May 5, 2008 -
In the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune, columnist Katherine Kersten has a lengthy whine about Grand Theft Auto IV:Games like GTA IV stimulate and glamorize our dark impulses. They create a taste for the psychological thrill that can come from dominating and degrading others. They encourage us to strip our fellow human beings of their dignity, and view them merely as objects of violence or sexual desire.
The hazards of violent games will only increase as new, more advanced technologies like the Wii system take hold... you can act out a game physically.
The average 32-year-old man who plays violent video games -- and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers -- is likely to be someone's husband and father. What qualities of character will his wife find when she looks to him for love, steadiness and fidelity?
And when his young son looks to Dad as a role model -- well, that's the problem, isn't it?
Comments
[quote]Ms. Kersten:
I feel I must comment on your recent Grand Theft Auto IV column. With all due respect I must disagree with your basic assertions on several grounds.
Research has not "confirmed" in any way that aggressive tendencies are increased through the playing of violent video games anymore than they are increased through the viewing of violent movies. There are multiple studies suggesting that there might be some kind of effect and multiple studies suggesting there is little to no effect that persists beyond actual playing time. This is hardly confirmation of a hypothesis by any scientific standard.
Secondly, I have played video games for most of my life, receiving my first Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988 at age 4. Since then I have owned multiple systems and played a plethora of violent games. I have not had a potential for "...coarseness and cruelty..." emerge "...after months or years of immersion in lurid and prurient interests..."
I hardly consider my interests lurid or prurient. I am not a fan of the Grand Theft Auto franchise but I have played the games, have you? They are no more lurid or "prurient" than movies such as Goodfellas, the Departed (a Best Picture winner), Scarface, or even Gangs of New York. It is ultimately a "crime drama." You are not rewarded for random violence, to the contrary, each act of violence increases your "Star [or Wanted] Level" which results in increasing law enforcement response including police pursuit, helicopters, the FBI and even the United States Army. There is no faster way to lose the game than to engage in random violence.
In regards to your comments regarding the Wii, again it strikes me that you seem to have never played the system. The Wii is hardly the sophisticated simulator that your article makes it sound like. The gestures used on the Wii amount to little more to minor wrist movements to flick the "Wiimote" or pushing your arm towards the TV and back or twisting your arm to rotate the remove. You can not "act out" any real activities with the system at all.
I am a gamer, most of my friends are gamers, most young adults nowadays are gamers. We have been playing games, many of them violent, for years if not decades. There has not been an explosion in violent crime or depraved activity. How long is this "emergence" supposed to take? 20 years, 30, 40? The reality of the current situation has undermined the basic presumption that violent video games lead to violence, it simply has not happened despite decades of use by millions of people.
Now, I am not saying kids should be playing Grand Theft Auto, it is rated M (17+) for a reason. It is comparable to an R rated movie and the content descriptors on the back of the box will make it clear to any responsible parents that their 12 year old should not be playing this game. The problem I, and many gamers see, is that parents do not read these descriptors. I have been in game stores where parents have been informed of the rating by the sales clerk only to be told "don't tell me how to raise my child" or, and in my opinion worse, been treated to a display of "I don't care, just give it to him."
Video games are merely the latest media to be subjected to this kind of treatment. In the 1950's your parents generation was threatened by Elvis Presely and those "long haired freaks" such as the The Beatles. Just as the "Devil's Music" has survived, I must argue you are fighting a battle that is already lost.
Thank you for your time. [/quote]
I don't understand most of these idiots think people only play GTA because of the sexual content and hooker slaying,when you could probably find the hooker killing online,and can definitely find sexual content and then some.
...For thousands of years.
Kids have killed Kids...
...For thousands of years.
Adults have killed Kids...
...Kids have killed Adults...
...For Thousands of years."
-BJB-
Knowing that bit of truth, maybe Katherine could tell us how GTA4 has allowed our 'dark impulses' to be shown, when, as history shows, video games have only been around for 40 years. Yet, mankind has gone to war against itself for a few thousand years in every part of the world. If Katherine believes this shows mankind's dark impulses, she never knew(know) the horros of the Nazi Regime of Germany from 1934-1945.
GTA4 has NOTHING, on what the dark impulses of the Nazis were capable of doing. Maybe, to save from looking like an idiot, she should learn HISTORY.
Kersten is exactly as she has been described by other readers of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune; a ranting fear-monger who is absolutely convinced that this latest "threat" will destroy the moral fabric of our nation, plunging our nation into a morass of debauchery and anarchy unequaled since the dreams of Bacchus. Her column is the Star-Tribune's response to complaints that they had a liberal-bent, and her screeds are always written in the same strident manner.
Ms. Kersten is the worst type of Christian; she claims to speak for all of us while maintaining a world-view that my faith finds unacceptably narrow. Her world is one where ideas are threats, where questions are sins, and where differences are unacceptable. Frequently, Ms. Kersten speaks to us "as a Christian," - but her's is not the faith of my father, my mother, nor any of my ancestors - it is a faith of fear and oppression. This faith has two good qualities going for it.
1) It is consistent.
If this were 1980, Ms. Kersten would be warning us of the evils of "Heavy Metal Music."
If this were 1950, Ms. Kersten would have informed us of the corrupting influence of "Comic Books."
If this were 1930, Ms. Kersten would see it as her moral duty to warn against the licentious nature of "Swing Dancing."
And, ironically enough, if it were the late 14th century, Ms. Kersten would be warning us that the availability of an English translation of the Bible constituted a severe threat to our immortal souls.
2) History has proven time and time again that these ideas can not last.
