Video Games are constantly accused of causing real world violence. Politicians have begun to consider a violent media tax to combat the assumed causality. While some elected officials are even calling video game violence a bigger issue than gun control.
For the most part the issue has been rather one sided. The video game industry has held its tongue while politicians and the media have been in attack mode. However, the silence looks to be coming to a close. A recent documentary is now looking to give the industry a voice and give an in-depth perspective on video game culture.
Video Games: The Movie started as a Kickstarter earlier this month. The project has already passed its funding goal and is now looking to fund its stretch goals. Added goals include looking to get enough funds to get a celebrity narrator and license music. To entice donors to fund the stretch goals the project has released a clip from the film which addresses the violence and video game issue. The clip sees industry insiders behind games like World of Warcraft and Gears of War give their side in the ongoing debate.
Lead Designer of Gears of War Cliff Bleszinski says during the clip that there has been no scientific proof to back up claims that video games cause violence. He believes that the only research used to back up the causality show casual links.
"People like to make just kind of a causal link and say well video games cause violence. It's like, let's see, so, there's more crime in the summer and more ice cream is sold in the summer, therefore ice cream causes crime. That's not how legitimate scientific research works," says Bleszinski.
Chief Creative Officer at Blizzard Entertainment Rob Pardo takes it one step further. Pardo says that the video game industry has a better rating system than the film industry. He notes that video games biggest issue is that people don't understand the medium in the same way they understand film.
"The interesting thing, I think, with games, is that we actually have an even better ratings system than movies but there's still kind of this general misunderstand with the older generation that all games are like Grand Theft Auto," says Pardo.
"It would be like saying 'We don't want anyone to go watch movies because all movies are violent,' but people don't say that because everyone really understands movies as a medium."
The entire clip of interviews can be seen below.
