This is a post I wrote back in early 2011, and didn’t publish. Recent discussions of gun violence bring it back to the fore, so here it is…
In my Monday Wall Street Journal (the only edition I received after coming back from England until late Wednesday, which was really frustrating), I read the following about the Arizona shooter:
“All he did was play video games and play music,” said Tommy Marriotti, a high school friend.
And that got me to wondering: What sort of games did he play? Since initially reading that, I see he recently played Earth Empires, a strategy game. But I suspect he has at least at some time — maybe back in high school, maybe some other time — played another sort of game.
I find myself wondering whether he was into first-person shooter games…
I have two reasons for wondering that. First, there are the theories of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (ret.). Col. Grossman is the foremost expert in the field of “killology,” a term he coined. He wrote a fascinating book, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, which I recommend. It discusses the psychology of killing, mostly within the context of war. He explains that for most of military history, as long as we’ve had projectile weapons in the hands of the average soldier, the overwhelming majority of soldiers did not shoot to kill. Frequently, they didn’t fire their weapons at all, and when they did, they tended to fire over the heads of their enemies — to engage in a sort of threat display, rather than use deadly force.
They did this because for most humans, the reluctance to kill is deep and strong.
The U.S. military, realizing this (on the basis of extensive studies during and after WWII), started conditioning that reluctance out of soldiers starting with the Vietnam era (or perhaps a little earlier; it’s been awhile since I’ve read it). Soldiers started to be trained to quickly acquire the human target and fire accurately before thinking about it too much. The result is that the U.S. military is, soldier for soldier, the most deadly fighting force in the world, perhaps in history. (Probably the most dramatic demonstration of this was the battle of Mogadishu in 1993, in which elite soldiers faced mobs of Somali militias with a tendency to fire randomly and wildly with their AK-47s — the result was 18 dead Americans, but about 1,000 dead Somalis.) But soldiers who shoot now often pay a profound psychological cost later, and that was what Col. Grossman was motivated to study.
He has also ventured into related peacetime phenomena, such as the popularity and increasing sophistication of FPS games, which train the reflexes of the kids who play them to shoot quickly and accurately, without reluctance. He asserts that it’s not a bit surprising that we have Columbines given the ubiquity of such games. Kids have had conditioned out of them the hesitation that affected trained soldiers through most of history.
You may say Col. Grossman exaggerates. And indeed, some experts are far more phlegmatic about such games. I don’t think he does, but that’s because of the other reason I was interested: I’ve played these games myself. A decade or so ago, I had a copy of an early version of Wolfenstein. The violence was non-stop, but it was also cartoonish and unconvincing, only a step or two beyond Space Invaders. Now, it’s different…
Two years ago, I got myself a copy of Call of Duty: World at War. I was fascinated by the premise, which was to put the player in realistic scenarios from the Pacific and Eastern fronts in the Second World War. (Some of them weirdly realistic. When I saw some of the scenes from the Peleliu campaign in “The Pacific” recently, I thought, I’ve been there… It was weird.) But I was completely unprepared for two things: First, the realism. When I first booted up the game on my computer (and I had to get a more sophisticated video card to run it, even though my computer was almost new), I thought I was watching a video prologue — I didn’t realize the game had started. I couldn’t believe the graphics were that realistic, that high-res.
Second, the emotional manipulation, which was stunning. There are two story lines: In one, you are a U.S. Marine named Miller, fighting your way across the Pacific. In the other, you are a Red Army soldier. The designers of the game came up with their own way of overcoming any reluctance the player might have to shooting the enemy. The Marine scenario begins with Miller being a prisoner of the Japanese. As Miller, you watch the Japanese torture and kill your buddy, before one of them moves toward you with a knife, prepared to serve you in the same way — before he is stopped by the commandos who have come to rescue you. Your rescuers hand you a weapon, and by this point, you’re expected to know what to do with it.
