The Doom generation

Last week, I broke down. I couldn't take it anymore.

I rented the "Doom" DVD from my local Blockbuster.

I'd managed to keep myself from watching it in the theatre out of a refined cinephilic snobbery. In the end, though, my geeky side won out.

In the darkened living room of my own house, I watched former pro-wrestler Dwayne Johnson (the Rock) and his armed-to-the teeth Space Marine buddies blast the crap out of zombies and demons on Mars in a sci-fi splatterfest.

Man, that was fun.

Playing the computer-game first-person shooter version of Doom (on which the movie was based) was practically a rite of passage back in my high school days. In accumulated weeks of gameplay, my best friend and I probably ended the careers of thousands of fireball-throwing imps. As for those dumb pink growling demon chickens, they didn't stand a chance against our righteous onslaught of double-barreled firepower.

Many years later, I'll sometimes come across an article discussing the alleged link between video-game violence and real-life violence. Probably the most damning and infamous instance of this would be the Columbine high-school massacre in Littleton, Colorado in 1999.

Two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed twelve fellow students and a teacher, and wounded twenty-four others, before committing suicide. The killers reportedly had a habit of playing "Doom". This was sometimes cited as a contributing factor in the atrocity.

Some studies may show a link between playing violent video games and agresssion. But is there any evidence that playing such games is a significant factor causing people to commit violent acts?

Violent television shows and movies have been available for decades. Violent video games are played regularly by tens of millions of people in North America alone. These sorts of games are of course popular in any relatively rich country where people have access to computers and game consoles in thier homes - not only in Canada and the US, but in Japan, South Korea and most of Europe.

If virtual violence were a significant causal factor in real violence, we would be seeing an epidemic of violent behavior and crime throughout the developed world.

One could argue that this is exactly what is happening, pointing to the organized violence of warfare and terrorism. But I don't think that the average person who plays Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is much more easily persuaded to join the Marines and slog through boot camp so that they can finally 'bust a cap' in some poor sucker in Fallujah. On the flip side, I would highly doubt any suicide car bomber psyches himself up before his martyrdom with a couple of hours playing Half-Life 2.

Why is the world such a violent place? I suspect the root causes are not to be found in the bloody fantasies we create on our video screens.

For those with an interest in this topic and an oddball sense of humor, I recommend the following links to some very interesting Lego animation videos.
Grand Theft Auto: Lego City
Spider-Man: The Peril of Doc Ock

tags: Doom, violent video games, violent computer games, virtual violence