So apparently, the families of the victims of those recent highway killings are suing Rockstar Games, Take Two Interactive, Sony, and Walmart for (in turn) making, distributing, approving, and selling the game Grand Theft Auto III, which the two murderers cite as inspiration for their little spree.
The game developer forum that I participate in is in an uproar about it, naturally. Below is a repost of my own contribution to that thread:
quote:There's a disturbing trend these days to explain human behavior in terms of cause rather than motive. When someone commits a murder, and someone asks why, most of the answers that pop up are "because he was abused" or "because he had a mental disorder" or "because he played the wrong video games" and never "for a thrill" or "for money" or "for vengeance".
It is incredibly dehumanizing when we start talking about other people as though their behavior were determined by a mathematical confluence of outside factors, rather than by their own personal motives and choices. Part of what makes us human is the fact that we at least attempt to do more than merely react to outside stimuli. We have the ability to pursue imagined goals, create new tools, ideas, and artistic expressions, and defy our apparent fate to achieve something better. When we try to explain away our bad behavior as though it were caused by some outside factor beyond our control, then we ALSO deny much of what makes us great.
The latest crop of excuses for murder are about as valid as the old "devil made me do it" defense. We've turned the old "devil" into the target du jour — movies, games, music, abuse, mild psychological syndromes — but the excuse is the same. I wonder if we'll ever grow up.
posted
Ah, yes, but isn't is just as sickening to hear them say the game is protected by the first amendment? Last I heard, they charge for those games. Free indeed Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I don't like the game, and I have no doubt that games have some influence, subconsiously, on people, but I don't disagree with what you said at all. In my opinion, you're exactly right.
But, is this anything new? I mean, haven't plenty of people already sued or attempted to sue Rockstar because of GTA3?
Posts: 2292 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Hold on. Pooka, what's wrong with games being protected by the first amendment?
And Sun, why do you think Rockstar should pay massive sums of money because an admitted murderer blames their game for his own behavior? I mean, a murderer could blame ANY violent media they had viewed as an inspiration for their crimes if they wanted to. They picked Grand Theft Auto, so now it's Rockstar's fault?
Sure, these kids could shoot at cars in the fantasy world of Liberty City. But they are the ones who decided to do it in real life. They made that choice. None of the other millions of players did. Just these two. It's not like they didn't know the difference between the game and reality. It's not like they were playing some magically hypnotic version of the game that no one else got. They are the ones who decided to kill.
Why are we so eager to abandon that fact in favor of blaming a company that very reponsibly published an M-rated violent game aimed at adults? I mean, they even set the sequel in the eighties and filled it with nostalgia that only appealed to people in their twenties and over. Even if the games WERE magically hypnotic, Rockstar does not market them to children. Lazy parents give them to children. That's not the same thing.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I didn't say it was untrue, but it is still sickening. First amendment protects my right to say so, neh?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Okay, wait a sec, I'm getting the sense that Sun may have been joking. Smiley and all ... but still, do you really hope they win?
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I don't believe for a second that this sort of lawsuit is anything other than money-grabbing. I agree with aRND - these kids had a choice. They chose to go shoot people. They knew it was wrong, they knew that it was immoral but they did it because they were indulgent selfish dipsticks with no concience or empathy.
The game made them do it. If you believe that you're a complete tool.
You know what? I was a violent kid. I had loving parents, a stable home environment and no computer games and EXTREMELY resticted TV viewing in a fundamentalist religious household. I used to be taken by these rages would beat the living snot out of anyone who had provoked me into it.
I grew out of it. I studied Tae Kwon Do and learned to control my temper etc etc etc.
But I've been out of home for eleven years now and have been playing ludicrously violent games the entire time. Yeah, there are times when you want to take a gun to some idiot or run a fool off the road.
But you don't do it.
Why? Because it's wrong, it's immoral and you know it.
The way we live our lives is all about choice.
These guys made a choice, and the game merely provided the staging, not the motive.
Posts: 2245 | Registered: Nov 1998
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Well, just about as much as I've ever hoped for something that's obviously wrong to happen, but I guess not. I've just got a vandetta against big buisness.
