An open letter to Senator Clinton on the matter of video games

(Note: I just sent this to Sen. Clinton's office via her official website. I received an auto-response saying that due to the volume of mail she gets from NY residents, she can't respond to messages from non-residents.)

Senator Clinton:

I’m writing to express my concern over your recent demonization of video games.

I realize I’m not one of your constituents (though I may be if the speculation about a White House run in ’08 is correct), and as such you really don’t have to listen to me. But I hope that you will anyway.

I also realize that this is an election year, and that everyone in D.C. is looking for “safe” issues to campaign on. When you start talking about the “evils” of video games, it doesn’t seem like there’s much downside, right? After all, kids can’t vote, and the parents who do (who may not understand the video game rating system as it stands) get scared about their children’s well-being. I’m not a parent myself, but I do understand the protective instinct.

There are a number of points I plan on making in this letter, Senator, but if you take away nothing else from what I say, please let it be this: you should not be campaigning on fear. There is enough genuinely scary stuff going on in the world at large without people manufacturing more fear about relatively inconsequential matters here at home.

The first thing I want to address is the concern that video games lead to violence. I know this a favorite argument of one Jack Thompson, a political bedfellow of yours on this matter. (A bit of digging online might yield some interesting revelations about Mr. Thompson; of particular note was when he called the police on the proprietors of the website Penny Arcade, claiming harassment, when all they had done was make good on a promise Thompson reneged on involving a donation to a charitable cause. I am sure the citizens of Seattle, WA who were getting mugged, shot, or raped at the time are quite enamored with Mr. Thompson’s incredibly important use of police time.) The truth is, no study to date has established an incontrovertible causal link between playing video games and violent behavior. Simple observational evidence supports that. Think for a moment, if you will, Senator: first-person shooter (FPS) games have been around for about fifteen years; the current incarnation of the Grand Theft Auto series (starting with GTA 3, and continuing with Vice City and San Andreas) has been out for five. The latter series has sold millions of copies. Yet, where is the spike in violence, the rampant school shootings, the chaos and anarchy one would expect to find if Mr. Thompson’s hypothesis were correct? Shouldn’t our streets be teeming with millions of wild-eyed murderers, all trained to kill by hours-long sessions of Vice City? In fact, according to recent government statistics, violent crime has been trending downward. Personally, I don’t believe that trend can be entirely explained by tougher policing or zero-tolerance policies. Did you or Mr. Thompson stop to consider that perhaps these games function as an outlet for aggression rather than as a “murder simulator”, as he would have everyone believe? That maybe because people are able to find catharsis in a virtual world, they are less likely to engage in anti-social behavior in the real one?

Second, let’s talk about the ESRB rating system as it stands. I fully acknowledge it isn’t perfect, relying, as it does, on disclosure from the game developers. But I don’t think there is a better system anyone could come up with. This is not the same as deciding on a rating for a two-hour movie, Senator. Some of these games have potentially over one hundred hours of content, and even if those responsible for assigning ratings had the time to play every single game through to completion, the complexity of modern games ensures that they are unlikely to see everything the developers have coded. As for the ratings themselves, they really couldn’t be much clearer. They are right there on the front of the box, and have an expanded explanation of the reason for the rating on the back. Not only that, but the rating is always on the game disc/cartridge itself. Even movies playing in theatres don’t have that sort of immediate warning.

Now, about enforcement. I will absolutely agree that not allowing minors to buy games with mature content is important, but that is a matter for retail chains and parents. The government should not be in the business of drawing distinctions based on the type of media. By that I mean, there are no criminal penalties if a movie chain sells a ticket to an R-rated feature to a 15 year-old, or if Circuit City sells that same teenager a copy of the same movie on DVD, or if Barnes and Noble sells him a copy of a book like American Psycho. So what, if I may ask, Senator, do you believe sets games apart from all those other forms of entertainment? I would argue that, conceptually, there is no difference. And in fact, far from being a mind-rotting, finger-twitching experience, video games (yes, even the violent ones) can train kids to think in impressive new ways (an argument put forth by Steven Johnson in his excellent book Everything Bad is Good for You, which I suggest you read if you haven’t already). I could go on and on about the potential benefits of playing video games, but they’re not really relevant to the point at hand.

Please, Senator, I’m urging you to reconsider your crusade against video games. They are not nearly as bad, either in content or in effect, as you are making them out to be. And they are most certainly not leading to the moral corruption of this nation’s children, which is, as I understand, something they also said back in the 50s about another emerging art form: rock ’n’ roll.

Thank you for your time.