Pedro Innecco

This week the murder of a TAXI driver in Thailand by a student who was “carrying out a scene” of the Game Grand Theft Auto IV, prompted authorities to ban the game nation-wide. Once again the question reigns: Does videogame influence people? Well, I have some comments on the matter not from a 3^rd person perspective, but from a 1^st person.

Although my first exposure to video-games was to the earlier Atari 2600, the earlier Nintendo handhelds and then it’s Nintendo Entertainment System, it was with computers that I had my experience of really being immersed into the virtual worlds. Computer Role Playing Games were (and still are, in my opinion) much richer in personal computers than they could in videogame consoles. Although the first role playing game I played was Dragon Warrior for the Nintendo, the first role playing game that really made me immerse into the game world was Hero’s Quest I (later renamed to Quest for Glory I). In Hero’s Quest, you play the role of a wannabe hero which needs to do good deeds and save the land in order to prove itself worthy of the title of hero. Instead of simple actions, repetitive battles and linear boring dialogues, I found myself having to type what I wanted my character to do and to say in order to move along the plot. Dialogs were extremely rich, and I found myself really thinking as the character I created in order to advance on the game. I spent countless days (no – months) playing and re-playing the game, and all of its sequels. I was about 13 years old at the time and I remember quite well spending half of my days thinking either about girls, or about if one day I could ever be a great hero like in Quest for Glory.

I simply love adventure and role playing games (and still do – if I had the time to play them) like King’s Quest, Monkey Island and Police Quest. I got so hooked into Police Quest that I even though that one day I could be a Police Officer (what were the odds eh!? ).

But perhaps the most influential game I have ever played was the Ultima Series, in which you play the role of The Avatar – a hero from a far away world sent to the land of Brittania to rid the world from evil. Besides complex dialogs and non-linear quests and complex story-lines, Ultima had an elaborate set of principles and virtues which made players immerse into questions of moral and ethical grounds, making the character of the Avatar to lead by example in order to advance within the game.

Playing Ultima through my teenage years really influenced my way of reasoning. It made me wonder, question and further think on the subjects of ethics and moral grounds, developing in me an interest that brought me in contact with several different beliefs – from spiritual teachings such as Abrahamic religions and Buddhism to philosophical schools such as Stoicism. It made me want to understand how people see spirituality through different eyes, and I came to develop my own set of values and “virtues” that I deemed important for my personal growth and enlightenment.

It is fair to say that, in part, it influenced my ways of accepting people’s own way of dealing with their spirituality and God. Making me believe that

we’re all looking into a prism, but as each of us see it through different angles, we’re seeing different colours. But the reality is that we’re all looking at the same prism *.

* That is, as as long as you don’t try to push or shove at me the idea that the colours that you see are better than the ones I see – we can all be happy.

Being a good cop, being a hero, being the saviour of a land by doing and promoting good deeds to drive evil away… Are those values so démodé? I mean, do I risk being labelled a “fag” by some 13 years old boy because I like playing games where I’m a good guy? Instead, games nowadays like grand-theft auto promotes no values whatsoever, besides how to be a parasite sociopath. I do believe, based on my own experience and the experience of those close to me who played computer games, that video games DO influence people – perhaps on most of the people out there it wouldn’t influence them directly on their behaviour, but it can definitely influence people on their reasoning, and in their values. Now you combine this with the right set-up: poor upbringing, no job, no money, no future, bad company, depression, dire straits…

In less than three weeks, there has been news of horrific crimes in Brazil, Greece and Canada in which victims have been mutilated. Call me old-fashioned pansy, but I think we need a stop on the violence-o-metre, don’t you?