Wii Zapper creates a ruckus
by Alisha Karabinus 
{ Sep 13th 2007 at 5:05PM }
We here at Wii Fanboy may have mixed feelings about the Wii Zapper, but there's one thing that we're pretty sure none of us has thought about: its potential in training children to becoming ultimate killing machines. Apparently, however, that's exactly what some people are thinking upon seeing different versions of the lightgun-like setup. The New Jersey Star-Ledger's Parental Guidance blog's most recent Question of the Week centered around the attachment, and it seems to have some folks alarmed. One commenter said, "I think it's irresponsible for Wii to come out with a controller that looks like a gun so kids can play games simulating shooting. What kind of message are we sending as parents when we buy these things for our kids?"
What we didn't see was any mention of previous lightguns -- like, say, the one for the NES -- or laser tag, or paintball, or any other item that might involve simulated gunplay. Instead, we see a lot of mention of children and guns, and while we don't know the rating yet on the accessory's pack-in title, Link's Crossbow Training, the other games slated for use with the Wii Zapper are (or probably will be) rated Teen or Mature. Last time we checked, that meant they weren't for children.
We know it's hard for some people to separate the idea of video games and children, but considering the vast (and ever-increasing) number of adult gamers, we can only hope that eventually, the outspoken, uneducated nongaming minority will realize that not all video games and accessories are for kids. We might also add the neither the NES zapper nor the existence of paintball have thus far destroyed the world, but we'll keep an eye for signs of the apocalypse.
[Thanks, Andrew!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Andrew @ Sep 13th 2007 5:19PM
Yes!! I waited all day for somebody to post this for me. Anybody that reads this should click the read link and add a comment about how these people are out of their minds.
kirbycoppe @ Sep 13th 2007 5:22PM
How long until we see silicon covers from Hong Kong on eBay?
the real mii @ Sep 13th 2007 5:27PM
don't buy it for your kids then. idiots.
Player1 @ Sep 13th 2007 5:29PM
Check out this comment: "The problem with todays video games is that they are too realistic. The games of the 70s-80s were so unrealistic that it wasn't a problem. Look at all the school shooting since the mid 90's when video games became life like. Why are we allowing young people to become proficient with guns on these simulators that are marketed to kids these days? It is a real problem that should be controlled by lawmakers."
Where to even begin with this statement. Maybe we should worry less about video games and more about idiots like this who have the brainpower of a hamster wheel. Perhaps these things are dangerous to idiots like this. And I don't think they've seen the Wii's graphics either (kidding).
Nushio (Honorary NDF Member) @ Sep 13th 2007 5:30PM
Oh, but I thought that Water Guns (Whats the most recent release of the Super Soaker? 1,000,000,000?) were ok, for kids! They even sell these water targets that disolve once you get wet for about a buck.
Thats totally different, right?
How about NERF guns, y'know, the ones with the yellow darts? Those are fun. Oh, they promote violence? :/
tactics @ Sep 13th 2007 5:47PM
it's called the "zapper", and BARELY-- just *BARELY* even resembles a gun. nintendo is even packing it with a CROSSBOW TRAINER. they've done literally everything they could to separate this from a "real gun experience", and still these idiots shoot off at the mouth. unbelievable.
-"superfan" tactics.
Drew @ Sep 13th 2007 5:59PM
"What kind of message are we sending as parents when we buy these things for our kids?"
Exactly. What kind of message are you sending? Here's an idea, parents of America; START PARENTING!
If you don't want your kids to play w/ plastic guns, then DON'T BUY THEM!!!
Quit expecting big corporations to parent your kids.
Quit expecting the government to parent your kids.
Quit expecting other people to parent your kids.
You decided to have that child. You get the responsibility.
/gutteral roar
Wesley Hester @ Sep 13th 2007 6:44PM
"What kind of message are we sending as parents when we buy these things for our kids?" . . .
That you are not good parents.
Who runs your household? You or your kids.
