Horvat's at it again

Under the heading Is the Popular Video Game Fortnite Sinful? (and...what? I mean really, what?), came this:

The video game, Fortnite Battle Royale, is disrupting many a household: Parents tell horror stories of young sons who play it non-stop and suddenly turn violent toward those who oppose their playing.

Okay, so...yes, I have heard of a growing number of cases of "digital addiction", but in nearly every case, it's been kids whose parents pay no attention to them otherwise or young adults, usually in Korea, who have little other social life and get pulled in and sucked down. I am not saying net addiction, game addiction, is false; what I am saying is, if someone has an addictive personality, and games hit them fir st, they're going to be addicted to games. It doesn't matter whether it's Fortnite, PUBG, or Maple Story--the addiction is real.

Each game involves one hundred players who are dropped on a virtual island and shoot each other until a single winner or a team of players has eliminated the other players. The game is offered free of charge, but players can and do buy plenty of helpful accessories in the course of the battle.

Let's define "helpful" here, at least in terms of Fortnight. No item players can buy in the store is anything game-buffing. People who paid for certain packs for the game, or who made certain achievements, can start with a small amount of items that may help in the game-changing sense, but the items actually for sale in the main Fortnight store are all cosmetic. There's a few other arena games that do this too, and I think it's a great trend away from pay-to-win.

Fortnite has been attacked from many angles: Some simply say it is bad for children. Others claim it is highly addictive. The game wastes countless hours better spent in more constructive ways—like homework. And the shoot-and-kill game is undeniably violent and employs profanity.

Sure. It's bright, colorful, simple, and if a child's parents aren't involved in that child's life enough--as in, if they aren't interested in actually parenting their child, listening to their concerns, being open and honest with them--then, sure, Fortnite is an easy out. It doesn't mean that everyone who plays it gets addicted to it.

However, few ask the thorny questions: Is Fortnite sinful? Does it lead to sinful acts? Can playing it be sinful?

You aren't serious. Look, even if someone believes in the base concept of sin, Fortnite doesn't qualify. Note all Christian mortal sins listed in the Bible are sins of covetousness. I want that man's wife. I want that man's cow. I want that man's fine clothing. I want the money that man has. The major, overarching sin in the Bible is wanting a thing, or a person, or a status, deeply enough to steal, lie, injure or kill for it.

Fortnight isn't sinful by that definition.

Someone should be addressing the moral issue.

Why? Or more to the point, why, if, say, a priest hears of a couple who has a digitally-addicted child, why doesn't he find a family counselor for them? Why doesn't he get involved in that family's life and see if the parents are overworked, overwhelmed, just too stressed to cope in any effective way? The game is not the problem. Societal and familial neglect is the problem.

It should at least be the subject of sermons and religious commentary.

Again, why?

And yet the silence surrounding the moral problem of playing Fortnite is absolute. No one wants to touch it.

Because you, Horvat, seem to be the only one who feels this game is sinful, and that the poor kidlings must be protected by almighty faith. Pay attention to the lives of the community, not the games they play, and you'll be much better off.

He followed that up with this: Under the heading What’s Wrong With Video Games?, he wrote:

Are video games harmful in themselves? Do they tear down or elevate our culture? Should they be avoided altogether?

No for the first question. Sometimes both, depending on the game, for the second: Postal comes to mind for the former, and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice comes to mind for the latter. And no, for the third question.

Most people will agree that “too much” gaming is harmful. Many more will acknowledge that Grand Theft Auto, which glorifies crime, or esoteric and violent games such as The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, or Fallout are bad. But the question still stands: How much is too much? How bad is too bad? And what about apparently innocuous games like Angry Birds?

Again, are you kidding? Horvat's blaming Angry Birds for a sinful corruption of society?

Video games are designed to give the player a sense of instant satisfaction. Whenever a virtual goal is achieved, the player gets a rush and tends to want more and more. Gaming presents an imaginary world detached from reality and offers an easy “escape” from the natural limitations humans encounter in this vale of tears. In real life, accomplishment is tied to reality, hard work, effort, sacrifice and talent. But in the make-believe world of video games, you can pretend to be and do things that are completely unrealistic.

