Via Slashdot[1], I found this rather interesting article. A Dr. Kimberly Thompson of Harvard University testified in front a congressional subcommittee investigating violence in video games and the current ratings system in use, and she cited a study in which they concluded that one of the most classic video games, Pac Man, contained 62% violence. That is, according to the article, during a 90 minute period of game play, the player engages in violent behaviour during 62% of that time; 56 minutes out of 90. Plenty of other classic games turns out to be rather violent as well, such as Centipede (93%) and Digg Dugg (67%) (interestingly enough, Ms. Pac-Man turned out to be only 54% violent).Aaron Stanton, the author of the article, seems mystified as to how that can be, and argues the study is flawed, stating
The results of the study deviate so much from what the average person would consider to be significant violence that the results are almost inconsequential. Still, this is the research that the U.S. Senate is listening to when deciding if the ESRB system should be revamped, and the gaming community should be paying attention.Dr. Thompson responded in an interview at Joystiq.com. Here's some choice quotes:
We only played and coded some older arcade games because we were interested in examining the progression from abstract and repetitive portrayals of violence in early video games to more realistic portrayals in modern video games.
We have never and would never use the percentage of violent game play to make a ridiculous claim that a game like The Legend of Zelda is more "violent" than a game like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City...
As we have noted in our papers, people can reasonably disagree with us, but we did not believe that it was consistent to not count this as violence even though it is quite abstract.So, all in all, a big hubbub over absolutely nothing. A tempest in a teapot, if you will. Perfect fodder for a blog entry, in other words!
That said, of course, I wouldn't trust the US Senate all too much when it comes to subject matters relating to computers and technology. The President pro Tempore of said legislative body and chairman of the Commerce Committee just recently compared the Internet to a series of tubes, after all.
[1] Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don't know.
