Video games turned my sweet child into a rabid dog

Why suggest video games cause people to act violently? It’s a serious topic given recent mass shootings in the United states and the discussion around it, and I feel myself straining against the format when I started musing over a discussion on it. There’s a good Wikipedia article that has collated the studies on video games and violence that lends itself to a firm rebuttal of the accusations that video-games are to blame. A polygon article (CBA to link it), published in march of 2018 talks about how effective rating systems are for limiting purchases by underage children, generally stating them to be more effective than movie ratings in preventing underage purchase.

So, then… well. Why is this still a thing? He asks suggesting by implication he yet has a theory to explain the trend. I do not, be assured, but if i muddle on long enough that might not matter.

“Video games are the most oppressed group of modern times” this is at least undeniably true. It’s harder to come as a gamer than it is as gay. Rightly so. After having been through controversies around: (deep breath) sexual themes, portrayal of gender, lgbt characters, race and countries; along with issues of addiction, online harassment, alt right associations and one game that featured “the killing of Sikhs at their most holy site” it is hard not to see video games and their players as a bunch degenerate cretins.

Video games don’t make people violent but the people who play them are bloody awful. Lets refine that statement a little, not much because I don't want people to think I'm letting up on my scorn. I’m fairly sure most people won’t defend that kind of bullshit. Let’s chance tack.

Film controversies are not listed as being of the medium in general but are organised by title which makes comparison hard (I'd actually have to do some research and that’s simply unacceptable), and some of these include minor aspects like the kingsman sequel being banned in Cambodia but misses out on some fairly major ones like the ‘triumph of the wills’ being made by Nazis, which you’know outside of gamer circles is a pretty edgy thing. The total given is 55 for films, 56 including triumph.

You know when i said that bit about games not being done by title, that was a lie or rather i hadn’t get googled it. The games industry, not including the hardware which isn’t inherently problematic, was worth 35 million, no, billion dollar $$$ in 2018. Conversely the film industry, including home entertainment is worth 136 billion. Proportionally to scale we would expect 0.257 times the controversies given the scale. 112. So where do you think games measure up? Drum roll please…. Oh, i already said it, 112 which doing some quick maths, 55*0.25 (carry the 1) 7 is 112. So it’s exactly as you’d expect. Where an industry a quarter of the size putting out double the controversy….

So where do we find an explanation for the data? A reporting bias? My method being bad? Well i don’t care really. I only set out to show why people are willing to saddle and already controversial hive of scum and villainy with yet more scorn. I feel very comfortable doing so myself and i have no gain from doing so. Simply my theory which i came up as I write this, is that there are terms of plausibility that make the idea of gamer, via their association to the medium, of being violent mass shooters a palatable idea even with evidence to the contrary. It is the 99 heinous acts that make the 100th assumed, of which you might be innocent. Not that it really matters as your reflex response to the accusation will simply be the posting of memes and another round of circle-jerking.

I have a massive boner for data and having just showered i decided to wedge in a rolling frequency chart of video game controversies. Each point is the sum of the prior five years, so the first point 1977 is the sum of 1973-1977, 1978 is 1972-1978 ect ect.

Clearly this shit show was at peak in the second half of the 2000’s and has since somewhat abated, CBA to claim statistical significance. My plan from here was to plot something entirely unrelated against the dependent variable in a scatter graph and claim causality but I have things to do with my day, a lie, so I think I'll just wrap it up here.