Articles
GameGuy: The
“Pick on Someone Your Own Size” Edition
By Mark H. Walker
On April 27th, Robert Steinhaeuser
donned black clothes, a black mask, and grabbed his 12-guage shotgun
and a pistol. He walked through the doors of his school in Erfurt
Germany, and began killing. When the shooting stopped 17 people, including
Steinhaeuser, lay dead.
Video games? Sure, that’s
part of the problem. So is violent TV, fathers beating hockey coaches
to death, mothers that never come home, a blurring in the line between
right and wrong, and a 24/7 world that rewards nothing but success,
modelesque looks, and violent, decisive men of action. Yet the particulars
matter not. Since 1993 there have been 25 incidents of violence in
America’s schools. The profiles of the killers are similar, but not
identical. I can, however, tell you what none of them had: A life,
a love, friends, nurturing parents, a sense of place.
Many of the killings have
that video game hook thing. Yet the killers can’t even do that right.
Losers in life, they are also losers in fantasy. In my games of Unreal
Tournament, Quake III, and Ghost Recon the targets
shoot back. In Erfurt and Columbine they didn’t. Maybe the next misfit
needs to pick on someone his own size. Want to be a big man with a
gun? The local National Guard infantry company is having a live fire
exercise this weekend. Try to stage your next massacre there; those
targets shoot back.
Whose
School is it Anyway?
The public relations representatives inundate me with games. It’s
quite funny. It takes an act of congress to get EA to send along Knockout
Kings 2002, but all the other publishers swamp me with software
-PREview discs, Review discs, cracked discs, T-shirts, games for systems
I don’t have, and games for systems I do. I can’t use them all so
I give them to my 4th grader’s school.
I don’t give them the Resident
Evil stuff. If it isn’t rated “Everyone,” I keep it
for myself. You think the school would trust my judgment? After all,
I’ve written forty-some game books, about 500 gaming articles/reviews,
and appeared on internationally syndicated radio discussing the gaming
life. Of course they don’t! The principal turns the games over to
the school board for approval. After all, they’re all tremendously
hip dudes and dudettes (you can imagine). But doing so makes it easier
for the teachers. It’s inconvenient to answer parent’s questions if
little Johnny brings home a game with something “objectionable”
in it.
By the same token, my fourth
grader can’t walk her first-grade sister to class. The teachers don’t
like kids roaming the halls. They are too hard to control (this is
in a rural elementary school). It doesn’t matter that the walking
makes the first grader feel better. It’s inconvenient for the teachers.
Neither does my six-grade daughter have parties. Those are inconvenient,
difficult to control, and take away from class time. It’s essential
to teach kids that life isn’t fun early on.
The unfortunate side effect
of fun is chaos, and chaos gets in the teachers way, making their
life inconvenient. It’s important to make school convenient for the
teachers. After all, they’re the focus of the school system.
Aren’t they?
© Mark H. Walker,
LLC 2001
Mark H. Walker is a veteran interactive entertainment
journalist who has written over 40 books including his recently released
Medal of Honor and Wizardry 8 strategy guides.
