What happens when a game breaks out of representations of violence (Grand Theft Auto) and actually engages (executes) violence (Tekken Torture Tournament)? In what way does representation sensitize or desensitize us to violence VS in what way does play (real enactment) resensitize us? When children play do they ever resort to violence? Can you describe its possible uses?
a) explain the main points of the passage briefly to the class & explain why you think it helps answer the question
b) raise questions related to the passage that open up discussion of the main points, and possible help you answer the question more deeply
c) give examples of a game or other media that relates to the question or passage
Main Points: The article talks about how games like Grand Theft Auto are based on (fictional) real world situations and gives players the ability to live out their twisted gangster fantasies, it also talks about a mod for Tekken which shocks players when their characters are injured in the game. The Article talks about how one is playing on the players twisted desires and how it translates into real life and how the other is taking one of the most key and basic elements of videogames out of the equation: No real world repercussions.
Being an avid gamer and fan of the Grand Theft Auto series I know this discussion all well, wether I was talking my parents into allowing me to get it or trying to explain to my younger cousins why they couldn’t play it even though I did for hours on end. The article took a position on the topic that I found very interesting.
“But the real danger of this horrific game may have less to do with the frenzied violence and underworld scheming portrayed in it than the critique it makes of the very institutions and bodies that seek to ban it. ”
Everything we see on the internet and TV is slowed desensitizing us to the evils of the world. If people really wanted to protect them from the bad things in the world they wouldn’t let them leave the house. Its the responsibilities of parents to teach their kids wrong from right and help them understand why the actions they do in the game are wrong. If a child sees that a man walked into a mall and shot everyone in sight because he lost his job, the child isn’t necessarily going to do the same thing when put in the position because everything that he is taught growing up in the world today tells him that is wrong and you can’t do something like that. So when a child plays a game like Grand Theft Auto, he isn’t going to steal a car when he’s older just because he saw it in a game because everything he has learned growing up tells him it’s wrong.
The Tekken mod is something completely different. For me, video games have always been contained in screen in which I’m playing on, when you add the electrodes connected to the players are I don’t consider it a video game anymore. A game like Tekken has always been two guys fighting on a screen, the winner only receives bragging rights, and the loser is shamed by his defeat. By adding pain to losers shame, I think it changes the whole dynamic of the game. Instead of going head first and button mashing to take your opponents health before he can do the same, you have to block otherwise you get shocked. Now kids aren’t just playing to win, they playing not to lose which isn’t what video games are about.
Violence is something everyone knows a thing or two about. As a little boy I know I played army, imagining bombs going off left and right, and bullets flying over my head. I didn’t grow up and make that a reality because I understood it wasn’t real, it was an image I made up in my mind. When I began playing video games like Grand Theft Auto, I didn’t bring the violence into real world situations because I understood the images I saw were just the “army games” someone else thought of and put on a screen for me to see and interact with. It’s bring imaginations to life and sharing them with other people. Nothing more, nothing less.
Another Example: Assassin’s Creed or Hitman – Both of these games are based on the idea of killing people without anyone else knowing it happened or that it was you. These games aren’t teaching kids how to commit the perfect murder or that walking up behind someone and slitting their throat is okay.