Bang! Bang! Reboot! You’re Still Dead!
What would you say if you knew that your tax dollars were going to fund a violent video game that your kids can play over the Internet - for free?
One of my major pet peeves is violent video games. Degenerate crap like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are chock full of dangerously anti-social and grossly immoral violence, which studies indicate numbs the players to the consequences of their violent game actions so much that they are more susceptible to blithely commiting violence and property crimes in real-life.
We all know of a couple of these screwed up kids for whom violence became deadly entertainment:
Columbine Diaries Contain Video Game References
[D]iaries and assorted papers of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold contain a handful of video game references among the 946 pages made public by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
[I]t’s clear that Eric Harris … was an angry young man, full of hatred and contempt for many of those he knew. Of the planned massacre, Harris wrote, “It’ll be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together. … I want to leave a lasting impression on the world.”
id Software’s Doom series is well-known as a favorite of Harris and Klebold. Harris wrote a fan letter to id, which can be seen here
The “Duke” reference refers to Duke Nukem 3D, a bawdy, 1996 first-person shooter from developer 3D Realms.
In August, 1998 Harris wrote out a list of “25 Things that make me different.” Number one was:
“My love for a computer game called Doom. Doom is such a big part of my life and no one I know can recreate environments in Doom as good as me. I know almost anything there is to know about that game, so I believe that separates me from the rest of the world… Doom is so burned into my head my thoughts usually have something to do with the game… the fact is I love that game and if others tell me, “hey it’s just a game” I say “hey, I don’t care”
Despite claims that these games are not detrimental to behavior, there is plenty of evidence to show that they do indeed harm the young:
Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children
Congressional Public Health Summit
July 26, 2000There are some in the entertainment industry who maintain that 1) violent programming is harmless because no studies exist that prove a connection between violent entertainment and aggressive behavior in children, and 2) young people know that television, movies, and video games are simply fantasy. Unfortunately, they are wrong on both counts.
At this time, well over 1000 studies - including reports from the Surgeon General’s office, the National Institute of Mental Health, and numerous studies conducted by leading figures within our medical and public health organizations - our own members - point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children.
The conclusion of the public health community, based on over 30 years of research, is that viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children. Its effects are measurable and long-lasting.
Moreover, prolonged viewing of media violence can lead
to emotional desensitization toward violence in real life.
Is that why your tax dollars are being used to lure susceptible teens into thinking a life of killing and destruction in the ’service’ of the nation would be a lot of fun?
Virtually dead in Iraq
By Rebecca ClarrenOn the online video game America’s Army, a strapping guy in camouflage scrambles on his belly across cracked dirt in a war-torn city that looks like Baghdad.
As he peers out from behind a low stone wall, he peels up to his feet and starts running down a hill toward a small square hut. He fires several rounds from his machine gun at another soldier, this one dressed in a black-hooded outfit. Five yellow streaks flash from his gun, and the black-hooded soldier rolls over and slides down a hill. Our guy in camouflage chases him till he sags against a van, shoots him again, and then satisfied that the dust emerging from his back indicates death, moves on.
Across the top of the screen appears the name of a real American soldier, his age and the date he was killed in Iraq.
Last week that name read:
“CHARLES A. HANSON JR 22 NOV. 28 2004.”America’s Army, created by the same designers who produced hit first-person-shooter games like Redneck Rampage and Kingpin, is funded by the U.S. Army (to the tune of nearly $10 million), which is to say American taxpayers.
The military funded America’s Army in part to interest kids as young as 13 to join the Army. The virtual rifle range (free to download) is also a training ground for real combat in Iraq.
With 7.5 million users since its release in 2002, America’s Army has become the main place where young people learn about the military, according to a 2004 marketing survey conducted for the Army. It’s an “entertaining way for young adults to explore the Army and its adventures and opportunities as a virtual soldier,” reads the game’s official Web site, which links gamers to a military recruiter.
But the name of the American soldier killed in Iraq, which those logged on to the game are forced to see, is certainly not part of the game’s design but the handiwork of artist Joseph DeLappe.
