Warren Spector is "disgusted" by Violent Video Game Clips

Last week, the White House had a meeting with leaders in the games industry to go over the subject of violence in video games. Along with that meeting, the White House released a small 3-minute clip of some of the more gruesome depictions of death in video games. It is cherry-picked to make the medium seem like nothing but a gore simulator, true, but it’s undeniable that we gamers and the industry itself produced those clips, so we can’t exactly accuse the Trump team for lying or anything.

I admitted at the time I thought the video did little to prove anything regarding video games impact on one’s capacity to do violence, but it was an uncomfortable watch. And as it turns out, I’m not the only one to think so: Deus Ex creator and genuine gaming genus Warren Spector‏ was legitimately baffled by the video, and tweeted this in response:

I don't believe games cause violent behavior. Not for one second. However, the videogame reel shown at the White House on Thursday is simply disgusting. Every shot is in colossally bad taste and everyone associated with those games should be ashamed of themselves. They hurt us.

A chilling condemnation. But when someone on his twitter feed reminded him that he was part of the problem (pointing specifically to the ability to kill children in Deus Ex), he replied with:

Good points. But I hope players were repulsed by the killing of children. And, easy for me to say, but true: I'm ashamed of the kid-killing possibility and wouldn't do it again. Can't promise, but I don't think I'll ever make another game where you can kill virtual people at all.

I’m all for having less violent mainstream games, personally, so I’m not broken-hearted to see this. Plus, ol’ Warren is perfectly clear that the whole attempt to pin violence on games is nothing more than a red herring. Still, to hear him go on about it is certainly a surreal thing. Here’s hoping he can follow through with his promise in System Shock 3.