01 @ Sep 13th 2007 7:02PM
Hmmm, what kind of message are we sending to our kids when the media sensationalizes violence, the President lies to the country and gets us stuck in an endless war, or when parents keep guns around the house? Probably a worse one that buying the kid a video game accessory that looks less like a gun than a super-soaker...
Michael K. @ Sep 13th 2007 7:03PM
the zapper doesnt even look like a real gun, past light guns actually resembled guns (even if they were orange) and nobody really cared then
Greg2k @ Sep 13th 2007 7:20PM
And tomorrow we'll wake up to the news of a fat introverted teenager shoo...sorry, ZAPPING all his classmates. OH THE TERROR!!!
Dan @ Sep 13th 2007 7:23PM
BULLSHIT
Then why aren't they going after super soakers? Why aren't they going after millions of toys and action figures? What's their position on the Iraq war?
Images of violence are a reality in our society, because violence is a reality in the world. Instead of hiding from it, teach your kids about it. Most of us played a lot of video games growing up, and very few of us have any history of actual violence.
Mike Sylvester @ Sep 13th 2007 10:06PM
What they fail to realize is that would-be killers that get all their training from "murder simulators" on the Wii will be harmless - always aiming at Sensor Bars above or below their intended targets. Crisis averted thanks to ingenious planning and design by Nintendo.
Then again, Rockstar may sense another opportunity to stir up controversy and make a shooter on the Wii that actually works with "aiming down the sights." Technically, it's not outside the realm of feasibility.
pseth @ Sep 13th 2007 10:16PM
Yes most of you have gotten something right. Why are we worried about kids. Research clearly shows that violent video games increase aggression not only in children but also in adults. many of the studies testing the link between violent video games and aggressive behavior have been run with a college aged sample and find the same effect.
And no, it's not going to result in everyone who plays violent games to go on a killing spree. But studies consistently show that playing violent video games increases aggressive behavior. Increases in aggression of any kind are not acceptable.
As for not going after super soakers, violent movies, violent music, etc. - Those who conduct the research on these issues (social psychologists like brad bushman and craig anderson) have studied all of these factors already (note - although there has never been a study looking at super soakers, there have been studies looking at how showing people toy guns can lead to increases in the likelihood of aggressive behavior) and continue to add to the literature on media violence in general. The media tends to focus on violent video games. Likely due to the fact that these stories tend to be higher profile and can up ratings. Those who conduct the research however, focus on all factors that increase aggressive behavior, not just violent games and not just violent media.
Rubang B (NDF - Heart) @ Sep 13th 2007 10:21PM
What messages are we sending to the children?!?
If I have children, I'm gonna be sending them the dopest messages. Like "Yo children, word up... from space." And "I'm on my way home from work, and you better have a round of SMB3 already at Bowser's castle for me."
Girt @ Sep 13th 2007 10:19PM
Only in New Jersey...
hvnlysoldr (NDF - Wind Ring) @ Sep 13th 2007 11:20PM
Mike Sylvester has made me laugh with his techno babble.
SysP3nguin @ Sep 14th 2007 12:30AM
to pseth:
While you are correct in saying that there have been plenty of studies connecting video games to increased violence, there have been just as many saying the opposite. That there has been an overall decrease in violence since the introduction of video games. No considering that both sides have an agenda (one to prove that violent games make kinds violent, and one to prove that they do not), you could logically conclude that neither side is correct.
Also if you look at studies from the past, such as the ones performed by the tobacco industry saying that smoking is healthy, you can see that studies mean little. If anything at all.
Now, through simple observation you can observe something else interesting. Kids have been playing "violent" games for a very long time. I am sure that every kid has had a played a game of cops and robbers at some point. I personally always pretended to have a gun, as I am sure many kids have. Now, you would be hard pressed to find someone who knows me who would call me violent. I consider myself to be the exact opposite.
