The GameGuy: The “Pick on Someone Your Own Size” Edition

By Mark H. Walker

On April 27th, Robert Steinhaeuser donned black clothes, a black mask, and grabbed his 12-guage shotgun and a pistol. He walked through the doors of his school in Erfurt Germany, and began killing. When the shooting stopped 17 people, including Steinhaeuser, lay dead.

Video games? Sure, that’s part of the problem. So is violent TV, fathers beating hockey coaches to death, mothers that never come home, a blurring in the line between right and wrong, and a 24/7 world that rewards nothing but success, modelesque looks, and violent, decisive men of action.  Yet the particulars matter not. Since 1993 there have been 25 incidents of violence in America’s schools. The profiles of the killers are similar, but not identical. I can, however, tell you what none of them had: A life, a love, friends, nurturing parents, a sense of place.

Many of the killings have that video game hook thing. Yet the killers can’t even do that right. Losers in life, they are also losers in fantasy. In my games of Unreal Tournament, Quake III, and Ghost Recon the targets shoot back. In Erfurt and Columbine they didn’t. Maybe the next misfit needs to pick on someone his own size. Want to be a big man with a gun? The local National Guard infantry company is having a live fire exercise this weekend. Try to stage your next massacre there; those targets shoot back.

Whose School is it Anyway?

The public relations representatives inundate me with games. It’s quite funny. It takes an act of congress to get EA to send along Knockout Kings 2002, but all the other publishers swamp me with software –PREview discs, Review discs, cracked discs, T-shirts, games for systems I don’t have, and games for systems I do. I can’t use them all so I give them to my 4th grader’s school.

I don’t give them the Resident Evil stuff. If it isn’t rated “Everyone,” I keep it for myself. You think the school would trust my judgment? After all, I’ve written forty-some game books, about 500 gaming articles/reviews, and appeared on internationally syndicated radio discussing the gaming life. Of course they don’t! The principal turns the games over to the school board for approval. After all, they’re all tremendously hip dudes and dudettes (you can imagine). But doing so makes it easier for the teachers. It’s inconvenient to answer parent’s questions if little Johnny brings home a game with something “objectionable” in it.

By the same token, my fourth grader can’t walk her first-grade sister to class. The teachers don’t like kids roaming the halls. They are too hard to control (this is in a rural elementary school). It doesn’t matter that the walking makes the first grader feel better. It’s inconvenient for the teachers. Neither does my six-grade daughter have parties. Those are inconvenient, difficult to control, and take away from class time. It’s essential to teach kids that life isn’t fun early on.

The unfortunate side effect of fun is chaos, and chaos gets in the teachers way, making their life inconvenient. It’s important to make school convenient for the teachers. After all, they’re the focus of the school system.

Aren’t they?

© Mark H. Walker, LLC 2001