I've written Ms. Kersten on the topics of video-games and school violence in the past (this is not her first time speaking on either subject) and have attempted to correct her mistaken views; to date, I have never received a response. I take comfort, however, in the knowledge that we will one day be the generation in power, while accepting that we will also fall into the same traps our parents and grandparents have; we should simply hope that we can be the first generation to respond to new media ithout fear.
And she know this how? Maybe she is the one "fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers".
WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHHHH! WAHHHH! WAHHH!
You know, that is all I am hearing and you know what? Not appealing.
THIS IS ROCKSTAR!!!!!
Sorry for that.
Seriously though how can she sit there and pretend to know what kind of Father/Husband I am? So what she is saying that by playing GTA I am living at my darkest dreams? I'm sorry I thought for a second there I was playing it because it was a fun game.
She'll find love, steadiness and fidelity, like she'll find in every other normal human being. Next question, please!
/b
I love how they bring up sex in the game when a vast majority of the stuff is pretty tame. I also love how she brought up the wii and its simulated movements which could provide more realistic sex/violence in games, because we all know that by holding down the b trigger and pushing our wiimotes foward and backwards for 10 mins will make for a realistic sex simulation :P.
Why does it always come back to the Hookers and Drunken Driving with this game?
That would be against the law and I would go to jail. I guess I didnt play enough cus Im not an amoral monster yet.
Wait... GTA4 was on the Wii? where the hell is this version?!
tells me right there she's neither seen the game, nor the consoles its on.
why is it all the old farts out there think these games are making people violent?
especially the ones that HAVE NOT PLAYED ANY OF THEM?
how can you judge something you haven't tried?
its like fanboys praising their favorite console, but never even trying the others.
i've all 3, and of the 3 i like the Wii most for its innovative controls (despite its lacking good games so far aside from Manhunt, metroid and VC titles)
the 360 has grand online, and the PS3... well... its big and plays blu ray (its best feature really) is all i can say really, its nothing spectacular at all IMHO.
i was playing Duke3D when i was 9... why aren't i hanging out in strip clubs, all day/night getting lap dances, handing out my money to strippers, and talking big while toting a lot of guns?
i'm even former Navy and i don't do any of that....
wow... so much for violent games make violent people...
i can see it being true if you suffer a mental instability already, but thats true for anyone.
I get pissed off if i hear most rap music. why? i dunno, but it makes me wanna break something.
does that mean rap makes everyone angry and violent?
doesn't seem too.
but just cause it effects me, i guess i should go back and fight it some more making false claims on something i know next to nothing about eh?
/dismiss
Rockstar is NOT good at mind reading.
Rockstar could never make a game that personified my darkest imagineings. It would not sell and i'm fairly sure it'd put the developers into therapy.
FREEDOM!!
I find your article rather distasteful.
http://www.startribune.com/local/18538584.html?page=3&c=y
"The average 32-year-old man who plays violent video games -- and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers -- is likely to be someone's husband and father. What qualities of character will his wife find when she looks to him for love, steadiness and fidelity?"
Do you think that these people are created by violent video games? Or perhaps it is more logical that they are attracted to them because of their pre-existing mental health. Where did all the sicko's of society come from before we had video games? Do you have any kind of research or statistics to support the idea that the total % of the population who exhibit violent and unhealthy behaviour as a result of their mental state has changed very much since the introduction of violent video games? Banning video games is cutting off the head to cure the headache, it's attacking a symptom, of a problem I don't think has changed at all since the creation of modern society.
In addition, the media is a reflective entity, if what you see in the media bothers you, you should look back at society and decide what in society is causing the problem, there is not supply before there is demand.
And what's with the "men and boys." I want to know if any women play GTA.
Phew. For a second I thought she was describing an average 32-year-old-man. Instead, she described an average 32-year-old psychopath. So, I'm safe.
I want her to explain, in detail, how GTA4 is so evil, but The Godfather series of movies is considered a classic (and I know a couple schools -- High Schools -- which show those movies for appreciation classes).
The early 80's called, they want their knee-jerk paranoia back...
The last people you want to mess with is gamers. I think Jack Thompson is starting to learn that. But who knows?
Since just about every man in his 20's and 30's plays games, I guess we have TONS of women in empty, loveless relationships/marriages!
I was going to say I would be just as qualified to make those kind of judgments as she is and with just as much research to back me up. But then after thinking about it, I am way more qualified than she is on the subject.
Ill tell you why, because THESE GAMES DO NOT CAUSE VIOLENCE.
Jesus H Christ.
I would assume she would only find those qualities if she was smart enough to look for a man with such qualities.
I'm curious as to why so many of these writers ignore women...they are discussed as victims and targets, but I wonder if female gamers are immune to all these evils that are supposedly welling up in men. I mean, everyone talks about how negative these violent masculinist fantasies are, but all the arguments assume that the game is reinforcing something already there, thus eliminating women from the picture entirely. I wonder what happens when the narrative is reversed and we ask what a husband finds when he looks for all those same qualities in his GTA playing wife... or if both of them play the game... for people brining up so many feminist issues in their critiques of the game, these journalists and bloggers are all showing a remarkable gender bias.
average 32 year old man thinks
b) uninformed
c) stupid. obviously she belives everything she
reads
d)all of the above
All i want to know is how these people even hold there jobs when they make statments like this, is there no way to hold these people responsible for the bullshit that comes out of there mouth.
Move along, nothing to see here...
Nice letter. Please, anyone else writing letters, be tasteful and rational.
No doubt if we did that, however, we'd have a religion founded by anti-games activists that centres around Jack Thompson's sacrifice for the sins of those video game playing criminals.
This would in turn cause us to ask ourselves; "Was it worth it?"
Next!