Just as I know that holding a conversation with AI isn’t the same as holding one with another human being, I know that killing virtual beings in a virtual universe isn’t the same as killing in the real world.
When I started playing computer games in the early 1980s, graphics were primitive. Firing missiles and dropping bombs in the original F-15 Strike Eagle on the Commodore 64 required the suspension of disbelief because everything in the game, including the plane and the world, weren’t realistic looking.
It wasn’t long before programmers learned how to make computers like the C64 depict more realistic images. Then came along better hardware, such as the Atari ST and the Amiga. Now killing began to look like killing. Then PCs upped the ante by increasing the number of on-screen colors all the way up to 256, then to millions. This, along with the addition of more pixels and more powerful graphics cards, gave developers unbelievable power.
By the early 1990s we had cringe-worthy video game violence. Games like Castle Wolfenstein, Mortal Combat, Doom, and more, showed gore that disgusted right-wing Christians and had moms asking for such games to be banned.
Today there’s no question of whether violence is depicted with sufficient detail in modern video games. The hardware and software are more than capable, and it no longer requires you to imagine it. You only have to open your eyes to see.
I’ll admit, I play a lot of violent games. And I’m not a big fan of little indie titles where farming, dating, or running a bookstore is the main focus. I prefer big, Triple-A RPGs, shooters, and similar where making progress involves killing bad guys.
Sometimes they aren’t even bad guys.
For example, I’m currently replaying the original WatchDogs, a game I’ve completed several times before. Here, you’re billed as The Vigilante, but the game lets you steal from common folk, shoot and run them over, assassinate people who are supposed to be bad, and otherwise wreak havoc on a simulated version of Chicago.
Do I cringe as I kill and steal in a game like WatchDogs? I do. And I always have.
But since I know what I’m doing has nothing to do with reality, and I’m not preparing myself to go out and kill in the real world, these feelings I feel as I kill virtual beings just serve to remind me that, yes, I am human, and yes, life is precious.
That’s what we need to remember with whatever sort of entertainment we rely on.
When we read, watch TV, play games, chat with AI, surf the Internet, etc., and what we’re experiencing makes us feel uneasy, and we wonder if maybe it’s reinforcing the worst in us, we are human, we value life, and we make a decision every day to preserve it.
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