Games Are (Still) Not the Problem

The latest hysteria over video games like Fortnite echoes the Satanic Panic over Dungeons & Dragons in the 80s. Some things never change.

The latest hysteria over video games like Fortnite echoes the Satanic Panic over Dungeons & Dragons in the 80s. Some things never change.

[h=3]Nobody Panic[/h]It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when Dungeons & Dragons was so popular and esoteric with kids that a community movement arose castigating the game as an evil influence that corrupted young minds. And it all started with the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III, a Michigan State University student and Live Action Role-Player (LARPer) who disappeared in the steam tunnels in an attempt to take his own life. His actions were conflated with D&D, further exacerbated by the fictional TV movie featuring Tom Hanks, Mazes & Monsters:

A nationwide focus on his plight propelled interest in D&D. Sales soared, with the numbers of players leaping from the thousands into the millions. Condemnation rose as well, usually after bad things happened to D&D gamers. When Irving Lee Pulling II, a high school student in Virginia, killed himself in 1982, his mother, Patricia A. Pulling, blamed the game and formed a group called Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons. D&D was also attacked after a few murders, like the 1984 strangulation of a Missouri teenager, Mary C. Towey, by two young men, Ronald G. Adcox and Darren Lee Molitor. A “moral panic,” as cultural critics labeled it, set in. It was not unlike 1950s fears over gory comic books and 1980s worries over sex-laced rock music. But researchers, including those with the Centers for Disease Control, established no causal link between the game and violence.

Eventually the panic died down along with D&D's popularity, as critics moved on to more pervasive targets like Magic: The Gathering, Harry Potter, and video games. In the case of video games, another institution has given fodder to the belief that games are bad for you.
[h=3]Et Tu, WHO?[/h]The World Health Organization officially classified gaming addiction as a disorder this year:

Gaming disorder is defined in the draft 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as a pattern of gaming behavior (“digital-gaming” or “video-gaming”) characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.

A frequently-used example of this health scare is Fortnite. Fortnite is third-person shooter combining the attributes of Minecraft with the Hunger Games, where contestants parachute into a storm-wreathed island with a playing field that gets smaller as time goes on until only one person is left standing. Along the way, they can "mine" everything with giant pickaxes, build forts, and scrounge for weapons:

Fortnite, one of the biggest gaming phenomena of this decade, plunges 100 players from a flying bus on to an island, with the goal of being the last player (or team) standing. With a series of obstacles to negotiate, the game embraces online game-playing in a way that has appealed hugely to young people and adults alike. But players are not addicted to rocket-riding or loot-hunting on their way to outlasting 99 other players. Instead, they are fully invested and motivated to beat (or at least engage with) their opponents.

Why is Fortnite so popular? As we discussed previously with social media, Self-Determination Theory provides some clues:

1. Autonomy...Players are able to play the game specifically in their own way and derive great satisfaction from the experience...2. Mastery The desire to progress and improve playing skills....New features continually test a player’s mastery of the game – a key motivational driver. 3. Purpose The desire to be part of something meaningful, going beyond being just a single player.

The intense appeal of Fortnite has some parents worried about yet another game corrupting their kids. The DailyMail.com put it this way:

Girl, nine, is in rehab after becoming so addicted to Fortnite video game she 'wet herself to continue playing and hit her father in the face when he tried to take away her XBox'
[h=3]Is it Really That Bad?[/h]Jane McGonigal, game designer and advocate, argued on Twitter:

Videogame "addiction" is compensatory, escapist behavior stemming from untreated depression or anxiety. You can't treat this by focusing on games. You treat this by targeting the real underlying problem, which by the way -- for many gamers is tied to large, systemic issues of economic insecurity, social alienation, fear of violence, trauma from serving in wars, the daily grind of suffering racism and sexism and lack of compassion in our elected leaders... I mean JUST STOP BLAMING GAMES.

