Out of controller: With violent and sexy video games selling fast, when should parents pull the plug?

By Don Bosley
Bee Staff Writer
This story is taken from Lifestyle at sacbee.com
Published August 18, 2002

Joshua Foster is not allowed to solicit prostitutes and then kill them to get his money back. His mother won't let him. 

"It's just a video game," says Joshua, 11, of West Sacramento. "It's not like I'm going to go out and kill someone afterward." 

Patti Foster also doesn't want her son shooting cops, hijacking cars, beating up the elderly or running over people on the sidewalk with a tractor-trailer. 

Because of this, Joshua doesn't get to play the country's best-selling video game, "Grand Theft Auto 3," even though he knows plenty of kids who do. 

"In my opinion, she's kind of (overbearing) on me," Joshua says .

There are millions of Joshuas out there, and at the moment, their minds and wallets are at the center of an impassioned cultural, legal and even scientific debate: Where do we draw the line with video-game violence? 

Where should parents be encouraged to draw it? What about lawmakers? Or the video-game industry? 

It's a complicated battlefield, pocked with some uneasy standoffs. Even though most studies now show that media violence does influence children on some level, video-game content is becoming more violent and brazen every year. 

The stakes are high, both for young minds and small fortunes. Last year, even movie box-office receipts couldn't touch the console and computer-game industry, which rung up $9.4 billion in hardware and software sales. 

"Most parents are not even aware of what's in the games their kids are playing," says Democratic Rep. Joe Baca, speaking from his San Bernardino office. 

" 'Grand Theft Auto' tells you how to hijack a vehicle, how to rape, how to commit sexual assault, how to beat up the elderly and how to take out a police officer. I mean, what are we teaching here?" 

"Grant Theft Auto 3" carries an "M" rating, meaning it is intended for players ages 17 and older. The game's publisher, Rockstar Games, deals in "interactive entertainment geared toward mature audiences and makes every effort to market its games responsibly," says Bill Linn, a company spokesman. 

Still, there are no laws to keep M-rated games from being rented or sold to kids under 17. Several studies, including one by the Federal Trade Commission last year, found that unaccompanied youngsters could successfully buy M-rated games more than 80 percent of the time. 

Despite some positive strides, the industry continues to market its M-rated games to much-younger teens, according to an FTC report released in June. 

One example: Kids can buy a line of action figures for "Metal Gear Solid 2," a PlayStation 2 game that they're supposedly too young to play. 

"There's a reason they (rate) those games 'M,' " says Joshua. "It means more excitement. It makes you have a desire to annihilate." 

Last May, Baca introduced the "Protect Children From Video Game Sex and Violence Act," which would make it a federal crime to sell M-rated games to minors. The video-game industry does not support the bill.

"We don't believe children should be able to obtain video games that parents determine are not appropriate for them," says Sean Bersell, vice president of the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA). 

"(But) we don't believe the government should tell parents or even mature minors what video games they may or may not have access to. That would infringe upon the constitutional rights of parents to determine what's appropriate for their kids." 

That argument makes Baca cringe. 

"(The bill) wouldn't be violating anybody's constitutional rights. We'd still have freedom of speech," Baca says. "(But) we have a responsibility to protect our children from things we know are unhealthy for them, just as we have done (in legislating the sale of) tobacco and pornography." 

This is a tricky issue for the courts. In April, a U.S. District Court in St. Louis ruled that video games could be regulated because they did not contain expression or ideas that could be considered speech under the Constitution. 

However, when Indiana tried to regulate violent arcade games in 2000, an appellate court -- and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court -- ruled that video games were indeed protected by the First Amendment. 

Judge Richard Posner, writing for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on the Indiana case, openly questioned whether virtual violence leads to actual youth violence. 

"To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it," he wrote. 

But the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and every other major public health organization in the country disagrees.

According to the AAP, more than 3,500 research studies have examined the link between media violence and violent behavior, with all but 18 concluding that there was a discernible connection. In fact, the AAP says media violence and aggressive behavior have a stronger correlation than secondhand smoke and lung cancer. 

But by all indications, many parents have not acted on this information. Indeed, researchers have found that many parents are genuinely stunned when they discover the virtual lives their children are leading. 

"We've had the experience of literally sitting parents down to play their kids' games, and they're just shocked," says David Walsh, founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a nonprofit resource organization for parents, teachers and community leaders based in Minneapolis. 

"You've got games where you're literally advancing in the game by carjacking or killing hookers. It's certainly not the kind of entertainment that most parents want for their kids." 

Baca cites the example of "State of Emergency" for PlayStation 2, a game in which players can participate in their very own drive-by shootings (and advance in the game if they kill enough people). Besides "Grand Theft Auto III," Walsh's group last year tagged "Return to Castle Wolfenstein," "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty" and "Twisted Metal: Black," among others, as examples of games containing excessive violence. 

Video games, say experts, are different from movies or television. TV or movie violence is passive, they say: No matter how bloody or graphic it may be, your child witnesses it but does not participate in it. 

Most of the games are "first-person shooters," in which the player assumes an identity. The player is no longer just watching violence; he or she is committing it, making a conscious choice to blast someone with a shotgun or bludgeon him or her with a board. 

Does it impact behaviors in real life? The American Psychology Association concluded, after studying the issue in 2000, that "the (video-game) player learns and practices new aggression-related scripts that can become more and more accessible for use when real-life conflict situations arise."

Some of the country's deadliest school shootings have been committed by youths who regularly played violent video games, including Columbine High killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in 1999. But adults would be making a mistake, say psychologists, if they think these incidents are the only fallout from playing violent video games. 

Last week, a study released by Walsh's institute concluded that children exposed to violent media are far more rude and mean to other kids. The study also showed that children become more attracted and desensitized to violent media as they get older. The result, the study says, is a growing culture of "incivility" in the young generation. 

"I definitely feel like it affects my kids that way," says Deborah Cancel of Sacramento, whose two teenage sons are moderate gamers. "It even affects their view of everyday life, and the way they get along. Normally they get along real well, but when they get too much of that stuff, it affects how they treat each other." 

Walsh, for one, is convinced that an educated parent is the greatest defense against the violent media saturation of children. That includes parents who never played anything more menacing than "PacMan" in their own youth. 

"We want to keep things harmful to children out of their hands," Walsh says. "We have laws that prohibit the sale of pornography to children, for example, because there's a community consensus that such material is harmful to children.

"With regard to violence, we haven't yet developed that same community consensus." 

The video debate

Some current views on the issue of violent video games and children. 

"(Video-game makers) are not monitoring themselves and who they sell their games to; they're in it for profit. We have a responsibility to protect our children from things we know are unhealthy for them, just as we have done (in legislating the sale of) tobacco and pornography."

- Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino, who introduced the "Protect Children From Video Game Sex and Violence Act" 

"We don't believe the government should tell parents or even mature minors what video games they may or may not have access to. That's not the role of government. That would infringe upon the constitutional rights of parents to determine what's appropriate for their kids."

- Sean Bersell, Video Software Dealers Association 

"So far, all of the attempts (to legislate) the selling of M-rated games to minors have been struck down on constitutional grounds. That leads me to the belief that a better way to go is education of parents and voluntary compliance by retailers.

If the public becomes more aware that M-rated games are inappropriate for kids, most retailers will respond because they don't want to be seen in a light that makes them look un-family-friendly."

- David Walsh, National Institute on Media and the Family 

"Numerous studies have shown that the most insidious and potent effect of media violence is to desensitize all of us to real-life violence."

- American Academy of Pediatrics, November 2001