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Aimee Rivas
English 1010
Julie Roberts
December 6th, 2016
Video Games vs Violence: Handheld destruction or a helping Handheld
Video games, the advanced technological story-telling engine, stirs larger
controversial violence in as many protestors as there are consoles in a household. For 50
years, video games have delivered interactive media for all, drawing in millions of
everyday people into active players. Studies yielding aggression levels rising in avid game
players do ignite the tension of these games' influences, and the country's most infamous
murders being inspired by shooting games does bind the logic that violent video games
lead to violent actions; Yet, to date, there is still no holding correlation between the
violence and video game use, leaving everyone unsure what to conclude. As a whole,
video games provide a heightened sense of surroundings and adventure in a typically
more pleasant, eventful way; exercise and pro-social skills can be built upon, solutions
can be handled, and its image can be cleaned up for a more serious art form to inspire
a generation.
Since the basic blocks of the 1970s, Video games have spiraled into a popular
past time, and have impressed the industry and its consumer with higher graphics and
quality stories. Presently, it is rare to not find one to multiple consoles in one home,
and a youth not tapped into the mainstream entertainment business. With video games
progressing more realistically, its subjects shifted into more mature themes of violence
and bloody terrains, leaving parents and activists suddenly speaking against the platform,

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and requesting a stricter change in obtaining the games, or erasing their creation all
together. More than 90% of US citizens engage in video games, and roughly 85% of
those games include violence, illegal activities, and gore as a commonplace in real life
(as sourced by CNN, 2016), so in a world where murder is on the rise, the weariness of
those games to an impressionable generation is understandable. In the early '90s, digital
violence peaked to their extremes with the release of "Mortal Kombat", and there was an
outcry for serious offense. As a result, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (Sept. 1,
1994) was instituted and much like a rated-R movie restriction, the line of violence was
drawn in rated 'T' and 'M' games, for age groups 18 and older. Unlike explicit movies,
rated 'T' or 'M' games are easily accessible to youth through adults, and its age
requirement has been mostly ignored with today's youth being heavily familiar with a
shooting game like "Call of Duty". The association of violent video games and violent
acts has brewed since the 90s, for mass shooting cases like the Columbine High School
incident (1999) [as cited by ProCon.org] admittedly taking inspiration from popular
shooting games- To today, where children have lashed out at their parents for simply
talking or being around the player. All the possible risks cause parents to be cautious,
and prevent their kids from playing certain games, or any games at all. Video games
can stir up heat in people and display violence to an almost criminal level, but in these
20 decades of the same dispute, science and study has not found a holding quantitative
correlation between playing video games and playing murder. The origins of violence can
come from the purpose of a video game- as a story is being laid out in real time by
control of a player, in order to progress, the player cannot be passive, so they must be
active to finish the game. With activity comes action, and action comes fighting. The

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misconception of video games to a bystander has neglected the importance of what a

game can give to an exploring mind- information, experience, and fun.
The biggest fear of allowing a child to play video games is running the risk of
a mal-tempered youth, bent on beating their game and having no regard for anything
else. Wanting to take precautions, parents opt to prevent their child from playing any
video games, keeping them less heated. The actions of a child are misdiagnosed for
influences of a video game when aggression in someone can come from other negative
elements of their childhood, or simply being mad in nature. Studies on aggression rising
and violent video games have shown to correspond with one another, so by deducing,
video games would be the catalyst to violent crimes. Dr. Craig Anderson, Ph.D., Director of
Center for the Study of Violence, Iowa State University, states that video games can be a risk
factor, but believes one who already has a couple of risk factors on them - like mental illness or a
pre-disposition to anger - can be offset by the video games they play (ProCon.org). In contrast,
video games are not mentioned in the list of risk factors for youth by the US Surgeon General;
in fact, from their list they conclude that one is more likely to die from substance abuse, terrible
upbringings, or even temperature fluxes, than at the hand of someone who plays violent video
games (ProCon.org).
By looking at other countries with bigger investments in video games than the
US, however, it's found there's a generally lower crime rate. In 2005, Japan, one of the
biggest gaming countries, had 73 killings occur while the United States had 2,279
killings in the same year (cited by ProCon.org). Data of criminal records in the past
years has also shown a drop whenever a new violent video game was released
(Cunningham, Engelsttter, Ward, 2016) suggesting other external forces cause grander

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crime rate than video game usage. The Psychology of Violence cleared up that the
content of violence in a game may not be the driving force of hostility, but rather the
competitive edge mixed with the frustration of not wanting to fail (as cited by
ProCon.org). Both violent and non-violent video games can trigger players, but games
don't always incite tension. Though people may use video games as an outlet to anger,
games are normally turned to for calm, giving the player a clearer mind and an
improved mood. Along with wanting to keep their kids in-check, parents believe they're
protecting their kids from becoming potential killers from keeping video games away
from them. Countless times in this century, video games have been a prominent culprit
in the cause of a crime, with past cases being motivated by video games. It was
justified, but the belief produced misjudgment and hindered the video gaming industry.
As more than the majority of the country plays video games, it can come across
as more unrelated that a killer played video games. In 2012, violent video game use was
pinned to the Sandy Hook shooter who took elementary kids lives, as many mass
murders were accused of; and among his selection of shooting games and Super Mario
games, Dance, Dance Revolution was revealed to be his favorite (Ferguson, Ph.D, 2014).
The US Secret Service/US Department of Education found out of 41 attackers, their
main source of inspiration was either 27% from movies, 37% their own twisted fantasies,
and 12% from video games (as cited from ProCon.org). The presumption that video
games cause violent outbreaks is flawed and ignorant. Starting from the early 2000s, the
scare spread false accusations to video games and their role in mass killings. In October
of 2013, Psychology of Popular Media Culture (Przybylski, 2013) felt that older
generations unfamiliar with the reality of these games in their lives felt that such games

