This is something contrary to the media and the non-gaming public's views on gamers, they always go back to talking to the infamous COD: Modern Warfare 2's "No Russian" mission (where you are undercover in a terrorist group as they, and you if you choose, slaughter hundreds of screaming and fleeing civilians who committed the simple crime of catching a flight at the wrong time) or false representations of Grand Theft Auto (taking examples in the game to extremes and claiming it's a rape simulator etc). The public face of the news and moral values depict gamers as misanthropic sociopaths being brainwashed into murdering innocent civilians which we all know is not true, some gamers take their games too seriously, spend too much time playing or choose to bully other players online and this needs to end but making people evil? No, I don't accept it.
To give some perspective here are a few home truths about myself, I am a pretty dark individual, I have what some would be consider a sick sense of humour, when the mood takes me I play the most brutal and sadistic games I can get my hands on, I did grow up watching inappropriate films, I love the music of Marilyn Manson, Slipknot & Hatebreed, I am a very angry, adrenaline fuelled person and I have read books that half the Christian Right would burn every copy of, I am very loud, I talk too much and I have daddy issues. I will let you form your own image of me in your head. I'm an asshole huh? To contrast that I am fairly intelligent, well educated and work in a highly exclusive industry, my pay is good, I am a very sweet guy, highly moral, I respond deeply to emotional storylines in tv and film, hell, I cry at the film Where the Wild Things Are (and I mean cry, like my tshirt is soaked and I am wailing like a baby) when not involved in conversation I tend to sit quietly and keep myself to myself, my life is full of laughter, the friends I do have I love dearly, I don't wish or cause harm to anyone.
Like most people I am a walking contradiction, I love to switch off from reality and relish some brutal media, be that a film or video game, book or music but at the same time I love humour and emotional compelling storylines that engage my sense of morals and emotions.
People are complicated, the media always seeks to turn a complicated issue into black or white when it is never that simple. When it comes to the gaming industry there are many different kinds of games and there is no specific person who fits into one category.
Dishonored and the like highlight this conflict that most of us feel, you can play the game as a brutal killing machine, utilising, crossbows, guns, explosives, swords or more creative mystical powers, launch your victim off a cliff, summon flesh eating rats to devour them and that is just a few. This method is fun, satisfying but it comes at a cost, the more you kill the more dark and violent your world becomes. You can also go for a more pacifist approach, killing where only absolutely necessary or not at all, this is a true challenge of your skill in the game and much like life living according to a moral code that you set yourself is a hard one. Nobody is telling you to kill, you don't fail your mission, let's face it your character is an assassin after all. The game does something quite exceptional for the player, if they are absorbed in the story, your deeds are gauged by the reactions of a small child, a little girl who your character saved, protected her whole life, hell you even play hide and seek with her during the tutorial stage. If you act heroically knocking out guards and stashing their sleeping bodies and dishonoring your targets instead of murdering them she sees you as a handsome hero, even drawing a picture of your smiling face with sun shining and the word daddy written on it. Let me tell you that the deeply sentimental side of me genuinely had an emotional reaction to this, I felt proud that this sweet child could look up to me, seeing me as a heroic protector and even father figure. Contrast that to the reaction you get when you return blood soaked and vengeful, she is scared of you, her picture shows you exactly as you are, a monster, perhaps a necessary evil but still an evil. Except it isn't necessary is it? If only you behaved differently this girl wouldn't wake up in the night screaming, it makes you want to be a better person.
Now, it's fair to say this won't be the reaction of everyone, you might be the kind of player who doesn't engage with the storyline and in that case this emotional response doesn't apply, does that necessarily make you a bad person? Of course not, we are all different. Did you play it, engage emotionally in the game, refuse to switch off and gleefully haunt this child who trusts you? Maybe you need therapy.
The question is what does this tell us about gamers in general? We need to find a simple generalisation, because let's face it, responding to defamation from people and the media with a thesis won't help. Gamers play violent and brutal games when they want mindless entertainment, when engaged emotionally they will show their true human nature and most will take the high moral path, no matter how hard that is.
Nobody considers the avatar of others in an FPS deathmatch as a life they are taking, nobody worries in Dead Space or Resident Evil if the infected human you brutally murdered has kids at home, nobody thinks the driver you just jacked in Grand Theft Auto will need counselling from their experience. This is because they aren't treating these games as an alternate reality but a mindless escape from it and the reaction of games that promote engagement and real in game moral consequences to your actions is that those who play mindlessly will often go the more immoral route and those who seek emotional investment will behave more morally. This is simply down to the fact that this isn't reality, it is fiction, just like a book, music of films. Of course you can spot a potential psychopath if they replay "No Russian" over and over, relishing the screams of the dying but these people already exist, it is a mixture of their upbringing and their nature and of course some gamers go on to do terrible things "inspired" by a game. The simple fact is that the game didn't "make" them do it, they were already like it, it's just that their chosen method happened to have a muse that in everybody else's hands is fine.
As a final word this argument has nothing to do with the exposure to children of violent games, this isn't anything to do with the gaming industry, this is down to the parents, games have ratings, if you buy them for your children either out of their sense of peer pressure or your ignorance you are to blame, not the developers, not society, you. You failed your child, now take steps before they potentially harm someone.
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