In the start of the Russian scenario, you are lying still among dead and dying comrades in Stalingrad. As you lie there (the game won’t let you move at first), you watch German soldiers step around you, casually shooting the wounded as you watch helplessly. Somehow they overlook you. As the enemy moves away, a grizzled Red Army sergeant who was also playing dead whispers to you to follow him, and he will show you how to get your vengeance on the fascists, who, as he keeps reminding you, are raping your homeland. He hands you a sniper rifle…
Creepy, huh? At this point, you’d like me to tell you I didn’t go on and play the game, but I did. I’ve played it all the way through a number of times. It’s very seductive, because it’s challenging. But I wouldn’t argue if you were to say, “Yes, of course it is — like other forms of pornography.” I expect those of you who’ve never played such games will have all sorts of critical things to say about me for playing it, and I won’t argue with those assertions, either. I know how it looks. When my wife enters the room when I’m playing, I hastily shut it down. Because she is my conscience.
But that’s not the really creepy thing: Over time, I played the game less. I had mastered the easier levels, and the harder ones were just ridiculous. Also, well, I’ve tried to spend less of my life in nonproductive pursuits. But a number of months ago, I got curious about something: I had never played the “multiplayer” option, in which you fight against other players over the Internet. So I tried that.
And I discovered that either the world is full of unsuspected super-soldiers, with reflexes that are not to be believed, or there are a lot of geeks out there who spend WAY too much time getting ridiculously good at playing these games. The latter, of course, is most likely. And hardly surprising. But I discovered one thing that positively sent chills down my spine. I quickly accepted that I could not survive more than a few seconds against people whose reflexes were so finely honed to aggressive play of the game. Fine — I have trouble with basketball, too. And I figured that the guys who spend a lot of time on these games are 20-something, and an old guy like me can’t hope to keep up. But what got me was when I encountered a few players who had activated the feature that enabled them to speak with each other in real time as they shot and stabbed their way across the landscape.
The thing that got me was when I heard their voices.
They were little boys. They sounded like they were about 10. And they were very, very efficient, hyperaggressive and unhesitating virtual killers.
I quit playing at that point.
Anyway, that’s why I wonder — what sorts of games did Loughner play?
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Apparently no one wants to comment on these games. Isn’t there a constitutional amendment guaranteeing us the right to violent games?
Apparently no one wants to comment on these games. Isn’t there a constitutional amendment guaranteeing us the right to violent games?
I play shooters. Yup I’m from the atari generation.
I find games to be an easy target as the population that games have no lobbyists or group protecting it. Its main consumers are young people with have little political power.
Saying that I would not mind some regulation but only as part of a comprehensive package. Slap the same restrictions on movies and TV as well.
I do think its a first amendment issue and that you should be as violent as you want when you code. Its a terrible event but im not going to support any media getting unconstitutional regulation be written word, voices or pixels on the screen.
I play shooters. Yup I’m from the atari generation.
I find games to be an easy target as the population that games have no lobbyists or group protecting it. Its main consumers are young people with have little political power.
Saying that I would not mind some regulation but only as part of a comprehensive package. Slap the same restrictions on movies and TV as well.
I do think its a first amendment issue and that you should be as violent as you want when you code. Its a terrible event but im not going to support any media getting unconstitutional regulation be written word, voices or pixels on the screen.
I haven’t seen any effort by American media to answer the sorts of questions that occur to me. The British media are another story.
And for the first time, I’ve seen “Call of Duty” specifically linked to Adam Lanza.
I found that in The Telegraph. It was citing an interview by the tabloid The Sun with Lanza’s plumber:
“SCHOOL massacre maniac Adam Lanza fuelled his violent fantasies while hidden away in a windowless bunker plastered with posters of guns and tanks.
Lanza, 20, spent hours playing bloodthirsty computer games such as Call Of Duty and obsessivly studying weapons in the basement at mum Nancy’s home. It came as the first funerals of the victims were held yesterday.
Plumber Peter Wlasuk went into the basement many times while working at the plush four-bedroom house and got a glimpse into the disturbing underground world where Lanza plotted his crimes.”