[H]e says that online spaces like America’s Army are a critical place to interact with the world. “I’m going to where these impressionable kids are spending their time,” he says. “If you get them where they live, and this causes them to think, even for an instant, then I think it’s effective. Art is a limited form for trying to change the world, but it’s the tool I have. This is what I do.
“As a media artist, this feels like my patriotic duty.”
To streak entertainment with reality, DeLappe has turned America’s Army into a war protest and a memorial to dead soldiers. Since the anniversary of the Iraq invasion this past March, DeLappe, chair of the art department at the University of Nevada, Reno, has been playing the game under the call sign “dead-in-Iraq,” which is also what he calls his work of “performance art.”
He logs on to the game and does nothing. While other online players around him simulate war — and eventually shoot him — he types into the program’s chat interface — typically used for gamers to strategize with one another — the name of each service person killed in Iraq. As of Sept. 14, he’d entered 1,273 names of the 2,670 Americans killed there; he plans to continue until the war ends.
“I’m trying to remind other gamers
that real people are dying in Iraq,”
DeLappe says.
“… hey it’s just a game … ” equals “… hey, I don’t care … “
The kids aren’t ‘alright’ - in fact, they don’t understand what the uproar over their ‘fun’ is all about:
[Gamers] explain DeLappe lacks a fundamental understanding of why the average gamer plays America’s Army for several hours a day. When it comes to computer games, it rocks the Casbah!
It REALLY wouldn’t interest anybody:
[G]amer, Robert Kirby, 17, of Fort Worth, Texas, [says he] doesn’t need to be reminded about the reality of war. “I already think about my friends enough who died, and the ones who are over there right now,” writes Kirby, who is headed to college to enter law enforcement.
“I really don’t care to see someone like him
trolling in that server trying
to stir up emotions like that.”
Someone like ‘HIM‘ comments on that disconnect:
“It’s bizarre that anyone can get absorbed in such an insane computer game simulating warfare, when there’s real suffering taking place,” says the soft-spoken artist [DeLappe]. “This is a way to communicate a sense of loss and frustration with the fact that soldiers are dying over there and life just seems to be going on like normal over here.”
Thinking about such things would ruin the FUN!
[W]rites Pfc. Will Coveleskie, a teacher from Shamokin, Penn., who has played America’s Army since 2003: “I’m here to play a game, not read a CNN report.”
This is the reality:
“It’s probably the only game out there on the Internet, where if it draws you in and gets you to join the military, you could die,” says DeLappe.
Is DeLappe having an effect? Not according to the Army:
Even if some gamers are personally moved by the protest (DeLappe hasn’t heard from any), the military is far from threatened by this artistic endeavor.
Military spokesperson Lori Mezoff laughs when asked if the Army is concerned about the game affecting recruitment numbers. As of June, America’s Army users had clicked on GoArmy.com 1.35 million times. With users having spent more than 160 million hours playing America’s Army, the military figures its investment of $2.5 million per year to expand and update the game is well worth it, Mezoff says.
On Sept. 14, the Army launched its 22nd update of the game. Included in the update is a program called America’s Army Real Heroes. It lists the accomplishments of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan who have earned the nation’s highest awards for valor, such as the Silver Star or Distinguished Service Cross.
I guess that’s supposed to make it less of a game and more of a history lesson?
And what of this offering - is it supposed to make the game seem more like real life? More like football, for example?
While the real soldiers don’t play America’s Army, gamers can read profiles or watch three-minute video interviews of them talking about their childhood and military experiences. It’s a way to show recruits what the Army life is all about, Mezoff says.
Just what do childhood experiences have to do with Army life? That connection is chilling enough!
Which DeLappe finds ironic. “Their intention to make the game more real is basically what I’m trying to do, but all the soldiers happen to still be alive,” he says.
“What’s going to happen if one of them dies on another tour? Will they leave them in the game?”
Isn’t that what one does with dead heroes - use them to inspire the next collection of future dead heroes to enlist? Isn’t it all only just a game?
Who cares. Really.
You should!
Or do your kids mean nothing to you?
Have a comment? writerealist@earthlink.net
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