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Technology

Up, Up, Down, Down: Part Two 217

Posted by JonKatz from the -gaming-and-moral-panic- dept.
Gaming has dramatically widened the growing cultural schism between the young and old. Historians and sociologists call the adult world's response to gaming a "moral panic," defined as a severe societal response to a dramatic development that elders and institutions can't control or understand, so therefore demonize and fear. Even before this, the young are increasingly coming to believe that older people have less and less to teach them. Second in a series.

In much the way the late anthropologist Margaret Mead predicted, the older generation and many of its leading institutions -- education, politics, media, education -- has unleashed a furious attack against gaming and its culture, so that the term has become synonymous with addiction, obsession, even violence.

Unlike any other cultural identifier, gaming is associated almost entirely with negative imagery in the non-virtual world, dividing notions of society and culture further. Gaming and its allegedly evil affects were central issues in the presidential election, and the notion of an amoral generation of thieves and narcissists crops up again and again in the public perception of computing and the Net, from hacking to free music.

The media cover technology poorly as a rule, but their shallow portrayal of gaming culture as destructive and profane is a particular scandal, more so all the time as gaming becomes sophisticated, creative and intellectually challenging.

This is the locus of the "moral panic," a severe societal response to some dramatic development that institutions don't understand and can't control, so therefore fear.

What characterizes a moral panic?

According to Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda, authors of Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance, the concept is defined by at least five crucial elements: concern, hostility, consensus, disproportionality and volatility: They involve:

  • Heightened concern over the behavior of a particular group and the consequences of its behavior for the rest of society.
  • Increased hostility toward the group believed to be engaging in questionable behavior.
  • Agreement among a wide segment of society that the threat is serious, and caused by the group in question.
  • Perceptions that the group is more dangerous than it really is, generating fear that's disproportionate to the threat.
  • Sudden eruptions -- moral panics are by nature volatile -- that reappear from time to time and often, just as suddenly, subside.

On all five criteria, gaming qualifies as causing a moral panic. There is great concern about its consequences, sometimes said to involve everything from the violence of Columbine to distraction from schoolwork, athletics and other "healthy" activities. We see plenty of hostility towards gamers. The fear of gaming has always been wildly disproportionate to any real threat, and the panic over it is episodic, frequently triggered by incidents like school shootings or other media-transmitted scares.

The moral panic over gaming has also managed to obscure its growing social, cultural, even political signifance.

"Our toys, writ large, echo profound revolutions in simulation, the science of materials, and digital communication," author Mark Pesce writes in The Playful World, recently published by Ballantine Books.

"The technique of the Furby has been a hot topic of computer science for a dozen years; artificial life -- simulation of activity of living systems -- has taught us a lot about how we learn and grow into intelligence. Computers, which just a decade ago seemed useful only for word processors and spreadsheets, are now employed as digital gardens, where the seeds of mind grow into utterly upredictable forms."

Gaming has evolved far beyond play. Arguably the most revolutionary cultural force in the world right now, it's transforming the imaginations, attentions spans, reflexes and strategic thinking of an entire generation, perhaps even our neural systems themselves. Yet few people have bothered to study what this might mean.

With the release of Sony's PlayStation 2, writes Pesce, the founding chair of the Interactive Media Program at the University of California's School of Cinema-Television, "the machinery of infinite realities will be within the grasp of millions of children around the world. Unlike any videogame console released before it, the PS 2 will have the power to create realistic imaginings of breathtaking clarity. Million-dollar computers -- in l999! -- have only fractionally more power than the Play Station 2, which will challenge our ideas about simulation by making it look at least as real as anything else seen on a television screen."

But how many parents, business executives, educators, politicians or journalists recognize that so powerful and creative a force is now available to children? That future ideas about creativity, imagination, work -- and individual relationships to institutions -- will be shaped by such tools, just as they were by the PS2's more primitive predecessors, from the early Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to game-playing computers? As pundits sound alarms about how videogames are ruining children's moral lives, as both major presidential candidates did repeateadly, during the campaign -- who in our culture is preparing for the radical changes in imagination about to be unleashed?

Pesce is right, of course. The PS2, designed to connect to the Net, is a window into a larger universe. It could easily simulate a Furby or Mindstorms, and it creates as well a million other interesting forms, if only for the eyes and ears. In fact, says Pesce, the PS2 could well be seen as a spaceship for scouring the universe of ideas.

The cultural gap between the young and the old first widened noticeably in the l960s, when younger people turned their generational backs against their elders. The explosion of the Net and the Web, which have triggered a revolution in the way information and ideas move, has exacerbated that division. The Boomers talked a lot about revolution but didn't quite make one; younger Americans are making one but don't always seem to realize it.

Our civilization hasn't begun to come to terms with this split. Panicked moralists, pundits and authority figures point to all sorts of reasons, from the decline in the authority of parental figures to the influence of new media to the lack of discipline in schools, but the truth is there is no real understanding either of this widening chasm in our politics, or in our social and cultural consciousness.

Part Three: How does gaming change people?
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Part Two: Up, Up, Down, Down More

Part Two: Up, Up, Down, Down

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  • I was addicted to gaming... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    more specifically: teamkilling in UT, but i got over it after a few months.

    with the new aimbot however i got hooked again and all i live for now is teamkilling AND having the most kills of my team... :(

  • Too many unfounded assertions (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The article makes a lot of assertions, and many of them need to be backed up with evidence. For example... "Gaming has evolved far beyond play." I don't buy this -- games, except in the euphemistic military sense, are devices for play. If they've 'evolved far beyond play' then they're not games anymore but something else. Since I don't see much productivity coming out of the games in question aside from possibly sharpened reflexes, I question your assertion. You might actually be right here, but you really need to back up this sort of statement. "The media cover technology poorly as a rule..." At best, this statement is overly broad. At least some of the media do an excellent job covering technology. Over the last nine years, WIRED has published countless well-written, thoroughly researched, and in-depth articles covering all aspects of technology. A number of newspapers have added technology sections. And then there's the web... Doesn't /. itself count as media? "The cultural gap between the young and the old first widened noticeably in the l960s" I think the 50's and the introduction of rock and roll provide a convenient counterexample to disprove this assertion. The 20's certainly saw a cultural gap as well. "The Boomers talked a lot about revolution but didn't quite make one; younger Americans are making one but don't always seem to realize it." This is laughable. Have you read nothing of the social revolution that was the civil rights movement that took place 35 years ago? Or the sexual revolution? The microprocessor was invented circa 1970, and the foundations for the Internet and for modern operating systems were laid in 1969. Are you telling me that Quake, Doom, and the like have changed society in any way CLOSE to what any single one of these events brought us? Finally... Gee, I wonder why gaming might be associated with violence?
  • Let me just say that I've never been so thankful that my father refused to buy my family a Nintendo. I enjoy being out of JonKatz's pop culture loop, here. :)

    -Dean
  • However, keep in mind that the civil rights act of 1964 occured _before_ the big protests of the era. The baby boom started in 1946. That makes the oldest boomer in 1964 18 years old. Personalities like Mario Savio at UC Berkeley, who finally eliminated the anti-political "speech codes" at the university came of age in a much more conservative era... before Vietnam became a major concern.

    The "baby boomers" are best associated with the anti-war protests of the late 60s and early 70s (which disappeared after Nixon ended the draft), as well as the "sexual revolution."

    The boomers _benefited_ from things like civil rights, desegregation, and the birth control pill (all late 50s to early 60s developments), but they did not create those new freedoms.

    -Dean
  • ...the Republicrats talking about the Demolicans:
    • Heightened concern over the behavior of a particular group and the consequences of its behavior for the rest of society.
    • Increased hostility toward the group believed to be engaging in questionable behavior.
    • Agreement among a wide segment of society that the threat is serious, and caused by the group in question.
    • Perceptions that the group is more dangerous than it really is, generating fear that's disproportionate to the threat.
    • Sudden eruptions -- moral panics are by nature volatile -- that reappear from time to time and often, just as suddenly, subside.

    t_t_b
    --
    I think not; therefore I ain't®

  • You might want to check out the stats before stating "...most girls of said "entire generation" still don't play video games to any significant extent." According to Fox News about 40% of gamers are girls and they are playing the same games as the boys.

    So that means back up the generational revolution.
  • Gahhh.. It was (For 1 player) Up,up,down,down,left,right,left,right,b,a,start (For 2 players) Up,up,down,down,left,right,left,right,b,a,select,s tart The select just made the game two players.

    Vermifax
  • Because 20 somethings play video games? People older than me play golf, which is just another game. My retired grandma plays bridge every day with her assisted living buddies. Same activity, just different format. You need a bit more info to support the idea that 20 somethings are acting less like adults and more like teenagers.

    Vermifax
  • The most violent anime, twisted porn, and violent video games. Yet a low crime rate. Similar comparisons made with gun ownership, citing England as an anti-gun nation with low crime, and other European countries as pro-gun nations with low crime on the flip side of the argument.

    I've read (somewhere) that part of the reason these heavily violent things can exist in Japan (and England and other European countries) is the homogeneous nature of these societies.

    I dunno -- could be, I guess. It seemed kinda KKK-ish to me when I read it, but there may be a point there. I notice there aren't a lot of homicides in Episcopalian neighborhoods (at least, not on the news).

    If you hang around people like yourself, you may be safer, but you're also pretty damn bored (it seems to me)...

  • I have been playing Quake for several years now. I have been exposed to the idiots that have been playing along w/me. There are several of them that actually believe that the game enviornment is better than real life. They think that their "Quake friends" are better than their "real friends". They hold practices at 8pm EST on Friday nights. They have weekly matches at 9pm EST. They are giving up their regular daily lives for a video game that is 4+ years old. I personally don't understand it.
  • no no, they *are* socially unbalanced...

    but your point about them being more active than the average couch potato is somewhat correct I would think..

    Just my worthless .02

  • --> And, yes, it was uphill both ways to school back then...

    Thru 30 feet of snow while walking on our hands backwards. And by gum, we were grateful for it.

    It's scary when you catch yourself doing this unwittingly.

  • the young are increasingly coming to believe that older people have less and less to teach them.

    I used the think this way too.....
    What I didn't know, is exactly how much, I didn't know.

  • We're talking about an atrociously high risk of heart disease, and a lifespan that is altogether too likely to be twenty years shorter than for healthy people.

    Yea, those last twenty year where you piss and shit on yourself. Mmmm, I really want to live a healthy life to look forward to THAT! No thanks!! I will live fat and happy!
  • I like what John has to say, most of the time. He doesn't often cover what I care about, but he usually says something interesting about something.