Admittedly, that’s not the world’s best source. But since the boy killed his mother and himself, left practically no online footprint (I’m particularly struck by the lack of any recent photographs of the killer), and apparently destroyed his hard drive, good sources are scarce.
I haven’t seen any effort by American media to answer the sorts of questions that occur to me. The British media are another story.
And for the first time, I’ve seen “Call of Duty” specifically linked to Adam Lanza.
I found that in The Telegraph. It was citing an interview by the tabloid The Sun with Lanza’s plumber:
“SCHOOL massacre maniac Adam Lanza fuelled his violent fantasies while hidden away in a windowless bunker plastered with posters of guns and tanks.
Lanza, 20, spent hours playing bloodthirsty computer games such as Call Of Duty and obsessivly studying weapons in the basement at mum Nancy’s home. It came as the first funerals of the victims were held yesterday.
Plumber Peter Wlasuk went into the basement many times while working at the plush four-bedroom house and got a glimpse into the disturbing underground world where Lanza plotted his crimes.”
Admittedly, that’s not the world’s best source. But since the boy killed his mother and himself, left practically no online footprint (I’m particularly struck by the lack of any recent photographs of the killer), and apparently destroyed his hard drive, good sources are scarce.
And Karen, yes, I was surprised that no one wanted to discuss these games.
Maybe it’s because, with the exception of Tavis and a few others, my readership is of a demographic that just doesn’t interact with that world. I don’t know.
I find myself aware of things that are atypical of my generation, perhaps because of having five children and five grandchildren. One of my sons had Call of Duty: World at War — the Wii version — before I did. The realistic interaction with WWII battles were sort of irresistible to me because of my lifelong fascination with that defining conflict of the 20th century. “Modern Warfare” didn’t have the same seductive appeal for me.
And Karen, yes, I was surprised that no one wanted to discuss these games.
Maybe it’s because, with the exception of Tavis and a few others, my readership is of a demographic that just doesn’t interact with that world. I don’t know.
I find myself aware of things that are atypical of my generation, perhaps because of having five children and five grandchildren. One of my sons had Call of Duty: World at War — the Wii version — before I did. The realistic interaction with WWII battles were sort of irresistible to me because of my lifelong fascination with that defining conflict of the 20th century. “Modern Warfare” didn’t have the same seductive appeal for me.
My comment got lost somehow. You cannot extrapolate from the small numbers of shooters given the extremely large number of players of these games. Why not extrapolate from the gender of the shooters, or the handed-ness, or the skin color?
These are small number Black Swan events.
My comment got lost somehow. You cannot extrapolate from the small numbers of shooters given the extremely large number of players of these games. Why not extrapolate from the gender of the shooters, or the handed-ness, or the skin color?
These are small number Black Swan events.
And Tavis, I didn’t make any suggestions regarding regulation or censorship or anything. I was simply pointing out the fact that these games make use of some of the same techniques that the U.S. military has found to be successful in helping recruits overcome their natural reluctance to killing. Some of the factors include:
— Indoctrination into seeing the enemy as inhumanly evil. This is done fairly graphically at the outsets of both the U.S. Marine and Red Army story lines.
— The encouragement of an older role model — a noncom in each case — who orders you to kill, and makes it clear that it is your obligation to your buddies to do so. This has LONG been a key element of military training. These characters are voiced in Call of Duty: World at War by Kiefer Sutherland (Sgt. Roebuck) and the incomparable Gary Oldman doing his patented Russian accent as Sgt. Viktor Reznov. They play sort of fatherly/brotherly roles in encouraging the player to become ever more aggressive.
— Most importantly, the honing of reflexes to quickly aim at an enemy combatant and shoot him. This is something that NO previous generation of kids was ever exposed to. The player quickly learns that a head shot will bring the enemy down more quickly and reliably, although it’s harder to master. I discovered that I survived best by using an M1 carbine or a scoped Springfield when firing from cover, but a fully automatic weapon such as a Thompson or a German MP-40 Schmeisser (or occasionally a flamethrower or a shotgun) when attacking in the open.
