After watching Joystick Warriors, I have a stir of emotions dwelling within me, mainly anger and bewilderment. I personally do not think that video games solely have a major influence in violent acts in the real world. To me, Joystick Warriors seemed like a very bias film that had the intent to stigmatize games even more. I had many problems with the ideas expressed in the film. There were many moments when I was shaking my head about the lacking of understanding the people in the film had about video games and its culture.
One of my main problems with the film, is that at times, the film made it seem like video games meant violent, rated M for mature, FPS, war games. I found in interesting that no where in the film did they criticize or mention parents who allow their children to play these games that are clearly rated M. The rating system of video games began after Mortal Kombat received a backlash from the media since the game feature lots of blood and gruesome scenes of fatalities. After the rating system was introduced, all games were required to have an appropriate rating in order to prevent children from accessing these inappropriate games. However, the film showed these obvious underage kids playing COD and basically said that those kids will become killers in the world because of COD. But the question is why are these kids playing these games when they are obviously not over 18? Generally, a child does not have the resources to go out a buy a game—it must be done for him or her. There was a scene in the film where they showed a commercial for my first rifle which was ridiculous but also had nothing to do with video games. The commercial was followed by news segment of a 5 year old boy who shot and killed his 2 year old sister. This issue seems to stem more from bad parenting than violent video games.
The film tried to get the message across that violent video games desensitize us. At one point, someone mentions that movies generally do not focus on violence but with video games, violence is the core of the game. He goes on to add that seeing such violence makes us less empathetic and at times can seem comical to the player. One thing that is always overlooked is that these games are made for many reasons. For one, blowing up people or things is real life has many negative consequences and that is why many people who are sane and have common sense do not do it. Video games give us the privilege of being in a virtual world were we as the player have the liberty to do whatever we feel like doing whether that is stabbing someone or shooting them in the face and not have to work about an sort of punishment in the real world. As the film stated, many people who play COD will not join the military and I think it is mainly because the player understands that there is no respawning in war. But also because playing COD or other FPS games does not make you a solider or professional shooter just like playing Guitar Hero does not make you a rockstar guitarist. The reasons many people play COD is because they think that COD’s game play is addictive and/or fun. But the most important point is that it simply is not real. Playing games like COD can be immersive but in the end, the player will know that he or she is in the comfort of their own home. Andrew Bacevich states that in games like COD “allow people to indulge this identity with soldiers in a way that has no obligations or downsides, it is fraudulent.” Going back to what I said earlier, of course taking on the role of a solider is fraudulent, that is why games like COD are called games. The role is not suppose to have obligations or downsides otherwise that would be real life. When playing a game, you are suppose to take on the role of the protagonist but that does not mean you literally become the protagonist in real life.
A part I found extremely comical, so comical I thought they were not even serious, was when the film mentioned the partnership between gun manufactures and game developers. Where to begin. First of all, I think most game developers work with gun manufactures for the purpose of making the game somewhat realistic. Worlds in a video games tend fake most of the time but there are elements form the real world that are incorporated into the fake world for the purpose of immersion. That is why game developers usually partner up with corporations. In some cases, game developers (as in the studio not the game programmer) have to do their research so its game comes out to be somewhat realistic in order to not interfere with gameplay. I would also imagine the gun manufactures also help game developers improve their budget since most likely gun manufactures pay to have their product in the game. In fact, that is not new at all. Many games now have in game ads and that is just corporations being corporations. What is funny, however, is that there seems to be a legitimate fear that people who play games that have guns which are modeled after real ones that the player will get up from his or her couch and go to his or her local gun shop to buy a gun. To me, this section of the film just seemed to be an anti-gun commercial and used video games to further their argument.
One thing I can agree with the film is that Video games, like a lot of media, do tend to portray the stereotypical theme of masculinity and femininity. This depiction of gender is especially prominent in many Japanese titles. Japanese games tend to make females incredibly busty and/or moe. One recent title that caused a bit of controversy was Dragon’s Crown developed by Vanillaware and published by Atlus. In the game, there is a female mage with ridiculously oversized breasts and a female amazon warrior with an absurd beefy body structure. What was the point of having such character designs? Was it to get more males to buy the game? Maybe, but the reason this game sold decently was because it was a solid side scrolling beat’em up RPG with an interesting art style. Moving beyond that, Samus, from the Metroid series, is another interesting character that can fall into the stereotypical depiction of gender in video games. Originally, Nintendo did not plan to make the protagonist of Metroid female but in the end, decided it was be a good twist when the player beats the game and realizes that they had been controlling a woman. One of the problems with the original Metroid is that Nintendo made it possible to play the game with Samus in a swimsuit. However, when Retro Studios, an American developer, was given the Metroid series, they made Samus into a great character. She was not in any way the stereotypical women seen in most games, instead she was a brave space bounty hunter that had gone to a unknown planet to explore. Another notable female character is Chell from Portal. There are certain problems with these female characters. Although there is no stereotypical attributes present with these female characters, the problem is that the characters do not really speak and thus there is not much character development. So I can agree that certain games do portray women, for the most part, as objects rather than important developing characters.
Video games have become a great part of culture in many places of the world. Video games are not always about violence and in fact can be very inspirational or deep on certain levels.It is very easy to point the finger at violent video games and blame them for mass shootings but the reality is that the basis of such incidents are complex. There are many things wrong with society nowadays and if you want to throw video games into that mix, so be it but it is important to understand that most people who play COD, GTA, or what have you, understand the consequences of murder and do not go out to their local gun stores to buy the weapon that was advertised in a game. Video games are either a simple past time for many, a means of socialization, or even now a career. Video games becoming a big part of the entertainment sector and it is understandable that those who do not play video games or are ignorant of them can dismiss them as useless.