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Karen J. Hall

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Adult concerns about video games erupted in the 1990s when parents and politicians came forward with claims that Doom, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct and games like them were partially responsible for the rash of school shootings in predominantly white, middle class communities. The author of this chapter argues that arcade games serve the national interest by entertaining consumer-citizens and creating a consumer-based demand for military technology. However, when adolescent shooters disrupt the status quo, it is the games rather than militarist social and economic structures that are criticized by the news media, politicians, and parents. The author of this chapter argues that overstating the effects of shooter video games as causes of violence encourages critics and parents to evade gaining an understanding of the complex cultural force exerted by the games. Embedded as they are in global militarist economic structures of consumption and production that accelerate the arms race and constrict the agency of individual players, the games are highly problematic sites of entertainment, but they do not literally train players to take up arms as some critics claim. First person shooter arcade games invite a high degree of deindividuation amongst players, reformulate the functions of play, and re-map the geographies and social networks in which play takes place -- and are produced by and work to support a highly militarist imperial culture. Such a highly evolved cultural force demands more than a rating system or bans to address its impact. By examining the myriad influences and ramifications of the first person shooter, Hall furthers the understanding of such beyond the reductive rhetoric of the politically and technologically conservative and situates first-person shooters as an organic outgrowth of advanced capitalist military culture.

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