— The game is also constructed so that the player MUST aggressively take the initiative. Even though he’s a member of a group, there is never any real movement toward an objective (and toward any respite in the fighting) unless the player takes risks and aggressively engages the enemy. This is probably the least realistic aspect of the game — in real life, sometimes others would lead the way — but it’s worth mentioning because it SO conditions the player toward aggression. (In real life, any soldier who was as constantly aggressive as Call of Duty requires, constantly leaving cover to attack, would almost certainly be quickly killed or at least wounded to the point of being taken out of action. But you just can’t play the game any other way.)
I point these things out as disturbing facts, not necessarily as policy suggestions.
And Tavis, I didn’t make any suggestions regarding regulation or censorship or anything. I was simply pointing out the fact that these games make use of some of the same techniques that the U.S. military has found to be successful in helping recruits overcome their natural reluctance to killing. Some of the factors include:
— Indoctrination into seeing the enemy as inhumanly evil. This is done fairly graphically at the outsets of both the U.S. Marine and Red Army story lines.
— The encouragement of an older role model — a noncom in each case — who orders you to kill, and makes it clear that it is your obligation to your buddies to do so. This has LONG been a key element of military training. These characters are voiced in Call of Duty: World at War by Kiefer Sutherland (Sgt. Roebuck) and the incomparable Gary Oldman doing his patented Russian accent as Sgt. Viktor Reznov. They play sort of fatherly/brotherly roles in encouraging the player to become ever more aggressive.
— Most importantly, the honing of reflexes to quickly aim at an enemy combatant and shoot him. This is something that NO previous generation of kids was ever exposed to. The player quickly learns that a head shot will bring the enemy down more quickly and reliably, although it’s harder to master. I discovered that I survived best by using an M1 carbine or a scoped Springfield when firing from cover, but a fully automatic weapon such as a Thompson or a German MP-40 Schmeisser (or occasionally a flamethrower or a shotgun) when attacking in the open.
— The game is also constructed so that the player MUST aggressively take the initiative. Even though he’s a member of a group, there is never any real movement toward an objective (and toward any respite in the fighting) unless the player takes risks and aggressively engages the enemy. This is probably the least realistic aspect of the game — in real life, sometimes others would lead the way — but it’s worth mentioning because it SO conditions the player toward aggression. (In real life, any soldier who was as constantly aggressive as Call of Duty requires, constantly leaving cover to attack, would almost certainly be quickly killed or at least wounded to the point of being taken out of action. But you just can’t play the game any other way.)
I point these things out as disturbing facts, not necessarily as policy suggestions.
Speaking of Gary Oldman’s role in the game, here he is talking about it to Conan O’Brien.
Speaking of Gary Oldman’s role in the game, here he is talking about it to Conan O’Brien.
I’m very aware of video games, including Call of Duty. I don’t think the games are the problem as much as the obsession that some people have with them. My two sons (ages 20,24 now) played Call of Duty for some period of time, mostly in the online team mode. But they never became that obsessed with it.. unlike some of their friends they told me about who would play C.O.D. or Halo for 6-8 hours a day. Now, my older son played Rock band a lot but I don’t think his drumming skills are a threat to anything more than eardrums. Now, they both play sports games like Madden or NBA… and just like with Call of Duty, there are people out there who play obsessively.
And that’s why I don’t think it’s the games that cause the problem. It’s the the brain of the person playing the game. It’s factors (social anxiety, family dysfunction, etc.) that cause kids to withdraw into the game world…
I’m very aware of video games, including Call of Duty. I don’t think the games are the problem as much as the obsession that some people have with them. My two sons (ages 20,24 now) played Call of Duty for some period of time, mostly in the online team mode. But they never became that obsessed with it.. unlike some of their friends they told me about who would play C.O.D. or Halo for 6-8 hours a day. Now, my older son played Rock band a lot but I don’t think his drumming skills are a threat to anything more than eardrums. Now, they both play sports games like Madden or NBA… and just like with Call of Duty, there are people out there who play obsessively.
