Culture

‘The Today Show’ Has Discovered Fortnite And They’re Predictably Mad About “Violent” Games

They referred to "evidence-based pieces of research" without actually citing a single one.

by Sam Langford  14 June 2018

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Dear god, the Today Show has finally discovered Fortnite, and (surprise) they’re back on their anti-violent video game crap.

Fortnite, if you’ve been asleep for the past year, is the latest video game sensation. It has over 125 million players, because it’s both free and extraordinarily fun. Players parachute in to an island where their object is to be the last person standing, while also avoiding a rapidly shrinking storm that’ll seriously mess you up if you don’t get out of its path.

As far as video games go, Fortnite is not particularly violent. Sure, you’re using guns to attack other people, but there’s no blood or gore, and the game revolves more around teamwork and strategy than outright violence. It’s also cheerfully cartoonish, with silly outfits and sillier dance moves. Case in point:

On Today, though, that translates as “VIOLENT” (all-caps courtesy of Today). In what was billed as a “Today Investigation” this morning (read: a bunch of people sitting on couches shooting the shit), they had “Today Psychologist” Sandy Rea talk us through the case against games like Fortnite.

“Look, there’s unequivocable research about the impact of these sorts of games,” Rea told the hosts. “There’s over 130 evidence-based pieces of research that tell us that violent games like this increase aggressiveness, increase angry thoughts, increase aggressive behaviour.”

You know, evidence-based studies. As opposed to all those studies based on pure distilled farts or whatever.

“We really need to guard our children’s brains,” was her conclusion. “It’s not bad for them as long as it’s monitored, would be my advice. No one’s saying for a second don’t play it.”

At this point the Today hosts tried to inject some reason into the conversation, pointing out that “they’re cartoon characters, they’re caricatures, and we don’t see blood, Sandy.”

“That’s a complete copout,” Sandy snapped, “I would completely rebut that argument”.

“No but the kids aren’t going to go out there and kill people just because they’re playing this game,” Karl Stefanovic tried to add, but Sandy quickly shut him down, telling him, “no, but it’s a whole package”.

Unsurprisingly, she’s getting absolutely slammed on Twitter, with more than a few people questioning her failure to cite a single actual study.

And sure, while she’s now tweeted a link to a 2010 study showing a link between violent video games and some of the harms she cited, she failed to note that that paper has been fairly thoroughly criticised. She also failed to note the multitude of studies that debunk her point of view — in 2018 it’s pretty widely accepted that a link between video games and violence is questionable at best, and pretty complex where it does exist.

You can read recent commentary from an actual expert in the field here, if you feel so inclined. Or you could just unwind by playing some good old Fortnite. Your call.