Video Games as Art - Why not? Part Trois!

As a new form of media, video games have yet to garner the respect that older forms of media have earned. But newer forms of media have faced similar challenges. Even film, for which today much respect is given, had its own fear-mongering critics when it was in its infancy. A criminologist from 1910 had this to say of film:

"85 percent of the juvenile crime which has been investigated has been found traceable either directly or indirectly to motion pictures..."


This quote reflects today's own media's opinion of games, which feeds our society with exclusively negative news about games. When most people think of a gamer, they think of a man in his mid-thirties still living in his mother's attic, usually overweight and unhygienic.



Our society also associates games with violence and the corruption of children's minds. Below is an example of the media promoting the stereotype and stigma of gamers and the supposed negative impact video games have on society. The video below features former Attorney Jack Thompson, who is seen by many gamers as the most prolific opponent against video games. In this video Thompson claims that one of the D.C. snipers, Lee Boyd Malvo, was "trained" on the game Halo to kill. In another video, Thompson also insists that the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, played Counter-Strike extensively and that the game taught him how to kill efficiently.



With so many negative ideas about games in our society, it's no wonder that they are not typically considered art. Those that demonize video games, especially those that claim video games inspire and train people to kill, often cite studies that conclude that video games teach people violence. These same people never consider all of the counter studies that explain that the exact opposite is true.

Henry Jenkins wrote an essay for pbs.org in which he debunks many of the myths associated with video games.

In his essay, Jenkins states that "A large gap exists between the public's perception of video games and what the research actually shows. The following is an attempt to separate fact from fiction." Jenkin's essay helps to illustrate just how skewed our society's view on video games actually is.

One criticism that Jenkin's refutes in his essay (and Thompson mentions in the video above) is the idea that because video games have been used in military training, that they also train kids to kill. Jenkins brings up these points on the matter:

"Former military psychologist and moral reformer David Grossman argues that because the military uses games in training (including, he claims, training soldiers to shoot and kill), the generation of young people who play such games are similarly being brutalized and conditioned to be aggressive in their everyday social interactions.

Grossman's model only works if:

* we remove training and education from a meaningful cultural context.
* we assume learners have no conscious goals and that they show no resistance to what they are being taught.
* we assume that they unwittingly apply what they learn in a fantasy environment to real world spaces."

Jenkin's uses James Gee's book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy to point out that games do help children learn, but not in a negative way.

Jenkins:

"James Gee describes game players as active problem solvers who do not see mistakes as errors, but as opportunities for improvement. Players search for newer, better solutions to problems and challenges, he says. And they are encouraged to constantly form and test hypotheses. This research points to a fundamentally different model of how and what players learn from games."