A former FBI profiler has gone on record saying that video games do not cause violence, Gamestop’s Eddie Makuch writes on Feb. 25.
Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI senior profiler, spoke with Face The Nation through CBS, saying “games are just one variable in a much wider spectrum of risk factors for those who may act out violently.”
She goes on: "It's my experience that video games do not cause violence. However, it is one of the risk variables when we do a threat assessment for the risk to act out violently. And my experience has been [that] individuals who are already contemplating acting out in a violent way, if they are also emerged 24/7 in violent videos, to the exclusion of other activities, and they're isolated, and they're actually using these videos as planning or collateral evidence in terms of how to do it better, what equipment to buy, how to select the victims, how to approach the crime scene. If their use is educational materials for the offender to do the crime better, that's what we take into consideration."
"But again,” she stresses, “it's important that I point out as a threat assessment and as a former FBI profiler, we don't see these as the cause of violence; we see them as sources of fueling ideation that's already there.”
In addition, Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council, agreed that video games do not cause violence—at least, not video games alone. "This isn't an all-or-nothing; it's not zero percent, it's not 100 percent. But it is a percent of the problem, and we have to address it," Winter said. "The parents are grandparents that are watching this show today understand in their hearts already that this stuff is harmful to children. And it's even more harmful now that you have 24/7 digital media hitting children through multiple platforms."
He went on to demand a better ratings system, showcasing an anonymous game where the player can kill, urinate on, and do other acts of defamation to a police officer—both when living and dead. “It's not just a parent's obligation. I think the industry has to have a responsibility. When you have a video game that allows a player to shoot a police officer, walk up to that police officer and urinate on him, douse him with gasoline and set him on fire, and listen to him scream as he burns to death. What kind of sticker do you put on the box to warn a parent about that?"
For more information, check out the Gamespot article by Eddie Makuch. In addition, check out the recent demand to make video game ratings legally binding.
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