Update, July 1st, 2013: An account linked to Adam Lanza reveals an obsession with a first-person shooter called Combat Arms. **** Adam Lanza was a gamer.

This fact has been reported, re-reported, and rehashed to the extent that it's now part of the killer's capsule bio: Young. White. Male. Asperger's. Loner. Gamer. This was predictable — not just that this young, withdrawn man played games, as so many do, or that they were violent, as so many are, but also that this detail would capture people's attention; that the media would repeat it in an insinuating way, and that it would make the public uneasy. My son plays those games. My son loves those games. I play those games. Even more predictable, though, was this response:

Fox News links Sandy Hook shooting to violent video games. Of course. http://t.co/fRBWpSmD Fox News links Sandy Hook shooting to violent video games. Of course. http://t.co/fRBWpSmD-- Kotaku

CNN/MSNBC: coverage of the Sandy Hook tribute. Fox: some dude ranting about video games. CNN/MSNBC: coverage of the Sandy Hook tribute. Fox: some dude ranting about video games.-- Jesse Taylor

Astounding ignorance from The Independent. Blame video games in the headline, no mention of them at all in the article http://t.co/6zPrqHNr Astounding ignorance from The Independent. Blame video games in the headline, no mention of them at all in the article http://t.co/6zPrqHNr-- Lewie Procter

And it's a response I understand. I remember the misinformed coverage of music and games after Columbine, and I've had heated email exchanges with the anti-game crusader Jack Thompson, who once led the closest thing this country has ever had to a cohesive anti-game lobby. I've felt defensive about this before, both as a child demanding access to what were in retrospect completely inappropriate games, and as an adult who plays and is paid to occasionally write about them. I feel a hint of defensiveness now too, and cringe at conclusion-jumping like this:

But this discussion has become stale and repetitive, and the knee-jerk defensiveness of gamers and games writers has become dogma. Hashing out the same gamers-as-victim fantasy — which was constructed at a time when gaming really was a fragile subculture, not a $50 billion-plus industry — seems both absurd and insensitive in the shadow of real, and heartbreakingly pure, victimhood. Take this, from The Inquisitr: The saying “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” comes to mind in this instance. Video games don’t kill people; people kill people. In fact, the most deadly school massacre in the United States occurred in 1927 at the Bath School in Bath Township, Michigan. No video games were available in 1927, yet 45 children aged 7 to 14 lost their lives.

This line may have made sense in the '90s, when Doom — a proudly violent and necessarily unrealistic game — was questionably labeled as a "murder simulator" and blamed outright for multiple school shootings. But today, it has a disingenuous ring to it. Our understanding of the relationship between media and violence has become more nuanced since the early days of the first person shooter (update: for those of you who don't want to follow the link, it describes a *lack* of proven link between gaming and murder, internationally). In the meantime, real, existential threats against the gaming industry, in the media, and in Washington, have faded away. And in response, the gaming industry has grown more brazen and complacent — in those last few years before Thompson's humiliating disbarment, as gaming went well and fully mainstream, emboldened developers raced to create the most offensive games possible. They had won, and it was time to gloat. I remember the bizarre resurrection of the infamous Postal franchise, Postal 2, a game that let you urinate on other characters until they vomited. The game cheekily encouraged players to terrorize Habib's stereotypically appointed corner store, and gave players a can of gasoline, matches, and (wink!) a captive room of dancing gay men. I remember Soldier of Fortune, a game that proudly advertised part-by-part bodily destruction in character models. You could blow off arms and legs, or hollow out opponents' guts.

Games like Postal 2 and the Soldier of Fortune series were not representative of the industry as a whole and were clearly intended to offend, so it was easy for defensive gamers to deflect criticism — these were niche titles, after all. But Grand Theft Auto 3 was not a niche title, nor were any of its wildly successful follow-ups. The Battlefield and Call of Duty series have become some of the most successful entertainment franchises in history. Much of the deliberate provocation of the early 2000s has become standard in the world's top-selling (and far more realistic) games. Modern Warfare II's notorious airport massacre scene drew criticism, of course. But the next sequel in the franchise became the fastest selling game in history.