Imitating Real Life Violence
The game of American football is the most violent field sport in the
country. But to a Harvard/Stanford graduate, that wasn’t
enough violence. So he created a football video game for people with a predilection
for or are under the influence of violence on and off-field, on and offline.
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Madden NFL,” it is called. It is a decades-old American football video game series
developed by EA Tiburon for EA Sports; EA for Electronic Arts founded by California-native
William Murray “Trip” Hawkins III, alumnus of Harvard and Stanford universities,
and employed by the University of California-Santa Barbara. EA Tiburon (in 1994
“Tiburon Entertainment” until acquired in 1998 by Electronic Arts) is a Maitland,
Florida-based Electronic Arts video game development studio.
Hawkins’ Electronic Arts (Redwood
City, California-headquartered) as of 2013 had sold “more than 100 million
copies of Madden NFL”—and more than five million in a single year—in sales totals
exceeding “$4 billion.”
It seems this simulation in a violent sport mimics all aspects of the
real game of American football and is played, as an addiction, by the sport’s
professionals, fans, nonprofessionals, and varieties of ordinary people.
“Once in game,” a Wikipedia article describes part of the player experience,“players run training camp (individual drills for improving players’ attributes), play in preseason games and compete in a regular 16-game NFL season, including playoffs and the Super Bowl. The player has the option to play any game in the simulation….. Most versions of Madden give a player 30 years with their franchise, sometimes with an opportunity to apply for the Hall of Fame at the end of the simulation.”
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t was in this environment of simulated violence that real life violence
broke out in Florida over this past weekend.
Though reports varied as the story developed, by Tuesday morning the
final tally seemed have been three people dead, including the 24-year old shooter;
and eleven people wounded, nine from gunshot injuries during a Madden video
game tournament at a Jacksonville (Florida) Landing entertainment complex on
the scenic St. Johns River.
In the same news window and city, another American football-arena shooting
occurred two days earlier, leaving two people injured and another dead. This real life violence
occurred at a real life high school football game.
In an age of careless video game capitalists and consumerists, one
might also recall that a group of sadists created and offered for sale a “school
shooting” video game.
Americans do not have to buy this stuff — except in a ceaseless search for oblivion, or an escape from boredom. For whatever reason a person makes the individual choice to buy violence; and whether an ensuing act of violence is against self or others, the act, inadvertently or consciously, amounts to the denial of humanity, a dehumanizing or disestablishing of Society.
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he construct of society with its inescapable problems and attendant
responsibilities seem to escape the grasp of politicians, public figures and
the public at large. Perhaps the area is too vast and too complex for us to fix
or even imagine fixing—but I don’t believe that!
Any seriously thinking person
knows that keeping and firing weapons; producing, purchasing and/or participating
in games of violence, real or simulated, are examples of effect not cause. But Americans fail to delve into and actively
address in a sustained and serious manner prior conditions or underlying causes:
America’s people problems; human relations problems, character and care of life
and community problems, care of problems as a whole and interdependent society.
To dismiss the issue by saying that “violence happens elsewhere” (we're are not the only ones) — even to
persist in a battle for and against inanimate objects whether guns or statues—makes
the point of carelessness. We dismiss human issues to our peril.
Matthew Taylor’s thoughts in the aftermath of the gaming arena incident
in Florida gets to the heart of the matter.
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n America, we live in a “diseased society.” We seem to embrace and celebrate the
condition. The killer emerged from that society, Taylor writes. “Whatever
psychological damage” drove this shooter to take the lives of others and his
life “must have been severe”; however, “he did not come of age in a vacuum.”
He “had spent his entire adult life in a country perpetually at war.
“He grew up in a society where the routine slaughter of civilians in the Middle East by the US military and its allies is reported on in the same news programs that trumpet the billions of dollars made by ultra-rich investors in the stock market.
“He grew up in a country where militarized police kill more than three people every day with impunity and the intelligence agencies spy on the entire population with the protection of the courts.”
Unless and until the capitalist consumerist model is replaced by “a
more rational … social order,” our “diseased society” will persist in producing
such tragedies as occurred at the Jacksonville Landing Entertainment Center’s Madden
video game tournament.
Sources
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madden_NFL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_Hawkins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA_Tiburon
News
RT “2 killed, 11 injured in mass shooting at Madden video game
tournament in Jacksonville” August 26-27, 2018 https://www.rt.com/usa/436900-florida-shooting-jacksonville-madden-tournament
RT “Jacksonville shooter was hospitalized for mental issues and put on
anti-psychotics – court records” August 28, 2018 https://www.rt.com/usa/437009-jacksonville-shooter-mental-issues/
WSWS “Three killed, nine injured in Jacksonville, Florida mass shooting”
Matthew Taylor August 27, 2018 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/08/27/jfls-a27.html
Electronic Arts (EA) website
“Madden NFL is (a) staple to EA SPORTS and has a history that spans
decades.… In fiscal year 2018, EA posted GAAP [Generally Accepted Accounting
Principles (GAAP or US GAAP), accounting standard adopted by the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generally_Accepted_Accounting_Principles_(United_States)]
net revenue of $5.15 billion. … Whether you play as your favorite team, create
your own player, or going head-to-head online, Madden brings excellent gameplay
with an authentic NFL feel.” https://www.ea.com/games/madden
Headquarters: Electronic Arts Inc. 209 Redwood Shores Parkway Redwood
City, CA 94065
Consumer Purchases: Residents in the United States, Canada or Japan
contract with Electronic Arts Inc., 209 Redwood Shores Parkway, Redwood City,
CA 94065, USA; Residents in any other country …, between (contractor) and EA
Swiss Sàrl, Place du Molard 8, 1204, Geneva, Switzerland (CH-660-2328005-8). https://www.ea.com/about
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