Harvard Medical School Quizzes Game Developers On Violence

The Harvard Medical School Center For Mental Health and Media has announced that it will be conducting a survey of video game professionals. The introduction to the survey explains: "Much of the published research on video and computer games is agenda-driven or limited in practical utility. Our goal is to help academics, politicians and the public move beyond blanket condemnations and anecdote-based arguments, and to improve the level of discourse about video games and their potential benefits and risks. The perspective of game developers is not widely understood and deserves a place in the public dialogue." Therefore, the center has set up an anonymous survey on the perspectives of individuals involved in game design and development, asking about the role of violence in video games, and the relationships between game designers/publishers and game rating boards. Questions asked include the purpose of violence in games, how a company decided to make a game violent, and developers' opinions of the ESRB or other ratings systems, and the survey will be open until July 8th, 2005.