Posts: 1103 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Last I heard, they charge for those games. Free indeed
I think that you are improperly conflating two definitions of the word "free." Freedom of speech has little, if anything, to do with whether or not the "speech" is sold for profit.
quote:Why are we so eager to abandon that fact in favor of blaming a company that very reponsibly published an M-rated violent game aimed at adults?
There's an easy answer to your question, Geoff: because people these days don't believe in personal responsibility.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:Actually, it doesn't have to be violent; only taken in a violent way. Example: Helter Skelter.
Another example: Jodie Foster
Sun, maybe we see this different ways, but if I had a vendetta against a large class of entities (which I don't), I personally would rather see them taken down for the right reasons, and not for reasons that could spawn a myriad of their own problems.
And it's not like Rockstar is some giant megaconglomerate. They're a relatively young publisher in the company of EA and Activision. They should be the goodguy here ...
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posted
I don't think a violent video game causes violent behavior any more than watching kiddie porn makes people want to have sex with children.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
So are you saying that they do make people violent, or that the only people that will be attracted to such games are people who are already violent?
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
The first amendment wasn't created so that people won't get high blood pressure from not expressing themselves. It was created because media is necessary to bring about change. Now from the outside you can't necessarily tell which is which, and sometimes the former is a step toward the latter.
Invoking the first amendment in this case doesn't advance Dog's argument because having the right to do something doesn't mean you are free from the consequences of doing it.
And the first amendment doesn't protect the right to incite insurrection and disorder, any more than it protects the right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre. This will probably be the aruging pivot of the case. Sigh. I guess in a sense the Matrix is impermissable under this view.
As for my bad pun, I thought it would be better than just typing :bump:. Sorry if I offended you. I don't know why I'm so surly lately.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:A combination. A lot of the second, and a little of the first.
In any event, I disagree with both of those statements.
I will say that it's likely that people with violent tendencies would be attracted to such games (which is different from saying they'd be the only ones), and it's possible that violent video games might nudge an unstable person with latent violent tendencies enough to start expressing such tendencies.
However, I think that, in general, most people are neither violent nor unstable enough for this to happen, and given the rising popularity of video games across demographics, I'd say it's unlikely that the gaming population has a markedly higher proportion of violent or unstable people.
But the minority who are are the ones for whom a game showing how fun it can be to shoot prostitutes will make a difference.
I don't think they should win this suit, by any means. But for Geoff to compare it to "the devil made me do it"...well, I don't think that's accurate. We are influenced by thousands of outside factors, and I don't find it dehumanizing at all to say that they have much weight in our behavior.
I've known too many dumb kids do things they've seen elsewhere just to be cool. Where do they get the idea that it would make them cool?
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
We are influenced by our environment and experiences, for sure, and teenagers do stupid things to be cool, true, but I think there's a giant difference between a teen doing drugs or driving drunk or having unprotected sex than one who goes around killing prostitutes and driving over pedestrians on purpose.
I think the people who are unstable and violent enough to have a video game (or song or movie or whatever) influence them enough to go commit violent acts constitute not just a minority, but a vast minority. Should the entire gaming community be suspect because of a few sick individuals?
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Frisco, there's a difference between recognizing your influences, and BLAMING your influences. If we start acting as though outside influences ABSOLVE us of our decisions, then our moral and legal systems have no way to hold anyone accountable for harmful behavior.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I'm not saying that they should be legally liable.
quote from me:
quote:I don't think they should win this suit, by any means.
I'm just saying they're partly to blame for making this child what he is. So are a lot of things. And these things are only getting more and more acceptable to society.
I'm not saying we can't promote these things, just questioning whether we should. The amount of teen violence has skyrocketed in the last 20 years. Maybe it's just coincidence that society has also become that much more acceptant of violence, but I, personally, can't believe that.
The tradeoff isn't worth it to me, but I guess I'm not the one making the quick buck.
quote:pooka said: And the first amendment doesn't protect the right to incite insurrection and disorder, any more than it protects the right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre. This will probably be the aruging pivot of the case.
No, actually. “Incitement” can only be used to regulate speech designed to produce “imminent lawless action.” It’s not at all analogous to shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, since that is calculated to immediately endanger people.
posted
Hmm... next time someone runs around killing people because, "God told him to" I'm going to look for people trying to sue his church/ban whatever holy literature he upheld as the truth.
