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4/1/2019 Do Games Like 'Grand Theft Auto V' Cause Real-World Violence?

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285,160 views | Sep 18, 2013, 01:30pm

Do Games Like 'Grand Theft Auto V'

Cause Real-World Violence?

Games

Erik Kain Senior Contributor

Just like books, movies and comic books.

Two events happened this week that many politicians and members of the media

will link together.

The first: A mass shooting in Washington, D.C. in which an angry, mentally-ill

young man shot and killed a dozen of his fellow citizens.

release of , the perennially controversial sandbox

game.

The shooting has already sparked calls for censorship of video games, with

members of the media claiming both that there must be a causal connection and

Second: The Grand Theft Auto V

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that not enough research has been done on the violent side-effects of video

games. I would dispute both these claims.

Fanboy Wars: The Newest eBook From Forbes The Fight For The Future Of Video Games is a warts-and-all look at the clashes between the video

game business and its passionate fans.

Blame Game

According to Media Matters, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski of the Morning Joe show

said that "it's kind of hard not to make a connection [between games and the

Navy Yard shooting] when you hear [the shooter's] friend saying that he would

watch on a life size screen these violent video games for hours and hours and

hours and hours and hours."

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The Telegraph's Nick Allen described the shooter's "darker side" which "saw

him playing violent "zombie" video games in his room, sometimes from 12.30pm

until 4.30am." Is it odd to describe a mass murderer's "darker side" not as his

killings or other unstable interactions with people, but as an activity he shares

with millions of other people?

Quoth Fox & ' Steve Doocey: "unfortunately you know it seems every time

something bad like this happens we look at "is there a connection between video

games and the shooter?" Well, take a look at some people who were described

as addicted, from Columbine High School, Eric Harris and Dylan

Klebold, the Virginia Tech shooter, the Arizona shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, that

Norway shooter who Anders Behring [sic], I think he shot 77 people. The Aurora

Friends

HRS +1.95%

4/1/2019 Do Games Like 'Grand Theft Auto V' Cause Real-World Violence?

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shooter, James Holmes, the shooter, Adam Lanza, they're all

described as essentially being addicted to video games."

His co-host, Elisabeth Hasselback, asked: "Is there a link between a certain age

group or demo in this - twenty to thirty-four year old men, perhaps, that are

playing these video games and then their violent actions? We have yet to find

out."

In fact, numerous studies have been conducted and the results are mixed. Some

studies have shown that video games increase aggression; others show the

opposite.

No study has ever shown that violent video games result directly in actual

violence, let alone mass shootings. That doesn't mean it isn't possible, though the

numbers suggest it's very unlikely.

Analysts estimate 18 to 20 million copies of Rockstar's GTA V will be sold

worldwide by the end of March, 2014.

It's possible that someone who buys and plays the game will later go on to carry

out a horrible shooting. Should that happen, it will almost certainly occur in

America, which boasts far and away the highest number of mass shootings (and

shootings in general) while boasting no higher rate of video game consumption.

See this chart from the Washington Post's Max Fisher, which illustrates this fact

starkly enough:

Sandy Hook

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If and when this hypothetical shooting happens---and really, it's just a matter of

when at this point---it will be terrifying and terribly sad, but it will pale in

comparison to the reality of gun deaths in America.

Each day in this country, on average, 30 people are murdered with a gun, 162

more are injured, and 53 use a gun to commit suicide, according to the CDC.

In 2010 in the United States, firearms were used to carry out 11,422 homicides

and 19,392 suicides.

But overall, violent crime is down in the US---indeed, as violent video games have

become more popular, violent crime has fallen.

Each of the shooters Fox & Friends uses to bulwark their case for censorship

played video games, but so do millions upon millions of other people every day.

Games are a $70B industry, and violent games consistently top sales charts.

If there is truly a direct, causal link between games like Grand Theft Auto V and

violent shootings, we will soon have 18 to 20 million killers on our hands, not to

mention the countless millions more who have been playing violent video games

for years.

Morality Play

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In an article remarkable for its odd congruence of measured tone and hyperbole,

The New Yorker's Simon Parkin argues that the "go-to argument that video

games are analogous to innocuous playground games of cops-and-robbers grows

weaker as verisimilitude increases." In other words, as games become more and

more realistic, developers need to be more careful about their content.

Grand Theft Auto V can be viewed as a torture simulator (or strip club simulator)

depending on which moments in the game you focus on. Parkin mentions a forum

poster who hoped rape would be included in the game---it isn't---and imagines a

future of games filled with such simulation.