Little Wars
was one of the first tabletop wargames created by H.G. Wells. The game would go on to influence Chainmail, which would in turn spawn D&D. Wells' hope for Little Wars was much the same argument that McGonigal would make years later -- that gaming wasn't the cause of violence, but rather an escape from it:

You have only to play at Little Wars three or four times to realize just what a blundering thing Great War must be. Great War is at present, I am convinced, not only the most expensive game in the universe, but it is a game out of all proportion. Not only are the masses of men and material and suffering and inconvenience too monstrously big for reason, but-the available heads we have for it, are too small. That, I think, is the most pacific realization conceivable, and Little War brings you to it as nothing else but Great War can do.

Clyde Haberman leaves us with this final thought:

A century ago, H. G. Wells, the English titan of science fiction, invented a tabletop game called Little Wars with a friend, Jerome K. Jerome. Though a pacifist, Wells was intrigued by war games. He wrote a handbook for his creation, filled with clear rules of combat for opposing infantry, cavalry and artillery. That was in 1913. A year later, World War I broke out. You see the connection, don’t you?

If the latest craze is any indication, games will be dogged by accusations that they corrupt young minds as long as kids are playing them.

Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. You can follow him at Patreon.
 

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Michael Tresca

Michael Tresca

Shasarak

Banned
Banned
Clyde Haberman leaves us with this final thought:

A century ago, H. G. Wells, the English titan of science fiction, invented a tabletop game called Little Wars with a friend, Jerome K. Jerome. Though a pacifist, Wells was intrigued by war games. He wrote a handbook for his creation, filled with clear rules of combat for opposing infantry, cavalry and artillery. That was in 1913. A year later, World War I broke out. You see the connection, don’t you?

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson published original DnD in 1974 and then a year later the Vietnam War ended!

You see the connection, dont you.
 

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Gibili

Explorer
Humans by nature have addictive personalities, just the vast majority of us are able to control them. It is the rest who are not able to control it, who will get addicted to something, whether it is gambling, alcohol, smoking, video games, etc., though some of these things have additional chemical elements that make them much harder to resist. But anything that can be done in excess to the point of injuring ourselves can become an addiction for the wrong person.
Yes, exactly. I don't know if "by nature" is correct but we are animals and we will respond to positive experiences by seeking more of it. It's a basic survival technique. Found food in a specific location? Maybe there's a good chance that if you go back to that point you'll find more.
However when anything we do has a negative impact on our lives or those around us, rather than a positive or at least neutral impact, then it starts being a problem. Drugs, alcohol, exercise, reading novels, watching TV, games, work whatever.
There is nothing inherently "bad" about Fortnite anymore than than there is something inherently bad about the World Cup, reading a book, a glass of wine, jogging or collecting sea shells. It isn't black and white folks, there is a point along a continuum where it starts becoming a problem.
I'm a father of a 13 year old son who loves playing Fortnite with his mates. I do have to rein his playing in because he will start playing to the exclusion of everything else. So in moderation it is great fun, to excess it is not.

Oh how we love to pigeon-hole things "good" and "bad", how we love to have a simple target to blame for the ills of the world, and how we love therefore to absent ourselves from taking any personal responsibility for these sorts of things, for ourselves and for our dependants! "It's someone else's fault. Blame them. There's nothing I have to do or have to take action for because if it is, I have to face that responsibility and face the unpleasent actions and consequences and I don't want to...so you take the rap for me".

Politicians, parents etc love to blame easy targets because it makes the situation seem simple, the solution seem simple and you can fit it all into a 30 second sound byte which makes you look and feel like you are really doing something.
It's much harder to say that the probem is much more complicated, solving it may be unpalatable and hard work, or even "I don't actually know how to solve it" and that we all share a responsibility to work on this together.
 

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson published original DnD in 1974 and then a year later the Vietnam War ended!

You see the connection, dont you.

Yep.

If more nations settled their disputes with RPGs and d20s, the more we'd hear: "Critical fail! Have a million of your citizens report to the disintegrators!"
 

MagicSN

First Post
Here in Germany (maybe due to not having crazy Christian fanatics, but more normal Christians here ^^) the so-called "moral panic" did not happen at best my knowledge. I was a teen in the mid-80s and the only objections I heard from (those were raised regularly though) was "a kid your age should not always spend time in fantasyland, but think about the real world, read a newspaper, not fantasy novels!" Of the "religious panic" about D&D in the US I only read - many years later than it happened. My parents even joined once for a D&D game (but later said it was "not their kind of thing", so it was a one-time). Other parents sometimes brought snacks when we played in the room of a friend, so were not really principially opposed...
 

