Nachimir

I think there probably some truth to that also. While I take your point about pop-psychology in relation to video games (<-- Hey, American English is contagious ), I assure you that Skinner is about as far from pop as you can get. An interesting couterpoint is Maslow's "Is Destructiveness Instinctive?" from Motivation and Personality. The evidence seems to be that destructiveness is not innate, but instead learned (Though he does not exlude biological determinants; he simply breaks the nature/nurture dichotomy).

Now if, on the other hand, you were saying "Pornography makes people commit rape", then you'd be making a very similar argument to "Video games cause violent rampages".

I once read an article on porn that claimed almost all rapists had looked at porn before commiting rape, therefore porn caused rape. The argument completely ignores the millions of people who look at porn and don't commmit rape, and I think that's very similar to most people's arguments against games.

It isn't tenable to make such generalisations about any medium, and sometimes even content.

For example, in looking at porn I've seen a spectrum running from people having a tremendous amount of fun in front of a camera, to people being exploited and humiliated. The medium is ethically inert; neither good nor bad.

I'd also say the same for comics:

Nabiel Kanan, Paul Pope, Terry Moore, Dave Sim, Shannon Wheeler, Judd Winnick, Kyle Baker, Art Spiegelman, Robert Crumb, Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, Dave McKean, Jim Woodring, and Chris Ware are just a few of the people not doing mind-dulling nonsense with comics. In terms of the superhero cliché, I agree with you, but there is stimlating contemporary fiction out there in the medium. Again, proving that generalisations are inadequate.

Similary, a lot of computer games are mindless drivel, but not all. I'm not defending the content of games, because I'd agree with you that most gung-ho rambo type kill-a-thons are indeed mindless drivel. I am however defending games against the gross misapprehension that they can somehow take somebody's will and control it.

The same facile accusation was levellled at comics in the 50's. Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham wrote a book entitled "Seduction of the Innocent", which implicated comics in racism, "sexual perversion", and juvenile deliquency. Comics were burned in the streets, and publishers signed up to the strict "Comics Code", which forbade:

• Gore
• Sex
• Sadistic Behaviour
• Challenges to established authority
• The unique details of any crime
• Any hints of "illicit relations" or condoning of divorce
• Any references to physical afflictions and deformities
• Merest allusions to "sexual perversions" of any kind

(Scott McCloud, Reinventing Comics, pages 86, 87)

Now, while the pulp fiction and horror of the pre-code era wasn't exactly enriching fiction, restricting it in the manner of the code did not actually lift the medium out of the gutter. It turned it into a soulless, stagnant intellectual wasteland, and to this day intelligent, talented authors and artists are struggling to earn the medium the credibility it deserves.

All of this applies to games, and when combined with the similar examples from, literature, film, music, etc, it all points to a deeper cultural or even trans-cultural cause (My money's on the latter).

A lot of games are shit; they're about simply shooting "baddies" again, again, and again. Just as with comics, there are exceptions. Creators need freedom in order to make those exceptions, and stereotyping a medium according to a sampling of its content only damages widespread perceptions and makes exceptions less likely.