This is a video about games and violence, but it’s actually about the nature of games on computers in the abstract.
I actually had a whole part at the end that I cut out about psychology studies on the impacts of game violence, but it simply didn’t fit the whole “spacial” element enough to warrant keeping it in the video. I also didn’t want to accuse an entire branch of the social sciences of not understanding videogames (although, going by the studies they release, they don’t).
I really hope we see studies that observe the impact of violent imagery in a game. Most of the studies I’m aware of do this in really broken ways – by comparing a violent game like Mortal Kombat or Quake 3 to more passive, peaceful games like Myst or The Sims. And these studies usually show the same thing; that short term aggression indicators like blood pressure, heart rate, etc are way more common in so-called violent games.
But of course they are! Comparing the physiological impact of a highly competitive fast-paced game like Quake next to an almost passive, mostly cerebral, and non-compeitive game like Myst is like comparing the physiological impacts of an intense game of street basketball with a light game of croquet – one is by design going to get your heart racing and the other is not.
And while I’d never claim to be learned on the subject, I’ve yet to see any studies that really attempt to compare Quake 3 to a stripped down feature-less version of Quake 3, or a game that compares a traditional game of chess to Battle Chess. We need to make sure we’re taking the mechanics out of the equation for these studies or else we’re just comparing the impact of mechanics on human emotion and not that of violent imagery.
Campster
15 Comments
Jeremy
Mar 3, 2012
[Nitpick: Spacewar was realtime interactive, not turn based.]
Daniel Kubik
Mar 3, 2012
I’m a psychology major and I can tell you with 100% confidence that they do not understand video games. There’s a significant consensus that video games encourage aggressive behavior, based on a long history of flawed studies going back about fifteen years. Saying otherwise is heresy; I had one classmate call me a corporate whore for defending the right of developers to publish what they want; when I started bringing up indie games like The Binding of Isaac or The Path, she practically spat in my face.
The APA has refused to take a position on the issue for some time, declining to file an amicus curiae brief in Brown v. EMA, but in general, there is a consensus that violent video games cause aggressive behavior. I’ve read many of studies, and I’ve found almost all of them to be wanting; in addition, a number of psychologists have advocated legislation or regulation that is plainly unconstitutional.
Eric
Mar 3, 2012
Great video as always. However, I don’t think violence is in any way more or less easy to simulate. The game mechanics of a first-person shooter can in many ways apply to a pattern-matching game, or a fire-fighting game, or any number of other generally unexplored genres, just as the numeric interactions of Sim City can be used to wage violent and bloody conquest in a war simulator.
What really matters are aesthetics – violence is attractive because it’s high-impact, has a gross-out factor to it, and satisfies primal thoughts and urges in players (not to get into psychology about this sort of thing), and it’s useful for game developers because it still gives instant and palpable feedback. Why does Nerf N-Strike not tear up the sales charts, despite Nerf being a big brand? It’s because players, both children and adults, aren’t attracted to the aesthetics of Nerf. When you’re eight years old, you play with Nerf guns because you fantasize about them being real guns – but that fantasy is no longer compelling when there is a “better” alternative, like Call of Duty.
Over the course of decades, gaming culture and to a greater extent Western culture in general has been defined by violence. It’s what we know (or what we think we know) and it’s what we’ve developed a mastery over creating and experiencing. As you point out, gamers have an entire lexicon which takes on a completely different meaning in the gaming context,such is our fascination and understanding of violent games. This is something we know deeply and it’s something we can relate to in the context of gaming. If we are to see a greater shift towards non-violent games, it won’t just require us to put aside the aesthetic sensibilities that define us, it will also require we develop a new understanding of the medium – and big publishers aren’t interested in that, nor are most people interested in re-learning how to experience games.
Joe D.
Mar 3, 2012
Hey man,
I just want to say that I love what you do. You provide great insight and break it down with excellent, tangible examples of what you’re talking about. Love it. Keep up the good work.
Henson
Mar 3, 2012
I can hardly believe you used the word ‘grok’ in your video. Neat.
Ambitious Sloth
Mar 3, 2012
I can hardly believe he referenced "Stranger in a Strange Land" at all. It makes me feel old.
