By now you’re probably heard of #Gamergate, the internet lynch mob masquerading as a movement for ethics in video game journalism. Though #Gamergaters, as they’re known, have repeatedly targeted their critics with rape and death threats, drawing rebukes from the broader gaming community, surprisingly few observers have asked whether violent video games themselves may have triggered this sort of abhorrent behavior.
Debate about video games and violence has, of course, been around almost as long as video games have. In 1976, the now-defunct game company Exidy introduced Death Race, a driving game based around mowing down what appeared to be pedestrians. “I’m sure most people playing this game do not jump in their car and drive at pedestrians,” the behavioral psychologist Gerald Driessen told the New York Times. “But one in a thousand? One in a million? And I shudder to think what will come next if this is encouraged. It’ll be pretty gory.”
Driessen’s fears seem almost quaint these days. Traffic fatalities and violent crime are at their lowest rates in decades, despite the advent of drastically more realistic and morally depraved games such as Grand Theft Auto. “Facts, common sense, and numerous studies all debunk the myth that there is a link between video games and violence,” the Entertainment Software Association, the trade group that represents the $65 billion video game industry, writes on its web page. “In fact, numerous authorities, including the US Supreme Court, US Surgeon General, Federal Trade Commission, and Federal Communications Commission examined the scientific record and found that it does not establish any causal link between violent programming and violent behavior.”
But the ESA’s defense of violent games masks a deeper reality: An emerging body of scientific research shows that the games aren’t as harmless as many people think.
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