Up in arms over violent visuals
To hear Charles Schumer talk, you'd think no kid has ever played cops-and-robbers before.
Schumer, a Democratic senator from New York, has taken aim at the hyperviolent video games so popular with adolescent boys. He's especially outraged about a game that hasn't even gone on sale yet, a sanguinary little slugfest called ''25 to Life."
''It's the worst in a series of violent and gruesome games that lower the common denominator of decency," Schumer has been quoted as saying. '' '25 to Life' makes other controversial games like 'Grand Theft Auto' look like 'Romper Room.' "
Does it really? Hard to say. It's common in the gaming industry for companies to release ''demo" versions, so people can play a bit of the game before the real thing goes on sale. But we haven't got a ''25 to Life" demo -- just a series of downloadable videos that feature the usual full-auto slaughter set to a hip-hop beat. Still, we can see enough to understand the basic idea of the game: It's police versus criminals, and players can be whichever they prefer. You can suit up as a cop and mow down hordes of gangbangers, or join a band of thugs who slaughter policemen by the dozen.
'' '25 to Life' integrates the essence of cops and robbers with the attitude and lifestyle of street culture," said Kevin Gill, global brand manager at
It's unclear why this game so angers Schumer, when any number of titles are just as vicious and offer just as many opportunities to be the bad guy. After all, one of the most popular Internet games in the world is Counter-Strike, in which you can play as one of a team of international terrorists, blowing away members of the US Delta Force.
But Schumer is not the only politician to take up arms against violent video games. New York's other senator and likely presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has also denounced them. In Illinois, Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich successfully pushed for a state law that bans retailers from selling violent or sexually explicit video games to minors; the law is slated take effect Jan. 1. Lawmakers in Georgia, North Carolina, and Maryland have called for similar measures.
Washington, D.C., city councilor Adrian Fenty, who helps govern one of America's most crime-ridden cities, seems genuinely dismayed about the carnage in his city and is convinced that the games help to stir the pot. That's why Fenty is calling for a ban on sales of violent games to minors.
''In the District," he said, ''it's become more than a moral issue -- it's become a public safety issue. The games themselves have become a textbook on how to cause havoc." Fenty's bill was inspired by a pair of community activists who believe that games like ''Grand Theft Auto" are inspiring a new generation of hooligans. ''They're playing the games and they're going out and emulating what they've seen in the games," he said.
Direct proof of such claims is pretty much nonexistent. Still, it's easy to believe that hours spent pretending to be a hoodlum might have an effect. Last year, a journal of the American Psychological Society declared that any form of media violence, including violent games, ''increases the likelihood of physically and verbally aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions" in children and young adults.
But who needs science to tell us what any Army drill sergeant already knows? If someone constantly practices killing, it's easier to do it for real. And hours of digital war-gaming is very good practice -- so good that the US military now routinely uses computer games as combat training aids.
In any case, laws like the one in Illinois probably won't survive 10 minutes in a courtroom with a federal judge. Since 2001, three federal courts have overruled laws that sought to bar sales of violent video games to minors. The courts ruled that violent forms of entertainment are protected under the First Amendment, even when these entertainments may get into the hands of children.
Doug Lowenstein agrees. The president of the Entertainment Software Association, the video game trade group, vows to fight any statute that hinders the creative freedom of game designers. But even he worries that designers of violent games don't know when to say when.
In the old days, when nearly the whole audience for their work was made up of adolescent boys, there was nothing to be lost by relentlessly pushing the envelope. Today computer games have begun to rival Hollywood in their cultural significance. ''Whatever you think of movies, they have been accepted in the culture as culturally credible," said Lowenstein. ''I think in video games right now we don't have that cultural credibility."
He offers a number of reasons: a lack of originality, for instance, and a neglect of untapped markets, such as women. But also on the list is the cheerful willingness to go too far -- to spill too much blood, display too many naked women, offend too many cherished values.
''People need to be conscious that they're part of a larger culture," said Lowenstein. ''You ought to think about, 'Do I need to put that in the game to realize my creative vision?' "
