Media Studies : Video Games

Many theories are speculated of what drove people to create such massacres and harm to innocent victims. One of the most popular is that violent video games have an influence on these attacks. However, Matt Peckham, in “Researcher Says Linking Video Games to Gun Violence is a ‘Classic Illusory Correlation’” explains there isn’t much evidence to prove that theory and researches haven’t found a reasonable link between the two. Actually, on the contrary video games seem to benefit a person mind rather than harm them according to Mary Flanagan, in her article “Don’t Demonize Video Games for Violence.” Video games don’t influence a person’s mind because there is a psychological explanation to these occurrences therefore violent video games has no contribution to violence incidents across the nation.

Video Game Violence has been a big controversial topic for many years, going back to the most simple classic video games like Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede and Space Invaders,which eventually turned into more modern games like Destiny and Grand theft Auto. This research expands and analyzes the idea of how video game violence is always accused and put to blame for aggressive events and how the research of this is faulty . The way most people look at video games and how people try to connect them to violence could needs to be corrected. Within this research we will be looking very closely at how these studies and tests were done on violent video

Would you believe the trial of a man that committed: 137 murders, 35 accounts of grand theft auto, ran over 42 pedestrians, totaled 35 cars, had 5 accounts of rape, and one account of manslaughter while driving intoxicated? That is a hard case for anyone to think it was rational. Better yet, what if the case description explained that all of the above crimes were committed in just two hours’ time? Anybody who thought rationally would think it was impossible in any real life situation, and they are exactly right. I am not talking about something in real life, but something maybe… even scarier, and that is the engaging nature of video games. Video games these days are very vivid and create engaging sequences of real life action that go above and beyond what anyone would have pictured even five years ago. The amount of work gone into video games is very impressive; creating detailed, rich, environments of: London’s downtown bay, the jungles of South America, or the beauty of Chicago’s china town. The graphics and scenery are only half of the impressive technology gone into video games. Gameplay itself is very unique and provides high action, quick decision making skills to survive in the unique three dimensional worlds. However, this quick, decisive, gameplay does not always promote the best learning environment. With gaming becoming such a real life experience, it has found its way into violent video games such as Call of

Being a person who plays video games some being violent and others being strategy based, I personally do not think that violent video games make or cause people to act violently. Yeah I will say that some games could be quite graphic but even before games came out, people were violent and acted aggressively towards each other they would fight or bully each other even kill one another they did not even need or have to play games to do such things. People tend to have violent tendencies even without playing a violent video game, just imagine the time you were so angry at somebody that you wanted to harm them be it punching, slapping, or beating them up a game did not influence you to think that way. You thought about hurting that person because you were upset with them or something they did.

A huge controversy in today’s society is violent video games and their behavioral effect on the children and adults who play them. Violent video games have been blamed for bullying, school shootings, and even violence towards women. Many have fought that violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence, and that they are teaching the youth that violence is an acceptable conflict-solving strategy. Other sources have stated otherwise. The 2004 Secret Service has stated that only one-eighth of attackers have exhibited interests in video games. Violent Video games do not cause violent behavior or behavior problems because it has not been proven that there is a link between violent video games and behavioral issues, playing video games provide a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings and reduces violence in young children, and violent juvenile crime has actually gone down since the violent video game popularity has increased.

Content analyses show that 89% of video games have some violent content. Half of the video games on the market have extreme violent actions toward other characters. Games, today, are allowing players to not only connect with the game physically, but also emotionally and psychologically. In essence, the player becomes the character. According to Nielson Media Research, at least 45 million households in the United States have at least one video game console (Markey & Charlotte, 2010). The average age of video game players has increased to age 34, and 60% of Americans play interactive games on a regular basis. However, researchers believe that younger children are more susceptible to the negative effects of playing violent video games compared to older teenagers and adults. Furthermore, games that include violence have raised serious concerns among

Guns. Blood. Death. Three of the most prominent words or actions used to describe video games. Arum Steinbeck wakes up, goes to school, comes home and plays video games. His face glued to the television, he is exposed to gruesome acts of violence. Nonetheless, Arum Steinbeck is not a serial killer. How is this possible? Adolescents who play video games are killers. Dead wrong. 90% of children in the US play video games and 90% of those children play games that involved mature content. Yet, it is possible that not one of these children will grow up to commit serious acts of violence. For most of the children who do end up committing crimes other factors are involved in the equation nonetheless, society tends to blame what they cannot explain. It is easier to blame video games than to accept responsibility for our actions. To put a seranio to words say there is an adolescent drunk driver who gets into a car accident and kills a family. When in court the intoxicated driver will plead not guilty putting the blame on anyone besides themselves. We have fingers to point them. People get in trouble with the law and need a way out, society has made videogame companies a revolving door of allegations that a court of law should find the person rather than the fictional game responsible. In summary, violent video games do not cause real life violence, though some people seems to wish it did.

