18th December 2004

Thoughts on video game ratings, violence and sexual content

posted in christian, edtech |
I posted the first 2 paragraphs of this entry as a response to Ian Jukes’ blog message about a recent NYT article (”Little Heed Paid to Video Game Ratings“). Avoid the registration process at the NYT and other sites by using www.bugmenot.com.

I share the concerns of many over the content in popular video games today… I recall reading sometime back that the raters do not actually play the games when they give them a rating anyway– they use vendor provided screenshots and descriptions of the games to rate them.

My main criticism of video game ratings, however, is that they (along with movie ratings) have the following embedded value: the older you are, the more appropriate it is for you to be subjected to (and immersed in an interactive environment with) graphic violence and sexual themes. I know this is an extreme view and is unlikely of ever happening (because it would be so counter-productive to the sale of games)– but I think there should be a new rating called, “NA: not appropriate for anyone, at any age.”

Many in the video game industry demonstrate a tremendous distance between what they say and do. An industry standard position seems to be that video games are fine for kids because they are “just virtual,” and it is better for kids to be harmlessly (their contention) killing, maiming, and injuring virtual enemies on the screen than actually hurting someone in the schoolyard or neighborhood. The gist of this position is the assertion that immersive, interactive video games do not change behavior– they simply provide the opportunity for virtual releases of aggression or just harmless fun.

The same folks making this argument are spending thousands and likely millions of dollars marketing these games for commercial sale: clearly the hype leading up to the release of the latest versions of GTA and Halo were highly successful. Marketing changes behavior… duh, obviously that is why so much money is spent by companies on it. And that effective change of perceptions and behavior is caused by passive marketing. The effect of immersive video games?like first-person shooters is intuitively (and has been demonstrated in many research studies) to be much more powerful and influential on thought-life and behavior.

And the corrollary to this is… violent and sexually explicit video games change behavior too. They change the mind, which in turn shapes perceptual reality and influences action.

I could go on about this topic, but I will conclude with this thought: it deeply saddens and concerns me to think that my young daughters will one day (in the not too distant future) be dating boys who have likely been strongly influenced by these types of video games. I don’t think a persuasive case can be made that there are ANY positive effects or outcomes from these violent and sexually explicit games. Except if the ridiculous depths of depravity to which they extend may wake up more people to very troubling cultural trends and tendencies, of which video games are but a symptom and small reflection.

As Robert Bork wrote in “Sloughing Toward Gomorrah,” society can tolerate only so much deviation from the mean until the mean itself becomes redefined. So the question is, how low can we go? Apparently still lower… :-(

Is there any way we can escape or transcend this cultural limbo? Not buying any “M” rated video games and turning off the TV more nights of the week than we do now is probably a good start down this path…

As the good Book says: “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

On this day..

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 18th, 2004 at 2:11 pm and is filed under christian, edtech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Comments are closed.