Stephen King argues against videogames and violence

Posted by Matt Cipriano | 2 Comments

Videogames have been front and center in the news recently. They seem to have become the fall guy for all that is bad in society today. This comes from the belief that video game violence (in games like Grand Theft Auto, Army of Two, Doom and Manhunt) leads to increased violence in children.

The Columbine High School Massacre was linked to Doom partially because the mothers of the the two killers said that their sons liked to play Doom (and one mentioned the game in his suicide note).

This argument has been around as long as there have been violent video games. In 1976, a game called Death Race (inspired by the film Death Race 2000) was criticized and came under heat for allegedly encouraging vehicular homicide. Wikipedia has a history titled “Video Game Controversy” that touches on that particular debate.

While the anti-video game lobby has had proponents such as Jack Thompson making reasoned arguments for the correlation of video game violence and social decay, there hasn’t been a celebrity taking a principled stand against this argument (though, of course, many celebrities help promote video games).

Now, Stephen King is stepping up to argue against the theory that video-violence influences real violence. Though not a ‘gamer,’ King is well-spoken and his own novels, which make a strong emotional impact through their use of suspense and violence (and sometimes the suspense is psychologically more violent than the actual violent acts!) has come under fire in his career for contributing to social and moral decay. He has noticed the trend to turn pop culture into a whipping boy for all that is wrong with society, and used his monthly essay in Entertainment Weekly to fight against that movement.

What really makes me insane is how eager politicians are to use the pop culture — not just videogames but TV, movies, even Harry Potter — as a whipping boy. It’s easy for them, even sort of fun, because the pop-cult always hollers nice and loud. Also, it allows legislators to ignore the elephants in the living room.

You can check out his write up here.

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