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lead to mass shootings and high risk violence due to one source of videogames in the
news- causation of attack. The backlash blackmails playing games, but only proves
throughout history the same reactions towards anything radical and new (like rock and roll,
television, social media)- The uncomfortable to accustoming creates generational panic that
halts proper judgment of videogames as more than a killing practice.
Adults worry for children either way, as they may not be able to truly control
what their children believe, but children are more capable than adults give them credit
for. Many warn of kids confusing artificial storytelling to reality, but by age 7, kids can
discern fantasy from reality (as cited by ProCon.org) and recognize generally good or
bad behaviors. As supported by Fisher Price in "Fantasy And Reality: Does Your Child
Know The Difference?," (2015) "Pretending is... a major part of a child's development.
Fantasy not only develops creative thinking, it's also a way for children to deal with
situations and problems that concern them." Along with that, video games of all kinds
have been known through and through to provide education from spatial recognition and
hand-eye coordination, to physics and the science of energy and just about any other
subject. Other kinds of video games have implemented working out into their system,
and it has been long established a mode of 2-player cooperation no matter the style to
enhance action and make fun for everyone. The wider world of video games offers more
than the expectation of killing friends. The expectation to create fantasy in reality begs
to reconsider games as a genre and as a matter of natural growth in a child.
Although video games intend imagination and entertainment for all, many factors
of the engagement have come up as sketchy, and still leave unsure adults paranoid for
letting it run rampant. Again, the biggest concern for a parent is how easily their kids

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can get attached and touchy to video games, and how negatively it usually effects them.
The American Psychological Association agrees that violent video games can intensify
aggression and lower empathetic thoughts (for the time being) [as cited again from CNN,
2016], and backed up by the American Academy of Pediatrics summing up 400 studies
to aggression forming when one is experiencing any violent content (Also CNN, 2016),
and Jeanne Funk, Ph.D., from University of Toledo sourcing video games as the main
media instigator of lowered empathy (mentioned in ProCon.org). Children are the most
susceptible to the effects of violence as early age shapes a child's opinion on what
violence means to them. Ratings are instituted for a growing youth's safety, and a child
will be denied access to a rated-R movie and restrictions on T.V. shows can be managed
by a click of the button, but despite both options for inappropriate video games, they
slip through the cracks. With no in-depth knowledge for the buyer to give to the
technology-fueled younger patron, violent games into kids lives is a lot more accessible
than any other media. Personally being introduced to weapon knowledge and HD
methods of killing can translate into the real world when a child that doesn't know
better is angry. Assessments from the Journal of the American Medical Association
reported kids who played rated "M" games bullied, tussled, argued, and threatened more
than kids who did not (as cited from ProCon.org, from several sources, mainly, Dittrick
et al., 2013). Since the 90s, mass shootings have erupted due to violent video game
activity, and adults reconsidered what their children were playing. Whether video games
had a darker effect or not was still up for debate, but some personal feelings got out of
control when studies of military soldiers training with video games emerged. The US
Marine Corps and Army practiced around 1996 and 2002 with games modeled from

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"Doom II". Dubbed "Marine Doom", soldiers used these shooting games for killing
practice and training their brains as an on and off switch. These same games that the
country's children can play with the same kind of weapons authorized by the US army
and carefully used to not go nuts with, is something to be concerned with.
Violence in videogames and violence in real life have battled for decades with
still no definite true or false claims to their link. Many mass murders in recent years
display a fuel of obsession with violent video games, yet still returning to these cases
doesn't support the correlation enough to claim video games and violent outbursts go
hand-in-hand as fact. The industry has its ups and downs: Humans are seen as targets
for endless killing, violence reaches distressing extremes, roughly 20% of women are
abused or objectified (Dietz, 1998) in games; people can go from flunking school to their
videogame passion to becoming addicted and holed up in a virtual world forever; but in
an upcoming world, there's creative ways to solving solutions sans violence, pain can be
art, women are front and center and the strongest characters in game, and lives are
surpassed from picking up a controller. As of late, there has not been a long-term study
of the effects of violent video games, and so no sound answer on what comes first; but
violence does not come easy. It's never one thing that sets everything off. Unless
artificial extremities are held under dark circumstances for the sake of how far video
games will take someone, the games are free to be taken however the player wants- and
still waiting to be known again.

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Work Cited
"History of Video Games." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2016.
"Do Video Games Lead to Violence?" CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2016.
"Violent Video Games - ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2016.
"Fantasy And Reality: Does Your Child Know The Difference?" Fantasy And Reality: Does Your Child
Know The Difference? N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2016.
"What Science Knows About Video Games and Violence." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2016.
"Video Game Addiction." Violence and Video Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2016.
"Background of the Issue - Violent Video Games - ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d.
Web. 08 Dec. 2016.
"Literature Review on the Impact of Playing Violent Video Games on Aggression." PsycEXTRA
Dataset (n.d.): n. pag. Web.