Hysteria over fantasy games is just latest in long line of scares

Scapegoats are shuffling their hooves nervously as the Breivik trial continues in Oslo

ANDERS BEHRING Breivik’s ghastly killing spree was always likely to kick up a few scare stories. Last year, following the Norwegian’s murder of 77 people, talk rapidly turned to the supposed rise of extreme nationalism in Europe. The impressively dignified response of the Norwegian people reassured thinking folk that the Scandinavian nation is unlikely to turn to fascism any time soon.

As Breivik’s trial continues in Oslo, one can, however, sense the creaking into action of another tediously familiar school of hysteria. It seems Breivik spent an entire year immersed in the online fantasy game World of Warcraft. More recently, he “trained” for the massacre he carried out by playing the combat game Call of Duty II.

So – ban this filth. Save our children.

In the aftermath of the attack, as reports of Breivik’s interests began to emerge, Co-op Norway, one of Norway’s larger retailers, announced it was removing violent video games from its shelves. Last week, after listening to reports of the defendant’s exile in Azeroth, the judge pointedly inquired whether World of Warcraft was a violent game. Scapegoats are shuffling their hooves nervously.

Older readers – taking a break from the reviews of contemporary verse, perhaps – may require a degree of explanation. World of Warcraft is what we maniacs refer to as a “massively multiplayer online role-playing game”. The happy player constructs a dwarf, orc, troll or whatever, gives it an amusing name and sends it forth into a magical kingdom where – as is often the way in such places – he or she gets to kill mythical beings and complete various quests. You can weave your own clothes. You can hunt for food. You can learn how to ride a fiery horse.

As you may have gathered, from time to time, players begin to suspect they are vicariously living a life somewhat less interesting than their own. When one has spent the last five hours wandering through fog-bound fields in search of a rare herb, a return to real work can seem like a blessed relief. Still, there is always the opportunity to interact with other players.

You may scoff at this, but when was the last time you got the opportunity to kill wart hogs with a Dutch orc, a Spanish warlock and three Maltese trolls?

World of Warcraft is certainly an enormous waste of time. (This writer idly logged on one afternoon and ended up missing the rest of 2009.) But playing the game is no more absorbing and no less soul-destroying than ploughing through all 178 volumes of George R R Martin’s Game of Thrones.

Call of Duty is, admittedly, a considerably more violent affair. A first-person shooter, the game invites the player to complete a series of martial scenarios that never seem to allow the taking of prisoners. On a good evening you can decapitate over a hundred terrorists (or Nazis or VietCong or North Koreans) in the time it takes to drink a mug of tea.

It is hopeless to deny that violence is wired into the human psyche. Go among fans of video games, however, and you will find no greater degree of psychopathy than you will encounter among golfers, hill walkers or train enthusiasts. Anybody who’s been to a horror convention or a heavy metal festival will attest that the attendees are among the friendliest people you could meet.

The counter argument does hold some water: dangerous criminals are likely to have violent games, books and films in their collection. Such people will, one assumes, tend to seek out entertainment that chimes with their aggressive psyches. To reverse cause and effect does nothing to clarify the controversy. Yes, it sounds facile to say the world had genocidal maniacs before the arrival of Space Invaders. But the argument is still worth making.

More to the point, older commentators, alarmed by the aggression that lurks within ordinary people, have always sought to blame the latest atrocity on some terrifying manifestation of contemporary popular culture. In the 1950s, a US senate subcommittee held hearings on the dangers of horror comics. Following the Jamie Bulger murder case, tabloid newspapers blamed “video nasties” that, it transpired, the killers may never even have seen. No doubt, slayings in Jacobean London were attributed to those awful “theatre nasties” by William Shakespeare and his like.

When debating freedom of expression, an annoying artistic hierarchy too often sets in. Campaigns occasionally emerge to ban films that echo recent atrocities. TV is similarly blamed for the collapse of society. But few sane commentators ever call for the banning of books or the suppression of magazines. People who read books can be trusted. Those supposed oiks who watch mainstream TV or play video games must be protected from themselves.

Oh, it makes me so angry. Time to work out my frustration on a nest of virtual Viet Cong.