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Printer-Friendly ModeVideo games going over the edge
April 25, 2005 —
I've always felt sorry for those "activists" who chirp up and down all over television insisting that violent video games are ruining today's youth. I've been one who believed that no matter how graphic or violent these games became, they could never actually influence little boys and girls all over the world.
Now, I'm changing my tune.
According to CNN.com, NARC, a new game from Midway, allows players to put themselves into the role of an undercover police officer, arresting drug dealers and carrying out missions as the game progresses. With a format similar to Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, NARC goes one step further than its controversial counterpart and this time, it's one step too far.
NARC essentially allows players to choose to be a good cop or a bad cop. The game allows players to use the very drugs they are trying to rid the streets of and the game's character actually runs the risk of becoming an addict. Marijuana, LSD, speed, ecstasy and crack are all at the character's disposal and can even improve his performance. LSD helps you decide who is friend or foe. Crack makes your character a better marksman. Marijuana, ironically, makes busting drug dealers easier.
While I don't believe playing video games would negatively influence me, I can no longer in good faith say that is the case for everyone else. The rash of violent and graphic games over the last few years has gotten to the point where I'm left wondering just how far the video game industry will go to make a cheap buck. Worse yet, the one group that the industry makes the most money off of - kids - is the group most susceptible to influence.
The creators of NARC say it is a mature game designed for adults. They say children have no place buying or playing it. Yet to create a game that can be played on systems primarily owned by today's youth and claim it's for adults would be simple denial. It's like cigarette companies denying targeting children when they put billboards next to schools.
Sure, the billion-dollar video game industry will say they rate these games as "mature" so that children won't have access to them. Yet, almost everyone knows that video game ratings work about as well as R-rated movies. And what ten-year-old hasn't seen an R-rated movie?
But what separates video games from movies is that children are in control. Whereas a movie is pre-determined and will play out the same over and over again, video games allow kids to make decisions and control the character in the game. In a way, it's an extension of the self. Now, we're giving kids the option to smoke crack to improve their character's game play and everyone is left wondering just what is wrong with our society.
The next logical step then is to blame the parents. They work too much, pay attention too little and let the Xbox baby-sit their kids. Everyone says they should better monitor the games the kids play and do all of the policing themselves. While I wholeheartedly agree that parents should play an important role, I'm somewhat disappointed that that's where the responsibility ends. Stores don't do a good enough job making sure kids aren't buying the games (because then they wouldn't be making money) and no one is being punished when the rules are being broken.
While I'm not going to say video games and drinking are the same thing, I do pose this hypothetical: What happens when a store sells alcohol to an underage kid and then what happens to the kid? They get punished. Meanwhile, no one really cares when a store sells Doom 3 to a twelve-year-old and the twelve-year-old most certainly doesn't pay the price. In the meantime, the effects of drinking are clearly defined and understood while the effects of violent video games are still unknown. In the end, stores are handing off ammunition to ticking time bombs.
Overall, my beef is less about the drug use in NARC and more about how video games keep pushing the limits. How long will it be until a video game player earns points for hijacking airplanes or raping little girls? If you think that's far fetched, ask yourself if you could have imagined drugs, sex and murder being a part of video games when you were playing Super Mario Brothers back in 1985.
The bottom line is that these video games need to be taken off the market or the violence needs to be scaled back. I recently overheard my ten-year-old nephew talking about his experiences playing San Andreas and I told myself that when I have kids, I'd never let them play those types of games. Unfortunately, many parents don't think along those lines and kids end up with these violent and suggestive games. If our society is holding cigarette companies responsible for the products their customers willingly bought, then perhaps it's time to hold video game companies responsible too.