Psychotic Norwegians, and the Games They Play
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
So. Anders Behring Breivik said at his trial that he played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as a means of shooting practice. This, of course, has reopened the debate as to whether or not there is a link between video games and violent behavior.
To quote Jeremy Clarkson: “Oh, for God’s SAKE!”
I’ll attempt to be as subtle with this point as I can be:
VIDEO GAMES DO NOT TURN PEOPLE INTO PSYCHO EXTREMIST TERRORIST MURDERERS. THEY WERE THAT WAY TO BEGIN WITH.
thankyew
It's easy to see why people are angry here.
Look, maybe you haven’t been to Norway, but I have. It’s as close to utopia as you can find on this planet. Aside from the jaw-dropping scenery, it’s got one of the highest standards of living in the world, and it has the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. Ironically enough, what half of this country reviles as “socialism” (which makes me laugh, because most of these people have never even been to a socialist nation) created this amazingly stable, happy country — which also happens to be a creditor nation instead of a debtor, with amazingly sound fiscal policy. More than once I’ve seriously considered moving to Norway (since I still have family there), particularly in light of the frighteningly rapid social and fiscal dissolution that our own country is facing.
Was there a time when Norway was full of psychotic, rampaging murderers? Sure. A thousand years ago, Norway was the most badass country in the world. We raped and pillaged most of Europe. I mean, when you live in a country that has six months of darkness, what the hell else are you going to? Remember, the PlayStation wasn’t around yet. Neither was electricity. So we had to do crazy stuff like invade Ireland, found the city of Dublin, and take all the hot gingers back to the fjord. You know. For kicks.
Morten Harket (a.k.a. Bastard With Perfect Hair)
Today, on the other hand, there’s really nothing to get mad about up there, except for the fact that I can’t seem to duplicate Morten Harket’s hair. No, seriously. When you live in a utopia where there’s universal health care, virtually free public education, and a level of egalitarianism on par with Star Trek, what the hell are you going to get upset about? That there’s a moose in your backyard? The moose is happy, too. Hang out with the moose.
Which is why I would like to point out a rather obvious fact that’s being lost here: Anders Breivik is a nut.
Really. Stop with the internal debate. You’re overanalyzing this.
Anders Breivik is a nut. A complete, full-tilt, raving nutbar asswhistle. THAT’S ALL.
Norway didn’t make him that way. And neither did video games. He was born with a screw loose, and should have been drowned in a bucket. End of discussion.
Why is it that we demonize video games? Didn’t we go through this same handwaving with rock music, television and junk food already? It amazes me that there are still enough ignorant people in this country who can be sold on the notion that a Twinkie is responsible for Dan White killing Harvey Milk and George Moscone. Why did it take John-freaking-Denver to convince Tipper Gore that Dee Snider isn’t Satan incarnate? Why do we somehow think that video games are suitable training material for the Trenchcoat Mafia to massacre a high school? Should we book-ban Nabokov for fear that everyone will suddenly turn into ephebophiles?
Scapegoating doesn’t solve the problem. If some kid’s about to jump off a roof because there are “subliminal messages” from thirty-year-old metal albums telling him to do it, I got news for ya: Black Sabbath isn’t the problem. The kid’s simply a doorknob.
Behold the real subversion.
And video games? Come on. Seriously? Video games do not turn people into psychotic raving lunatics. Millions of people play video games every day. The only video game with subversive elements in it is Super Mario Bros. — a game which convinced millions of children to take the “warp pipe” to find the Princess, ingest flowers in order to shoot fireballs from the palm of your hand, dress like a raccoon in order to fly, and ride a dinosaur that has a constant case of the munchies. Now that’s eyebrow arching.
First-person shooters are guilty of only one thing: being, for the most part, horrifically boring and formulaic. And no, they don’t teach you how to operate actual firearms with any degree of accuracy. There is a huge difference between waving your motion controller around and picking up a real assault rifle. Speaking as someone who owns assault rifles, there is no damn way that any logical human being can draw a correlation between a Kalashnikov and a Sixaxis.
Fortunately, we have an election season in which there’s some genuinely scary stuff going on; otherwise, I suspect video games would once again be trotted out by someone in a necktie as the Great Evil Of Our Time, and how we must protect the children.
Video games didn't make this man a nutcase. He already was one.
Please. Child labor during the Industrial Revolution was a problem. Video games are not the problem. Video games never were the problem. The problem is that we somehow think there’s a causal relationship between little Timmy blowing up polygons and little Timmy wanting to subsequently go blow up a building.
No, the problem is that little Timmy was a nutjob and needed to be removed from the gene pool before things got out of hand. Somewhere we lost sight of the fact that there’s always going to be a fringe percentage of the species that’s just freaking bugnuts, and rather than deal with them directly, we try to cope with our illogical fears of becoming them by legislating tighter and tighter nooses around ourselves. And the last thing we need to deal with right now is a government telling us even more things to do or not do — probably while thumping some incredibly ultra-violent holy book as a moral justification for doing so.
Bah. Pay no attention to me. I’m just another psychotic Norwegian on a rampage. Hide your kids.
