Violence Depicted in Popular Video Games - Case Study Example

Violence in Video Games With more than 6.3 billion dollars in profits reported in 1998, Gale M. B. Hanson wrote in 1999, the video game industry profits appeared to be increasing in conjunction with the growing public concern over the violent content depicted in many of the games being marketed to consumers (1999, p. 14). At the center-most focus of the public’s concern is the impact that hours upon hours of exposure to graphic acts of violence depicted in popular video games is having upon teenagers, the largest consumer segment of the video games industry. The challenge that exists for the courts, experts and parents lies in determining what, if any, harm exposure to video game violence has on youngsters, and whether it’s possible for that harm to manifest itself as a threat to the public at large. The question has of video game violence impact on users, especially teenagers, is one that has been undertaken by social experts in recent years, and one that has been put before the court just as recently in cases like that of a Paducah, Kentucky ninth grader named Michael Carneal, who, in December, 1997, brought a .22 caliber pistol and five shotguns with him to his high school where he killed three of his fellow students and wounded five others (Zirkel, P. 2003, p. 556). Although convicted in the murder of the three students that died, attorney Michael Breen filed suit against the manufacturer of the violent video games that Carneal was described in Hanson’s article (1999) as being “obsessed” with. Breen used a Kentucky product liability law to pursue claims brought against the video game manufacturers on behalf of the families of the murdered students (Zirkep, p. 556). Carneal’s games of choice, his obsession, which he regularly played, included “Redneck Rampage, Doom, Mech Warrior, Nightmare Creatures, Resident Evil, and Final Fantasy, all of which involved killing virtual opponents,” Zirkel reports (p. 556). Carneal also had in his collection of viewing material the movie The Basketball Diaries that has scenes depicting the fantastical dreams of the film’s young high school student protagonist where he’s able to fulfill his revenge fantasy by killing one of his high school teachers and “several of his classmates (Zirkel, p. 556).” There was also evidence retrieved from Carneal’s computer that showed he had an interest in pornography, and that the young Carneal had accessed certain adult websites that made the pornographic material available to the youngster (Zirkel p. 556). The suit filed by Breen on behalf of the families of Carneal’s victims named as responsible partiesthe manufacturers and producers of the video games, the movie videotape, and the porn sites (Zirkel, p. 556). The families and Breen claimed that the manufacturers of the material that was made available to the young Carneal were of such a graphic nature as to have caused the producers and manufacturers of the material to have known that the distribution of the material created for them a liability risk since the content of the material in the hands of a young person such as Carneal could induce an a-social behavioral response (Zirkel p. 556). Their claim is that that is what happened in the case of Carneal (Zirkel p. 556). The plaintiffs claimed that Carneal, as a result of repeated and prolonged exposure to the material, became “desensitized” to violence, and that but for the material might not have otherwise acted in a violent manner against others, and specifically the murder victims (Zirkel, p. 556). This was the basis of the second part of the claim concerning product defect (Zirkel, p. 556). There was a third aspect to the claim that focused only on the internet transmissions as being in violation of certain Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act (Zirkel, p. 556). While the claim went before the Sixth Court of Appeals, and on August 13, 2002, the Court rejected the claim citing Kentucky precedent and saying, “It appears simply impossible to predict that these games, movie and internet sites (alone or in what[ever] combinations) would incite a young person to violence. Carneal’s reaction was simply to idiosyncratic to expect the defendants to have anticipated it (Zirkel, p. 556).” The Court acknowledged, too, that mental health experts might disagree with its findings (Zirkel, p. 556). In fact, mental health experts do disagree with the Sixth Court’s findings, and in a journal article written by Kenneth A. Lachlan, Stacy L. Smith, and Ron Tamborini (2005), studies that have been conducted reveal that there is a correlation between aggressive behavior in adolescents and the exposure to violent video game content (p. 313). At least one of the games viewed by Carneal, Resident Evil (3), is listed among those cited in the group’s research material in support of the correlation between exposure among youths to video game violence and aggressive behavior documented as a direct effect of the exposure to that game (p. 313). In addition to other studies, the group’s journal article discusses research performed by the Kaiser Foundation, which serves to shed some light upon the notion that a video game might somehow be responsible for the aggressive and violent behavior of a young person. According to the Kaiser Foundation’s report (1999), a majority of two to eighteen-year-old children in the United States live in homes having a video game system (p. 313). “Nearly three-fourths of all the families surveyed have at least one video game console, and one third of all the children in this age group have a system in their own room (p. 313).” That nearly three-fourths of the children in the two to eighteen age ranges have private systems, that is, systems in their bedrooms that are in the two to eighteen age ranges should send up red flags even before the statistics are mentioned since it suggests what might perhaps be the basis for an altogether separate study family interaction. There is an implication here, too, that there exists a lack of control with regard to the access to games that are coded to reflect a general, teenage, and mature audience. In other words, there is reason to be concerned, based on the information provided in the Lachlan, et al., article, that there is no monitoring of the codes versus user age in the households that have these game systems. However, that these large numbers of children and adolescents have access to game systems leads directly to the next concern of how much time these children are spending with these game systems. According to the group of Lachlan, Lucas, Greenberg, and Sherry, these children are spending as much as eleven hours a week playing video games if they are boys; and six hours a week for girls (p. 313). The group provides study information supporting that for boys between the ages of ten and fourteen, the preference for video game choices were those game with a high content of violence, and that there was a direct relationship between the games and aggressive behavior (p. 313). It is perhaps necessary at this point to define the term “violence,” as it has been defined for the use of the Lachlan, Lucas, et al study. For the purposes of their research, “Violence is defined as ‘any overt depiction of a credible threat of physical force or the actual use of such force intended to physically harm an animate being or group of beings (p. 313).” However, in order to capture the full impact of the violent content of the sixty games used in the study, the definition of violence as applied by the studies and group goes on to