The simple fact is that kids have been playing with toy guns for many years, well before video games. To say that video games have increased the realism of those games is illogical, and quite frankly stupid. I would imagine that pretending to shoot someone with a pop-gun is much more accurate then using a control pad, mouse, or even the Wii Zapper.
pseth @ Sep 14th 2007 7:41AM
to SysP3nguin
Just so you know, there have not been as many studies disconfirming the link between video game violence and aggression as there have been that have confirmed the link. In fact no study has ever disconfirmed the link. There have been a few (and I mean few) studies that were not able to achieve statistical significance. This does not mean however that they disconfirmed the effect. Why don't you go and find me a study that clearly disconfirms the effect?
As for the other comment. I'm not saying that violent video games are the only cause of aggressive behavior. What I, and all the other researchers who work in this area (yes that's right, I am a social psychological researcher who studies video games), are saying is that violent video games are one source of aggression. And due to the increased degree with which people (not just kids) have access to these games as well as how popular they are and how frequently they are played, it is cause for great concern. Nevertheless, violent games are only one of the many things that we study that cause increases in aggression.
and cmon... seriously. Playing with a toy gun is much different than playing a video game. A child's imagination does not project blood and gore onto a screen in front of them.
pseth @ Sep 14th 2007 7:47AM
Just 3 quick notes to my last comment.
1. Playing with toy guns should also increase aggressive behavior. The "weapons effect" originally studied by berkowitz an lepage is one of the most replicable findings in social psychology. Individuals who were in a room with two toy guns showed increased aggressive behavior toward another individual compared to a control group (that had badmiton rackets in the room).
2. Having the gun attachment is problematic because it increases the immersiveness of the game (immersiveness has recently been shown to be another factor that increases the degree of aggression after violent game play).
3. I am a gamer myself and I once thought the same way that you did. Nevertheless, the research doesn't lie. And trust me, this research is much better than anything produced by the tobacco companies. The research on violent video games comes from independent researchers who have do not have the same conflict of interest that the tobacco industry had.
Jonathan Tran @ Sep 14th 2007 8:54AM
On behalf of the Garden State, I apologize.
Andrew @ Sep 14th 2007 11:52AM
On behalf of humanity, I apoligze for putting up with the Garden State. Everyday brings new reasons for me to hate this state more and more.
srenehan @ Sep 14th 2007 10:37AM
I'm sorry...that "research doesn't lie" line made me laugh out loud...
Research lies all the time, for both legitimate and less then savory reasons. There are often times inherent biases built into the experiments themselves, such as focusing on the immediate reaction (IE, not letting the adrenaline from performing ANY intense action that leads to increased aggression) wear off before testing...
Science, Psychology more specifically, has been wrong time and time and time again. If you think that the concept that MOVIES don't relate 1:1 to increased violence, look at research 5 years ago, look at research used in dozens of other countries more restrictive then the US... There is no consensus, and there is every likelihood that "accepted truths" will go the way of centralism's.
Calvin @ Sep 14th 2007 10:56AM
All that this confirms is that New Jersey is truly the armpit of America.
J @ Sep 14th 2007 11:37AM
It seems that they would rather our children have no healthy outlet for their natural aggression (yes, humans are natually aggressive. We wouldn't be here if they weren't.) so that it bottles up their entire lives and shows up in even more dangerous forms than the "increased aggressive behavior" that appears directly after playing a game.
What appears to be missing in these "studies" is a group of people who actually commit violent acts.
Are the Boy Scouts under attack by these same folks? They give real guns to kids.
Dan @ Sep 14th 2007 12:57PM
pseth
Aggressive behavior is a reality of human behavior. Hate it or love it, that's the way we're built. However, with all that said, outbursts of actual physical violence are rare. Find out how many kids have ever been in more than a schoolyard scuffle. It's nothing to be particularly blown away by.
Furthermore, if you can compare America to a lot of other European countries that have the SAME video games and SAME movies... you'll find that, statistically speaking, they have much less violent crime than we do. I abhor violence more than most people. But YOU'RE FOCUSING ON THE WRONG CAUSES.
Violent entertainment has a marginal effect. What about the gap in economic wealth? What about the legitimization of violence to solve problems at the Government level? I love America, but it's time we started to focus on the things that really make our crime statistics higher than any other first World nation.