    This article pushed me over the top.

    Katz is on crack

    The technique of the Furby has been a hot topic of computer science for a dozen years; artificial life -- simulation of activity of living systems -- has taught us a lot about how we learn and grow into intelligence. Computers, which just a decade ago seemed useful only for word processors and spreadsheets, are now employed as digital gardens, where the seeds of mind grow into utterly upredictable forms."

    Right. That MP3 player at your elbow is about to rip your heart out and giggle while eating it.

    Gaming has evolved far beyond play. Arguably the most revolutionary cultural force in the world right now, it's transforming the imaginations, attentions spans, reflexes and strategic thinking of an entire generation, perhaps even our neural systems themselves. Yet few people have bothered to study what this might mean.

    Right. Interacting through virtual worlds is warping our minds. Are you not the same man who defended virtual killing as an amusing pass time about a year ago?

    With the release of Sony's PlayStation 2, writes Pesce, the founding chair of the Interactive Media Program at the University of California's School of Cinema-Television, "the machinery of infinite realities will be within the grasp of millions of children around the world. Unlike any videogame console released before it, the PS 2 will have the power to create realistic imaginings of breathtaking clarity. Million-dollar computers -- in l999! -- have only fractionally more power than the Play Station 2, which will challenge our ideas about simulation by making it look at least as real as anything else seen on a television screen."

    Right. "Infinite realitys". "[C]hallenge our ideas about simulation". Are you really that obsessed with the Great New Thing, or are you screwing a PR bunny? Really, I'd like to know.

    But how many parents, business executives, educators, politicians or journalists recognize that so powerful and creative a force is now available to children? That future ideas about creativity, imagination, work -- and individual relationships to institutions -- will be shaped by such tools, just as they were by the PS2's more primitive predecessors, from the early Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to game-playing computers? As pundits sound alarms about how videogames are ruining children's moral lives, as both major presidential candidates did repeateadly, during the campaign -- who in our culture is preparing for the radical changes in imagination about to be unleashed?

    Right. "But what about the children"?

    With a twist of, "Corporations are r00tng your mind!".

    Swirl. Serve with a twist of lemon.

    Pesce is right, of course. The PS2, designed to connect to the Net, is a window into a larger universe. It could easily simulate a Furby or Mindstorms, and it creates as well a million other interesting forms, if only for the eyes and ears. In fact, says Pesce, the PS2 could well be seen as a spaceship for scouring the universe of ideas.

    Um, OK.

    I'd tend to call the PS2 a bit better than the last round of kit. Um. What's the problem again?

    -j

  • I hate to ruin a good dissection such as yours, but there are records in The Indianapolis Star, The Toledo Blade, and a few other midwest states about parents disposing of their children's games in mass quanties. This happened during the whole "Night Trap/Mortal Kombat/Time Killers is a sin against god" fiasco a few years ago. I actually have the newspaper clippings. unfortunately, I don't know if they were put on their website (haven't checked). I also have quite a few issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly where they talk about Joseph Lieberman (these were published roughly 3-4 years ago... scared me when he was chosen as running mate), and his crusade to stop ALL video games. Yes, he actually said, and I quote, "The media has devised a way to get to our children as early as possible. The video game industry creates these 'death simulators' as a way to desensitize our children, allowing them to be fully prepared for the horrors that Hollywood has in store for them. Video games must be stopped!"

    unfortunately, he was a little too broad.

    because night trap alludes to sexuality, all games must suffer.

    (I admit, without physical proof, my statements are pretty hollow. so if anyone really wants me to scan the magazines and newspaper clippings, I'll dig 'em up, and find a scanner somewhere to post 'em.)

    Unfortunately, Lieberman's Crusade spawned the "great video game violence controversy" that created the ratings board for video games... I'm just grateful that the morality these people were pushing only went that far.

    however, you're right on the statements that JonKatz used to come to his conclusions. they're not even largely grounded in fact. The PS2 won't change anything any more than the Super NES or Atari 2600 did. but that really was arbitrary to the point he was trying to make.

  • The defination of 'obese' has grown larger (haha) over the past fifteen years, too. Yes, there are more truely obese kids, but not 'double'. We're just calling thinner kids obese. Medically, redefining obese is good, but, statistically, it screws everything up.

    -David T. C.
  • This is not meant as a flame, although I'm sure many of you here will disagree with me.

    What is the point of the video games people play these days? They bore the hell out of me.

    I was talking with my girlfriend about this the other day. I don't get it. She doesn't either. And we're both weird and geeky... yet extremely bored by video games. Why do people spend most of their free time playing these games like Quake?

    Are you learning anything? How is it rewarding?

    I suppose the standard answer will be "because it's fun/entertaining"... can you explain how? They all seem the same to me. What is the thrill of sitting down for 3 hours (or more) to just run around and shoot aliens?

    I used to be into video games back in the late 80's and early 90's when games were simple, and took less than 3 hours to finish. Now most games these days are just crazy, taking days or months to finish.

    What about the real world outside? Do you hardcore gamers actually go out and walk around and appreciate the real world around you? Do you prefer to interact in real life with other people?

    I guess the reason I don't play games is the same reason I don't really watch TV much... I feel like I'm doing absolutely nothing, my life just ticking away...

    Please, somebody, explain what it is that attracts you to video games and what satisfaction you get from it. I'm (and I'm sure others) are genuinely curious.

    Ben
  • Sure there are a few oddballs who are covinced that Doom et. al. are a tool of Satan, but most reasonable people recognize that games are just games.


    I demur. While not many people think of Doom as a tool of Satan, MOST people think of it as an inciter of violence.

    The classic example of the child that watches cartoons and believes he's Superman is frequently used. Only a small share of the population remember that we're not children, though. As if that weren't enough, consider that children _know_ in their hearts that they're not Superman, in ana analogy to the youngster that wants to believe in Santa because it feels good.

    But a society that questions itself is the only healthy kind of society.

    One thing is to criticize. Another is to attack without basis...

    Flavio
  • 1) Gaming is not entirely viewed as bad.. Myst was never accused of being violent!

    Neither was Tetris. Myst played by society's rules.

    You are trying *WAYYY* to hard to tie this to hellmouth.

    It's the same thing. People may not say it all the time because they're a ashamed of themselves. It feels and looks stupid to criticize a game. After all, it's not REAL, is it?
    The idea's out there, though.

    I'm really starting to get sick and tired of "Waaah.. I'm a misunderstood genius, Waaaah.. they pick on me cuz I'm a geek, WAaaaah.. they are mean to me at school so I'm gonna blow it up" crap.. GET OVER IT!

    True. Geekdom is becoming mainstream, anyway. Technology is suddenly cool and the misunderstanding is fading away. In any case, we've had enough on the subject.

    Flavio
  • The title you're looking for is "Dark Dungeons" and is one of the most laughable of all of Chick's tracts (no mean feat either) I suggest the excellent version with commentary at http://www.xentertainment.com [xentertainment.com]
  • > The Boomers talked a lot about revolution but
    > didn't quite make one; younger Americans are
    > making one but don't always seem to realize it.

    Hmm. The Boomers, or at least certain active
    members of that generation, effected more
    revolutions than anything video gaming will
    do within any predictable time (even with
    promises of opening new vistas of virtual
    exploration, etc.).

    Let's consider just one, as an example: civil
    rights. Boomers gave us student activists, people
    working to register black Southerners to vote, and
    a groundswell of support for a more equal
    treatment of humans. The Civil Rights Act of 1964
    is just one of the major effects of this and
    others' actions. The gains from this were much
    more significant than, say, the damage the DMCA
    will cause.

    Let's try to keep a sense of scale.

  • I believe that most of the 'adults' who are creating the moral panic, just need to sit back, relax and play some video games with their kids. Not only will they see that games aren't so bad, they will help bridge the gap between the older and younger generations. Spending time with your kids, doing activities which your kids like, is a good thing, and it also allows you to be there for them and to help them learn to distinguish between the gaming world and reality. This is the first step to making the gap between the generations smaller. Understanding your kids and their interests is one of the key elements of being a good parent. Ignorantly, passing the blame onto gaming, or other media is not.
  • I just can't help remember a documentary I saw once about the Doors just before or after (I can't remember which) Jim Morrison was arrested for indecent exposure in Florida. They had apparently carted out all the Floridian ultra Christian Youth to comment on the morality of the music and the Doors specifically. All we got were a bunch of glassy eyed Christian students saying things to the effect of
    • "Well I've never actually listened to the music myself, and I don't really know what it's about, but my minister has told me that it's evil and I really believe it. There's no reason that we should not put these people in jail and outlaw rock and roll, it's clearly ruining the youth and morality of America."


    Needless to say, they were a bunch of idiots. I wonder if it's the same people who have just grown up, or if it's actually a new collection of idiots in charge of the recent anti-video game response. Hell, I wonder what George Bush thought about the Doors... because we all know what he thinks about all of us with our " darkened hearts [slashdot.org] " from using the net.
  • What is exactly moral or ethical about gaming? Gaming is pretty much pure entertainment, with little to no socially redeeming values and often with many socially unredeeming values. Is gaming any more than goofing off? How exactly is gaming going to save the world? The only answer I can come up with is that gaming might keep some juvenile delinquents glued to the tube instead of roaming the streets. [I didn't say all gamers were juvenile delinquents, so don't say that I said that.] Maybe some gamers learn some useful technical knowledge, but this hardly applies to gamers as a whole.

    Should we be in a "moral panic" because youth are wasting time on entertainment instead of doing to learning something useful? I would rate this a 4 on the panic scale. Youth have always tried to avoid being useful from time immemorial.

    Should we be in a "moral panic" because youth are learning violent and sexually abusive behavior from games? I would rate this a 6 on the panic scale. I simply don't accept the argument that there is no effect if you view and (virtually) do this behavior over and over and over again. How else do you learn except by watching and practice?

  • We realize they're just games. But too many times have I heard people at work/home/skewl/bars disparrage gaming/ers. I don't think this is anything new. Prior to gaming on computers, it was gaming with friends ala d&d. That was evil, and satanic, and violent, and kids ended up 'killing themselves' because their character died *riiiight*. People as a large group that don't get it though...

    The fact of the matter is, it's a decent release, noone gets hurt (besides ppl that are mentally damaged to begin with). Sure many popular games are violent, but we humans are hunters (& gatherers). Hell they let us have guns, but we can't use them. Sometymes it's a little better to go get fragged a few times, rather than respond to that email, much less painful.

