Play , a family-friendly compendium of retro-pursuits like virtual fishing, laser hockey and billiards; No. 2, Nintendogs , is a ‘pet’ game that involves looking after and dressing up a cute pet dog; No. 3 is from the Pokémon series of cute role-playing games; and most of the others are driving or role-playing or platform games, all of which involve escape and vicarious thrills, but not violence in any pornographic sense. Similarly, the bestselling game series of all time is The Sims , a ‘virtual life’ simulation.
It’s interesting to compare games, in this respect, to that other exponentially expanding technological phenomenon, the internet itself. During the first few years of the internet’s existence, many serious commentators argued that it would inexorably become mired in pornography to the point where it could barely be used for anything else. Yet today, although pornography can indeed be accessed online in sufficient quantities to keep anyone who wants it supplied for the rest of their life, only a couple of the world’s 100 most visited websites relate to pornography, and 99 per cent of web traffic is non-pornographic. Instead, people spend most of their time online on such activities as social networks, searching for news and other information, sharing (non-pornographic) images and videos, buying and selling goods and media – and, of course, in playing games, which is now the world’s third largest internet-based activity after search and socialising.
All of which is to say that painting human nature as too violent and venal is itself a dangerous distortion in the struggle to understand our relationship with new media. It’s a point that’s made explicitly by one of the most significant documents yet to appear on society’s relationship with the dangers and pleasures of this technology: Dr Tanya Byron’s March 2008 review Safer Children in a Digital World , prepared at the request of the British government in an attempt to map out its digital strategy for Britain over the next decade. Commissioned in a climate of concerned headlines and parental unease, Byron’s conclusions poured cold water on what could have been a conflagration of media hysteria. ‘Having considered the evidence,’ she wrote, ‘I believe we need to move from a discussion about the media “causing” harm to one which focuses on children and young people, what they bring to technology and how we can use our understanding of how they develop to empower them to manage risks and make the digital world safer,’ It may sound banal, but Byron’s 226-page report is enormously valuable for the clarity of its assertion that the media debate must move on towards the adult business of education, contextualisation, responsible classification and regulation; and the early identification of those who may need support in their use of media, and indeed in their lives as a whole.
Finally, if there is one danger that is both real and often overlooked, it’s the error of assuming that any medium can or should stand alone. It may be the apex of the uncontroversial to say that all human pursuits are diminished by excess – but the much-feared prospect that playing video games will automatically breed illiteracy, sloth and ignorance is not something that games themselves have any power to bring about. Balancing the multiplying demands of pleasure, leisure and work may be harder than ever in the twenty-first century, with more and more competing options for an often shrinking amount of free time. Understandably, there will always be those who wish to return to the alleged simplicities of an older world. But the present is in no way helped by the crude caricaturing of this youngest and most dynamic of our media; and the case cannot be made for the virtues of reading, conversation or even television-watching simply by pouring scorn on something else.
C HAPTER 6
The Warcraft effect
From the 1970s onwards, video games were increasingly being
It’s interesting to compare games, in this respect, to that other exponentially expanding technological phenomenon, the internet itself. During the first few years of the internet’s existence, many serious commentators argued that it would inexorably become mired in pornography to the point where it could barely be used for anything else. Yet today, although pornography can indeed be accessed online in sufficient quantities to keep anyone who wants it supplied for the rest of their life, only a couple of the world’s 100 most visited websites relate to pornography, and 99 per cent of web traffic is non-pornographic. Instead, people spend most of their time online on such activities as social networks, searching for news and other information, sharing (non-pornographic) images and videos, buying and selling goods and media – and, of course, in playing games, which is now the world’s third largest internet-based activity after search and socialising.
All of which is to say that painting human nature as too violent and venal is itself a dangerous distortion in the struggle to understand our relationship with new media. It’s a point that’s made explicitly by one of the most significant documents yet to appear on society’s relationship with the dangers and pleasures of this technology: Dr Tanya Byron’s March 2008 review Safer Children in a Digital World , prepared at the request of the British government in an attempt to map out its digital strategy for Britain over the next decade. Commissioned in a climate of concerned headlines and parental unease, Byron’s conclusions poured cold water on what could have been a conflagration of media hysteria. ‘Having considered the evidence,’ she wrote, ‘I believe we need to move from a discussion about the media “causing” harm to one which focuses on children and young people, what they bring to technology and how we can use our understanding of how they develop to empower them to manage risks and make the digital world safer,’ It may sound banal, but Byron’s 226-page report is enormously valuable for the clarity of its assertion that the media debate must move on towards the adult business of education, contextualisation, responsible classification and regulation; and the early identification of those who may need support in their use of media, and indeed in their lives as a whole.
Finally, if there is one danger that is both real and often overlooked, it’s the error of assuming that any medium can or should stand alone. It may be the apex of the uncontroversial to say that all human pursuits are diminished by excess – but the much-feared prospect that playing video games will automatically breed illiteracy, sloth and ignorance is not something that games themselves have any power to bring about. Balancing the multiplying demands of pleasure, leisure and work may be harder than ever in the twenty-first century, with more and more competing options for an often shrinking amount of free time. Understandably, there will always be those who wish to return to the alleged simplicities of an older world. But the present is in no way helped by the crude caricaturing of this youngest and most dynamic of our media; and the case cannot be made for the virtues of reading, conversation or even television-watching simply by pouring scorn on something else.
C HAPTER 6
The Warcraft effect
From the 1970s onwards, video games were increasingly being
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