Where Politics And Video Games Collide

So I took the opportunity and sent her an email, which I've posted below. I'll let you guys know if I get a response. Email is as follows:

[quote]Ms. Kersten:

I feel I must comment on your recent Grand Theft Auto IV column. With all due respect I must disagree with your basic assertions on several grounds.

Research has not "confirmed" in any way that aggressive tendencies are increased through the playing of violent video games anymore than they are increased through the viewing of violent movies. There are multiple studies suggesting that there might be some kind of effect and multiple studies suggesting there is little to no effect that persists beyond actual playing time. This is hardly confirmation of a hypothesis by any scientific standard.

Secondly, I have played video games for most of my life, receiving my first Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988 at age 4. Since then I have owned multiple systems and played a plethora of violent games. I have not had a potential for "...coarseness and cruelty..." emerge "...after months or years of immersion in lurid and prurient interests..."

I hardly consider my interests lurid or prurient. I am not a fan of the Grand Theft Auto franchise but I have played the games, have you? They are no more lurid or "prurient" than movies such as Goodfellas, the Departed (a Best Picture winner), Scarface, or even Gangs of New York. It is ultimately a "crime drama." You are not rewarded for random violence, to the contrary, each act of violence increases your "Star [or Wanted] Level" which results in increasing law enforcement response including police pursuit, helicopters, the FBI and even the United States Army. There is no faster way to lose the game than to engage in random violence.

In regards to your comments regarding the Wii, again it strikes me that you seem to have never played the system. The Wii is hardly the sophisticated simulator that your article makes it sound like. The gestures used on the Wii amount to little more to minor wrist movements to flick the "Wiimote" or pushing your arm towards the TV and back or twisting your arm to rotate the remove. You can not "act out" any real activities with the system at all.

I am a gamer, most of my friends are gamers, most young adults nowadays are gamers. We have been playing games, many of them violent, for years if not decades. There has not been an explosion in violent crime or depraved activity. How long is this "emergence" supposed to take? 20 years, 30, 40? The reality of the current situation has undermined the basic presumption that violent video games lead to violence, it simply has not happened despite decades of use by millions of people.

Now, I am not saying kids should be playing Grand Theft Auto, it is rated M (17+) for a reason. It is comparable to an R rated movie and the content descriptors on the back of the box will make it clear to any responsible parents that their 12 year old should not be playing this game. The problem I, and many gamers see, is that parents do not read these descriptors. I have been in game stores where parents have been informed of the rating by the sales clerk only to be told "don't tell me how to raise my child" or, and in my opinion worse, been treated to a display of "I don't care, just give it to him."

Video games are merely the latest media to be subjected to this kind of treatment. In the 1950's your parents generation was threatened by Elvis Presely and those "long haired freaks" such as the The Beatles. Just as the "Devil's Music" has survived, I must argue you are fighting a battle that is already lost.

Thank you for your time. [/quote]