Sure. They're called endorphins. You can get them from running, gardening strenuously, working out, hiking, or conversely, by playing games (board and video), discovering new things, and in some cases, even learning--a new language, a new process, a new way of thinking--all of these can potentially be causes for that dopamine rush.

More to the point, though, Horvat, if you're talking about getting rid of everything that causes that endorphin surge, you're going to have to ban all sporting events; all dances; playing music in front of a crowd; READING...And that's just mental on a ridiculous level.

This is further complicated when the person faces problems such as a broken family, depression and addictions. Take the case of Elliot Rodger. This 22-year-old student lived a frustrated life. He despised social interaction, did not have many friends, and became obsessed with World of Warcraft. Rather than overcome his shortcomings, he withdrew and filled the void with gaming and pornography.

Hollllld up there, happy. You sound like you feel sorry for him, the poor waif turned astray by the evils of digital sin. He had problems off and on since he was eight years old, all right? Did you know that, Horvat? Did you even bother to look into it before picking Elliot's name out of a hat?

Elliot Rodgers was broken before he found video games. He was broken before he found pornography. He was raised in wealth, had every benefit of white privilege, was conventionally attractive, and had entry into the upper echelon of his local society. His own personality drove people away. If he'd gone into therapy, maybe he wouldn't have felt he had to try and torture and kill everyone around him. But his family didn't think counseling was appropriate, he probably thought he was better than anything therapy could give him, and deep down, he was a repugnant, bitter, elitist sexual sadist who fantasized about gutting women and men because it would give him ultimate power over them. This was a person who might have been saved if he had reached out and started the process. Don't blame Elliot's descent into despotic madness on video games.

Another problem with video gaming is the tendency to spend inordinate amounts of time doing absolutely nothing meaningful.

Define "nothing meaningful". The Path taught me about the dangers that can lurk in the most innocuous of places. BioShock taught me that the most gentle, soft words can be used to whipscore a programmed mind. Hells, BioShock Infinite, which many fans deplored, taught me the dangers in organized fundamentalist religion (a lesson, to be fair, I already knew), and how easy it is to treat anyone different from ourselves as both Other, and non-human. Minecraft taught me building as meditation.

And there are so many other examples. Are there big, sprawling MMORPGs whos only point is grinding for levels and achievements? Sure. But there are also little games, thought experiments, and again, do you think anything that is not work for hands or worship in a holy house useless? Because if you do, there goes sports again, gardening for the fun of it, amusement parks, reading, book and poetry clubs, wandering rose gardens, English gardens, tea gardens... what is of value to our lives? What brings us joy? For some people, gaming does that. There is nothing wrong with choosing joy.

But what is the point of engaging in a pastime that has no palpable goal, no real accomplishment and no deeper meaning? Since the purpose of gaming is undefined, players often find themselves compelled to play more and more.

Figures Horvat would be the type to view ever treading upward on the Apollonian path a good thing. Not everything has to have a goal. Hells, not everything has to have a beginning, in terms of activities, or an end, we can just pick up in the middle and carry forward. What's wrong with that?

According to a study featured in Neurology Now, a publication of the American Academy of Neurology, nine out of ten American children play video games--about 64 million. The study found that "excessive gaming before age 21 or 22 can physically rewire the brain."

You're not wrong, early studies do seem to indicate that, though more research is needed before it's a firm conclusion.

"Playing video games floods the pleasure center of the brain with dopamine," says David Greenfield, Ph.D., founder of The Center for Internet and Technology Addiction and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. That gives gamers a rush--but only temporarily, he explains. With all that extra dopamine lurking around, the brain gets the message to produce less of this critical neurotransmitter. The end result: players can end up with a diminished supply of dopamine.

As I mentioned earlier. If one is predisposed to addiction, or in some cases, depression, where dopamine is naturally reduced, then sure, gaming could prove a 'fix' that is similar to some drugs. And the more someone in that state plays, the more they want to play, because they want that same rush. Here's the important point: this doesn't describe everyone. Should peanut farmers stop growing peanuts because a portion of the population is sensitive? Should wheat fields be short because celiac disease exists?