Jhaelen

First Post
Here in Germany (maybe due to not having crazy Christian fanatics, but more normal Christians here ^^) the so-called "moral panic" did not happen at best my knowledge. I was a teen in the mid-80s and the only objections I heard from (those were raised regularly though) was "a kid your age should not always spend time in fantasyland, but think about the real world, read a newspaper, not fantasy novels!"
While I think there's plenty of Christian fanatics in Germany, I don't recall them ever having bothered to look into RPGs. They seem to be more concerned about bands they consider inappropriate, like "Böhse Onkelz" or "Marilyn Manson".

In fact, in the mid-eighties our group was invited by my German teacher to give an introduction into RPGs and demonstrate a typical game session to the class. We also read "The Hobbit" - how cool is that? :)
 

The Monster

Explorer
We've surely got trouble! With a capital T and that rhymes with G and that stands for Games!
Hehe, this is what jumps to my mind whenever I see an article or clickbait about any of our games. A song from 1957 (from a musical set in 1912) is still a marvelous lesson in alarmist propaganda:

Friend, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a pool table in your community
Well, ya got trouble, my friend, right here
I say, trouble right here in River City
Why sure I'm a billiard player
Certainly mighty proud I say
I'm always mighty proud to say it
I consider that the hours I spend
With a cue in my hand are golden
Help you cultivate horse sense
And a cool head and a keen eye
J'ever take and try to find
An iron-clad leave for yourself
From a three-rail billiard shot?
But just as I say
It takes judgment, brains, and maturity to score
In a balkline game
I say that any boob can take
And shove a ball in a pocket
And I call that sloth
The first big step on the road
To the depths of deg-ra-day--
I say, first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon
Then beer from a bottle!
An' the next thing ya know
Your son is playin' for money
In a pinch-back suit
And list'nin to some big out-a-town jasper
Hearin' him tell about horse-race gamblin'
Not a wholesome trottin' race, no!
But a race where they set down right on the horse!
Like to see some stuck-up jockey boy
Settin' on Dan Patch? Make your blood boil?
Well, I should say
Now, friends, lemme tell you what I mean
Ya got one, two, three, four, five, six pockets in a table
Pockets that mark the diff'rence
Between a gentlemen and a bum
With a capital "B,"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!
And all week long your River City
Youth'll be fritterin' away
I say your young men'll be fritterin'!
Fritterin' away their noontime, suppertime, choretime too!
Get the ball in the pocket
Never mind gettin' dandelions pulled
Or the screen door patched or the beefsteak pounded
Never mind pumpin' any water
'Til your parents are caught with the cistern empty
On a Saturday night and that's trouble
Yes you got lots and lots of trouble
I'm thinkin' of the kids in the knickerbockers
Shirt-tail young ones, peekin' in the pool
Hall window after school, ya got trouble, folks!
Right here in River City
Trouble with a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!
 

aramis erak

Legend
The clearest evidence that there isn't a coordinated Satanic conspiracy to corrupt the youth is that if there were, it'd be far more effective.
For many of the religious right, they're already convinced that the conspiracy is already accomplishing the conspiracy's goals... as evidenced by the SCOTUS, the UNCHR, and the EU courts.
 


Eyes of Nine

Everything's Fine
Whether or not a nine-year-old English girl's mental health troubles can be ultimately laid at the feet of economic insecurity or battlefield trauma or [insert disfavored politician here], getting her off Fortnite is probably going to be an important step in her recovery process. The game is not to blame in the sense that Fortnite's designers are bad people who have maliciously released a dangerous product*. But neither is it just a symptom. Once somebody is on the addiction shame spiral, their addictive behavior itself contributes more and more to what makes them feel bad about themselves and what they're trying to escape. Long story short, if we could wave a magic wand and overhaul all of Western society to make it kinder and juster and more peaceful, but left this girl to her own devices with her Xbox, she would still have a problem. We shouldn't lose sight of that -- miss the trees for the forest, as it were.

*Although we should have a conversation about microtransactions and loot boxes.

Well said TheCosmicKid.
 


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