Well my specific objection was to the PTSD claim.
A lot of people have tough jobs that cause them life damaging stress and those people have a right to get whatever treatment they need or to demand what ever changes in working conditions they need.
If game company employees start complaining that violence in games is affecting them, they are going to end up with a bunch of friends i dont think they really want and pawns of an agenda set on eliminating their jobs and art.
With recent events in the US there are political forces again seeking to scapegoat video games as causes of violence, so i would advise those in the article claiming PTSD to get in touch with their local fundamentalist minister or republican representative. They want to hear from you
I've read through this a couple of times trying to extract the main points from it.
So you acknowledge that some people have difficult jobs, stressful jobs, and that they should have the treatment they need or be able to get changes in working conditions to keep them healthy. That all sounds great.
But you 'object' to the PTSD claim, so what's the objection? That they are experiencing these symptoms at all? You'll be aware of the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for PTSD which, if the assertions made in the article about the
Mortal Kombat devs are true, could quite easily be met in their case. It's a common misconception that PTSD can only be experienced by combat veterans (hence it's one of very few mental health conditions the said Daily Mail comments types consider it acceptable for men to suffer from) but it can affect anyone who's exposed to death or violence - including sexual violence - even indirectly. If, as the article claims,
Mortal Kombat devs are being exposed to repeated imagery of violence and death then yes, it's absolutely possible for them to be developing PTSD. Long-term exposure to distressing imagery can absolutely cause this. Police officers working on child sexual abuse cases can sit in nice warm offices with tea on tap, plenty of breaks and no shift work - and
still develop PTSD from the material they're having to deal with even indirectly.
So, then. "Friends I don't think they really want" and "pawns of an agenda set on eliminating their jobs and art" I take to refer to those arguing that violence in media causes people to become violent. PTSD sufferers rarely become violent in the sense that we usually mean when we say that. They can, it's true, become defensively aggressive if they trigger, but generally they don't arm up and go out looking for a fight. By the way, 'triggering' is something that happens to people with PTSD - even former soldiers: it's where their minds force them to relive the traumatic event due to a similarity of some sort. Hence those much-derided 'trigger warnings' before content of the kind likely to be at the root of a PTSD case. Murder; ; gunfire; explosions; suicide; etc - all recognised PTSD triggers. But no, the acknowledgement of PTSD symptoms occurring in game developers isn't going to provide evidence to have violent games banned. If what's claimed to be happening with the
Mortal Kombat case is actually happening then the problem is not "this game is violent". The problem is, "These devs are being made to watch actual scenes of real-life violence when it's not necessary."
Because it's not necessary. We can all imagine violence. We don't need to draw it from real-life examples.
That doesn't make the 'violent games cause violence' argument go away, of course - all I'm saying is that acknowledging the MK situation specifically doesn't go any way towards proving that argument.
As for the US, well firstly it's not the centre of the universe; and more importantly, the focus on games is kind of being overshadowed by the focus on gun control at the moment.
In the end, though, this comes down to two basic questions. Do you believe the devs who are reporting the issues? And, acknowledging that they may be telling the truth, is the game they're making worth sacrificing their wellbeing? Because a lot of publishers, and a terrifying number of gamers, seem to be quite happy for other people to pay that price for their entertainment.
No, I'm not opposed to violent games. Make your violent games. Play your violent games, by all means. But
don't force people through crunch conditions;
don't make people work in an environment of fear; and
don't expose your staff to images of real-life violence and death for the sake of an unnecessary degree of 'realism'.
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