Violence and video games

*note added Nov.7, 2008: This is what I'm worried will happen when people don't do their homework regarding methodology. I agree that we need to parent our children but the conclusion is to facile considering the faults of the study.*

My wife noted last night that I hadn't played a violent video game in a long time. She was not a fan of GTA Vice City. And she likely has cause to be concerned. I am now the father of young children and simply do not have the time to immerse myself in the game world.

Yet another study has come out that co-relates video game violence and aggression. I'm sympathetic to the argument though as argued here, the methodology of the study does leave a lot to be desired.

I'm currently taking an empirical research methods class and I wonder if our intentions are right when it comes to studying violence and video games but our methods are wrong. Quantitative studies like this one will never really get at how young people construct meaning in their world and in their relationships. Shouldn't we abandon the quixotic quest of trying to go for the statistically causal relationship and simply switch methods to qualitative? Shouldn't we look at how actual gamers shape their realities in relation to games? There are oodles of valid research methods other than quantitative ones. Why don't we use them? Better yet, why doesn't someone fund me to do the study? Then I could move past the retro gamer I am into a whole new level of hipness.

Nerd Girls

A friend emailed me this week about a talk he was giving. The group were claiming "nerd" as a badge of honour. Thought that he might appreciate this:

Three Bands

I play a little "what if" game with young people all the time. It helps me get to know them. It goes like this. God will intervene in the world in such a way as to eliminate three bands/artists. That is not saying God will kill them or something but will nudge them along in a different direction so that they never make it. What are your three bands/artists.

Usually mine are:

1. Rush
2. Aerosmith
3. Celine Dion.

Imagine how upset I was at this little piece about how Guitar Hero is resurrecting the careers of Aerosmith and Rush! How could folks possibly think this was a good idea? Boston, yes. The Who, yes. Rush? Aerosmith?

I am fascinated however by this resurgence of "classic" rock (classic in quotes as I don't consider Aerosmith, out side of their collaboration with Run DMC, classic) tied to a video game. The money - "Last year, Guitar Hero and its rival, Rock Band, racked up $935 million in sales. That's $100 million more than all digital music sales." What is it to consume music through video in a participatory fashion? I grew up in the MTV age so video and music were closely aligned but without the participatory. Should it shock us that these games are so popular when we consider that when MTV made a nod to direct participation with TRL its ratings went up?

Should it also surprise us to learn that Activision, the producer of Guitar Hero, is a Vivendi company and therefore a sister company of Universal Music Group (proud producers of The Who)? Aerosmith (Sony) goes out of its way in promoting its connections to Guitar Hero with this handy link on their official website. I'm surprised that it wasn't NBC that put the story up.

Re-mediated

Marko put me onto this website

Besides being quite cool in their own right, these images remind me of the remediation effect of old media being transformed by new media so that the old is not exactly the same but the new still depends on the old. When print first came into existence the type faces all looked like cursive writing because readers were not used to fonts such as Times New Roman. New, the printing press, transformed old, hand writing, into something that was different yet the same. For me, this is especially pronounced in video where the first standard TV shows looked like plays. Now, the old medium of plays has been sufficiently remediated to come into its own as a new form. Web 2.0 is further remediating that new form. The cycle continues.

Web 2.0

In the waning days of my time here at St. Andrew's I'm doing some culture workshops with parents. I've been struggling to be relevant and practical but I think that it is working in general. I showed them this video last week and then we debriefed it. I was amazed at how connected I am. I had never reflected on the integration of the different forms of media that I use are. I do not use flickr which seems to be the biggest void in my media consumption. If you haven't seen this, certainly worth the 5 minute watch.