    Society questioning itself is fine, but when Uncle Mom wants you! to stop anything that might be dangerous. Someone has to tell her, let go, we'll be ok. Too bad I don't know anyone that she'll listen to. Good thing the gaming industry is a buncha fat capitalists pushing innovation to the next level, they could buy enough votes to keep em in business.
  • Katz notes:
    It could easily simulate a Furby or Mindstorms, and it creates as well a million other interesting forms, if only for the eyes and ears. In fact, says Pesce, the PS2 could well be seen as a spaceship for scouring the universe of ideas.
    First off, it is highly unlikely that the PS2 will ever simulate a Furby or a Mindstorms kit, since both are trademarked properties of other corporations. Since game development on PS2 is proprietary the range of visions and ideas which will be cultivated will very limited and strictly corporate. The PS2 isn't spaceship or even a bullet train, it's a roller coaster, an exhilarating ride that follows a very specific course defined by the builder and always ends up where you start. Closed source consoles will be considerably limited in their subversive content since the corporation licensing it will vet the content. Such content will be just about as subversive and enlightening as network TV. Do you ever think that "Panty Raider: From Here to Immaturity" will ever be released for the PS2, much less the Quake skins for the two presidential tickets as per Political Arena [welcome.to]. In comparison, PC gamers can modify and author their own games, learning to program and becoming truly subversive.

    Secondly, several commentators have noted that the Dreamcast (which cost less than a million dollars in 1999) may be from a practical standpoint a superior console (http://www.segaweb.com/features/ps2tech.html [segaweb.com]), yet despite this fact, Dreamcast users seem to have not yet achieved the digital nirvana predicted for PS2 users. It must be the trippy black and blue case.

    Admittedly, it is amusing to think of John Carmack as the Shaman of the global village.

    The platonic reality is that general purpose computers and the hackers that use them are what is transforming society beyond recognition, computer games are simply one of the most accessible and thus the most tangible shadows on the cave wall. To extend the analogy past the breaking point, the PS2 is a corporatist shadow puppet show on the cave wall.

  • Probably the most interesting of those was a James T. Chick comic (http://www.chick.com) I forget what it's called, but it's easily found on the site. The comic basically says that D&D is the devil's work, and if your character dies, you die too (in fact, a girl is shown having hung herself and leaving a suicide note explaining that). Pretty fugging funny if you ask me!

    ----

  • Moral panic is something America has experienced time and again throughout our history, but it seems to be at a heightened level lately.

    The extreme level is exactly what concerns me. I am going to school in S.E. Kansas. I know people personally who feel that theories of evolution are immoral; the internet is literally the devil's spawning ground; & some groups of people here won't own T.V.s because of fear of cultural contamination

  • Gaming has evolved far beyond play. Arguably the most revolutionary cultural force in the world right now


    Gaming may be a part of the changes in culture that are occuring because of increases in computing power. To say, however, that there is no more important cultural force in the entire world is a very broad statement. Even in the United States, not every child has a computer, and certainly every child does not play computer games. Some children (including teenagers) play soccer, some concentrate on studies, others play musical instruments. Many children in less developed countries are so busy worrying about surviving that they have no idea what computer games are.

    I will agree that there are major cultural changes taking place in the world. However, you seem to be excluding a large portion of the culture on this planet in forming your opinions.
  • With out one you can't have the other. So they gamers basically put clothes on the developers back and food on the table. They are also the people that decide what the developers create. ONE

    You state that "The creativity and imagination unleashed have been from the designers and developers" and forget to mention them as "players". I mean it's simple, you can't design and develop a game and then not play it. TWO

    Games might not benefit you (even though inadvertently they do; I mean you aren't running a 386 to play the latest and greatest) but no one is saying that you must play them or reap any of the fruits from what the gaming industry has offered up to this point. In any event IMO I believe that not only do games help with strategic thinking but they also are great relievers of stress. I also believe your comment wasn't thought through. THREE

    Have a good day.
  • If you're going to be a social commentator, then do a little homework. Go back to the rock-and-roll era *BEFORE* you tell me, "But that was different!" Look at the moral panic then; it wasn't limited to the music, naturally, but to the whole fabric of social change wherein we younger people were migrating away from the ethic and mores of the WW II era. Our parents' cohort had nothing to offer us. Nothing. At that time, rather than "addiction, obsession and violence" it was "addiction, obsession and sex." The reality was quite different, but the social change was a reality. As always happens, the fifties' upheaval greased the skids for the much more publicized sixties' upheaval. There was even *more* sex (perceived) in the sixties!
  • Isn't that about the funniest thing you've ever heard? I could barely believe that Gates wrote the game I was so nostalgic for. I certainly didn't know who he was back when I was playing it as a kid. I found that out in the very interesting interview that google popped up with Bill Gates. Unfortunately, getting dos 1.1 to run on modern hardware is apparently nontrivial, so I'll have to wait until I get my hands on an 8088 again...

    Walt
  • A "good christian mother" drives her car into a lake and kills her children, including an infant.
    Stupid people do stupid things, this has always been the case.

    Middle-aged day-trader shoots up an office center.
    Again, same as above. Did you know a child shot up his entire school....in the late 1700's. These things have always been happening, human's crack after awhile, it's human nature, not a "moral panic"

    Decades of spousal and child abuse in America.
    Again, always been around, in fact, I would guess it has gotten better in the past few decades.

    Blow jobs in the white house by an intern, with a married president.
    Oh no, an unfaithful president. John Adams had an affair with his slave. It is rumored Washington has several affairs. Rumored that Kennedy slept with Marilyn Monroe. Again, always been happeneing.

    So, what's the point? I agree video games are just that, games. But none of these other things are "moral panics" either. And, while we're at it, who's moral's are we talking about. A christian set of morals? A western world set of morals? Moral's differ person to person.

  • One thing that's been lost to the annuls of ancient history (at least, for most americans), is the fact that before Pokemon hit it big in the states (namely, before WB got the sole rights), there was an incident in Japan where the strobing lights on one Pokemon episode caused many a seizure (around 100+ cases, IIRC). This raised a big scare in the US, but most people didn't recall the name of the show, just that it was "japanese kids animation" and people were watchdogging for other shows that may of had the same problem. Now, it's the biggest hit of the nation, and people probably couldn't remember that we used to "protect the children" from shows like these.

  • Blarg. This is just a bunch of high falutin horseshit. Gaming is not a cultural tide shift. It's just another way for middle aged people to claim that their kids don't underastand them and need to be restrained. Pure and fucking simple. I'm 41. My parents didn't understand why we would play airhockey all day and thought it was a huge waste of time that had to be controlled. My kids play TWINE all day. I don't get it - its not that interesting to me. But I'm not going to say that culturally they're that much different from me. After all grown ups have grown up games and toys and kids have kids games and toys:

    Kids - soccer, dirtbikes, N64, PS2, chat, reefer, E
    Grown ups - golf, guns, home theater, scotch, good blow

    And then sometime there are crossovers like my neighbor who bought a dirtbike for his 8 yr. old yeah right or kids who unlock the gun cabinet....
  • It's tough to get rid of the fat kid playing Pokemon (or Nintendo or DnD) because it's more true than not.

    Over the past fifteen years, the number of obese children aged 7 to 13 has *doubled.* This is as school physical education programs have been been slashed, simultaneous with the rise of couch-potato entertainment.

    Kids that get off their asses and go play sports, walk the malls or do other out-of-the-house activities tend to be healthy.

    Kids that play video games, card games or role-playing games a lot tend to be unhealthy.

    And it's not just fat: we're talking *obese.* We're talking about an atrociously high risk of heart disease, and a lifespan that is altogether too likely to be twenty years shorter than for healthy people.

    The images are accurate. The exceptions -- probably you, for instance -- are not representative of the general population of game-playing kids.

    Feel free to type "fat kids increase video" into Google. Learn about the problem. And demand better of yourself for your children: feed them well and keep them active.


    --
  • The problem Jon makes is that he picks up some new toy, bashes it and doesn't see a finger in front of the real issue. Jon what you are seeing is "generation wars", something that has been happening since Industrial Revolution. The traditionalist patriacharts and matriarcharts were destroyed by the huge power Industrialism gave to each individual. However, some roots remain inside the cultural and familiar relations among relatives. Specially on those members which their root cultures have only recently touched the "wheels of progress".

    People today has a huge freedom to accept new values, material and moral. In my grandparents time, it was cars. In my parents time the TV. In my time the computer. In my children time Internet and VR. Values change but the issue is one and the same. We now are more free to choose things. And your bashing on PS2 consoles is the same blind kicking my dad did on PC's. The issue is not the computer or the PS2 but the fact that our values are changing too radically from generation to generation. Look at how people dress today and pick up some photos of your parents. Listen to how people speak. That's a Revolution. In Middle Ages, such level of changes would take 200-300 years. But now it takes only nd only 10-20 years. Less than a generation. Even I feel too different from the teenager I was. In the 80's I heard Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and Depeche Mode. Today I hear Prodigy, Rammstein, Enigma and underground music. But my fathers are still stuck to old 50's-70's and don't seem to change a lot here.

    Look over the cost of the PS2 console and the fact it's Japanese. I wonder if you would note it if it was made in Taiwan and cost half-price... Try to see how your kid does value HIS OWN world and not the objects that help him value it.
  • Pick out Katz and get him into some Rocky Mountains resort. And get every TV set and VCR out of his hands. Strict rest, mountain air, and walks in the open under the cold breeze of winter. At night three water cups of good Russian vodka and sleep, sleep, sleep.

    It seems that Katz is seeing too much films recently... And it looks as if he got a nerve break... That is the only way to see his part two. A typical base script for some low-rated Holywood stuff. Frankly I read it and it seems I'm seeing some "Invasion of Teenager Mutants - the rise of the PS2 Kyborgs". Dad, mommy crying "MOMMIE, DADDDIE" and son running with a fly head and a robot arm after them... And Katz playing the ingenous detective, who occasionaly falls on the track of an old WWII Japanese Doctor plotting to cover the World with robots. And the evil doctor does this right from a XVIII century mansard, somewhere in Kansas. Which occurs to have belonged to Dr. Frankenstein himself...

