a result of said media? As a youth, I watched Sesame Street, played Ultima IV, and listened to “We Are The World.” I got a few good things out of that stuff. I honestly can’t think of a single bad behavior I got from the media…and that slightly troubles me. Dare we count the hits, and ignore the misses?
I think that part of the problem is that a lot of us are hard line First Amendment defenders, and there is a real (and possibly justifiable) fear that if you give even the smallest inch on that front, the whole building crumbles. Even so, those who choose to simultaneously defend another’s right to do something, and at the same time chastise them for their reprehensible lack of social conscience, tend to be chronically misunderstood — and ultimately accused by both sides of being on the other side.
I am beginning to think that the general public may be incapable of grasping the distinction. The very idea of human rights is a somewhat sophisticated one, in the first place. It sometimes runs at odds with our most primitive understanding of the common law: “Bad things should be illegal.” Many people have difficulty navigating the tangled thorns of that rose garden.
Yes, there are some damn socially irresponsible games out there. There are also socially irresponsible books. And music. And TV shows. And just about everything else. Even in other media, we haven’t quite figured out how to tease out that delicate distinction between “can” and “should.” If I complain about a sexist TV ad, I am immediately accused of attacking someone’s rights, no matter what disclaimers I may have made to the contrary.
How does one cut through all this to make a point? How do you stop people from simply shutting off, because they immediately assume you’re one of those people?
Tess, your post reeks of the discussion over at Terra Nova in Dear PC Gamer”.
I will point out that now, at least, the problem isn’t firstly the culture of tolerance, but rather the stubbornness of people… That doesn’t sound like a good thing, unfortunately.