For the welfare of children, South Korea has regulated the use of video games, treating them like drugs or controlled substances.

True, but South Korea has a radically different culture from ours. First, they have a huge gaming industry, from consoles to computers to smartphones. Games are quite literally everywhere, thick on the ground. Second, Horvat, do you know abut net cafes? Over here they're mostly Starbucks that offer WiFi, but in South Korea, someone can walk in, pay for eight hours, and play the game of their choice for that entire time. One man played until he died from dehydration; he payed for something like two weeks and the cafe let him do that. So who do we blame then? The man who booked that time? The owners of the cafe who never cared to stop him? Or the game? He would have been just as dead if he'd gone down some back alley and purchased a week's worth of black tar heroin, and shot it up all at once. We can definitely blame him for buying the time to game; we can definitely blame the owners of the cafe. But we cannot blame the game; at best, it was a contributing factor to an existing addictive personality who was already descending.

There are countless cases of violence and crime connected directly or indirectly with video gaming. Grand Theft Auto, for example, has created a long death trail in its wake. However, few have had the courage to call its designers and promoters to task, halt its production and reverse the severe damage it has unleashed. Here are only some of the many crimes connected to Grand Theft Auto:

1. A man was stabbed and his copy of the game was stolen;
2. A college student stole a car, kidnapped a woman and slammed into nine parked vehicles. He said he wanted to play the game "in real life";
3. A teenager in Thailand killed a taxi driver in a copycat crime from the game (Thailand banned the game afterwards);
4. An 8-year-old boy in Louisiana shot and killed his 90-year-old caregiver minutes after playing the game (this was ruled a homicide);
5. Students as young as six acted out drug and rape scenes from the game.

How very hyperbolic. Let's take these incidents in order.

The first one, that is theft. That is less about playing the game and needing to commit violence because of it, and more because that individual did not have the game and wanted it. By your own holy book, that's covetousness again. That's nothing to do with gaming. Same man could have been robbed and killed for his watch, for his cash, just because someone hope he'd have something worth selling for drugs.

Second, that story was turned into an episode of Law and Order: SVU. Again, the characters inspired by that story, and the actual man that the story was based on, had both lost touch with reality. If he hadn't had the game to give him the sick thoughts to enact 'for real', it would have been something else. Do video games explain every school shooting, every assassination attempt? Tell that to Lincoln.

Third, Thailand. Thailand takes a very dim view of gaming, or anything that does not directly benefit the culture. Gays are still beaten just for being gay there. I have no problem with their banning the game, as they are a strictly controlled society. I would have a problem in a culture that had more permissive rules.

The eight-year-old. Absolutely, this was a crime. A crime I think hinges on the "intentional" mention. Where did he get the gun? I'm assuming he already had it with him, or hidden nearby, which means this was premeditated. Again, the playing of the game made the death fantasy easier, but by no means caused it. That boy wanted to kill someone. Any trigger could have set him off.

And the last one is just incidental as well. Children who have never played video games have gotten the awful idea to rape their friends, or random little girls; to beat a boy's head in with a pipe and set the body on fire; hells, we can even bring up the Slender Man attempted murder in this light. In all cases these were people mentally unstable enough to consider it, decide on it, and bring it to fruition. No game needed.

There is a chapter in an excellent treatise on horror in literature and cinema by Stephen King, Dance Macabre, that goes into how often murders were committed by people reading his books, where the assailants said they'd gotten the idea from his books. Again, no games needed. And also again, no books needed--they just happened to be what the killers picked up before they decided to kill. It could have been a breakup letter that drove them off the edge. A phone call that went wrong. Something they didn't like on TV. The smell of the air. Unstable people don't really need a cause--they need that one last thing, that last straw, to hit them, before the rampage begins. We can't guard against people like this without being much more invested in mental health, and de-stigmatizing mental health. And that's nothing you want, is it, Horvat, when you can just blame video games instead?

I'm done with this. He's wrong, and shrill, and becoming repetitive. I'm done.