Silicone Diversions

An essay on violence in video games, and their place as an artform.

    On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris committed a shocking act of violence at Columbine High School, killing thirteen people and wounding almost twice as many before taking their own lives. The widespread media reports on the event put the lives of these two teens under scrutiny of the whole country, and left many questioning “Why?”, above all else. There were plenty of scapegoats to be found. Both boys were social outcasts, listened to heavy metal music, were into the Goth subculture, and played violent video games. In the aftermath, debates emerged centering on the exceeding popularity of violent video games amongst teens, and perhaps if there wasn’t some sort of sinister link between spending hours killing imaginary enemies, and taking initiative to end real lives.
    Videogames have long been blamed for antisocial, even violent behavior. They are dismissed as artless and unsavory, and branded by groups such as MAVAV(Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence) as the snake that will tempt our children from their Edenesque purity and good natures. The truth is, murder, rape, torture, vandalism, and all manner of antisocial acts have been perpetrated by one human on another long before there was even electricity, let alone a home gaming console, and modern games are only a product of an already long running, inherent human problem. Michael Chabon tells us in Solitude and the Fortresses of Youth that, “Violence and hatred, and the fear of our own inability to control them in ourselves, are a fundamental part of our birthright, along with altruism, creativity, tenderness, pity and love.”(2) And if violence is fundamental to us, it is bound to present itself in those artworks that we take from our lives.
    So is there any merit in a videogame? Roger Ebert recently wrote an article entitled, “Video Games Can Never Be Art”, insisting that the digital domains that so many people invest endless hours and energy into can never hold up to the work of the great filmmakers, poets, and painters. This is not an uncommon attitude towards the gaming culture, adopted most vigorously by those who were born before the advent of interactive digital media. But children born in the last few decades cannot easily shy away from their now constant relationship with technology. Everything from withdrawing money from an ATM to checking electronic mail is all done while interacting with screens and buttons and wires. Games are only catering to the demands of an already fiber optic culture. In fact, most games released in the last few years are pinnacles of technical wizardry, created among staffs of dozens or more, that can take years to fully be developed. With advances in computer processing and video graphics, players can now experience entire worlds that span miles in area and endless in possibility, all on the back of a shiny little disc. Not only are videogames art, but state-of-the-art.
    But games are more than the sum of their parts. There’s more to a game than levels and directives to be carried out, and their artistic merit comes from their entirety. Music themes, stunning visuals, and the story writing that are weaved into a game all stand as art on their own, but its their culmination that creates an entirely new and unique experience. An experience that can affect the player in different ways, whether by solving a simple puzzle or debating a moral conundrum within the coded confines of a game, but one that nonetheless stimulates thought and expands understanding.
    The sense of freedom in a game is, of course, an illusion. A trickery by the whiz kids that designed it. But as games become more complex, the borders of what can be explored in a game are becoming blurred. No longer does a scenario just involve a simple plumber jumping for coins or kicking turtles around. Nowadays we can explore ethical ambiguities, and see the reflections of our own societies fleshed out in whole landscapes. Fallout 3, released by Bethesda Softworks in 2008, entered players into Washington DC in 2277, two hundred years after a nuclear holocaust between the US and China. The player’s character is given free roam to explore the rotting ruins of a once great country, where bottle caps are now currency, and ruthless factions of violent mercenaries rove across a barren wasteland. Throughout the course of the game, players are forced to make decisions that will affect their “Karma”, such as whether to take an innocent life or save it. These choices vastly affect the gameplay, and can vary the overall ending of the main storyline drastically. Having such an open ended character to control lets players form a relationship, an emotional bond with them. And through exploring the outcomes and fantasies played out in a videogame, we can explore ourselves and reflect on life and death consequences without hurting anyone in the process.
    Good art is supposed to inspire a mixture of emotions. Whether repulsed by the sometimes overt violence, or sucked into the escape of living an impossible life, a well made game can inspire all tangents of ardent sentiment. And like all art, games can comment on who we are as a human race. Perhaps even helping us to better understand ourselves by giving us the option to scrutinize the kind of actions we would not normally take in a real world environment. Worrywart parents are quick to say that children aren’t ready for the kind of harshness found in some games, that their delicate offspring might be permanently damaged by the experience. But censoring children from violence and brutality, when they are a fundamental part of who we are, is to deny them healthy access to delve into themselves and discover their own reactions.
    I found this to be true in the fall of 1999, when a game called Silent Hill made its way to my PlayStation console. I spent four nights bunkered in my basement playing what has come to be called a “Survival Horror” game. The storyline follows Harry Mason and his young daughter Cheryl as they arrive in a town called Silent Hill, and her subsequent disappearance. The player --me, eyes wide, jumping whenever the heater stirred--was to journey through the old abandoned town to try and find Harry’s daughter and dig below the surface of the eerie town’s calm façade. As I got hours, and then days into the gloomy story, I was consistently on the edge of my seat with fear, anticipation, and longing to discover the plot’s resolution. Silent Hill broke new ground upon its release, with characters that were grotesque, demonic nightmares and a chilling atmosphere that would make Clive Barker run for the hills. Despite all of the repulsions first seen at face value (and some mindedly horrific choices one has to make), I found it to be a beautiful game. The score, composed by acclaimed Japanese composer Akira Yamaoka, is one I am still listening to ten years later. The game also was one of the first to use real-world camera techniques to “show and tell” in the game, creating moments similar to those seen in a good fright film: except you were the one experiencing them first hand. And astoundingly, I did not proceed to go out and murder my neighborhood afterwards.
    And while extremely frightening and unsettling, the game would never have been made if there weren’t kids like me that would play it. If videogames can’t be art because they are overly violent, then what about all the heaps of literature (A Clockwork Orange), film (Taxi Driver), and paintings (Bosch) that are riddled with horrible, violent imagery? Perhaps we should just rid the world of all art deemed unpleasant, until we’re left with pieces that don’t challenge anything? Art, in whatever form, is always provocative, at least if its good. If it leaves you full of emotion and questions, then it has succeeded.
    Gaming is just the newest extension of the same creative nub humans have been tapping into since the stone age. Technology is simply the delivery source. The same people that create video games are the kinds of minds building the internet, social networks, and the backbones of our digital culture. As we become more and more detached from our day to day lives through our musings with liquid crystals and silicone chips, video games emerge as an art form that reflects us back at ourselves objectively.
And maybe one day, when acceptance supersedes condemnation, parents and children can sit down in unison to play, and learn something about each other, together.