Edit - Lotta video game apologists in this thread. Look past your capitalist dependency on causing violence to other people/animals, and recognize what you’re doing. Stop Video Games.
Video Games are a media (superstructure) that reflect the economic base we live in. It is part of the cultural hegemony we live under, that the state uses to justify itself and capitalism.
Violence is an inherent part of this ideological propaganda apparatus (along with patriarchy, racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, anti-communism, capitalist normalization etc.)
All media influences the people that receive it. It is “pure liberalism” to believe it does not. If you’re a Marxist, you must stand against video games under capitalism.
Yes but have you considered that they are fun
first person shooting mechanics are indicative of the way we not only design but perceive space and interaction. Violence is seen as the default action, with cause attributed only after effect.
Ergo, the only language gam*rs understand is violence, for they know not how to speak. They scream in the only way they know how
Based take. The medium is the message. In the case of video games, the message is violence.
To be honest I think a big part of the reason violence is the default mode of video games is because it was and is the easiest thing to effectively simulate. It is much simpler to instruct a little digital goblin to dodge bullets and hurl fireballs than it is to simulate a matrix of personality and beliefs for the player to contest in the free marketplace of ideals. Yes, we still have dialogue driven games, but character behaviors can’t be simulated in any sensible manner. It’s difficult to the point of madness or goofiness to have them respond dynamically to the player rather than only recognizing a set of given dialogue options (see Facade), which means a severely limited scope.
F.E.A.R. is a good example of this. The AIs use a relatively simple set of rules-based commands that result in complex emergent behavior. They’ll do all kinds of cool tactical shit that looks like planning and intelligence to the player, but under the hood it’s governed by a couple of rules like “seek cover” “shoot at the player” “circle around the player”.
Every study they’ve ever done on this says that video games do not cause violence behavior in people who are not already violent.
It turns out that people can, in fact, tell if they’re awake or dreaming.
A more valid criticism would be that games like Call of Duty deliberately distort history in dangerous ways, or that many if not most economic games reinforce Capitalist ideology by omitting figures like labor power, environmental degradation, or any kind of mechanics for human flourishing from the game.
US society was built on genocide and violence, and has been genocidal and violent for hundreds of years. Video games only really entered public mass acceptance twenty years ago. And metrics of interpersonal violent crime have been falling for almost all of that twenty year period. There is simply no evidence to support your claim and what you’re doing is just a conservative reaction to new forms of media. You might as well be blaming comic books for juvenile delinquency or blame women’s lib on the invention of the novel.
Pure liberal idealism. Video Games reinforce and normalize the structures of violence that our capitalist society depends on. YOU are the one who’s being a reactionary conservative under the guise of liberalism. Stop doing capitalist apologia. Stop Video Games.
The actual truth is more insidious: just like action movies and any sort of action literature, violent video games primarily hinge on the idea of legitimate violence doers doing violence - the chosen heroes, the formally sanctioned enforcers of the system, monarchists, and other narratively accepted legitimate violence doers.
They’re just another facet of media that’s reinforcing the idea that it’s ok when the people whose job is doing violence do violence to someone. They can only “cause” violence from the consumer when they inspire that consumer to join up with one of those formally legitimized violence-doer groups like the police, military, etc. The same was true for movies before that, like how the secret service agent who saved Reagan was inspired to join the secret service after watching a movie (starring Reagan, ironically) about them. Though of course saving Reagan is a degree of heinous behavior well above most cases.
counterpoint: tetris