    Ok Katz. At least be faster than Stephen King to end this...
  • But how many parents, business executives, educators, politicians or journalists recognize that so powerful and creative a force is now available to children? That future ideas about creativity, imagination, work -- and individual relationships to institutions -- will be shaped by such tools, just as they were by the PS2's more primitive predecessors, from the early Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to game-playing computers? As pundits sound alarms about how videogames are ruining children's moral lives, as both major presidential candidates did repeateadly, during the campaign -- who in our culture is preparing for the radical changes in imagination about to be unleashed?
    I'm imaginging shooting my high school cafeteria up. And man, does it look good at 130M/polygons a second!
  • ...video games are *not* the world changer you are trying to make them be!

    Exactly right. The fear-mongers need to be reminded of that.
  • in case anyone missed it:
    http://www.pushove.com/mp3/
  • Right on man. Rogue on the Tandy 1000 EX was my first gaming addiction, and every year or so I get disillusioned with the slick cinematic sequences and linear plots and wander back to nethack!

    Nethack should be the official game of Slashdot. Open source, runs on Linux, and it's a great game! The complexity and scope of nethack match anything out there today, to say nothing of it's replayability...

    And the roguelike games are still influencing new games (ever play Chocobo's Dungeon?) and still innovating and improving (go download the latest version of nethack!)

    - StaticLimit
  • In true Katz style, this story addresses a pressing concern among Americans of all ages.

    JonKatz wastes no time driving right past the heart of the problem, going down the ramp, and out the door.

    The problem is not with gamers, the problem is not with the public conception of gamers, the problem is that, assuming that this load of overreaction and poor writing is true, the general public is too damned stupid to differentiate between facts and propaganda. Let's examine, for instance, Mr. Katz's own offering. A factual report regarding this topic (as introduced by the article, the article discusses the postulate, "Gaming has dramatically widened the growing cultural schism between the young and old") would perhaps include poll results from a sufficiently randomly selected sample of the discussed groups. Not this article. In fact, Katz offers nothing factual which supports any of his claims. Let's examine:

    "Historians and sociologists call the adult world's response to gaming a 'moral panic.'" With this statement, Katz introduces the theme of the first section of the article to the reader. However, his claim, that historians and sociologists have stated that the adult world's response to "moral panic" is supported in the article by not one single quotation or reference. Which historians and sociologists? This is the Internet; can you, Mr. Katz, provide us with a link? If a whole block of this article is based upon the situation having been termed a "moral panic" by a given authority, even one such example of this would help.

    "In much the way the late anthropologist Margaret Mead predicted, the older generation and many of its leading institutions -- education, politics, media, education -- has unleashed a furious attack against gaming and its culture." This statement would be a powerful example of the public reaction to gaming. However, Mr. Katz refuses to give his audience a single example of a "furious attack against gaming" or its culture. Have schools taken a strong stance against gaming, either by banning gaming-related clothing, or by teaching against the evils of games? What has been said by politicians against gaming? And by the media? And by the schools? (Um, what? I said schools already! That's okay, Mr. Katz didn't proofread either - education was mentioned twice. Perhaps longer lists seem more convincing?) Again, Mr. Katz offers no proof that this statement is not entirely unfounded. What has Ms. Mead said on the subject, and how do her statements support the argument?

    "[G]aming is associated almost entirely with negative imagery in the non-virtual world . . . Gaming and its allegedly evil affects were central issues in the presidential election, and the notion of an amoral generation of thieves and narcissists crops up again and again in the public perception of computing and the Net, from hacking to free music." Wonderful! With such an influence upon public perception, there must be plenty of examples of such negative imagery. Unfortunately, none of them were referenced by Mr. Katz.

    "[M]edia cover technology poorly as a rule, but their shallow portrayal of gaming culture as destructive and profane is a particular scandal, [causing a] 'moral panic,' a severe societal response to some dramatic development that institutions don't understand and can't control, so therefore fear." From this statement, we can assume that the media's coverage of gaming, though sparse, is suggestive enough to cause strong public reaction. However, if public perception is as biased as Mr. Katz would have us believe, surely even a single example of even the results of such influence should be easy to locate.

    Moral panic "is defined by at least five crucial elements: concern, hostility, consensus, disproportionality and volatility." Mr. Katz then gives what we can only assume are his own definitions (q.v.) for each of the five elements; he at least does not credit an external source. This clarifies the intended meaning of these terms to the reader, who may have otherwise associated a meaning other than that intended with the terms involved. This in itself would not be noteworthy, except in that Mr. Katz does not clearly note the source of these definitions.

    "On all five criteria, gaming qualifies as causing a moral panic . . . . We see plenty of hostility towards gamers. The fear of gaming has always been wildly disproportionate to any real threat, and the panic over it is episodic, frequently triggered by incidents like school shootings or other media-transmitted scares" Where are the references? An explanation of why and how gaming meets the criteria? Examples of hostility towards gamers, and of "school shootings [and] other media-transmitted scares"?

    "The moral panic over gaming has also managed to obscure its growing social, cultural, even political signifance." Gaming has political signifance? Do tell! For lack of elaboration, can we (please!) assume, then, that the Presidential election will be solved, once and for all, with Rocket Arena 3? No? Then, Mr. Katz, could you explain what this actually means?

    "'Our toys, writ large, echo profound revolutions in simulation, the science of materials, and digital communication,' author Mark Pesce writes in The Playful World, recently published by Ballantine Books. 'The technique of the Furby has been a hot topic of computer science for a dozen years; artificial life -- simulation of activity of living systems -- has taught us a lot about how we learn and grow into intelligence. Computers, which just a decade ago seemed useful only for word processors and spreadsheets, are now employed as digital gardens, where the seeds of mind grow into utterly upredictable forms.' Unfortunately, the reader learns nothing of who the author is, what he knows, or the overall subject matter of the book. Possibly knowing nothing of Mr. Pesce or Bellantine Books, the reader can only hope that Mr. Pesce is qualified and Bellantine Books is reputable. Furthermore, Mr. Katz fails to explain what is meant - what is to be conveyed by "digital gardens, where the seeds of mind grow into utterly upredictable forms"? What is a "seed of mind", and into what "utterly unpredictable form" does it grow? In other words, "Huh?"

    "Gaming has evolved far beyond play. Arguably the most revolutionary cultural force in the world right now, it's transforming the imaginations, attentions spans, reflexes and strategic thinking of an entire generation, perhaps even our neural systems themselves." Mr. Katz seems not to understand that placing the word "arguably" before something totally absurd does not excuse lack of research. Much appreciated would be Katz' knowledge the effect of Quake 3 and Tribes 2 upon Ethopia, how those living in Cuba feel about fill rate verses rendering quality, or which is the Bosnians' preferred console.

    "With the release of Sony's PlayStation 2, writes Pesce, the founding chair of the Interactive Media Program at the University of California's School of Cinema-Television." Finally, we learn who Mr. Pesce is.

    "'[T]he machinery of infinite realities will be within the grasp of millions of children around the world. Unlike any videogame console released before it, the PS 2 will have the power to create realistic imaginings of breathtaking clarity. Million-dollar computers -- in l999! -- have only fractionally more power than the Play Station 2, which will challenge our ideas about simulation by making it look at least as real as anything else seen on a television screen.'" Unfortunately, Katz goes on to remove any credibility from Mr. Pesce's earlier statement, however vague it may have been, by expressing Mr. Pesce's claim that the PS2 has almost as much computing horsepower as any million-dollar machine available. Mr. Katz failes to realize that for a million dollars, any qualified individual could have build one hell of a Beowulf cluster, even in 1999. Where are the benchmarks? Any reader should hopefully recognize the folly in Mr. Pesce's statement; assuming this is true, Mr. Pesce cannot be relied upon to provide accurate statements. Resultantly, the second half of the article, based upon the work of Mr. Pesce, loses all credibility.

    "'[F]uture ideas about creativity, imagination, work -- and individual relationships to institutions -- will be shaped by such tools [as the PS2], just as they were by the PS2's more primitive predecessors, from the early Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to game-playing computers'" Pesce claims that children's "ideas about creativity, imagination, work" have been shaped by systems such as the NES and possibly the Apple II. Missing, however, is any reference to psychological study or any conclusive work. Is the reader to assume that Pesce, like Katz, fails to justify his bold statements? If so, then Pesce is right up Katz' alley.

    "'As pundits sound alarms about how videogames are ruining children's moral lives, as both major presidential candidates did repeateadly, during the campaign -- who in our culture is preparing for the radical changes in imagination about to be unleashed?'" Thank you, Pesce and Katz, for showing us the way.

    "Pesce is right, of course. The PS2, designed to connect to the Net, is a window into a larger universe. It could easily simulate a Furby or Mindstorms, and it creates as well a million other interesting forms, if only for the eyes and ears. In fact, says Pesce, the PS2 could well be seen as a spaceship for scouring the universe of ideas." First of all, from where is the "of course" derived? Pesce has failed to make a justified point at all, in what is he then so obviously correct? Yes, the PS2 can [reportedly; I have no personal experience] connect to the Internet. Even if PS2 could potentially simulate the actions of a Furby or Mindstorms (which I have no reason to doubt, though I've used neither Furbies nor Mindstorms), the PlayStation 2, as far as I've seen, does not create new devices or concepts, it simply displays existing ones. For what, then, could the PS2 be used to explain how the "PS2 could well be seen as a spaceship for scouring the universe of ideas", and furthermore, what the hell does this phrase mean? Also, have we given up even trying to relate this to public reactions to gaming?

    "The cultural gap between the young and the old first widened noticeably in the l960s, when younger people turned their generational backs against their elders. The explosion of the Net and the Web, which have triggered a revolution in the way information and ideas move, has exacerbated that division. The Boomers talked a lot about revolution but didn't quite make one; younger Americans are making one but don't always seem to realize it." Generational backs? Revolution? What does this have to do with public reaction to gaming?

    "Our civilization hasn't begun to come to terms with this split" Here Katz continues in his tradition of making a meaningless statement and carring on as though it proves something conclusively.

    "Panicked moralists, pundits and authority figures point to all sorts of reasons, from the decline in the authority of parental figures to the influence of new media to the lack of discipline in schools" Reasons for what? The "generational split" in the 1960s? The PlayStation 2?

    "[T]he truth is there is no real understanding either of this widening chasm in our politics, or in our social and cultural consciousness." Wait, first the chasm is between generations, now it's political?

    Making paper-mache mountains from conjured molehills, Katz once again shows his inability to form a point or maintain a theme.

