What President Trump Should Say to the Video Game Industry

The recent school shooting has felt very odd to me; it’s an event that is strikingly heartbreaking but sadly routine and familiar.  There’s been a lot of discussion – but little action – about gun accessibility and mental health since then, and much of the passion around making some changes feels very new.  However, given that the shooter was relatively young, it didn’t take long until video games came into the discussion.  Hearing that President Trump was calling members of the video game industry to the White House feels very familiar.  While I tend to be dismissive of the idea that video games lead non-violent people to act violently, I do want some changes made in the games I play.  Here’s what I wish President Trump would say to the video game industry.

I remember back when this was controversial. Now it’s almost cute.

Remember That You’re Teaching Kids About Guns

I’ve shot a lot of aliens in my time.  I have also killed many Nazis.  I’ve fired rockets at zombies and sniped space pirates from a distance.  But I’ve never held a real gun in my life.  All I know about guns comes from my experiences in video games.  I’ve learned that guns can be loaded quickly and that – usually – if I just stand my ground and keep firing, I’ll defeat whatever is attacking me.  The games I play often put me in a dangerous situation in which I need to run and hide until I find a gun.  Someone like me probably thinks that arming teachers is a good idea, but, again, I’ve never shot at a real person who was shooting back at me.  Someone like me probably thinks more guns is the answer because in video games more guns is always the answer.  Game makers need to keep in mind that there are a lot of people like me who don’t know a thing about guns outside of the games we play.  And, sadly enough, we vote.

Video games have taught me that guns are light, easy to run with, endlessly functional, and almost always the answer to any problem.

Get More Creative…

We can do a lot of things in games.  We can fly spaceships, we can dive deep under the sea, and we can travel through time.  Given the range of things and possible human experiences available, I think it’s worth asking why we spend so much time firing, collecting, and dodging bullets in games.  Why are we always shooting a guns?  Again, I’ve never had to fire a gun in my life, and while I haven’t had the same level of excitement in my life that Master Chief or Nathan Drake have, but surely there are other things we could be doing.  Again, I’m not saying that games need to be less violent, just be less gun focused.  Last year’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was extremely violent but also a fascinating work of art.  Violence may be something that’s always part of games.  But just because games may always be violent doesn’t mean that games need to be present gunfights over and over again.

Life is Strange is one of the few games where finding a gun isn’t always the solution. In fact, I think the only time you see one is…well, tragic.

….And Focus Less on Guns

It’s hard today to imagine games without guns.  I don’t know that it’s impossible to do, but I think the idea that guns should never appear in a game is impossible and impractical.  All I would ask, if i was the President, is that games focus on guns a little less.  Right now, games often focus on finding a gun and managing your ammunition as being the central dynamic of the game.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  Horizon: Zero Dawn had guns in it but I spent far more time with bows and arrows.  Assassin’s Creed has generally avoided guns and the incredible Origins last year continued this trend.  Nintendo almost religious avoids guns and guns generally don’t appear in the more prestigious titles.  Again, violence can be part of games just like violence is part of life, but maybe relying less on seeking and firing guns specifically isn’t too much to ask.

Fewer guns, more bows!

Teach Empathy…

There’s a strange scene that’s always haunted me in Spec Ops: The Line.  In the scene, you’re forced to violently and painfully kill a number of innocent civilians in order to continue in the game.  Not to give too much away (because Spec Ops is one of those experiences you should seek out!), but the game requires you to slaughter innocent people and then make your way through their bodies.  It is jarring, not just because of the act but because you spend the bulk of the game killing other people across a variety of locations.  Suddenly, you’re being asked to really think about your actions.   Why is it bad to kill these characters but okay to kill all those others?  Am I a bad person for what I did to them even though I had no choice?  Is this just a game?  That moment gave me a moment of real empathy and I suddenly didn’t want to play the rest of the game.  Games can do that.  They can desensitize as well as sensitize, and too many are doing the former rather than the latter.

I don’t remember much of Spec Ops; I played it years ago. But I remember this part.

…And Think Really Hard Before You Have the Player Shoot a Human

When we think of acts in games that really push the envelope, we tend to think of really aggressive and terrible things that are so disturbing that we rarely see them depicted anywhere.  For example, Detroit: Become Human has encountered some controversy by (possibly) featuring a scene of depicting domestic violence.  It might be good if we start to think about shooting people the same way.  Shooting someone in a game should be a little controversial; it should be something that we flinch from a little bit.  Games also generally tend to depict the death of an enemy AI as a pretty bloodless, clean event.  Historically, dead enemies would flash and disappear.  Maybe showing more of the consequences of shooting someone could play help add gravity to the event.  Again, I don’t think I’ll ever see a time in which games don’t have a scene where one characters shoots another, but maybe we could make it mean something when it happens.