April 21st, 2012 by NorseGamer | 11 comments
NorseGamer is the product manager for LOOT Entertainment at Sony Pictures, as well as the founder and publisher of HomeStation Magazine. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and presently lives in Los Angeles. All opinions expressed in HSM are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sony DADC.
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Yes thank you, I do not understand the government stepping in to sensor video games, when its a parent that should be conscious of what their children are being exposed to. Yet, the FDA goes unchallenged to approve the poison kids get fed in junk food, and the mood altering drugs parents seem to think they need to be on.
hmmm wow did i spell censor with an S? fail…
He is bug-nuts, end of story. Just look at his eyes they say it all.
Nice article Norse.
I have two little boys in my family that want to join the army and shoot people. When I was playing Fallout 3, they asked me one question about the game; can you shoot the children. When I gave them my PSP to play that had Jak and Daxter in it, they said it was a “baby’s game”. They were both 5 at that time.
Their mother lets them play CoD and MW daily. I’d say this kind of exposure can heavily influence young children.
But I have to agree Norse, unfortunately there are people who’re just born head-cases. I’m sure I saw a documentary about a scientist that actually found a part of the brain that when given the right stimulation will reveal our pre-disposition for us to murder. So if you have the money, time and desire you can find out if it resides within you.
Unless of course Genghis Khan had a time machine we still don’t know about, perhaps he somehow stole it from Hitler when Jack the Ripper invented it and went on that unsolved intergalactic, multidimensional killing spree that we still can’t solve…
I have to say i do wholeheartedly agree with ESRB ratings, exposure to violence does desensitize, I don’t feel it makes anyone a serial killer but parents still need to be parents and be conscious of what they expose their children to. Allow kids to mature at least, before exposing them to violence especially for entertainment. I can’t recall how often at Gamestop a clerk has started to explain the ratings to a parent buying a violent game to their under tween child just to be waved off and dismissed with annoyance. Good thing video games haven’t effected me cuz I’ve had a mad urge to smack the living snot out of these parents every time i see it. Thing is we are conscious enough not to buy a kid under 21 alcohol, a kid under 18 cigarettes, or a kid under 18 or 21 (whatever the law is in your state) porn, yet violent explicit content never even raises an eye brow. Its not the governments job to censor game developers, they are doing their job by putting the ESRB rating on the box, its up to parents to adhere to these rules as a fitting parent would to tobacco, alcohol, or pornography.
As long as there is video games there will be questions about if they are bad. I know there not, you know there not, but it’s just to juicy a story for a 24 hour media to pass up.
My question is why are certain areas of commerce immune to criticism? This guy, totally cray kills people and they rush to blame video games. Drunk driving kills 10,839 people a year and that’s alright…Huh?
Organized religions kill more people than video games ever will.
LOL THANK YOU!!!
Do I think that games directly cause people to be violent: No. I do think that to those who don’t have the tools in the tool box to deal with life, it can effect them. Viewing violence can desensitaze and make violence less distasteful to some, maybe even offer it up as a tool in the toolbox to deal with situatuions. Though it is pixel violence, we revel in the thought that we “got a headshot”. It’s simply another avenue to view and to a degree participate in violence. I believe it is akin to pornography and it’s influence on the sexually violent. Though there may not be a direct cause/ effect relation, it is still an influence. Am I calling on the government to start swinging the black bar of censorship. No. Also the start of censoring is the slipperiest of slopes that once we ban a game for violence, then comes the ‘whats next’ people. We have a ratings system that makes the parents a part of the system too. Indeed parents need to be a bigger factor, and often use games as babysitters. In addition, many stores I go to make me ,the consumer fully aware that a particular game is rated and for what.I don’t blame games, but I think that they can be a factor in the minds of the people without the ability to handle real life siuations well. Agree or disagree, it’s my opinion.
p.s. If you need proof, look at the crazy guy in the first picture with the 2 guns, I gotta bad feeling about him.
As with complex issues, it is not black and white and I think it is the same with the effects of video games; there is a lot of gray. For the most part I agree with you and agree with the comments here, but knowing how the brain works leads me to believe that we all are affected by games. It may not be in the form of directly becoming a cold-blooded murder.
Just because we know it is not real does not mean that it does not affect us. I do not play FPS games mainly for the way they make me feel. I can feel the effects, to a degree, of combat shock. Watching Platoon in a dark theater left me with the same feeling. People cry at movies. I do not watch A Clockwork Orange because there are several scenes that I just can’t bear to watch again. People cheer the “good guys” when they kill the “bad guys.”
As it has been said here in the comments that violent games and movies can have a desensitizing affect. I do not want to get to point where I feel OK playing FPS games. If I did, would I be more inclined to be OK with the US invading another country to remove the “bad guy” or with collateral damage (code for innocent deaths). I don’t want to find out the answer.
To different degrees we are desensitized to violence. To some it was already there, but our environment has an effect; nature and nurture. Multiple factors contribute and I think that it is wrong to not acknowledge the effects of games.
What we continuously choose to expose ourselves to, reinforces and deepens what is already inherent in us. As a man thinketh so is he.
It is not a simple issue. You are right that violence is inherent in man and that scapegoating complex issues with games is wrong, so is saying there are no harmful effects in games.