    Well, if you've read this far, hopefully you've been convinced that the likes of Katz should not be allowed to post on the front page. I say, let's take up a collection. I would gladly pay $10 a month to know that Slashdot finally rid itself of a troll. Perhaps if enough Slashdot readers feel the same, we could offer Katz more not to post than Slashdot offers him to post. Any takers?

  • They're all around you, wearing suits, having power lunches,

    Nahh. To get ahead you need either brains or social skills. We are the people with the brains. The people with the social skills are over in marketing, and the people in suits at the exclusive health club generally have both. None of these people felt the need to take out their frustrations on others at school.

    The people who made our lives a misery at school have neither brains nor social skills. And yes, their place in society really is to say "Do you want fries with that?". At least until they get married, after which they say "Doh".

    Paul.

  • A gulf between the young & the old isn't exactly new. In the 50's and 60's the great moral threat was Rock & Roll. In the 20's & 30's it was Jazz. In 15 years time it will be mainstream, because the teenagers & twenties of today will be the old farts of 2015, and their children will be finding something new and exciting to do and shock their parents with.
  • After we get enough donations we will find some pop pyschologist to run us up a feel-good clone of AA or something, print some bumper-stickers and tee-shirts ("One Level At A Time") and then set folks up running sessions in vacant strip-mall spaces. Get on the local judicial lists as a treatment agency, and rile up some college students to write us grants for local and federal program monies.

    Have you seen that recent movie, "But I'm a Cheerleader"? It's kind of like that, pretty funny.
  • Historians and sociologists call the adult world's response to gaming a "moral panic,"

    Which historians, which sociologists ? And on what planet do sociologists always agree on what people do. To quote Rutherford "All research in the Human Sciences can be summed up by the phrase 'some do, some don't'".

    I'm sorry I don't buy this persecution crap. Games can be good, games can be bad. This isn't society ganging up on a few "good" people, its about the fundamental right of people to disagree with each other, and the American politic that means he who shouts loudest is right.

    Jon, I'm sorry but this just sounds like a whinge based on the old "Well I don't like it so blah" of which you accuse your accusers rather than a balanced approach to the subject. Its after all easier to be a bigot, what ever your flag, than be balanced.
  • Well, if you look at it from a pure rendering power standpoint, yes, the PS2 is nearly as powerful. Yes, there are $140,000 graphics cards used to drive 6 screen "powerwalls" but these really aren't that much faster than the PS2.

    Walt
  • I would equate the hysteria towards video games as similar to the Temperance movement. These were people who talked about "Demon Rum" with straight faces, and they were convinced that alcohol was destroying the moral structure of the country. In a frenzy they managed to get Prohibition enacted, which did exactly the opposite of what was intended.

    Neither games nor alcohol by themselves cause any harm. However, when one reaches the point where one is dependent on games or alcohol for one's sense of well-being, there is a problem. If you turn down invitations to spend time with your (non-drinking / non-gaming) friends because you won't be able to (drink / game) with them, then there's a problem. I could go on analogizing, but you get the point. I like video games, and I think progressively more immersive games are indeed the future of entertainment. The reason this hysteria is so ridiculous is that if one simply follows the maxim, "All things in moderation, nothing to excess," everything will be fine.

    Walt

    P.S. [OT] Does anyone remember the IBM PC game that had CGA graphics and was called DONKEY? There was a road and a race car that could be in either of the two lanes. Donkeys would come randomly in one lane or the other, and you would have to press the space bar to switch lanes and avoid the donkey if it was in your lane. The car moved progressively closer to the top of the screen, making it more difficult to avoid the donkeys. I once left it on all night to see how often all the donkeys would be in the other lane, and thus allow you to win without doing anything. I recall it only happened once in ten hours of letting it run.
  • Is it really like that in USA? newspapers, teachers and politicians condemning gaming? Because i don't see any of this in Europe. Maybe the occasional newsheadline "Quake made child run amok" but there's not that many childs running amok and there's not that much of a public echo to this, so maybe that newspaper sells a bit better for a day.

    So either the whole thing was blown out of proportion on slashdot or the americans are less tolerant than they'd like all the rest of the world to be.
  • How people are effected by gaming/the influence that games play does not have a concrete answer that fits everybody. There are several factors that contribute to how a person will react.

    First, above all, is context. Currently, I work for GameSpy Industries [gamespy.com], as the site director for 3DActionPlanet [3dactionplanet.com], plus I also work on PlanetQ3F [planetq3f.com]. The work that I do REQUIRES that I am up-to-date on the latest 3DAction games, 90% of which are 3D shooters. I play them not only because I like too, but because it is also part of my job.

    The second is the game itself. I am currently playing Hitman: Codename 47, which I will then be reviewing. It isn't a shooter; rather, you play a Hitman, and you're given missions that involve killing somebody. The issue I have with the game thus far is that it is WAY to realistic for some gamers. The weapons you can use include a piano wire, which you use to strangle people. (The animation is very convincing.. there is even gasping, if you listen closely.)

    When a game is ultra-realistic, some people may get the idea to try some of the things they have seen.

    ------------
    CitizenC
    My name is not 'nospam,' but 'citizenc'.
  • (Of course, no democracy has ever lasted very long anyway, and we are about at the end of the projected lifespan.. so we shall see, eh?)
    The democratic republic of the United States is aging, but what would you say about the thriving new democracies of Taiwan and Poland, to name just a couple? The phenomenon is still growing world-wide. While society and economy may contract, it appears doubtful that a shift to dictatorship in the USA is very likely. If we did have problems we might have election observers coming here from France, Australia and Japan (a mere 55 years old as a democracy) to help straighten things out.
    "
    / \ ASCII ribbon against e-mail
    \ / in HTML and M$ proprietary formats.
    X
    / \
  • Actually its interesting that you bring up Pokemon (your spelling was correct except for the backwards ` over the e).

    Pokemon is actually its own cultural phenomenon. What Nintendo has achieved is an unbeliveably effective horizontal marketing campaign built around a simple kids video game.

    They have taken some simple characters and driven the marketing of them across multiple industries. You have video games, card games, toys, TV, movies, food products, and the list goes on. In my opinion, one of the best horizontal marketing campaigns ever (based on sales figures garnered by buying this stuff for my son).

    But unlike Katz's doom and gloom appraisal of gaming, the Pokemon influence is IMO regardaded as positive, even though its all being generated from video games.

    Society is not as fragile as Katz would want to belive, this is just Rock and Roll all over again. Someday video games will be a mainstay of pop culture, they almost are now. PS2 is the third wave of video game consoles, dating back over 20 years. As generation X and (god forbid ;-) ) generation Y come into power the fear and hype will fall out an air of normailty and expetedness and dare I say it maturity to video games. But, like music there will always be a leading edge that the new adults will not apprecaite.

    That's the way of things, not some great cultural sczism.
  • While there is certainly a segment of the population that "fears" gaming and its possible effects on people and society, I'll wager that for every panic-stricken luddite there is also a technologically savvy peer who sees gaming for what it is.

    I'm not exactly old (I'm 33), but I've been playing computer games since pong and Spacewar, and my six-year-old son is also an avid gamer (bought him a new Alienware screamer for Xmas). I am into computers and games largely as a result of my father, a 58 year-old baby boomer and electronics engineer, who got started in the PC revolution way back in the 70's by building his own computer. I know a lot of people who more or less grew up the same way.

    I think for the majority of the population, gaming is an accepted activity. I know I'd rather have my kid playing a game that's at least partially interactive, than sittinng in front of the idiot box. It's an activity that brings he and I closer together, and at the same time helps to build interest and familiarity with technology that is a permanent and important factor in our society. Heck, my kid already says he wants to go to Digipen and become a game programmer when he grows up.

    I think the problem is a whole lot less serious than Jon makes it out to be. If there were rampant fear of gaming, then the game industry wouldn't be surpassing movies as America's entertainment of choice. Pundits and fear-mongers will attempt to sensationalize and blow things out of proportion in an attempt to get ratings, but this is only a passing trend. Americans in general, who see their kids playing Pokemon stadium and the latest incarnation of Mario Brothers see gaming as it actually is. Not some evil mind-control ultra-violence training ground, but as a fun diversion that can engage a child's mind and creativity.

    -Vercingetorix

  • It sure is good to see that ever single poster so far has seen through Katz's BS...

    Gaming is far from the "most revolutionary cultural force in the world right now," and it was not a major point in the presidential election. Yeah, it got mentioned a few times, but I don't think any candidate made it a platform point. And you know, I'll bet that most of the people in the world haven't even noticed that there's been a lot of press about video games and their effects. You want to know why? Because when it does get mentioned it's usually a small point in a story, and non-slashbots don't get it shoved in their face for a week after the story comes out!

    -
  • I dont think it is getting any *more* violent.. after all.. violence has existed since the dawn of time. (OG discovers a rock is harder than OOG's skull.) The disturbing thing, to me, is the paralells one can draw between this civilization and it's "entertainment" now, and Rome, or Greece, or France right before the Revolution. (Or Japan, Germany,.. you can find a paralell just about anywhere). The problem I see, to use Rome as an example.. the more violent the games got, to the point where women were forced to kill their children, where people were stuck in an iron bull and bets were taken on how long it took them to stop kicking and screaming after a fire was built.. etc.. built a catharsis in their society.. always looking for a bigger kick. Not that I think for a minute that someone playing Doom is going to get a *real* shotgun.. but they will keep looking for a bigger, better game. This is touchy then, at what age they are exposed to them. An adult, or a 17 year old, is much better suited to discern and to control their impulses about gameplay or reality than, say, a 7 year old.

    The more violence is accepted in film, games, TV, etc, the more people are inclined to accept it in every day life, as it paralells, and the human mind doesnt necessarily discern it when its in the background. Whether this is good or bad, I dont know.. and I dont pretend to know.. but if you look at the historical trends in other past cultures, it tends to snowball to a point and then go *POP* loudly. (Of course, no democracy has ever lasted very long anyway, and we are about at the end of the projected lifespan.. so we shall see, eh?)

    Just my two cents..

    Maeryk
  • I doubt that the girl in England who managed to snipe at her schoolmates (source of the BoomTown Rats "I don't Like Mondays" song) probably didn't play quake (I don't think it even existed then).

    People who are unbalanced play quake. People who are unbalanced watch TV. I don't think that there's much of a correlation.

    My guess is that there's FAR more of a correlation between living in a gun-owning family and being the source of a shooting incident than there between live shooting and game shooting.

    On the other hand, there may be a correlation between certain TYPES of obsessions with shooter games and becomming a real-life shooter, but that's more likely to be a symptom showing in the game world than one originating there.
    `ø,,ø`ø,,ø!

