Violence and Ethos of Virtual Reality

The gaming world provides, masks and manipulates violence as just all apart of the entertainment, where people participate in a avatar role within video games. Yet while one can create an alternative identity that takes shapes as a ultra ego animated character, played out within the framework of these games, its structure as Wagner asserts can become, "[a] Ritual, [and] then, offers us a compelling means of comparing the experience of interactivity in films and video games, highIiglating for us the distinctive differences in player choice." (Wagner 53), in players engagement.

Through observing the level of engagement in my own children's video gaming activity, the lure is so great that I concur with Dr. Harris's citation in the March 14, 2012, class lecture, that "8 year old boys spend a average of at least forty minutes a day"(Harris, 2012). My own quasi empirical evidence is watching own son appear to transcend into his daily Wii game console routine playing on the gaming system, more or less in the same fashion. However, Rachel Wagner's sentiments of, "[t]he deep connection between ritual, [and] games" (Wagner, 53), crossing over or intersecting with religious overtones, demands closer scrutiny. Wherein the violence in such games might have a cathartic social benefit, it also conversely challenges the notion of what Dr. Harris also cited in that, "Augustine of Hippo noted that violence encourages imitation" (Harris, 2012), even in the early Christian arena. and numerous scholars have sought to research this correlation.

Unfortunately for me, I remember when Atari was the greatest thing ever according to all of my neighbour friends and we were mesmerized by the new invention that only one kid on the block had. Yet, there were no game warnings for Frogger, Donkey Kong or Mario Brothers, and it did not seem to be a priority of our parents to scrutinize the games we played. Since that time, technology has drastically matured from these popular culture artefacts, to transform into what is now very much the norm of youth recreational entertainment in my child's generation.

Labelling as depicted below, has been put in place to provide a caveat to parents prior to their purchase of the games, so that they can make a conscious decision as to the "acceptable"level of violence in the game. The standard of game ratings such as Adult, Mature, Teen, Everyone would reflect the current packing caveat labels in place.

Although the games are now labelled with the above noted ratings on their packaging, in my own experience the peer pressure on children to participate in on-line gaming and/or video game console gaming with or without ratings, seems subjective to the parents purchasing power. The problematic discourse is in these games systems now serving as an alternative electronic babysitters and the ritual or vehicle for transcendence is taking over the place of television. Parental scrutiny of a specific game's violence has been more often than not set on the back burner over the last decade it seems, to pacify their children's recreational needs. However the ESRB ( Entertainment Software Ratings Board) with its lobbying as talked about in lecture, holds these game manufacturers to task in the regulation of their violence content, which lead to the now standardized ESRB board labelling.

 So one could question why the Religious right, while at times warranted, does not draw similar  comparisons between games like Doom versus Left Over, as being on par with their respective levels violence. Better yet, I too was quite shocked when I discovered at a Pentacostal church camp that two of my children attended, allowed children to play Wii games with a Cinema size screen as apart of their activities. However, maybe not all gaming is bad. Parents have since flipped the script to take violence out of some games to allow for their own entertainment. By now having their own Wii console time to exercise with their kids to play the Just Dance or on their own like the Wii Fit games with the creation of motion detected controller (s), the battle combat the virtual reality violence epidemic has been transposed into a exercise of body motion. Nonetheless, the intrinsic transformation of merging virtual realities with the traditional recreation for both adults and kids has allowed for a homogenization of electronic entertainment minus the "real" hands on violence between real people.

Yet, more importantly religious institutions and groups are chasing the coattails of gaming entertainment to re-capture lost church parishioners attendance. This paradox faces the complexity  of balancing getting families to attend church and/or keep children engaged in Sunday school.  Does this therefore mean that these sacred spaces has been further perverted because society is so addicted to electronic devices, like a transcendent drug addiction? Where is the line drawn in the sand, when churches too are guilty of using these types of artefacts in their places of worship, (where many consider a sacred space),  to keep it, "holy and sanctified", instead of stopping the invasion of electronic violence at the church doors? Violent entertainment's congealing of secular and religious spaces, is still trying to be measure out out this complex immersion. 

Sources: Wagner, Rachel.The Play Is the Thing: Interactivity from Bible Fights to Passions of the Christ.

Harris, Jennifer. “Violence and Popular Culture". Christianity and Popular Culture Lecture. St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto. March 13, 2012. Toronto.