Violent Video Games Essay

Call of Duty, Mortal Kombat, Grand Theft Auto, and Doom. Many know these games for their violent nature, stemming from their graphic scenes or gameplay involving shooting or beating up opponents, and these factors have caused these games to stir up quite a bit of controversy. For the last few decades, people have debated the effects of these games on the people who play them. Many believe those who play the games become more aggressive as a result of their violent nature, while others argue that playing the games has no effect on one’s behavior. Society should realize that violent video games have, at most, minimal effect on players’ behavior.

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.

“According to data recently released by The NPD Group, in 2012, U.S. video game software sales reached $6.7 billion (174.8 million units) and computer game sales were $380 million (13.2 million units)” (Improving Economy). To many, the violent video game industry has turned all adolescents into mass murderers. However, they’re absolutely wrong. Very seldom do adolescents who play violent video games commit acts of violence, and the ones who do usually have a mental disorder. Instead of blaming the tragedies that occur on violent video games, the news media should explain to people that a large percentage of young males play violent video games, indicating that the two are uncorrelated. They should alternatively research other possible solutions to the crisis. In lieu of negatively affecting people’s lives, video games could potentially improve their lives!

Video games are prevalent among impressionable children and teenagers. There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the violent themes used in video games. Teenage shootings in schools have led society to question the relationship between video violence and criminal activity. After considerable research, expert opinions, and research findings, the American Psychological Association found that there is no link between gaming and criminal behavior (Casey). With this, the pursuit of video violent games continues to grow in our society. With games that show execution style murders, blood oozing from gunshot wounds, and victims moaning from wounds, it certainly is gratifying for the indulgent player. The ongoing concern about aggression and violence has once again been proven to be non-existent (Alert). My thoughts are that this cartoon like violence is appeals to the need for violence in an artificially designed environment. In this manner, violence is contained within the boundaries of fantasy. This is unlike “The Crucible” which occurs in with real people, events, and situations. Thus, directing violence in the realm of societal dysfunction that has endured with

Originally, the purpose of violent video games is to entertain. However, its content encourages violence and invites to enjoy cruelty. When playing video games, kids are required to kill a human being to get a perfect score. If kids are left to spend plenty of time playing violent video games, they will be obsessed with brutality. As a result they will have difficulty to tell apart fantasy from reality and start dreaming about killing and scoring in real life. As it can be addictive, it also isolates them from human contact, which leads to lack of sympathy. That’s why most school shooters are great video gamers. I will support my thesis with evidences and quotes from expertise.

Video games have become a major occupation of majority of the youth these days. They spend hours on end concentrating on video games, some of which are apparently very violent, yet this is actually the whole idea. Coming from the horse's mouth is an argument in support of video games coined from a video programmer's point of view, stating that violent video games allow people to do what they can not do in reality- virtual reality. ( http://www.theroc.org/roc-mag/textarch/roc-15/roc15-08.htm ) For instance, someone said to be having a bad day could use a violent video game to release stress by shooting down a couple hundred bad men than actually taking an AK-47 and spilling down a few brains down the

Moreover, many kids deal with violence and can’t control it. As a result of having issues with violence some people play video games to let their violence and anger out. People need to understand that “ [b]ut overall, violent crime is down in the US-indeed, as violent games have become more popular, violent crime has fallen." (Erik Kain 1) The more popular the game is studies show violent

The popularity of violent video games is rapidly increasing, but abundant evidence suggests that, “playing violent video games [diminish] the player's perception of their own humanity” (Greitemeyer 499). Violence in video games has become increasingly popular throughout the years, as gun related murders have also increased in the United States, according to the data table in “Do Games like ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ Cause Real-World Violence?”. Some might say violent video games are a positive part of people’s lives because they keep criminals off the streets, but that is not the case. People should not be playing violent video games because it causes people to act out in aggressive ways and further, violent video games are directly linked to criminal

Video games have come a long way since the days of Pong. Advances in technology have allowed games to present state of the art graphics and surreal like qualities to its consumers; from four star simulated battle scenes to enhanced real live fire shoot outs. With all these innovations added to violent video games it attracted the visual needs of our teenage youth. Although video game violence has been blamed for high profile school shootings, video games and its creators should not be held accountable for these tragedies because there is not enough credible evidence to absolutely link video games to outburst of violence amongst juveniles.

Lately, it seems that there has been an abundance of horrible mass shootings and brutal violence in our world. In today’s seemingly dangerous world, parents are yearning to protect their children from getting involved in these savage crimes. Now, a great deal of people, especially parents, accuse violent video games as the cause of this growing epidemic. The controversy of video game induced violence has a long history, but it didn’t appear in the spotlight until the disturbing Columbine shooting in 1999, when the gunmen were said to have been addicted to violent video games. Since 1999, there have been more mass shootings and vicious crimes that have been accursed on video games. While siding with the belief that video games create violence

From a young age some of us begin to play video games. Violent video games can share the bad and the good. Yet, their problems outweigh the benefits such as being influenced, having nightmares , and becoming addicting.

Contrary to popular belief, violent video games may not play into violent crimes as much as you may think. Many people think that violent video games might be the main reason that violent crimes like mass shootings and murders happen. Another factor that they bring into the argument is that video games isolate the players from the rest of society and makes them become antisocial. Groups are trying to ban video games due to these reason. Being somebody who plays violent video games, especially first person shooters, I do not see this the same way as others do. I see these games as ways to pass my free time, have fun playing with friends, and to meet new people from all over. I believe that people blame these harmless games due to a lack of investigation into the offenders past where they don’t see prior problems and they want to just blame it on an inanimate object rather than the person at fault. This could also be because of a lack of investigation of the benefits that video games bring also. I’m writing this to bring awareness to the benefits of games rather than what people have heard from other sources of media.

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.

Over the years, the popularity of computer and video games has grown. Specifically violent video games make up more than 50 % of the top selling games. These games include violent themes that involve guns, crime, blood, and gore. There is an ongoing belief that these types of games are to blame for the many acts of violence in society and have encouraged America’s youth to act out in aggression. Several organizations, such as the PTC (Parents Television Council) have moved to discourage the development of violent games while also pushing for stronger regulations when purchasing such games. There is also debate among parents and concerns on how games can negatively influence their children. So is there a direct link between video games and violence? The truth is video games do not encourage violence in society based on several factors which include scientific studies, statistics on crime, and prevention measures adopted by game publishers.

“Recent contents analyses of video games show that many as 89% of games contain some violent contents” (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, Walsh 3). More than half of video games being sold around the world contain some form of violence. All of the violence involved in the video games being played by children is a pattern leading to aggression. Aggression can be caused by many things; however, violent video games are the main cause of aggression in young adults. “If a child began playing violent video games at a young age, then he might think that violence in real life is the same as the game violence and that it doesn’t have a real impact on others” (Gilad, Alto 1). Thinking that violence in the virtual world is the same as in the real world is the first step to showing aggression. Aggression in children caused by video games is the biggest effect parents and researchers worry about. Violent video games teach children that shooting and killing people are