  • Gaming is not entirely viewed as bad.. Myst was never accused of being violent!

    Sure, if you don't count the dozens of gamers who, frustrated at poorly constructed puzzles and slow gameplay, finally snapped and started shooting up suburban MacDonalds franchises until the Federal Marshalls came...

  • ...my parents were telling me to get my nose out of the books once in a while and go outside and play...

    And, yes, it was uphill both ways to school back then...

  • I am epileptic, and while strobing or flickering lights give me a righteous headache, they've never actually induced a real seizure.

    Anyone have some more specific information about this?

    --
  • They're not working at McDonald's. A comforting thought, but it's bogus. They're all around you, wearing suits, having power lunches, going to their own happy hour, meeting at the health club for racquetball games that you're not invited to. They still laugh at you, they still think they're better than you, and most of their perceived success is still driven by their membership in a virtual fraternity. They're merely constrained by law or company policy from grinding your head into the dirt of the recess yard. And they still resent you. Never forget what they are, or they'll make you pay.
  • It is definitely true that this isn't the first moral panic that the world has seen, I don't think it is even heightened state as Katz calls it. If you own a gun you are probably aware of the acute moral panic surrounding the right to bear arms. This particular panic is, however, aimed directly at the type of people who read this web site so I can understand why he is writing the article.

    I believe it comes down to a lack of understanding on the part of the older generation. 60s rock was frightening because the musicians were saying things that 40 year olds though would corrupt the youth. My mom doesn't like the music my band plays, she thinks it is 'just a bunch of noise'. Games are in the same category, people who grew up without them don't get it, they think their children are going to be harmed by all of the fantasy and imagery involved. In some cases they might be right. I've seen kids who take gaming far too seriously and let it displace other activites. Unfortunately the critics tend to use kids like that as examples, which is a powerful way to turn the opinions of the folks who don't understand gaming.

  • defined as a severe societal response to a dramatic development that elders and institutions can't control or understand, so therefore demonize and fear.

    It is, rather, usually defined as a reaction -- usually out of proportion to the actual severity of the problem -- to a perceived social crisis. Though arguable, the general idea is that the problem is perceived as new and unprecedented (and therefore calling for new and unprecedented measures), while it is actually a long-standing practice/problem/phenomenon that has not previously come to light in mainstream society, and is now being defined as a Bad Thing. Let me reiterate: it is seen as a dramatic development, but is not actually development.

    And if I can pick up this distinction with my casual reading of a few (~10) books about social science, why can't Mr. Katz?

  • I'm not convinced that moral panics are more prevalent today than in the past. On the contrary, in the United States, the era just before, during and after World War I precipitated some of the worst "moral panics" in our history. In fact, we're sill feeling their aftershocks today. I'm not a sociologist, so I can't very well speak about moral panics directly, but I can mention some of the events that occured as a direct result of these cultural spasams.

    Prohibition, to name one, fundamentally changed the way people think about substance abuse. Before prohibition, substance abuse was thought of as a failing of character, like infidelity or dishonesty. Even though it eventually failed, prohibition created a cultural consensus that substance abuse was a criminal problem. The so-called "war on drugs" the latest effect of this attitude.

    But Prohibition was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the scariest or most destructive "moral panic" of the era. During the war era some of the worst attacks on civil liberties since slavery were carried out with consent from the "moral majority".

    Criticism of the state was squelched for fear it would jeopardize the war effort. The film "The Spirit of '76", which was about the American Revolution, was censored and its creators jailed because it depicted the British, America's allies in the Great War, in a negative light. One could expect to be jailed and possibly tortured for the offense of "rable-rousing", otherwise known as giving a protest speech. Congress went as far as to pass laws, still on the books today, banning such terms as "sour Craut" and "hamburger" because they could be seen as positive depictions of America's enemy in the Great War, Germany. You should be careful to refer to these dishes as "saulsburry steak" and "victory cabbage".

    But that wasn't the worst. If you want a political litmus test of the times, read the transcripts of the trail of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Venzetti, two Italian immigrants accused of a murder they could not have committed. The prosecution was awarded a conviction after offering only cursory presentations of such arguments as motive, opportunity or intent. The case rested firmly, and one could argue solely, on the fact that both men were immigrants and anarchists. After protest from nearly the whole world, Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted in 1927.

    This is to say nothing of the MaCarthy trials, and the "moral panics" that came later.

    Today's "moral panic" about alleged pornography, profanity and violence in assorted media is rather tame in comparison to what's happened in the past. It it important to point out that without the erosion of civil liberties that took place after World War I and II, the censorship proposed today would be utterly inconceivable.

    This is not meant to trivialize the current situation - in fact, one should be more concerned about this trend having realized that it is not isolated, sporadic or random. It is, in fact, the latest outlet of a social flow that has tributaries running at least a hundred years into the past.

    So, if anyone is going to take a stand against the advocates of censorship today, they should take caution from the lessons learned by people who fought these forces in the past. They should also understand that, in taking a stand for personal liberty, they find themselves in very good company. While Kevin Mitnick has a lot less to complain about that Sacco and Venzetti, the battle is one and the same.

    This is the fundamental question of living in a democracy - the liberties of the individual verses the wishes of the majority. In my mind, the question is not as sticky as it seems at first. It is a matter of determining when you are truely dealing with the "wishes of the majority" and when you are dealing with opportunists who claim to be acting on behalf of the majority. I suppose that it might also be possible defend the liberties of the individual by understanding the diffrence between the "wishes of the majority" and a "moral panic".

    --

    --

  • I disagree. Someone can play video games the same amount of time as a person who is "socially balanced" watches TV, and be "socially balanced". Just because some gamers are seriously imbalanced socially doesn't mean you can generalize that all gamers are socially imbalanced. Its like saying all nerds wear pocket protectors. Its just a serious over-generalization.

    --
  • The context in which it must be placed relates to the accelerated pace we are living in. My children know much, much more about sex than I ever did, but their attitude toward it is different, tainted by music and TV.

    We are struggling, still, to become a nation with an identity formed by the land. We are a unique culture, one immersed in shiny objects and glittering prizes. Never before have so many been showered with such an array of stimulating toys, images, sounds, and ideas. In our numbness we seek out authentic experiences and find them - ironically - in virtual realities. Michael Crichton has something to say about this in his book "Timeline": the only authentic experiences left for modern man are to be found in the distant past before reality was processed and fabricated by service providers.

    We bemoan our children's development proportionately to the extent that they are growing up differently than we did. The village that is raising the child today is electronic and immediate. Our children feed on all this information indiscriminately until we the parents provide them with the filters they need to separate good nutritious food from brain candy and mind poison. It is our role in this society to resist and temper the development of our culture, because it is the traditional role of parents (the 'village') to help shape the culture. That role has been largely usurped, and we feel and respond to a great lack of control over our cultural destiny as evidenced by our children. We become alienated from each other.

    I personally have become alternately fascinated, shocked, intrigued, and bewildered by the aspects of all this technology. I can only stand in awe of the rapid pace of gaming development and hope that those who are greedy purveyors pandering to the baser instincts of our children today, will someday learn to listen to the small voice in their souls as they gain wisdom seeing the awful consequences of their evil and stupid mistakes. But first they will have to admit to their own culpability, and that will take an awful lot of growing up.

  • ...and parents everywhere scorn the moral perversity that he brings to their children and to the general culture. The year was 1956; young teens everywhere were easily corrupted by his swaying mid-section and his sexual intimations, and the parental populace was outraged.

    This isn't a new inroad into the development of societal and cultural abnormalities, and their adoption into general society; this happens all the time with culture, it is how it expands and grows. Whether religious outrages, musical inventions and divas, or video games; cultural changes often represent subcultures which are likely scorned before gaining acceptance. Many times they are simply fads that come and go, and other times they are changed and instituted into the definition of a culture. Either way, it is assimilated by the system by some extent, and helps to expand our definition of society. Video games will be percieved as bad, evil and wrong for a long time, and this is what drives its sub-culture for many people. I predict that it will eventually become accepted more generally by society and its violent imagery may change...or maybe it will continue to be it's driving force. Either way, we must realize that games are here to stay, and if we don't like their atmosphere we must work to change it.
  • This article seems to be heavily slanted towards the United States and gaming. There's nothing really wrong with that, but there are other cultures out there. Japan is definitely more hardcore when it comes to gaming and have risen violence in the media to an art form. They have violence down to a science. Watch any old John Woo films, any one of dozens of animes or play any Resident Evil or Castlevania game and watch the bloody violence in all of its insane glory.

    And yet there is no moral panic in Japan over video games. It's as much a part of their culture as pachinko and tentacle rape cartoons, and has been for years. It's much more integrated over there into daily life, where the premiere of games like the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest/Warrior series' are so huge and hyped that they actually have to close schools and businesses because so many people line up in anticipation for the game's release.

    With all video games so embedded into their culture and violent cartoons, movies and games the way they are in Japan, you'd think that they'd all be violent criminals, at least if you went by Lieberman logic, and that there'd be a huge moral panic, given Katz logic. Well, there isn't. (At least not that I know of.) The violent crime rate is much lower, and the acceptance of video games as art and as culture is higher there than anywhere else.

    But why bother with Japan. It's not part of the United States. The United States of course is the basis of all culture, so to hell with the rest of them.

    As a side note, way to go there, Katz, prove your technical ignorance by quoting somebody else who is obviously technically inept. The PS2 is not that powerful. If you want to write for a geek site, at least research the specs of the machine and compare it to those million dollar systems of 1999. Don't take some chair for a television school's word for it. He probably hasn't played a video game in his life.

    J
  • Have you ever had to live with a mother how was absolutely convinces video games were evil?

    I think my mother was more evil than the supposidly evil nintendo. Instead of raising me to shun evil and violence, she tried to force here anti-gaming views on me and took a hammer to my nintendo. Yeah, then went the Super Nintendo, the Sega, the PlayStation. Thank god I'm not living there anymore.

    And people wonder what the hells wrong with the children in today's world...

    -Kefabi
  • A I mentioned earlier [slashdot.org]:

    up up down down, etc

    these little bits of trivia are part of the jargon and the secret signals that make up the clue, the code that hold a culture together.

    be it the knowing discussions around the watercooler of monday nite football, or the lyrics of a favorite pop tune, or the ketboard sequence of a favorite game, those little words and signals allow members of that particular subculture to identify each other, among other things.

