Pro-Games Talking Point Calls Japan the Home of Violent Games, but Is That Really Any Better?

“So now there’s this desire to say, ‘Oh, it’s because of violent video games.’ Well, Japan has the most violent video games in the world, and they have a very low homicide rate.”

When we ran the Pelosi clip on Monday, there was about as much backlash to the idea of Japan being demonized as the home of violent video games as there has been to the scapegoating of those games, whatever their origin, in America’s look-for-any-cause-other-than-guns debate over gun violence.

So on one hand, it’s nice to have this as an argumentative rebuttal, as it makes a broad generalization, reduces a complicated issue to a very simple statement, doesn’t source its material, and picks a scapegoat that is even more removed from the matter at hand. The NRA and the politicians on its payroll have a black belt in this kind of verbal judo, and it’s nice to see them served with the same thing they spew.

But the problem in this charade is how so many others—politicians, lobbyists and assorted agenda pushers—do the most speaking for video games. Is there any basis to the statement that Japan’s games are notoriously and distinctly violent? I’m opposed to saying so on the basis of it being an opinion, primarily, that is difficult to measure objectively (ESRB rating? ESRB rating with a “blood and gore” descriptor?) On the other, Ninja Gaiden is an undeniably violent series. Madworld was proudly blood-soaked. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is coming up next week, and it’ll feature dismemberments galore, too.