I mean, it's passing the buck in just the same way. But people who say God told them to are loopy and people who say video games/movies/music told them to have a point.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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So, violence as a whole is dropping, which would explain the teen violence numbers as dropping...but they're making up an increasing percentage of our prison populations.
While I see that the number of actual crimes has decreased, I don't think that means they're less violent. I think it means we're better about keeping them in jail. We're better about keeping an eye on the areas where violence is predicted, but it's cropping up in places we don't expect.
Thesesites, purported to be from the same sources as those in your links, state the opposite: that teens are becoming more violent. I wonder if a guy writing a book on the myths of teen violence would try and find statistics that agreed with him?
quote: Maybe it just seems like they're more violent because they are committing a larger proportion of crimes.
Your link doesn't say they are committing a larger proportion of crimes, but "Juveniles held for person offenses were a greater proportion of the public custody population in 1995 than in 1983." which is not the same thing.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Edit: You're right. They're not the same. But the spirit is the same. The percent of the population made up by violent teens has grown against other groups of criminals.
posted
But how do you explain that violent teenagers make up a larger proportion of the prison population if you don't think they're committing an equally proportionate numbers of crimes? Have they gotten stupider in the last 20 years, and are just getting caught more frequently than other groups?
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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This shows the percentage of crimes committed by juveniles. I think I wasn't clear earlier. I'm not saying that juveniles don't necessarily commit a larger number of crimes, proportionally, than their adult counterparts. The discussion here is whether video games in general, or GTA specifically, causes more violent crimes.
As you can see from the link, juvenile crimes have pretty much stayed the same over the last 30 years. If there was, indeed, some kidn of correlation between video games and crime , we should see a dramatic shift in crimes done by juveniles (edit: to correspond with the large increase of video game consumption), and in fact, that I can see, we don't.
Edit: And even with a large increase, we need to tunnel in on video games being causitive.....
posted
The relevant argument in my view is whether a very violent game, like GTA, supposedly decreases aggression (by allowing people to "let it out") or if it increases it. Or if we are all so dispassionate and rational that it has no effect.
I believe media violence (and porn, and probably internet arguments) are addictive, meaning they are in some way self-gratifying but also desensitizing so that more stimulus is required for satisfaction in the future.
posted
Yeah, rivka. I'm agreeing with Frisco more and more lately, which is scary, 'cause he's an idiot!
He has said they shouldn't win. He's not saying we should pass the buch instead of taking responsibility for our actions. But acknowledging the truths that people are responsible for their own actions, that blaming others for what we do undermines our own dignity, and that speech should be protected as much as possible until it begins to impinge on the rights of others, does not mean that we should go to the silly extreme of shutting our eyes to the fact that the messages people--and kids especially--receive do impact them. No, Rockstar is not responsible, but I'd hardly call them "the good guy" either.
It's kind of like when OSC rails against some perceived Hollywood/literati/academe message destructive to families or small towns or whatever. He's not saying that their first ammendment rights should be curtailed, but that the message they are sending is, in his eyes, immoral.
If you worked in an urban or semi-urban public school, I doubt you could continue to think of this game as a good thing, or of its publishers as good guys.
And no, I don't think they should lose the lawsuit.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
With all the work we've done trying to prevent violent crime, doesn't it make sense that there's something countering that for the rates to stay virtually the same?
We're working hard against actual violence, but becoming more accepting of media glorifying it. I think we're treading water.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Good point. I don't have the answer. There are a lot of culprits out there which are known to have effects on violence--poverty, lack of parental involvement, etc. However, I blame the Mormons.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:If they win, the VG industry is going to become very, -very- boring.
Hmmm...
If this is true, and the only excitement the VG industry can come up with these days is extreme violence, I think the industry has a much bigger problem to deal with.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote: How many of you can honestly say that if you saw a flashing box with a question mark on it, you wouldn't go up and punch it?
Me. But then again, I'm not sure what video game that comes from. Is that a Super Mario Bros thing? Sounds vaguely familiar, from the one time I played it 15+ years ago. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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... but still, do you really hope they win?
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Me. But then again, I'm not sure what video game that comes from. Is that a Super Mario Bros thing? Sounds vaguely familiar, from the one time I played it 15+ years ago. ![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
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