    Just as an example, look at the name of THIS site. True, alot more folks are on the internet.

    But how many even "get" the name of a place called slashdot?

    This is all a consequence of accelerating technology, and is aptly covered by the old book "Future Shock [amazon.com]".

    Now we get the gritty details of what that really means.

    Among other things it means a shift in the rules of what makes up your personal reality. Some folks do not deal with this well.

  • Interesting post. I remember when I was in school and would play basketball with my friends almost every day (as well as video games.) You said something that I would like to convert to the example of basketball:

    And what, pray tell, is socially unbalanced about playing basketball? People talk smack in game to taunt opponents into making mistakes, I've yet to meet anyone (both of my younger brothers, two of my cousins, and about 5 or 6 other real life friends of mine are all b-ball fanatics in game) who takes it seriously and applies anything in game to real life.

    Now, I have seen some fist fights between people from playing basketball, but have seen nothing similar to that from a game of Quake.

  • Wow. I always thought Indiana and Ohio sounded like scary places, but now I have proof! Thanks for the tip.

    I'm ever aware of Lieberman and Tipper and their Thought Police ilk, but I really don't see a mass movement where kids are forced to play these games in secret-- I mean how could most kids afford these games if their folks didn't buy them for their kids? Certainly the games industry has done a lot to make sure that objections over certain games are not applicable to all games. Hence the rating system and all the fairly decent kid-oriented games out there.
  • "Many other compulsive hobbies, like reading, poetry, other games, or obviously D&D other hobbies over the years have been used for these purposes. Video Games, in their current incarnation are only slightly more interactive and encompassing, though some would argue less so than D&D."

    I think you nailed this dead on. I read voraciously, game quite a bit at times, and use music, and poetry the same way - as an escape from reality. Still I can not understand anyone who would confuse reality with fantasy. Like I said, I used/use it as an escape, usually it was at the times I suffered from depression, where reality was painful. But to cope with that pain, immersing yourself in games is useful in helping to get through it at times. Does it screw up your productivity? Absolutely, but at times like that you're going to have productivity problems anyway. Does it make you a little more anti-social? It may certainly seem that way to outsiders, but the reality is you'd be anti-social anyway, games are just something to occupy your time while you are that way.

    I'm not advocating games as a cure-all for mental illness, but many people who suffer self-medicate someway or another. Gaming is certainly physically healthier than developing an addiction to drugs or alcohol.

    I don't know how many other people the above is true for, but I've met quite a few: Entertainment , be it gaming, watching sports, reading, music, poetry, alcohol, drugs, etc - is an escape from reality for many people, a coping mechanism to help get through painful times. Are there other ways to help cope? Sure, some people use religion and faith, some people use modern medicine... But the point is, that these things are quite often used for this purpose. Myself, I'm glad to have had gaming for this kind of outlet, it helped me immensely in coping with the symptoms of bi-polar disorder, until I recognized the problem and was able to get medical help for it.

    And in the mean time, much of the gaming I've done has helped sharpen my ability at logical and strategic thinking, as well as lay the foundation for my fascination with computers and technology which has led to my career choice. So all things considered, it wasn't a complete waste of time either...

    As for the corruption of my morals? Well, reading has done far more for that, than gaming managed at all... Of course, I wouldn't say my morals have become corrupt, simply different, and not necessarily mainstream. But then, ever since I started contemplating my ethics at all, I began to diverge somewhat from the norm. Games had nothing to do with this, and I think a lot of people confuse cause and correlation in respect to this issue.

    -Nez

  • No, I have not.

    What I have seen are the non-profit executive director's homes and automobiles...

  • to eliminate video-game addiction. Yeah!

    I will set myself up as the executive director of a non-profit corporation, drop some money on production of some public service announcements, roll them into the Ad Council list, and sit back for the ride.

    I figure if our clients have enough cash to buy games, they have enough to afford some pretty heavy dues. All we have to do is get the relatives in an uproar, and maybe they will pay for it.

    After we get enough donations we will find some pop pyschologist to run us up a feel-good clone of AA or something, print some bumper-stickers and tee-shirts ("One Level At A Time") and then set folks up running sessions in vacant strip-mall spaces. Get on the local judicial lists as a treatment agency, and rile up some college students to write us grants for local and federal program monies.

    Any investors, er, executive vice-directors? How can you go wrong? Isn't this America's traditional way of dealing with morally paniccing issues?

  • It's hard not to visualize the typical gamer's image when reading this story and even easier, I assume for an adult. This is the type of stereotype that the gaming community has to erase.

    Why is it so hard to get rid of the image of the fat kid playing Pokemon or the 'freak' playing D&D? Because these are the images that we are given by the media. We are not given accurate images. The accurate images are the ones that show a huge variety of people taking an active part in gaming.

  • Having stood on both sides of the fence (child-teenage / adult), I feel that I have a good (but not infallable) grasp on the problem here. In fact most Gen-X'ers should be able to have a good idea of the problem.

    For the most part, it comes down to good parenting and instilling good morals into your child. Time and time again, the children who get into gaming and real violence/crime are those who don't get enough positive attention from their parents.

    Most young kids don't know better. They act the way they are taught to act (or allowed to act).

    Most teenagers sometimes know better, but not always. Being a teenager is tough. You are almost an adult, but without the adult responsibilities. Not being quite adult, teenagers emulate whoever appeals to them most.

    Unfortunately, it is the media (owned by the older generation) that glamourizes violence. The media does indeed tell us what is cool and what isn't. Teenagers and young children are very susceptible to the media.

    For the most part, if it's on TV (or the Internet now), it must be true. And the kids just gobble this stuff up.

    Some will point out that I am generalizing. Of course I am. Having worked with kids, each one is a different case. I have to generalize and classify in order to get a decent grasp on the problem.

    I'd like to point out that there are a lot of good kids out there who play these violent games who grow up to be upstanding citizens. It was only less than 10 years ago that I was one of these kids.

    The biggest problem is that we are looking for a single source for this problem. Unfortunately there is no single source. It is a non-point source problem. All the little things from failing to spend time with your child, to the media glamourizing violence, to violent gaming, to the schools that they attend, to genetic pre-dispositions, all contribute to the way a child grows and acts.

    We have to stop looking for a single source. It doesn't exist. We (as adults) have to start taking responsibility for our actions and the consequences they have.

  • I agree wholeheartedly with the assessment that gaming is the cause/victim/whatever of a moral panic in the previous generation. However, I'm less convinced that these are really growing more violent as time passes. Obviously there was the 60s with rock 'n' roll, free love, etc, but I'd love to hear evidence that supports the statement that this was the first noticeable widening in the generational gap. I'm thinking in particular that moves from rural family-oriented life to urban professional lifestyles early 20th century must have caused some upheaval, just as an example. Perhaps what's different now is that national forums for voicing outrage and concern with regard to these moral panics are easier to come by. Is this not just another case of the now elder generation knowing better than their parents, just as before? "You thought you had it bad when we started listening to rock'n'roll, you didn't know anything -- look at my children with their mortal combat and their final fantasy."

    Anyway, I am just thinking out loud here -- I'd love to hear discussion pro/con wrt my thoughts.

  • the cultural age gap is closing fast in north america. 20 somethings are acting like teenagers and teenagers are acting like adults. teenagers are growing up fast and then don't ever want to fully grow up.
  • I suggest you hit your mother with the hammer. Sounds like you'd be doing us all a favor.
  • Seems to me that the media / politicians / parents only recognize the few people that take gaming to the extreme. I enjoy a good stress-relieving deathmatch at the end of the day, but I've also known people who have made gaming their lives, rather to live in a RPG than in the world. Its funny because, gaming can have that effect on people, and others tend to see only the extreme side of the gaming culture.
    I'm not surprised. How many other examples of this thing happening has life shown us? A few I can think of are Slashdotters (Not all loud-mouthed script-kiddie anti-anything-but-linux zealots), Christians (Not all mindless unintelligent science-defying people), and Canadians (They don't have those floppy heads like on South Park).
  • Socially unbalanced you say...

    Being an introvert myself, gaming (online in particular) has made me much more social than I had ever been face to face with people. I can agree that you get a lot of loonies online (never can tell if it's real or a facade), but no more than you'd meet in "real life".

    I personally believe (ack! opinion! kill it before it multiplies!) the environment is much more balanced for some people, such as myself, who have a hard time socializing in real life.

    And what, pray tell, is socially unbalanced about gaming online? People talk smack in game to taunt opponents into making mistakes, I've yet to meet anyone (both of my younger brothers, two of my cousins, and about 5 or 6 other real life friends of mine are all Q3 fanatics in game) who takes it seriously and applies anything in game to real life.
  • This article reads more like an election speech than an essay written to elicit new thoughts. You pose the question - "who in our culture is preparing for the radical changes in imagination about to be unleashed?" In reply, I ask what radical changes in imagination have been unleashed by the last ten years of game play? There are benefits when we can look at more sophisticated home computers and graphics chips that were (in part) developed to meet the needs of gamers. The creativity and imagination unleashed have been from the designers and developers - not the players. What evidence is there that playing these games benefits the player in any way. The phrase "get a life" came into use for people such as these.

  • On arrogance and denial (Score:3)

    by Flavio ( 12072 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:18AM (#581064)
    That's a very good article, Katz. You've summarized our society's latest fears quite well.

    Society has this craving to find scapegoats. There's always got to be someone to blame for its problems and usually the different group gets the title.

    This is nothing new, of course. What I'd like to add is that society is arrogant and lives in a constant state of denial.

    Where is it written that men are bound to become "better" as time goes on? Where do people find proof of that?

    What Katz calls the "new culture" has been attacked vehemently by everyone that belongs to the "old culture", as if the world underwent some bizarre overnight change.

    Nothing changed!, and that's what must be stated. Some games may have the in-your-face attitude regarding death and violence, but what exactly does that prove? It tells us about a new way of seeing things. A new way that opens an ideological gap between different kinds of people. To top it all, a new way that won't last forever, for it WILL be superseded.

    The "wide segment of society" attacks the "group" looking for the scapegoat and refuses to see the demons that lie within us all.

    Flavio

  • Re:Role-Playing Games (Score:3)

    by Xerithane ( 13482 ) <xerithane&nerdfarm,org> on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @08:13AM (#581065) Homepage Journal
    In defense of anti-D&D'ers, I grew up in a small town with a few D&D'ers that were hardcore. These guys also played MUDs if they weren't playing D&D.

