TECHNOIR (20 page)

            To be specific, it is the First Person Shooter video games – where a player’s perspective is directly from behind a high-powered rifle – that has made the simulation of blowing someone away oh-so real and increasingly realistic. Now apply this ease of simulated killing, say critics, to a child who has been playing a First Person Shooter (or FPS) several hours a day, every day, for several years in succession. Don’t forget the game becomes more and more realistic with each new release. Most of the war games offer play in huge life-like environments, exact replicas of urban areas and landscapes US troops have done battle in. And keep in mind that both
Grand Theft Auto
and
Call of Duty
franchises have sold billions of copies.

            What you get, say some critics of video game violence, is a recipe for incidents such as the
massacre at Columbine High School
. Both Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine shooters, were avid players of the FPS
Doom
– one of the original and perhaps the Godfather of FPS’s. Harris was so enamored with
Doom
, he programmed levels of his own liking. Strangely, both Harris and Klebold came from stable, upper crust, two-parent homes situated neatly in an affluent American suburb. They were also bullied by their high school peers; how severe is unclear. Their parents may have also played an unknowing role in their self-destruction (and destruction of so many others); it was reported the two teens had been alienated by parents who were obsessed with work, money and status.

            There are other well-documented instances of video-gamer violence. Tim Kretschmer, a teenager diagnosed with depression, killed 15 in a 2009 gun rampage in Germany. A childhood friend of Kretschmer’s told authorities, “He was fascinated by video games, he used to play a shooting game called
Tactical Ops
and he used to watch horror films like
Alien
and
Predator.
”

            Indeed, since 1995, when the first waves of blatantly violent video games started to enter the marketplace, roughly 30 school shootings have occurred. Media psychologist Rudolf Weiss, who analyzed many of these incidents, says the excessive use of violent video games played a role in each. Was Columbine the most sinister of them all? Probably. Did
Doom
desensitize them so much to killing that it pushed Klebold and Harris over the deep end?

            The problem is, the global opinion about video game violence lacks one significant thing: No definitive link has ever been discovered showing violent video games cause violent behavior. But this hasn’t stopped many researchers, scientists, politicians, and one determined ex-Lieutenant Colonel of the US military, to prove otherwise. What they may have proved, however, is that a “casual link” probably does exist; especially if the child has other risk factors, such as living in poverty or having an Attention Deficit Disorder. “There is a growing body of evidence that points to a link between violent video games and aggressive behavior in children,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) in 2005.

            One longtime media violence researcher agrees with Sen. Lieberman, saying he’s not surprised by the concerns surrounding the $20-billion-a-year video game industry.

            “The research is getting larger and stronger that shows violence in games increases aggressive behavior in minors,” said Iowa State University social psychologist
Dr. Craig A. Anderson,
who has made a career studying media violence. His theories lean to the conclusion that virtual violence inspires real-world aggression.

            “I would say that, since 2001, half a dozen studies a year have been published showing [a link],” he said, adding there are now 20 to 30 teams across the globe conducting research showing video game violence produces violent behavior. A conclusion long dismissed by gamers and free speech proponents. Some research, he says, is based on psychiatric evaluations. Other studies measured the brain patterns of hundreds of young gamers via MRI scans.

            Anderson, who plays video games with his own children, believes that many games enhance logic and problem-solving abilities. But he is also concerned about how realistic and violent a handful of games have become over the last ten years. Anderson likes to cite a University of Indiana study published in 2002 where MRI scans were used to view the brain activity from two groups of teenagers while they played violent video games – with one group previously diagnosed with Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBD). While playing, the teenagers with DBD showed reduced activity and blood flow to the pre-frontal cortex. The brain region where personality is expressed the greatest. It is also controls impulses, decision-making and the sense of future consequences.

            In a new study by Anderson, he and colleagues studied three groups of children. They included: 364 U.S. kids ages 9 to 12, 181 Japanese students ages 12 to 15 and a separate group of 1,050 Japanese students aged 13 to 18. Anderson told the Americans to list their top-three games and how often they played them. From the younger Japanese group, he asked them to count how often they played violent games. While the older group was measured on how long they play violent games.

            Later, all children-gamers were told to monitor their aggressive behaviors. Getting bent out-of-shape when fighting a sibling, for instance. Anderson then had just the American children watched by peers and teachers. Anderson’s team found that for every group, the child-gamer who reported playing the most violent games, and exposed to these games day-to-day, became more aggressive over time compared to those child gamers who did not regularly play violent games.

            German researchers have gone so far as to claim the link between violent games and aggressiveness is similar to smoking and lung cancer. These same researchers have also theorized the US military purposefully created FPS’s as to “militarize youth.” There is no hard evidence supporting this, and many combat-related games were created by foreign manufacturers, such as Atari. But 90 percent of American male youths play video games – and they’re not sticking to just playing Bejeweled. They’re playing the US military’s own
World of Warcraft
, for instance, the online game
America’s Army
.
Tens-of-thousands play it daily and many of them are under 18.
America’s Army
was developed by the MOVES institute of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. MOVES meaning Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation. Costing $7 million, it was released on July 4th, 2002. And it doesn’t cost a penny to play.