"In a hypothetical motion-controlled video-game version of “Lolita,” it would be

possible to inhabit the body, as well as the mind, of Humbert Humbert," Parkin

writes. "A virtual sex crime might elicit a very different response if, instead of

pressing a button to instigate it, you were required to mimic its pelvic thrusts and

parries—even if, as in Nabokov’s work, it was included to illustrate or illuminate,

not titillate."

We always worry about the decadence of our children, the dilapidation of our

future society, the immoral nature of people who engage in activities we don't

quite understand.

4/1/2019 Do Games Like 'Grand Theft Auto V' Cause Real-World Violence?

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There will always be people who see great, calamitous moral failures just around

every corner. Sometimes they're right; more often, I suspect, they're simply

uncomfortable with a changing world. After all, we have a desire to explain why

bad things happen, and often we blame and evoke fear in order to do that.

When it comes to video games, the loudest voices are very rarely gamers. Like

film censors who don't watch film, or book censors who don't read, this creates a

hollow sort of analysis.

Grand Theft Auto V does have morally reprehensible characters, but the vast

majority of people who play this sort of game---hopefully the adults who play it,

and not impressionable children---see this experience as one of virtual,

temporary, and entirely fantastical debauchery.

We can drive through stop lights, mow over civilians, crash and die and start

over, get in ridiculous gunfights and still walk away on two feet. Or even just go

shopping, or play golf, or hunt. We are given a vast canvas of possibilities, and the

freedom to pretend to break bad in a cartoonish, outlandish, alternative reality.

Most people can see this for what it is: escapism.

Then again, gamers all too often do the heavy lifting when it comes to painting

the demographic in broad, ugly strokes. Game critics and developers have

received death threats in the past for changing a game or panning it in a review.

There is a small, but vocal, minority of gamers who do their level best to

undermine the rest.

The Line

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Not everyone can draw lines between fiction and reality.

There are those who almost certainly are influenced by violent media to act out

violently. The Aurora shooter had an obsession with The Joker from

film. Would he have carried out his crimes without that film?

Who knows. Probably. (Even with tighter gun laws, it seems likely he would have

attempted a mass killing. His apartment was rigged with explosives.)

But the horrible actions of the few is no cause for censorship, and all too often the

censors really only want to clamp down on other peoples' entertainment, not

their own.

No, these shootings should point us to the elephant in the room, the other big

common theme across all these mass murderers: untreated mental illness.

If there is a true culprit here, it is a society which allows so many of its mentally ill

to fall between the cracks; it is the ease with which potentially violent, obviously

disturbed young men gain access to firearms.

If it were as simple as saying "violent video games kill people!" then we'd really be

in trouble. It's a silly fallacy, of course. (Homicidal maniacs kill people. Homicidal

The Dark Knight

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maniacs play video games. Therefore, video games cause homicidal maniacs to

kill people.)

If it were true, millions of your neighbors, kids, and co-workers would be violent

killers. So far as I can tell, this is not the case.

None of which is to say that violence in games doesn't matter, or that violence in

games or any other media should be protected from analysis or critique. Gamers

are rightfully fearful of censorship, but they too often mistake criticism for

censorship, and that can make honest, amicable discourse on the topic difficult.

I believe strongly that the media we consume can and does impact our lives in

other more subtle ways. "You are what you eat" is an adage that applies equally

well to the images and experiences we code into our brains. It may not make us

killers, but I find it hard to believe we are simply immune to the things we do on a

daily basis.

Games like Spec Ops: The Line attempt to critique this violence and make us

think about it critically, and even if we don't agree with the conclusion at least

developers and writers are attempting to have the conversation on their own

turf rather than on Fox & Friends.

Criticism and calls for censorship are two very different beasts. Video games are

an easy scapegoat for a reactionary media and reactionary politicians, but that

doesn't mean we should sit back and take an equally partisan, biased view of the

ways our media might affect us.

Parents have a huge responsibility to understand and yes, censor, the media their

children consume. Adult gamers have a similar responsibility toward their own

cultivation of ideas and influences.

Thankfully, the US Supreme Court has made it very clear that the government has

no such responsibility in limiting the speech of American citizens.

Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Read my Forbes blog here.

4/1/2019 Do Games Like 'Grand Theft Auto V' Cause Real-World Violence?

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I write about video games, TV and movies.

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Erik Kain Senior Contributor