You might find this interesting:
http://www.gamecouch.com/2008/02/interview-dr-cheryl-olson-co-author-of-grand-theft-childhood/
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That is pretty interesting, but I think it’s a little peripheral to the issue that I’m thinking about. Nonetheless, I was glad to see the author say the following:
"One reassuring thing we found is that most children who play GTA don’t see the characters as role models, and don’t see the game as like real life. In fact, the “unreality” is one thing they like about the series. They can test boundaries and try things that, as one boy put it, “**hopefully, will never happen to you. So you want to experience it a little bit without actually being there.” **
One of the biggest draws of GTA seems to be not the violence but the open environment and array of choices: “You can be a good guy and a bad guy at the same time.” Every child will play the game differently.
I’m glad that a significant percentage of the study feels that way about playing Grand Theft Auto. But that interview focuses on the player’s reaction to the game, and I’m curious about a very different relationship. I’m curious about what veterans feel when they see horrific battlescenes in video games, which are being used as entertainment purposes for other people. To bring the analogy back to Grand Theft Auto, I’d be similarly interested to see what violent carjacking victims think about Grand Theft Auto, although I think that ground has been covered before.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with playing these games, or these games being on the market. I’m just curious as to what people who’ve survived these potentially traumatic experience(s) think about video games depicting similar experiences.
Good question.
People leave the military with many different emotions based on the type of experience they had. We’re cogniscent of some of these, unaware of the latent ones.
I had a psycho-therapist tell me that we have little control over our emotions, but as adults we have significant control over how we choose to respond to them. I also believe in the Steven Covey quote, “Between stimulus and response is our greatest freedom: choice.” To a degree we can make choices about how we respond to the things that have affected us. On another level we don;t seem to be able to exert that control, it seems to control our subconcious.
I’ve played realistic video games like “SOCOM: Navy SEALs” and “Call of Duty IV: Modern Warfare.” Different things provide odd stimulus from these games. For me, it is the sound and the vocabulary. When I first played COD IV I had trouble sleeping. The sounds of the radio traffic were very accurate, really the only accurate aspect of the game.
I think in a way the games can be theraputic. I think they help you re-connect with some of the military experience and then confront it if you haven’t already.
How authentic is it? Well, the action is super compressed like a movie, but sometimes the circumstances are hauntingly real. Check this out:
Thanks for your input, Tom. If you don’t mind me asking, in what capacity did you serve?
While I changed hats a few times in the military the bulk of what I did was as a scout/observer, 3rd Platoon, Bravo Patrol, Company F, 425th Infantry (Airborne) Longe Range Surveillance Unit.
Here I am on the way to work one evening back in the mid 80’s:
I don’t play “realistic” war games, such as Call of Duty 4, Battlefield, etc. I think it’s disrespectful to some degree. “Playing Soldier” and killing real human figures just doesn’t seem right.
I do play Gears of War and Halo and other fictitional games where the enemies are not “human” or “humanlike”. The Rainbow Six series would be the exception to this.
My wife, bought me, as a gift, the Battlefield 2 collection a few years ago. I never really got into it (out of principle), after finding out the enemies are Iraq, China, etc … and it made me wonder if video games in Iraq contain American oldiers to be killed, destroyed etc, and then the same thing about Chinese video games … it also made me wonder if these video games were unintentionally a “training tool” and “propoganda”.
This war games are now designed for online play against 64 other human oponents, complete with kill stats, success rates, ranks, awards, medals, etc. It’s way out of hand.