            But the US military’s need for video games goes way beyond their ability to recruit male teenagers. These days the US military has most of their troops (many just kids) train via virtual reality. Whether making them walk into a room where the walls are filled with pixelated jihadists, or if they’re wearing a visual apparatus that magically transports them back to the shoot-out they experienced in Fullahjah, the use of virtual reality by the US military has become one of its greatest soldier-making tools. While it’s a stretch to say the US military gave birth to FPSs to slowly nurture generations of kid killers, what is true, is that the US military co-opted video games – through
America’s Army
or virtual reality – to teach kids that killing is easy.

            One German scientist, Dr. Helmut Lukesch
,
a Professor of Psychology at Regensburg University, after an extensive study, found those society deemed “bullies” spent the most time playing violent games. On average, 17 hours a week. On the other hand, “bystanders” to bullies and their intimidating ways, played 12 hours. The “victims” of bullies, however, played 9 hours. It is a simple but clear hypothesis: Children with aggressive behavior will often choose to play violent games and play regularly. Meaning their numbness or indifference to the consequences of violence probably has grown due to video games.
Grand Theft Auto
awards points for battering a woman with a bat; this experience certainly does no good for a bully. The ultimate question than, and one that would take years to study costing much funding, does virtual violence such as beating a woman over and over dramatically increase the likelihood as an adult they’ll abuse their future wife or girlfriend?

            Another video game researcher says even those youths who do not regularly show hostility become more aggressive after playing violent games daily. Dr. Douglas Gentile, a colleague of Anderson’s at Iowa State, calls games that award violence, “violence-glorifying games.” He believes this is particularly worrisome: youngsters who were the least aggressive before playing violent games, increase their aggressiveness after playing violent games. He found that children with the lowest hostility rates are 10 times more likely to be involved in physical fights if they play a lot of violent games than if they do not play – 38 percent compared to 4 percent.

            But studies that promote post-video game violence theories are far from definitive. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a lobbyist group for the video game industry, counters by saying for every negative study there’s one that refutes the findings by Anderson and others. The ESA also contends their strict rating system, which ranks many violent games as “Mature” and in need of an adult to purchase, keeps kids from playing
Grand Theft Auto
and the like.

            Yet everyone knows millions of kids – almost all being young males – continue to immerse themselves in virtual slaughter. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then, that thousands of law-enforcement officers on our streets are being told “violent video games are the largest single threat to modern civilization”.

            Meet
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman
, one of law enforcement’s most in-demand speakers and trainers. Grossman, an ex-Army Ranger and West Point psychology professor, has been on the road 300 days a year since 2001, speaking mostly to law-enforcement departments and academies about how our violent society is under the spell of violent media. He’s booked solid through 2010, and will be far beyond.

            “I train 50,000 people a year, (and) 10,000 cops every year for the last three years,” said Grossman earlier this decade during a violence-in-media debate.

            Grossman claims to be one of the “world’s foremost experts in the field of human aggression and the roots of violence and violent crime.” He is founder and director of the Killology Research Group, a police and military consultancy, and since the Columbine massacre, he is one of the video game industry’s most fervent critics. He’s written several high-profile books, including
On Killing
, which is required reading at the FBI Academy and some of the nation's top military schools. He also wrote
Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence
. Grossman has testified before Congress and numerous state legislatures. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for
On Killing
and was cited by President Clinton during a national address.

           According to Grossman, FPSs are “murder simulators” that not only desensitize players from the psychological ramifications of killing, but also teach the mechanics of killing. Both his detractors and supporters say when Grossman speaks, the audience of police and law enforcement is riveted. Once he spoke for four hours at the Utah Sheriffs’ Association annual conference and “kept everyone glued to their seat,” said a law-enforcement trade publication. Two of those hours were spent discussing studies of the effects of violent video games on kids. Grossman refused several times to comment for this book, citing his busy schedule. But Grossman has likely left a deep impression on thousands of police officers and detectives.

            “Are we cognizant that these games are out there and they have a big influence over our youth? Absolutely,” said Chief David Hiller, national vice president for the world's largest police organization. Hiller said the FOP hasn't taken an official position on the issue of video game violence, but a lot of officers on the street are concerned that young people are emulating violent games. “Remember, these kids are being rewarded for pulling the trigger and killing people”. Hiller said some officers search for violent video games at crime scenes to present as evidence at trial.

            Thomas J. Aveni, co-founder of
The Police Policy Studies Council
, a law-enforcement training and consulting company, said Grossman is misguided to draw a definitive link between media violence and real violence. “He does perpetuate misconceptions among police,” Aveni said.

            Aveni said the real causes of violence are upbringing, poverty and other social factors, and that Grossman's argument is “too simplistic” and “illogical.” Aveni said he and Grossman have debated violent video games in e-mail several times in the past. He has challenged Grossman to a public debate but Grossman declined. “He should reconsider much of what he disseminates in the law-enforcement community during the last 10 years because at best, much of what he has disseminated is of dubious value, and at worst (it’s) potentially harmful,” Aveni said.

            Grossman has told audiences a way to remedy violent media is to challenge the producers and distributors in court – a tactic advocated by Miami-based attorney Jack Thompson. Thompson’s relentless public-relations war against the video game industry is becoming the stuff of legend. He once referred to the proliferation of certain Sony games in the United States as “Pearl Harbor 2.”