Hex
Mar 3, 2012
Great videos you have on your channel ! I hope you get more visibility from sponsors, or whatever it takes for you to keep making those.
Your work helps game development and is absolutely what this “new” media needs.
Infinitron
Mar 3, 2012
Check out the latest Age of Decadence demo for a game that attempts to excise as many elements of spatial simulation as possible from the RPG genre.
Noumenon
Mar 3, 2012
RPGs don’t use the spatial simulation tools much and still focus mostly on combat.
Phignuton
Mar 3, 2012
Wonderfully done, as usual. Am I lowering the bar a bit much when I say that I couldn’t help but keep thinking “Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, Help, I’m being repressed!”?
Tizzy
Mar 3, 2012
No mention of Portal in a video on games as a spatial medium? Is this a terrible missed opportunity, or was there a reason it couldn’t be accommodated into the video?
Great work anyway: quite thought-provoking. Thanks!
Sketel
Apr 4, 2012
Very interesting, and I agree that games with other meaningful spatial interactions are always welcome to see.
I think a problem with how critics perceive video game violence is that often, the critic has not personally played the game, and they fail to see other elements of the game for what they are. In other words, they do not contextualise the violence. I think context is very important when discussing video game violence because all of our other day-to-day actions are also contextual. For instance, shaking hands. I shake hands with new acquaintances, but not with my girlfriend because of the context of the action.
In a video game, the violence often has narrative context, with in turn dramatically affects the meaning of the violence. Take Grand Theft Auto. This is a game that, while I enjoy it as an adult, I would never advocate selling to minors. The game series is about criminal violence in a pseudo-Earth-like world in which your violence is often inflicted on pedestrians, other drivers and the local police force, as well as other gangsters. Until a child reaches a certain maturity, I would not want them to be exposed to violence in that context.
Now a different violent game, such as Halo (Halo 1, of course. I dont have time for the others). Halo has more realistic graphic violence than a game like San Andreas, but the context of the violence is completely different. The recipients of your bullets are not civilians, but alien invaders attempting to wipe out the human race. The violence has a completely different meaning, and is in a completely different context – one completely removed from normal experience. I wouldn’t want my child to play Grand Theft Auto in case they start to associate actual pedestrians with ‘obstacles’ or people from whom to steal cars. I’d allow my child to play Halo at a much younger age, because the context of the violence is an alien invasion, one that ought not to affect the way my child sees other human beings.
This is speculation, perhaps. Ideally, there would be a study about this. Unfortunately, those doing these studies don’t seem to se the difference between different kinds of violence.
pure.Wasted
Apr 4, 2012
Very interesting analysis, although I think the idea of (exclusively) spatial gameplay staying with us for a long time to come may be a little less likely than you present. Games are already capable of understanding human voice commands (at a rudimentary level). There is no reason that this “tool,” for lack of a better word, won’t grow to be as important a way of interacting with games as the controller. Now it’s a few commands. Ten years from now, it’s a lot more. Twenty years, and it’s not just what you say, but HOW you say it. …one can hope.
P.S. Dialogue wheel/driving comparison = genius.
charles
May 5, 2012
Wow, I typed out a sizeable comment, but all the text was lost when hitting submit because I had skipped over the email field. Anyway, recap:
You make the point that “most gamers and developers have embraced the status quo”, but that quote doesn’t quite capture the reality very well.
The types of games that we have available are pretty limited right now, as you cover in your vlog. Being a “gamer”, now, does not mean “someone that is into whatever a game could be”, it means “someone that is into the small selection of genre games available at this moment in time”.
Many people watch movies, but few would consider themselves “film buffs” (and even “film buffs” could have extremely diverse tastes in films).
There could potentially be a much, much larger of people playing games on the regular. The reason they aren’t playing games is simply because we haven’t made the right games for them yet.
(And, like you said, what we have was made by taking the path of least resistance. Now that we have good tech and tools, we’re starting to see all kinds of experimental works crop up – surely a good sign!)
Why Always the Fighting? Is Violence in Games a Necessary Evil? | To Blog or Not To Blog
Oct 10, 2012
[...] are many and varied but there are a few core ones that jump out to me. As Chris Franklin over on Errant Signal points out, computers thrive at simulating formal systems with defined rule sets, but terrible at [...]
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