include, “. . . certain depictions of physically harmful consequences against an animate being/s that results from unseen violent means (see Smith, et al., 1998) (p. 313).” The group found there to be a total of 1389 acts of violence committed in 600 minutes of video game play, or “. . . an average frequency of 2.3 per minute across all video games (p. 313).” Studies and data used to compile the Lachlan, et al., article also showed that the ninety percent of the games researched required the user to commit to an act of violence in order to be interactive with the game, and that sixty-nine percent of the games required the user to kill another animate being or group of beings (p. 313). That there was a high incidence of violent acts committed against females, and that there was also a correlation between violence and justification for violence, as well as ethnicity of the violent perpetrator (p. 313). According to Lachlan, et al., coding was used to break down the violence that put the perpetrators into characters categories as committing acts of violence (p. 313). Those categories were human, animal, supernatural, anthropomorphized animal, and anthropomorphized supernatural creatures (p. 313). There was a further breakdown by way of coding to reflect age and gender, or, as in the case of robots, neither (p. 313). What was revealed was that the majority of the violent perpetrators were Caucasian, while the most graphic acts of violence were committed by Asians, and that acts of violence committed by children were always justified (p. 313). What is really disturbing is that the research reveals that the game players actually relate to the characters that they control, and to the circumstances and responses, including the use of and level of violence (p. 313). Although, say Lachlan, et al., “The aforementioned white, male characters are commonly seen engaging in violence in popular video games are also more often than not presented in a way in which the motives for their behaviors seem socially normative (protection of life, protection of property) (p. 313).” While those noble responses may seem expected in extraordinary circumstances that warrant them, the idea here is that the amount of time spent experiencing those extraordinary circumstances by virtue of play time in video games, wherein the player is suspending his/her own reality to participate in the game “interactively,” desensitizes the player by way of overexposure to extraordinary circumstances, making them, and the responses and use of violence in responding, seem more ordinary than extraordinary. There is also the violent nature of the incidents that give rise to the noble responses in those extraordinary instances where society as a whole might not condemn the use of violence. That is an over exposure to those anti-social behaviors as posed by the antagonists in the video games that elicit the noble, albeit violent, player response. Also, where video games deviate from what has been previously considered acceptable in televised violence, through movies and television, is that video games use children as perpetrators of violence, whereas television and movies historically, and until recent years perhaps, portray children as protected from the violence by adults. This is giving youngsters the green light to respond with a response of violence that has not previously been sanctioned in a retail way. If the red flags age waving frantically at this point, unfortunately, the data and research do not get much better. Lachlan, et al., report “The possibility again exists that here that multiple contextual cues may be present in the violent presentations associated with video game violence that make them potentially dangerous role models (p. 313).” The information and studies cited in the Lachlan, et al., article, have shortcomings, the group readily admits this. “Other studies have supported this positive relationship between exposure to violent games and aggression with both child (Dominick, 1984; Lin and Lepper, 1987) and adult samples (Anderson & Dill, 2000). Although these findings are informative, they are based on survey data. As such, we have no way of knowing if playing violent video games is actually causing aggressive behavior in these instances (p. 313).” Although when combined with research information, survey information and data becomes more useful, the realm of violence and video games still requires research and study before the results can be prove useful against legal institutions like the Sixth Circuit Court. One of the certainties in American society is that companies will not necessarily act in a way that is in the best interest of consumers if that action is not in the best interest of profits. Therefore, until the courts penalize companies in a way that causes them large monetary losses, companies are not likely to change the content of their video games. However, Congress can act in a way that brings about changes in laws that cause video game companies to be more responsible in the content of their products. This has already been seen by the coding of video games for content with G, for general or family viewing and play; T for teenager viewing and playing; and M for mature audiences. It gives rise to the question of what extent is the video game makers responsible for who views the material. There must be a greater responsibility accepted by parents as to when and how their children use video game systems. Certainly eleven hours a week for a young boy to be playing video games that depict violent and graphic images might be considered, at least in the case of Carneal, to be excessive and harmful. And, failing that, to what extent might parents be responsible for the actions of their children who, like Carneal, resort to violence that causes irreparable harm and damage to others? The answer to that question perhaps came from the Sixth Circuit Court in the Carneal case and, subsequently, the Supreme Court when it refused to hear the case; since the plaintiffs had filed suit against “. . . Carneal’s parents, against various students who allegedly were co-conspirators or knew of Carneal’s deadly propensities, against the school district, and against some of its teachers, Kevin Shannon, who represented one of the two internet defendants in this case, observed: ‘In the wake of a grievous tragedy like this school shooting, any number of organizations and individuals are susceptible to being sued, including a company like my client that has remote relevance to the case.’” What will happen in the future as studies and data are collected and become more reliable and focused on the relationship between violent behavior and the exposure and over exposure to violence in video games is not known at this time. However, it can be expected that the pursuit of damage awards in the legal arena will itself become even more aggressive the video game industry’s profits continue to increase with the violent content of their products and there is an increase in the manifestation of the over exposure to the violent content by way of child and adolescent violent acts being committed against society. Works Cited Hanson, Gayle M.B. "The Violent World of Video Games." Insight on the News 28 June 1999: 14. Questia. 13 Apr. 2006 . Lachlan, Kenneth A., Stacy L. Smith, and Ron Tamborini. "Models for Aggressive Behavior: The Attributes of Violent Characters in Popular Video Games." Communication Studies 56.4 (2005): 313+. Questia. 13 Apr. 2006 . Zirkel, Perry A. "COURTSIDE: Virtual Liability." Phi Delta Kappan 84.7 (2003): 556. Questia. 13 Apr. 2006 . Read More