Gaming kills kids?

 Ready for Jack Thompson's newest crusade?

Back in March, The Verge did the work of bored journalists with nothing else on their plate and reached out to 70 year old attorney Jack Thompson, a man who cut his teeth on frivolous campaigns against the violence of the video game industry drawing paper-thin parallels between fictional violence and real violence based on studies he either misinterpreted or failed to vet. He was essentially a stubborn troll so wrapped up in his self delusions that no amount of real world stimuli could shake him out of the fantasy world in which he lived. (Ironic given the man's obsession.) And if you're wondering about the effects that time has had on the man, whether or not time bought that promised wisdom upon his aging head- no, he still considers video games a major factor contributing to the rise of crime in New York; because Take-Two is based in Manhattan. (Apparently my man thinks that gaming companies, in themselves, radiate a corrupting aura to those around them. Yes, he's just as, if not more so, stupid today than he was in his prime.) 

The reason I bother mention that degenerate is because his absolute bad-faith attack on a medium he didn't like, whether because of fanciful delusion or scapegoating for more tangible issues he was trying to defend, tainted a lot of the discourse around the real world consequences of gaming. Addiction, deterioration of social skills, eye-sight damage; all of these conversations were stunted because their validity got unfairly lumped in next to Jack's frivolous campaign to pin the degradation of 'values' as a consequence of gaming media, often through straight lies about what those games even depicted. (And what values was he defending to being with? I couldn't say, but I'm willing to bet that a candid conversation with the man would uncover a lot of socially backwards viewpoints that account for his near radio-silent presence in the modern day world.)

Such has his rot infected the real world and it's lessons, that when I see headlines detailing the actual risk for death that some children face playing video games, my inherent gut is suspicious as to the articles' believability rather than concern about what is being uncovered. And to be fair, most every headline on the topic is rather intentionally Click-baity, but I get the game: just look at my headline- it's how the world works nowadays. But I wonder at how seriously potentially serious issues like this will be taken in a post-Jack world.  A world where all it takes is the corrupted moral values of one rotten-egg attorney who cared more about spingboarding his own image and clout over bettering the world around him, like Saul Goodman without that ultimate seed of morality that won out in the end, to taint the wellbeing of real world children. Do you think Jack is proud of himself? People like that are usually drunk on their 'pride'.

The real threat facing gaming children according to these reports is undiagnosed heart issues, which indeed is always a threat in any situation, but I think what these articles are trying to highlight is that adrenaline evoking activities such as gaming might trigger such heart issues to disastrous consequence. The scientists in question seemed to pick on Call of Duty Multiplayer as being the most effective in triggering blackouts and other warning signs, probably because they don't know enough games to put together a real list of adrenaline pumpers. (I'd bet a Dark Souls playthrough would be even more dangerous to at-risk-kids.) But despite the sensationalist angle that this story is being fed across the media, with even accusations of recorded fatalities, (without specifics, implying they mean 'fatalities for those with heart issues' rather than 'video game fatalities'.) there is a common sense heart to why this research was conducted in the first place.

Children with heart conditions are often times barred from playing real world sports throughout their lives for risk that the incurred adrenaline might pose a risk for the children. Apparently some believed that video games could act as a surrogate, only to find that- surprise, surprise- it turns out having your blood pressure raised by video games is the same as having your blood pressure raised by other means. Yes, I'm as astounded to learn this as you are. To be fair, I guess scientists didn't expect video games to be capable of evoking a similar biological response out of children, but that's pretty much what any competitive action is going to do, isn't it? Set someone up in a competitive reading showdown and tensions are going to be raised, that's just the nature of the game. At the end of the day, however, proposing the obvious and empirically proving it are two sides of the same equation. They both compliment one another.

But, of course, this is the sort of fuel that is absolutely going to be weaponised the second someone needs a scapegoat for literally anything that goes wrong in the world. Are oil prices still high? It's those damn child-killing video games! Is the cost of living soaring? Blame those damn video games and their inflation pushing prices. My wife left me? Must be the video games, I watched them kill my wife and sleep with my dog; they left me the recording of it on my Ipad. The actual details of what this study was discovering and it's results don't actually matter, more the conversation they'll spark up when cited in the middle of a heated argument. I can affirm that with such certainty because that's the way every study into the effects of gaming on the real world has been weaponised. It's pretty much tradition at this point.  

What I'm personally interested in is the extent of the danger and how that might be mitigated. Are lower intensity games less of a risk, such as Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley? Is it the heat of competition that flares the heart up, or the engagement with interactive media? Are adults less susceptible to danger because of their typically reduced amount of emotional engagement, or does their natural body chemistry disadvantages from actually being older mitigate that disassociation. Is there any sort of treatment that those with heart conditions can take so that they can enjoy gaming? Because with accessibility becoming a bigger focus in gaming, I think it's important to encourage tools that help as many people play as possible. The more gamers the better, as I say.

Let's just ensure that whatever Tool ends up twisting this study get's themselves soundly shouted down before they turn this into a media frenzy. You know, like those idiots who claimed Watch_Dogs promoted real world hacking or that GTA IV simulated the murder of kids and animals. Sexy lies spread so much faster than the dull virgin truth, it's a well known factor of life that people in regularly targeted hobbies get in touch with often. Such as the whole 'Dayquil' cooking trend which was literally a single errant Tiktok video that media itself pushed into being a trend with an inordinate amount of fear mongering coverage. Questioning the validity of what you see plastered in front of you as fact is a daily necessity of the modern age, much as it annoys us all to have to deal with.