Jeremy @ Sep 14th 2007 2:30PM
Honestly I have had my moments of violence and I have even done time for it. I have been though the legal system and I have been though the medical system to fix what I and others thought was a problem with me. It turns out that I was only violent towards people that had done me wrong (cheating wife's lover). Well after going through anger management I did learn a thing or two. For one being aggressive or mad is ok as long as it is expressed in a healthy way. I was taking the unhealthy approach to my anger but I have now found that even video games can be a good outlet for anger.
What this country needs is for parents and the school systems to show and teach children healthy ways to express their anger. An outburst of anger from anyone just means that they do not know how to deal with the emotion of anger. How hard would it really be to establish a method to teach people a healthy way to express their emotions. Our education system is so worried about test scores and not being at the bottom of the national average that they are spending loads of money and resources to dumb everything up to make people appear smarter. Why not take that time and money and invest it into something that will really help children become better adults?
SysP3nguin @ Sep 14th 2007 4:54PM
@ pseth:
I do not remember the study specifically I will gladly post a link to it as soon as I find it.
As for imagination not being as "gory" as video games, you must not have much of an imagination. It's imagination that powers video games, not the other way around. As I am sure you know, being a video gamer yourself.
The only difference, I would say, between a violent video game and imagination is that everyone can see the video game. While no one can see what you are imagining. I am sure if parents could see what their children where imagining when they where playing cops and robbers they would be just as upset, if not more.
@Dan
Great points.
James @ Sep 14th 2007 4:56PM
I'm surprised we got up to this many comments, and nobody has challenged the notion that giving kids a gun-analog is inherently a bad thing. The problem with school shootings is not that kids got access to guns, or even that the kids "trained" with the guns in a video game (in cases where that's thought to be true). The problem is twofold: that you had effing psychopaths refined to razor-sharp hatred in a public school, and that the environment they were in was so uncaring that nobody noticed before they bought/borrowed/stole a gun. To paraphrase, guns don't kill people, deranged loser sociopaths do.
I brought this up in one of the VT shooting threads, back when that was still a big story. I would rather have a bunch of well-trained "kids" (I don't think 20-year-old college students are "kids", but I won't debate it right now) running around armed than try to keep all the guns out of everybody's hands. The VT shooting proved my point -- had even one of the victims been trained and legally allowed a concealed-carry, the body count might have been a great deal lower, maybe even zero. Sure, the shooter *should* have been unable to purchase his weapons because of a previous run-in with a shrink, but it was only bad luck that got him reported in the first place -- he very nearly feel "through the cracks" of the screening process. In this case, the problem wasn't that guns are too easily available, it was that they were too strictly prohibited. The only thing that could have saved those students and teachers was armed resistance.
Wow, that was longer than I meant it to be. I just wanted to get my point of view out there. Be safe, and remember, kids: the best "gun control" means keeping your rounds on target.
Dan @ Sep 15th 2007 10:04AM
I'm in the rare minority in that I disagree with video game censorship AND gun control. I think there's a time and place for gun control, don't get me wrong. But at a certain point, you realize that guns end up in peoples' hands regardless of the laws you create to stop that. Furthermore, you realize that people commit crimes with guns, regardless of the laws you create to stop that. (Probably because a lot of them don't think they'll get caught, or commit the crime in such a rage that they don't care if they get caught.)
I think the fact that these shooting rampages involve sick people is important. It doesn't excuse their behavior, or make them unworthy of blame. But it gives us an insight into WHY they do it, and HOW they get to that point. As a scientific/technical person, "how" and "why" are the most important. If you understand how and why, then you can stop it from happening again.
Targeting guns, targeting video games, targeting super soakers -- you're stepping around the real issue, which is much much more difficult. We're not raising our kids properly, and they spend most of their time in a system where they're treated more like cattle than people sometimes. It's inevitable that a number of kids get messed in the head along the way and nobody even notices or cares.
