Violence in Videogames: A Disjointed Muse

I’m fed up of myself. Writing ridiculously superfluous articles with absolutely no journalistic merit at all. That, and I missed my train to London Euston today so I couldn’t go and see a television pilot. I guess this editorial is, in essence, a product of personal dissatisfaction. Also today, I participated in ‘School’s Question Time’, a school/college focused take on the increasingly popular political debate program, Question Time. For those of you outside of the United Kingdom or those of you who live in caves and the like, the format is a panel of ‘experts’ in politics, generally 3 opposing politicians, someone to do with the ‘topic of the week’, for example a Trade Unionist and and a fifth well known personality. They’re asked questions but the audience, comprising of the general populous. Well, today I essentially participated in that, being a panel member, discussing the topic of violence in video games. Being the age I am and that of the other panel members, around the 17 and 18 year old mark, nobody believed that it should at all be banned or restricted, apart from those asked to play Devil’s Advocate.

If you despise word walls, or semi-disjointed pondering of ideas in which I’ve got no professional grounding, then close this page now. This isn’t an expert opinion into violence in video games, I’m one of ‘you guys’, as this article is very, very unlikely to ever fall into the hands of ‘non-gamers’ in reference to those who don’t know their Call of Duty from their smoked salmon. I’ve grown up with video games, but in a different manner to most mainstream gaming journalists. Obviously I’m younger and from my experience, other journalists seem to be around the early to mid twenties with the occasional elder of the group. This means that one of the first games I played was Driver, in relative terms a fairly ‘advanced’ game in the grand-scheme of gaming.  The beauty of this game is that I and many people saw it as being relatively harmless, although I can imagine there may have been slight concerns given the heightened public awareness of Joyriding, certainly in the UK, at the time this game was released. Given my age, I never really played the game ‘properly’, I just liked to see how long I could last, being chased by the police, in San Francisco because it was quite a novelty to be able to take off and occasionally completely screw over the game’s physics engine.

Compared to Super Mario Bros. or a game like Space Invaders, this is a much more ‘violent’ game, not necessarily in traditional katana-to-the-face sort of way, but you are actively encouraged to flee from the police in order to not get caught. I guess this isn’t necessarily a problem due to the fact that: children don’t drive and probably couldn’t, even if they wanted to, due to their size (yes, there have been isolated cases of 12-year olds joyriding, but they are isolated). So even if the squishy-headed little sods do somehow get ‘influenced’ into acting out on this particular game then they wouldn’t necessarily have the means or capacity to.

Went off on a bit of a tangent there, so I’ll discuss a much more pressing issue; No Russian. If you don’t what this is, it’s the ‘infamous’ Modern Warfare 2 campaign level where, as an undercover CIA agent, you aid and abet in the slaughter of civilians at an airport. I’d heard about this level before the release of the game and thought that it was clearly another ‘Fox News on Grand Theft Auto’ case of misconstruing the facts and manipulating them to suit their own agenda. Whilst I wasn’t horrified by No Russian, I know I should have been. Given that Driver was one of the first games I played and since then I’ve played my fair share of video-game violence (Most of which I played whilst under the age of 18, on games certificated 18) so I’m desensitized to it. I don’t mean in a cold-blooded, ruthless killer sort of way because I’m not a believer of gaming translating into reality; I’m desensitized to video game violence but when it comes to real life images of war, suffering and terror I’m absolutely horrified.

It’s all about context. No Russian was allegedly ‘justified by the context’ in which the scenario occurred, which I’d love to wish was true and was probably intended by Infinity Ward but in this instance, it’s certainly not the case. You’re essentially slapped bang into the middle of it, with a rather haphazard manner. My favorite films are generally those with an unhappy ending, or at least where an moment of extreme emotion happens throughout, this emotion and feeling is build up through character and plot development. This doesn’t happen in Modern Warfare 2. You’re a recruit to the CIA straight from Afghanistan who is tasked with infiltrating a known terrorist’s group, Makarov. The man is seen as a ruthless killer who ‘doesn’t flinch at genocide’ who ‘trades blood for money’. The last line, before you start the level, is ‘It will cost nothing compared to everything you’ll save.’ This struck a chord for me and not in a good way. Is the slaughtering of innocent civilians really a way to ‘justify’ anything at all? The CIA are fully aware that this massacre will take place but in order to ‘gain the trust’ of a terrorist they essential stand back and let it happen, facilitating terrorism? And we’re meant to sympathize with the CIA and in turn, the United States as being the ‘good guys’? You step out of a lift (or elevator if you’re being picky) to a crowd of people standing around in an airport. The other men in your group open fire and your gun becomes available for you to use and shoot into this crowd of civilians.

I’m sorry, but in no way is that justified by context. It’s not slaughtering for the sake of slaughtering, but it’s the sort of lazy storytelling and lead-headed narrative that makes video games an almost valid target for criticism of this nature. Sure, it’s happened in games before this, such as Grand Theft Auto and the like, but the difference is the context. Grand Theft Auto is historically cartoon-like and until recently never really professed to be a serious representation of life. That, and the killing is essentially choice-based. Those you are meant to kill are generally portrayed as the ‘bad guys’, whilst the civilians who happen to be walking around the city, much like in reality, are only targets of violence if you so choose. No Russian isn’t this, you’re given a gun, in an airport, put in front of a group of civilians with other men with guns who you’re told to ‘earn their trust’. You’re not explicitly told to kill the civilians, but it’s so heavily, heavily implied that it’s a rather moot point. Not only this, but the location. An airport is seem as the single most likely place for a terrorist attack to occur in Western society, given 9/11 and the attempted Glasgow bombings.  At any given place, during this level, bodies are on the floor, completely surrounded by blood. Almost all of these people are unarmed and facing away from you. Many were surrendering themselves completely to you, either through being critically wounded or putting their hands up in fear.

I wish I could stay it was a step forward for the medium, where the killing of civilians is accepted as an art form due to the context, but this is such a misguided attempt that if you were to show this level to an outsider, or even a casual gamer, they’d more than likely recoil in fear. The leaks were right: you’re playing a terrorist and killing innocent civilians. This is to tasteful gaming what films like SAW are to cinema, but in a much more extreme way. This isn’t by any means going to influence you into committing such atrocities, but this sort of thing ensures that gamers and gaming, as a whole, are not going to be taken seriously unless they grow up.

Tags: Driver Game Glenn Beck Jack Thompson Laika modern warfare 2 No Russian video violence