    Each one of them, with the exception of 1 (in a group of 20) had some serious problems with reality. The funniest of them was a kid (about 16 at the time) who tried to cast a spell on a guy who was sizably bigger (why i'm not sure.. I dont even know if he had a reason) - after the spell casting he shouted something about how he had some special token and couldn't be harmed, then punches the guy. Well, he didn't last more than a few seconds, and ended up bleeding on the ground thereafter. It was funny, but somewhat sad. The most messed guy used to flash freeze rats (not sure of the method of it) and then break them or use them as displays. He also used to speak Klingonese (or so he said, no one actually verified this) and dress up as a star trek character for fun (no reason).

    The problem isn't video games.
    Whatever happened to just plain crazy?

  • What a Title (Score:3)

    by KingJawa ( 65904 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:06AM (#581066) Homepage
    As much as I disagree w/Katz's articles (usually) and, point by point, arguments (ditto), the "Up-Up-Down-Down" title is great. After Part I, I asked a plethora of friends and acquaintences to finish the sequence: "Up Up Down Down ..." and, as expected, the (currently) 16-25 year olds could, while no one else had any idea.

    Of course, my youngest brother can explain the phenominon that is Pokemon, while I can't even spell it.

  • Revolution, Not (Score:3)

    by tumeric ( 103897 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:10AM (#581067)
    the machinery of infinite realities will be within the grasp of millions of children around the world

    The others will just have to use their imagination.

  • Re:Holy Crap! (Score:3)

    by Kingfox ( 149377 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:40AM (#581068) Homepage Journal
    JonKatz actually followed up on one of his "first in a series" articles! The world as we know it is over!

    Actually, Jon follows up on a good deal of his 'series' articles, just they don't always make it to the front page. If you check the side sections on the left, you'll see a story or two of his that wasn't big enough.

    Now, that isn't to say that there's no legitimate concern over things like desensitization to violence, couch potatoism, and other alleged societal ills that people associate with games. But a society that questions itself is the only healthy kind of society.

    I know this example is used any time 'video game/television/movie violence' but look at Japan. The most violent anime, twisted porn, and violent video games. Yet a low crime rate. Similar comparisons made with gun ownership, citing England as an anti-gun nation with low crime, and other European countries as pro-gun nations with low crime on the flip side of the argument. Given all of these comparisons, I think it's unfair to say that gaming itself is the cause for a high crime rate, violence in schools, etc. The sum of society, including gaming, must be looked at here.

    I agree with you totally, games are just games for all but those who have no hold on reality. Another point is, those people will find their escape anyway. The kid who plays Doom for a week then kills his classmates would probably have killed them even if he couldn't download Doom. In fact, he might just have killed them a week earlier without that outlet for his rage.

    As Dave Mustaine (lead singer for Megadeth) once said in an interview for MTV hack in 1988 - "They scream and piss and moan about the kid who kills with a metal tape in his back pocket, but what about the kid who offs with a Barry Manilow tape in his back pocket? No press there!" I wonder how many kids have killed classmates after playing freecell or minesweeper religiously.

  • change the world??? (Score:3)

    by yankeehack ( 163849 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:25AM (#581069)
    I know a guy (who lived used to live near me) about my age who did nothing but shift work and then game on his time off. During many mid-afternoons I would see him, blurry eyed, wearing a couple day old clothes, retrieving his mail and he would say something to me like "Wow man, I was on the Quake server for over 20 hours yesterday!" and he was proud of that fact.

    Like this guy has the chance to change the world. I don't think he even has a chance at procreation.

    I'm not stereotyping all gamers, just those who subsitute gaming for real life experiences.

  • Mythology (Score:3)

    by ichimunki ( 194887 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @08:11AM (#581070)
    This article relies on a straw man argument that there is some sort of moral panic about video games in our society. There are no serious quotes from mainstream sources to back this up, other than the ubiquitous political fear-mongering related to the entertainment industry as a whole. So first Katz sets up this panic using circumstantial evidence (since direct evidence, like masses of parents burning their childrens' video games in quantity just doesn't exist), then he proceeds to almost knock it down.

    I say almost because he goes on to equate the very limited modeling capabilities of a Playstation 2 to that of a supercomputer and then talk benignly about the wonders of technology in a discussion that avoids that issue and instead supposedly reinforces his other strawman argument: that there is some ever-widening rift between the old and the young. Then he assigns (as is typical of the rose-tinted worldview) to the younger generations' supposed side of the rift values that are supposed to convince us that the geezers just don't get it.

    What he fails to recognize is that the only rift (i.e. that of the teenage wasteland) is mostly a marketing ploy used to sell kids stuff they wouldn't normally buy.

    That is "hey kids, your folks just don't get these baggy pants and those stringy tanktops. Shop at the Gap and assert your independence!" The young are no more auto-dissidents than the old are auto-conformists. Much of what passes for generational rift is simply the by-product of living in a society where teenagers are given no real power and no real meaning other than consumer choices. The only way the PS2 is going to change all this is if kids suddenly start using it to hack into school computers to change their grades, or mess up the computers that control nuclear bombs.

  • Games are not life (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:17AM (#581071)
    The idea that playing games is somehow "more creative" than other activities is bizarre to the point of ludicrousness, as is the idea that the Web world is somehow richer than what came before.

    If you want an emotionally and experientally rich life: Go swing dancing; learn to cook a new dish; learn to sail, or to roll a kayak, or to SCUBA dive; do anything that will get you out and interacting with other people of similar (or even different) interests; have great sex.

    This is from a 36 year old computer professional. I program as a hobby, and do like computer games, though I don't think the current generation is any more enjoyable than the old tty-based "rogue". But I don't confuse computers with life.

    Ciao

  • Messed up in the head (Score:4)

    by Benjamin Shniper ( 24107 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @08:41AM (#581072) Homepage
    I consider this the only interesting point of discussion here.

    We all brazenly assume people can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. But I have always found the most "into-it" people, including me, have some trouble with reality.

    Whether the people who play this way were out of touch with reality and therefore play compulsively, or simply play compulsively for another reason and then become out of touch with reality is interesting to me personally. I believe the first is closer to the truth.

    Many other compulsive hobbies, like reading, poetry, other games, or obviously D&D other hobbies over the years have been used for these purposes. Video Games, in their current incarnation are only slightly more interactive and encompassing, though some would argue less so than D&D.

    -Ben

  • Re:gamer's mentality... (Score:4)

    by ooPo ( 29908 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:09AM (#581073)
    Why can't a game be part of someone's daily life?

    How is this different than watching TV for hours a night?

    Sure, they may seem socially unbalanced, but at least they're being more social than your average couch potato.

  • Role-Playing Games (Score:4)

    by vergil ( 153818 ) <vergilb@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:30AM (#581074) Journal
    Remember when D&D was the scapegoat?

    I recall a slew of superficial Reader's Digest-type articles in the mid-80's that attempted to scapegoat Dungeons & Dragons as an insidious, soul-sapping plague infecting our nation's youth. This hysteria -- fueled by small-town Parent-Teacher Associations and lazy journalists -- spawned specious allegations of high-school satanists and the ubiquitous urban legend of the college kid who "got too into the game" and disappeared into the steam tunnels.

    Sincerely,
    Vergil
    Vergil Bushnell

  • Place this in a proper context (Score:4)

    by shankster ( 178759 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:08AM (#581075)
    I think Jon Katz' thoughts on games are very well-made, but he as well as his readers should keep in mind the context this is all happening in. Moral panic is something America has experienced time and again throughout our history, but it seems to be at a heightened level lately.

    You see politicians crying out against not just video games, but content on television, in movies, in music, and so on. For Katz' stories to be truly insightful and effective, he needs to show how video games and gamers fit in with the other forms of mass media in terms of behavior, content, and criticism. That'd be most interesting.

    As usual though, I think Katz is on the right track, and exposing us to ideas that make us think, even if we think they're crap. Just my two cents before the usual Katz-bashers rear their ugly heads.
    You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

  • Moral Panic -- over VIDEOGAMES!? (Score:5)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:34AM (#581076)
    A "good christian mother" drives her car into a lake and kills her children, including an infant.

    Middle-aged day-trader shoots up an office center.

    More than half of marriages do not last.

    Decades of enslavement of an entire race in America.

    Decades of spousal and child abuse in America.

    Blow jobs in the white house by an intern, with a married president.

    And it's the VIDEOGAMES that are causing moral panic?! Holy shit . . . Talk about blind.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • A few points to take: (Score:5)

    by Maeryk ( 87865 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:11AM (#581077) Journal
    1) Gaming is not entirely viewed as bad.. Myst was never accused of being violent!

    2)This was *NOT* central to the presidential election, anymore than the health concerns in Rwanda was. PLEASE Katz! Stop turning a single media reference into War of the Worlds! Liebermans crew want to stop TV.. and the "furor" during the campaigns was about movie ratings, and how they screened films, *NOT* about games. Basically, with the price of games and the price of game level systems, especially on the PC, (which are the *most* violent games) few people under 18 are getting them without their parents knowledge anyway, and anyone over 18 is out of the hands of the gubmint censors in that arena.

    You are trying *WAYYY* to hard to tie this to hellmouth.. its not going to work.. I'm really starting to get sick and tired of "Waaah.. I'm a misunderstood genius, Waaaah.. they pick on me cuz I'm a geek, WAaaaah.. they are mean to me at school so I'm gonna blow it up" crap.. GET OVER IT! Most of us went through it.. and where are we now? In IT.. where are "they"? Would you like fries with that?

    Cmon.. video games are *not* the world changer you are trying to make them be!

    Maeryk

  • screwy math (Score:5)

    by swagr ( 244747 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:05AM (#581078) Homepage
    Million-dollar computers -- in l999! -- have only fractionally more power than the Play Station 2

    What, like 10000/1 ?

  • Holy Crap! (Score:5)

    by Lazarus Short ( 248042 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @07:13AM (#581079) Homepage
    JonKatz actually followed up on one of his "first in a series" articles! The world as we know it is over!

    Seriously, I think Katz is overstating both the severity of the "moral panic" that society has supposedly created over gaming, and the importance of gaming as a cultural force.

    They're just games, people! Sure there are a few oddballs who are covinced that Doom et. al. are a tool of Satan, but most reasonable people recognize that games are just games.

    Now, that isn't to say that there's no legitimate concern over things like desensitization to violence, couch potatoism, and other alleged societal ills that people associate with games. But a society that questions itself is the only healthy kind of society.



    --

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