This framing has obvious political benefits. The National Rifle Association started pointing fingers at games after Sandy Hook, and it redoubled its efforts to use the medium to draw attention away from gun possession and gun control after Parkland. Video-game violence seems to have transformed from an issue of bipartisan and earnest cultural opprobrium—video games are gross and maybe harmful—to a sacrificial lamb slaughtered in the service of preserving gun rights.
That’s produced a contrarian response from Democrats. After the barrage of video-game detractions wound through the airwaves, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “Video games aren’t causing mass shootings, white supremacy is.” Outside the political sphere, others have noted that violent video games are sold worldwide, but that only the United States possesses the surplus of firearms that actually carry out gun violence.
None of this is great news for the video-game industry or players. Ocasio-Cortez and others aren’t endorsing games, or even defending them. They are merely rebutting the idea that violent games offer a credible explanation for mass shootings, then refocusing attention on the issues that matter to them—gun control, and now, often, white supremacy. Video games have become a patsy for both sides. For the pro-gun right, they offer a credible explanation for violence that turns attention away from gun regulation and domestic terrorism. For Democrats—already on the defensive—they provide a springboard to pivot back to more important, material issues.
Gamers might not like it, but their hobby is likely to persist as a tool in political disputes about violence. You’d think that Republicans would be worried that they might alienate their constituency—some of whom surely find games appealing—by vilifying the pastime. The fact that the politicians and pundits don’t seem to care suggests that enough older people also dislike games, or that the cost is a minor one, paying generous political dividends to other accounts.
Or worse, both. Ferguson told me about a study he did with adults over 55, who tend to be suspicious of games. “You can have them play a moderately violent game like Tomb Raider,” he said. Asked what they think, they report that they kind of enjoy it. Asked if it would cause kids to hurt one another, they say no. But, he said, “they still believe games in general are bad.”
Games were vilified long before the United States had a mass-shooting crisis, but at least past critics deemed them powerful enough to constitute worthy cultural opponents. Now, for all the corrupting power those on the right want to ascribe to them, video games are not even enough of a force to merit political pandering to the people who play them. They’ve become pawns in other, bigger political battles.
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