The Emptiness of Hardcore: Consuming Violence in Hotline: Miami

The article explores the challenges to (media) consumerism posed in the indie action game Hotline: Miami (Dennaton Games, 2012). Hotline deconstructs not only indulgence associated with violent gaming but also its main nostalgic interest–the cultural era of the 1980s–through a ludification of excess. I will aim to demonstrate this through an analysis of the game’s “procedural rhetoric” (Bogost) and narrative structure. Overwhelming the player’s senses with intense audiovisuals, and explicitly confronting her motivations for participating in extreme violence, the game balances the game experience between a trance-like state of indulgent overexposure and metaleptic commentary. The sensory overload is also sharply contrasted with the level of precision necessary to complete the levels, bending the adrenaline-pumping core of the gameplay towards mechanics more common in stealth-based games. The system of in-game rewards and the overall narrative structure further complicate the purposefulness of player acts, questioning the teleology of gore in gaming and subverting the conventional notion of video game violence as entertainment. As I will argue, the metaludic commentary destabilizes the game through irony, relativizing the player’s commitment to it. In so doing, it makes Hotline: Miami a prime example of “dissonant development” (Dyer-Witheford and De Peuter), a game that manages to both sweep the market and challenge its basic premises as an entertainment medium.

Reexamining the Findings of the American Psychological Association’s 2015 Task Force on Violent Media: A Meta-Analysis

In 2015, the American Psychological Association (APA) released a task-force technical report on video-game violence with a concurrent resolution statement linking violent games to aggression but not violent crime. The task-force report has proven to be controversial; many scholars have criticized language implying conclusive evidence linking violent games to aggression as well as technical concerns regarding the meta-analysis that formed the basis of the technical report and resolution statement. In the current article, we attempt a reevaluation of the 2015 technical report meta-analysis. The intent of this reevaluation was to examine whether the data foundations behind the APA’s resolution on video-game violence were sound. Reproducing the original meta-analysis proved difficult because some studies were included that did not appear to have relevant data, and many other available studies were not included. The current analysis revealed negligible relationships between violent games and aggressive or prosocial behavior, small relationships with aggressive affect and cognitions, and stronger relationships with desensitization. However, effect sizes appeared to be elevated because of non-best-practices and researcher-expectancy effects, particularly for experimental studies. It is concluded that evidence warrants a more cautious interpretation of the effects of violent games on aggression than provided by the APA technical report or resolution statement.

Video Game Violence and Interactivity: Effect or Equivalence?

The effect of exposure to violent video game content on aggression is intensely debated. Meta-analyses have produced widely varying estimates as to the effect (or non-effect) of violent video games on subsequent aggressive thoughts and behaviors. Recent work suggests that interactivity and player skill may play key roles in moderating the effects of violent content in video games on aggression. This study investigates the effects of violence, interactivity, and player skill on mild aggressive behavior using a custom-developed first-person shooter game allowing for high levels of experimental control. We conduct effect and equivalence tests with effect size assumptions drawn from prominent meta-analyses in the video game violence literature, finding that aggressive behavior following violent video game play is statistically equivalent to that observed following non-violent game play. We also observe an interaction between violent game content, player skill, and interactivity. When player skill matched the interactivity of the game, violent content led to an increase in aggressive behavior, whereas when player skill did not match the interactivity of the game, violent content decreased aggressive behavior. This interaction is probed using a multiverse analysis incorporating both classical significance testing and Bayesian analyses.