Strides Interactive

Games related violenceFiled Under: Weekly Tuesday Dose of goodness

Recently, I’ve read through the papers and found an article that is rather disturbing.

I’m not bothered by the facts presented. Rather I’m bothered by the way the facts are presented. It’s so distorted that I feel inclined to write up a post here to clarify certain matters.

To read on please click on the link below:

First of all,

The article related game violence to 2 deaths and a teenager having underaged sex - this is the FIRST impression that most people will derive that from that article.

The association is definitely very unfair to gamers and game developers. Until the final investigations of their deaths are out, how can anyone put their finger on games and say that their violent-influencing nature influenced the 2 deaths and an underage sex offense?

This is pure speculation.

Let’s just take a look at Warcraft. Is it a violent game?

Warcraft has been around since 1995. Warcraft 1 to 3 until now, World of Warcraft. Yes it’s a midly violent game but does it incite one to stab another in the back? I don’t think so, this action is not even part of the game!

Let’s take just 1 step back. Games generate violent influence yes? Agreed to a certain extent. But how about violent movies?

Let’s take another step back.

Let’s talk about Moral Responsibility.

What’s moral responsibility? It’s the responsbility of one or more entities or individuals to educate our younger ones on what we should or should not do.

I believe that in our modern world, moral responsibility is divided into 3 parts.

1) Parental Guidance
2) Self-Respect
3) Media’s own moral responsibility

Let’s talk about these parts in details:

1) Parental Guidance

Whenever a child does something wrong, the parent takes the responsibility. That has always been the case since ancient times. It’s the responsibility of the parents or guardians to watch over their children.

A parent cannot say things like - “I don’t play games therefore I don’t know what my child is doing”.

In that case, why can’t a parent say - “I don’t watch TV, therefore I don’t know what my child is watching”?

Therefore, if you’re a parent and you kid turns violent after playing some game. Don’t blame the game. First, question your commitment towards your child. Have you done enough to know what he/she was getting into?

2) Self-Respect

This may be guided by parents or by media such as TV shows that promote self-respect. Self-respect may also be an innate ability. So what’s self-respect?

It’s about knowing that you yourself being a person in the society. You have a moral responsibility to the people around you. Your demeanour determines where you’re an example to follow or an anti-example to be avoided.

If one knows self-respect, then he/she will know their position in the society and also their personal progress in their goals and make rational decisions. Having self-respect also honour one’s parents as well regardless of them being alive or not.

It shows that your parents have done a good job in raising you and that they can be proud of you regardless of where they are.

Self-respect, therefore, enables one to walk holding their head high.

3) Media’s own moral responsibility

All media have their own moral responsibility towards their target audience.

This is because, media can always have a certain amount of influence on their target audience. This is the reason why we have “movie stars”, “superheroes”, “respected figure” and many other positive images. On the other hand, there’s also the dark side of things, ie, “infamous beings”, “scandal-ridden figures”, “tyrants” and many other negative images.

A game or movie must always know its moral responsibilities. For example, many people have turned violent unknowningly after playing a certain game that has no moral boundaries.

This game allows you to rob, rape,  kill, steal and so on. Although the canonical gameplay was meant for the player to do more good than bad.

It’s because of this possible influence and the lack of boundaries, gamers become more imaginative in their methods of interaction. That’s why a kid in thailand can just pull the revolver from the policeman and shoot him in the head and drive off his police car.

How could he have learnt that? It’s from the game of course!

The same goes for movies that have a bad or lousy ending. What happens when the audience emerge from the movie theatres? They feel horrible, discouraged, ashamed and some even felt that the world is a horrible place to live in.

This is media influence.

As game developers in Strides Interactive, we’re always obliged to make games that are morally encouraging and has examples that people can follow.

Life itself is a form of education. When there’s education, there’s influence and therefore we must always be responsible for contents we develop.

Conclusion

Therefore, I’d like to urge all readers to judge each article with neutrality. I’m very sure all newspapers seek to report the truth and they’re most of the time true (otherwise the next print will contain their corrections).

However, please do not have a pre-conceived perspective that the article is entirely true even to its perpsective. Facts may be true, perspectives might not be the same case.

Have a nice day.

Jeremy