Video Games Make You Neither Violent nor Sexist & Here’s Why
Provided the proper context, it is understandable why Valve decided to remove Revived Games’ Active Shooter (retitled Standoff upon later independent publication) from Steam: It was set to release during the midst of the political outcry that stemmed from the massacre in Parkland, Florida back in February of last year.
Executive Erik Johnson elucidated the company’s policy to — from that point forward — uphold a commitment to be as lenient as possible regarding the approval of games onto the platform in a Steam Blog post after insurmountable backlash. He vowed to release any game not considered “illegal” or just plain “trolling” but in the same breath also promised to provide individual users with the necessary tools to avoid the games they themselves deem egregious — some even with the capacity to override recommendation algorithms.
Steam’s anti-censorship appeal to the free market of the gaming industry supposedly bore little integrity, according to the community’s discussion boards and even more recent uproar in the original post’s comment section. Although the international organization is forced to comply with the laws of many countries when considering objectionable games on a case-by-case basis, the committees nevertheless aren’t doing a very good job with it.
The primary reason for the reaction toward the game should go without saying: the poor taste. Gorey shoot-’em-ups certainly aren’t for the faint-of-heart; their mere barbaric premises are already enough to justify the responses the worst of them elicit from noobs (sorry, novices), casuals, and even some hardcore gamers.
However, there is one idea that came to the forefront of this controversy that had me particularly intrigued: Many foresaw Active Shooter as running the risk of radicalizing those who may be inspired thereby to commit acts of violence.
This was not an issue that I felt comfortable discussing at the height of its relevancy, being considerate of the tension present at the time as well as of the overall sensitivity of the subject matter. But now that even some libertarian role models of mine have recently vowed to censor further the content I consumed throughout my childhood and beyond, I feel compelled to speak out against this asinine notion that should have died by the turn of the millennium.
The nonsense blaming of mass homicides on video games dates back to the utterly baseless lies of Doom and Grand Theft Auto apparently inspiring murder spewed by conservative lawyer Jack Thompson following several shootings from over two decades ago. Much of the “evidence” that had been produced by the time politicians were doing similarly after the Sandy Hook massacre was hastily exposed by follow-up studies as having been fundamentally flawed.
Some researchers approached the issue more strategically, and in turn found no significant negative effects from video games on youths of either sex while simultaneously debunking the previously overestimated methodologies. Heck, there even exists sufficient data to suggest that gaming culture is beneficial to society: Some scholars cite an inverse relationship between playing video games and committing violent crime.
Perhaps not directly related to homicide, but it appears as though the same group of “I just wanted to play video games” GamerGate victims initially targeted by the religious Right for being violent are now being accused by a new wave of feminists of being equally as sexist.
The latter argument was catalyzed — analogously to the (unfortunately ongoing) former — by emotionally pandering empty claims with virtually no basis in science by someone with a fancy title. Should renowned “media psychiatrist” Carole Lieberman have been provided a redo attempt at substantiating her case today, she would find that the only research literature that could possibly help her cause demonstrate insignificant results and weak correlations.
These poor findings, however, are notoriously oft-cited and frequently exaggerated despite the existence of concrete evidence from a longitudinal study on the relationship between virtual sexism and real sexist practices in support of the contrary. Indeed, it is as if every seemingly passable piece of scientific literature asserting that “sexist” video games have a significant effect on one’s sense of empathy toward women has been devalued by reanalyses.
The promulgation of the aforementioned falsehoods have more grave implications than just convincing ignorant people: The more we prioritize what we feel over what is factual, the more opportunities the media has to use killer virgins’ shooting sprees as excuses to put entirely unaffiliated industries that have provided us with comfort for decades in jeopardy.
Whether or not it is the misogyny or the pure lunacy of the scum of the earth who lack empathy entirely that encourages them to take innocent lives is up for debate; you can even blame the guns.
But it sure as hell isn’t Call of Duty.
