Game and Violece

Since I am Thai, I figure it would be interesting to write a thing or two about the Thai media. Similar to other teenagers, one of my favorite activities that I do in my spare time is playing video games, whether it would be in Play Station III or in the computer. I have been playing various types of game for as long as I remember whether it would be First Person Shooting, Role Playing Game, Intense Real Time Strategy and etc. One of my favorite games is Grand Thief Auto (GTA). For those readers who are unfamiliar with the game, GTA is a Third-Person Action Adventure published by RockStar Games. According to Wikipedia, the GTA series “focuses around many different protagonists who attempt to rise through the criminal underworld, although their motives for doing so vary in each game.” (1) In addition, GTA was also the only game to receive a 10/10 from IGN Entertainment in this past 10 years.

Therefore, given that it is one of my favorite games of all time, one incident that happened only a month back (August 2008) that did not pleased me and a lot of gamers in Thailand was when the Thai Government decided to ban the entire Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series after the fatal stabbing of a taxi driver. “Police claim the 18-year-old confessed to stealing the taxi and said he killed the 54-year-old driver after he fought back. The teenager could face the death penalty if he is found guilty.” What makes this more interesting and distinct from other cases is when the 18-year-old continues to confess that “He wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game.”(Reed) The question that I am raising here is, “Is this action by the government justifiable?”

Despite what the Thai government thinks, I believe this to be about personal responsibility in society. I think that in this case it is acceptable to blame the individual instead of the game itself because "to blame human wickedness on images is the moralistic recourse of a society that is unwilling to condemn trash on aesthetic ground." (Gitlin 120) I understand that some people might wonder whether if something was as easy in real life as it was in the game, but most of these people will hold themselves back because of things such as laws, moral or even religion. Moreover, this reasoning is called hasty generalization. Hasty generalization is when a single example or instance is used as a basis for a broader generalization. Using this logic, the Thai government should not use this incident as a basis for believing that other teens will rob and kill as a result of playing GTA too. After reading this story from many sources, I could not find any of them looking into this 18-year-old teen education, family, socio-economic background and etc at all. Banning this game does not fix any problem at all since there are many more games that are similar and even more violence than GTA.

Another argument that gamers make in favor of the gaming industry is that, violence causes games. It suggests that the game we see today is merely a product of our society and therefore the main cause of the violence in game is the pre-existing social conditions. If there were not all this problems and violence, the gaming industry might be reluctant in making them. I also believe that if the social conditions were great, kids could play violence game all day and not be inclined to rob and kill some random person. Moreover, I think that games are sources of entertainment, and one could make an argument that without these sources of entertainment, many could get more stressful. Games also allow individual to experience many things second-handed --- without hurting and affecting anyone. Therefore it might be possible that gamers tried to do stuff in game in order to experience it secondhand, and not do it in real life.

Despite the disappointment of the game being banned, I find it funny how many Thai gamers wrote blogs making fun this incident. One of the blog talks about how Mario should be banned since it promotes teen jumping on things and killing turtles. Other put up a banner clamming that, “I play Grand Thief Auto and I am still fine.”