And that’s why I don’t think it’s the games that cause the problem. It’s the the brain of the person playing the game. It’s factors (social anxiety, family dysfunction, etc.) that cause kids to withdraw into the game world…
Very good points, Doug. As I expressed in the main post, the thing that really creeped me out were the kids I encountered online who had developed horrifyingly quick killing reflexes. They had obviously spent an inordinate portion of their lives mastering those skills in that alternative reality, in which they were rewarded in various ways for becoming better and better killers.
Very good points, Doug. As I expressed in the main post, the thing that really creeped me out were the kids I encountered online who had developed horrifyingly quick killing reflexes. They had obviously spent an inordinate portion of their lives mastering those skills in that alternative reality, in which they were rewarded in various ways for becoming better and better killers.
A side note: Conveniently, women and children don’t exist in this alternative universe. So you never end up harming them, even accidentally. If you DID, you might go, “Oh my God, what have I done?” Instead, your available targets are all uniformed enemy soldiers doing their best to kill you and your buddies.
The only exception is that occasionally, you might shoot someone on your own side in the fog of battle. But if you do that deliberately, the game stops you (I tried it, just to see what would happen).
Even more conveniently, if you DO hit a “friendly,” he usually gets up and shrugs off the wound, thereby preserving you from a sense of guilt.
As I say, almost everything in the game encourages aggressive killing, and factors that might cause you to hesitate in real life are kept to a minimum.
A side note: Conveniently, women and children don’t exist in this alternative universe. So you never end up harming them, even accidentally. If you DID, you might go, “Oh my God, what have I done?” Instead, your available targets are all uniformed enemy soldiers doing their best to kill you and your buddies.
The only exception is that occasionally, you might shoot someone on your own side in the fog of battle. But if you do that deliberately, the game stops you (I tried it, just to see what would happen).
Even more conveniently, if you DO hit a “friendly,” he usually gets up and shrugs off the wound, thereby preserving you from a sense of guilt.
As I say, almost everything in the game encourages aggressive killing, and factors that might cause you to hesitate in real life are kept to a minimum.
I play Words with Friends obsessively. I am a threat to dictionaries.
I play Words with Friends obsessively. I am a threat to dictionaries.
@Brad
Before Call of Duty, there was Grand Theft Auto which featured all sorts of violence against women.
From Wikipedia: “The controversies
flared up again with Grand Theft Auto III, since the 3D graphics made the violence more realistic, and players could pay the services of prostitutes to recover their health, and if they wished, killing them to get their money back.”
—
@Brad
Before Call of Duty, there was Grand Theft Auto which featured all sorts of violence against women.
From Wikipedia: “The controversies
flared up again with Grand Theft Auto III, since the 3D graphics made the violence more realistic, and players could pay the services of prostitutes to recover their health, and if they wished, killing them to get their money back.”
—
Lt. Col. Grossman was on O’Reilly last night talking about first-person military style video games. Grossman basically said that the current video games out there (that children are playing) are essentially the same kind of simulation that military and law enforcement folks have been going through. he was pretty concerned that it would have the same effect on children as it was intended to have on adults: It desensitizes them to the killing, and makes it something that is done on orders, without hesitation.
Wish I could find the transcript somewhere. Grossman was so authoritative and specific that he didn’t get pushed around by O’Reilly as much as the usual guest does.
Lt. Col. Grossman was on O’Reilly last night talking about first-person military style video games. Grossman basically said that the current video games out there (that children are playing) are essentially the same kind of simulation that military and law enforcement folks have been going through. he was pretty concerned that it would have the same effect on children as it was intended to have on adults: It desensitizes them to the killing, and makes it something that is done on orders, without hesitation.
Wish I could find the transcript somewhere. Grossman was so authoritative and specific that he didn’t get pushed around by O’Reilly as much as the usual guest does.
Grossman knows his stuff. He’s the nation’s foremost killologist. Of course, that’s kinda because he invented the field.
Grossman knows his stuff. He’s the nation’s foremost killologist. Of course, that’s kinda because he invented the field.