But dealing with that is harder than banning something or another -- even though a ban ultimately does nothing.
pseth @ Sep 15th 2007 12:35PM
Seriously, have any of you read the research. They have ruled out adrenaline (or as we call it arousal) by having people play violent and nonviolent games that are matched for the degree of arousal they elict. They have also run studies using the same game but with different rules about the ability to harm others. It's pretty hard to contest that a study using the exact same game that simply alters the degree to which individuals are able to engage in violent acts does not confirm a link between violent video games and aggressive behavior.
As for the sick people/psychopath argument (e.g. school shooters) I never said that violent videeo games are the main cause of this. In fact these isolated incidents are not the focus of the research. The research focuses on normal individuals and how these games increase aggressive behavior. No one will ever be able to tell you exactly what led some individual to shoot up a school. We can however study those things that seem to lead normal individuals to express higher degrees of aggression than others. We are not talking about big changes in aggressive behavior each time a person plays a violent game but they are significant. 15 minutes of violent game play can increase aggressive behavior to a level significantly different than individuals playing other nonviolent but similarly arousing games. Now consider the effect that the continued experience of playing violent games for extended periods of time has on aggressive behavior if only 15 minutes can result in a significant change.
As for the idea that people need an outlet for their aggression (known as catharsis) - There has never been a study that has shown that engaging in violent acts decreases aggressive behavior. In fact, cathartic aggression only increases subsequent aggressive behavior. And if these games really served as an outlet for aggressive behavior, then you would expect that playing violent games would decrease aggression. It does not however.
As for the imagination thing. The only kids who use their imagination to play cops and robbers are probably going to be pre-adolescent. Barring exposure to highly violent media I dont think children of these ages are going to be able to imagine highly gory details into their games. Seriously man... you need to give up on that argument. And again, my concern is not with the children. My concern is with those males who are in the age range of 18-26 who historically are those who commit the greatest degree of violent crimes anyway. This is the age range that the more violent games are targeted at. So we're taking the most violent individuals and giving them games that have been shown to increase aggressive behavior. Sounds like a great idea.
pseth @ Sep 15th 2007 12:45PM
To dan-
I agree with you that censoring/banning these things has it's own problem and that this is really not the solution. And so far, all attempts have failed miserably. So obviously this is not the best strategy.
What I suggest, and what my research is focused on, is ways in which video game companies can produce games that are still violent and that people can still enjoy but reduce the lag over effects into post-game play aggression. We have had some success showing that framing of the aggressive acts can reduce post game play aggression. Specifically giving an explicit concrete prosocial goal for the aggressive behavior (e.g. killing someone to protect someone else) seems to actually work to reduce aggressive behavior subsequent to gameplay.
The scope of these findings is limited however as we only looked at aggressive behavior. Things such as hostile cognition, AKA aggressive thinknig, (which also seems to increase as a result of violent game play and seems to play a prominent role in the link between violent media exposure and aggression) tend to result in the more long lasting pervasive effects on aggression. We have not yet run a study looking at this factor and remain skeptical that it will be reduced as hostile cognition results from residual memory of seeing and performing violent acts and not so much on more peripheral features such as storyline and goal content. Nevertheless, these studies are a first glimmer of how a video game industry that accepts the findings can produce games in a more conscientious fashion.
Travis @ Sep 16th 2007 5:40PM
hmmmm, for 1, as many have said, if it's that big of a deal to parents, then don't buy it. why does everybody think that video games are played solely by 7 year olds? i mean, did you know the average video game players age is like 26?
2. why are they getting upset over a peripheral that you hold like a gun when MANY games are ALREADY out that require you to shoot guns and shoot people. i mean, i guess it doesnt really count until you hold the wii zapper, THAT"S when the game becomes M....*oh brother*
3. simulates shooting..hmmm...yes, many games right now simulate shooting, and to all those parents who think VIDEO GAMES promote violence... i live in texas and if i wanted to i could go sign up for a gun license buy a gun, and shoot a real gun. nobody in theri right minds that wants to shoot somebody would train to kill people on the Wii! it's the ludicrosy that some people buy into when kids blame it on video games, like that one kid that knifed a classmate and claimed that final fantasy told him to do it, what the heck!
my rant isn't over, but i'd be too long to post, but yall get the drift lol.