Can games condition an acceptance of violence?

I am in a bit of a quandary here...I am normally someone who attempts where possible to confront the criticism of games as learning tools where the criticism is made from quarters that I generally characterise as the moral panic-folk devil brigade. I think that much of the criticism thrown at games from this lobby can be dealt with quite readily as more often than not the attacks appear to come from people who have not played the games that they criticise or have any iota of understanding or appreciation of the modern games interface.

I often quote much of what Gerard Jones says in his book Killing Monsters to counter these arguments and I also make reference to James Paul Gee's use of Erickson's theory of the Psychosocial Moratorium when trying to establish young peoples appreciation of what is and is not acceptable in real and virtual worlds.

However, I have been reading a bit recently about Social Construction and I have to say that I am beginning to revisit my thoughts about some games. The main reason for this is that I have been looking at the Amazon review for an Xbox 360 game called Overlord. Here's how it is advertised:

"Discover how corruptible you are in Overlord, the twisted fantasy action adventure where you can be evil (or really evil). In the game's seriously warped fantasy world, players will become the Overlord and get first-hand experience of how absolute power corrupts absolutely". You could be a regular run-of-the-mill Overlord. However, with incredible power at your disposal and a team of evil-minded impish critters, the Minions, on hand to do your bidding, how will you resist the temptation to be wonderfully despotic?!

The Overlord has the power of concentrated badness right from the start and you'll know how much more of a total bad-ass you're becoming as the game tracks your 'corruption' throughout.

How corrupt you become depends on how you handle any given situation, your actions and how their consequences impact the game world. For example, if you and your minion horde dispose of a bunch of particularly nasty, violent Halflings that have overrun a once-peaceful village, the village's original peasant occupants will herald you as their liberator. Now each time you pass through, the peasants will welcome you as their new lord and protector, cheering your arrival and giving you offerings.

However, as an Overlord, it's worth seeing what more can be obtained from the peasants' gratitude. If you exert some proper feudal repression, they'll tremble and fall to their knees when you're in town. If you become truly mean, the poor peasants will resort to cowering in your presence, pray for their lives and even offer up their daughters in order to appease you."

Have a look at the phrases in red....they couldn't help remind me of the phrase shock and awe that was used at the beginning of the Iraq conflict. I appreciate that the game is a 16+ and that it is aimed at young and older adults and that in general people are not stupid but...I can't help feeling that games such as these can help construct an implicit acceptance of an ideology that says I'm bigger and stronger than you so I'll kill your family and rape your daughter, tie you up and lock you up without charge and and steal all your wealth.

What is going to come next in a game?

A bit of a rant I know, maybe  a little over the top but even though I wouldn't mind playing this game I wonder if the implicit messages within games such as these do ever so subtlety condition people to accept violent deeds that happen, supposedly, on their behalf, or, .... are games like these just harmless hokum?

Comments

[Dan Seamans]

This is an area I continue to struggle with. I must have started playing games at around the age of 7 and there certainly wasn't any Grand Theft Auto on my Spectrum 48 (this is back in 1982 or thereabouts). I have however continued as a gamer all my life and have naturally played my fair share of games with violence in them. From my experience then it hasn't turned me into a violent person, but I'm only one person.

I think you're quite right to question the language used to describe/advertise games as much as the content itself. I was speaking last week about my work in Second Life and afterwards one attendee told me of his dilemma when his boy asked if he could have a war game (it may have been Call of Duty, I'm not 100% sure), a game which the parent felt uncomfortable about. However he agreed on the condition that they also studied the events of the game in a wider context, bringing in books and dramas and so on, so that the game content could be experienced in a greater context. I felt this was a very honourable approach.

However at a time when Manhunt 2 has just been banned I continue to question the role cinema plays. Violence is extremely common, often graphic, and in many cases quite intentionally sadistic (Saw), yet movie after movie reaches the mainstream cinema and indeed the modern horror movie has had something of a renaissance in recent years.

So I can't say I'm against violence in games, although I dislike those that are openly cruel and sadistic and play on the gamers desire to act this way. What sits most uncomfortably at a personal level is that I seem to have a category of "acceptable violence", and I'm not sure I'll ever feel completely comfortable with the implications.

[Derek Robertson]

Thanks for your comments Sam. I too have my reservations regarding violent cinema and movies such Saw 1, 2 & 3 as well as Hostel seem to be bringing new levels of sadistic violence to the audience. I don't think that these films necessarily make people want to act in this way to others but I wonder if they are helping to establish a growing framework that influences our sub-conscience to accept horrendous levels of violence into our mental frameworks.

[Dave]

In terms of educational value, I'd say these violent or war games are useless. My grandparents and uncles were all in wars and share one thing in common, they never want to speak of it. War (or violence) is horrific that they never want to talk about it and until a computer game has this effect, it cannot truely educate about war. Infact, these games have the opposite effect, you enjoy it and play more, and I think along with other cultural media, it goes some way to normalising violence.

Id really recommend reading this book -

On Killing:The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

Which has a section on violent media and violent culture -
"Colonel Grossman¹s perceptive study ends with a profoundly troubling observation. The desensitizing techniques used to train soldiers are now found in mass media — films, television, video arcades — and are conditioning our children. His figures on youthful homicides strongly suggest the breeding of teenage Rambos.
William Manchester, author and WWII vet"

Personally I only watch real documentaries on war and am often disgusted by what I see in films and games. I cant help but wonder if the entire world could benefit from seeing what I see and being truely disgusted by senseless video violence. I think the true nature of violence is hidden by this media and thats dangerous.

I also did a post partly on this issue
http://oneducation.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/games-in-education/