In today’s world, one of the big topics is whether video games cause violence. I strongly believe that it isn’t the case. Having been an avid gamer for most of my life and knowing thousands more, I have seen first-hand video games do not cause violence. I know you don’t want to just take my word for it, so I will show you through others as well.

If there were no violent video games, would it just be that people turn to other entertainment mediums such as movies and still cause these brutal outbursts. They are a runaway train heading on a course of utter brutality and destruction. A study was published in the United States showing that only 12% of people in a school of misbehaved pupils causing or taking part in aggressive behaviour had an interest in violent video games while 37% “exhibited an interest in their own writings, such as poems, essays or journal entries”. In addition to this, the idea of using different media sources as a scapegoat is not new. In the 1950’s comic books were blamed for violence and that was verified not to be the case. So it is the same story just a different media getting blamed.

There are many issues when dealing with the two sides of this debate. Those who claim violent video games don’t harm society sometimes get their information from what they believe to be expert advice; many times this advice comes from “experts” hired by media industries. “The media industries spend so much money on trying to convince the general public that there is nothing to worry about,” says Craig Anderson, who was interviewed on “Violent Video Games and Other Media Violence”. “The media industry is very worried about its profits and will do almost anything to protect them.” People should also consider the times a violent video game was just the push some crazy kid needed to kill someone or do something crazy.

Video Games have come a long way since their first introduction into the main stream. With video games becoming more sophisticated and using advanced technology, it seems as if video games are closing in on the gap between games and reality. However, as video games become ever so life-like it brings up the question of if the violence associated with video games is having a negative consequence. There have been many accusations over the years over the harm video games are causing children and teenagers. Experiments have been conducted trying to associate a link between video games and aggressive behavior. Even the media has been known to point fingers at video games for the cause of children

Video games are very misunderstood by adults. They seem to believe violent video games leads to violent kids, but that is just not true. Violent video games really don’t do any damage on the psyche of a child that was not already damaged, and if there is no damage already than no damage shall be dealt. People say violent games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto have been the cause of many school shootings which is just not true. Millions of people play violent video games every day and none of them go out and kill people. The person that goes out and kills people was sick in the head long before they played the violent video game. Maybe they enjoyed killing people a bit too much but that was not the intention of the games creators. They can’t help how some person who is sick in the head chooses to play their video game. I have three reason that will prove violent video games do not equal violent kids. The amount of time spent playing, how you spend your time playing, and violence in other media will help me to prove my point. First, we must discuss the amount of time spent playing.

One of the most ridiculous common claims that are made against violent video games is that they can actually train people to become killers. Marcus Schulzke also stated that, “The strongest of the empirical theses—in the sense that it makes the most sweeping claim—is that video games actually lead players to perform violent actions. Proponents of this view argue that they not only give players the skills to carry out their destructive wishes or that they desensitize, but that merely playing a game or seeing it can drive one to reproduce the harmful acts represented in the game. If true, this would be the most worrying of the three hypotheses.” However the important point to take away from this is that video games may indeed train people to hurt others but there are huge differences between violence in a video game and violence in the real world. People understand that when they kill someone in a video game there are zero repercussions. However,

Playing video games does not cause violent behavior. Don’t get me wrong, some video games show horrific acts of violence. “A recent survey found that 92 percent of U.S. kids--ages 2 to 17--play video games, and their parents bought 225 million of them last year to the tune of $6.4 billion.” (Sider 79).What’s here to argue is that violent video games do not cause violence among children, but the blame for violence should be on the individual and people who should have taught the individual better. If kids are not able to see the difference between reality and fantasy, then they really can’t be blamed for committing acts they see in a game and then imitating, not fully understanding the consequences of doing it in the real world.

Most of us have certainly pondered on the thought if video games truly create violent citizens, I personally believe that video games do not what so ever. One must distinguish this topic accurately and consider learning to differentiate and not have a biased or radical opinion. There have been many attempts from a number of different people who have tried to give a bad name to video games due to the simulations and realness and say that video games will create a negative environment for anyone who plays them, especially in children. Enthusiasts of video games have spent decades asserting that there is no underlying link between playing violent titles and engaging in the violent real-world behavior. Brand-new data confirms their contentions.