This week’s question is a bit different than those answered in the past. We’re venturing into a realm that can be quite tricky with some readers. Please keep reading and think about how you feel.
Jesse Segrist asks: “Here’s a controversial one. Do you think video games contribute to real world violence?
I saw a video today where a group of people asked people to come and throw their ‘violent’ video games away in response to a school shooting in Germany. What happened though was that no one did this save for like 2 people.”
Thanks Jesse for the question, and yes, it is quite controversial. To be honest, this would be suited better as a debate topic, so this week, Ask Andrew will pose this question to all readers of Your Health is Low. I will give you my answer and then open things up to your answers and comments. Please feel free to post any thoughts you have on the topic, because this is an issue that should be very close to most of us.
I’ll put it this way…Real world violence has been around a hell of a lot longer than video games. Though video games to present the player with scenarios in which they must perform actions that cause harm to the enemy, the average player is smart and mature enough to know that it is just a game. In fact, I would be willing to bet that even the not so mature gamer knows that the game and its scenarios are just a game.
The question, however, is if it is a contributor. I can understand how people can say that it contributes: introducing young players to making the conscious choice to perform the violent acts for the game to proceed. I say “young players” because I believe that they are the only age range that could be affected by the violent scenarios presented in most games. In fact, that is exactly why there is a rating system for games. With the rating systems, it is up to the gamer, or gamers’ parents, or whoever buys the games to know what is acceptable to play.
Given that, I say that a bigger contributor to the issue of real world violence, like the shooting in Germany, would be irresponsible parenting or total lack of control and discipline in the younger generations. We witness this everyday in Halo 3 on Xbox Live; kids playing online with mature adults who swear and insult other players; the kids eventually pick up the same traits…all at the whopping age of 10! And as a result, we mute these players because of their annoying attitude.
I digress. The point is, blaming video games is beating around the bush. Don’t blame a regulated and rated form of entertainment, look to what is putting the violence in front of kids. Stop getting side tracked by these STUPID left wing nuts that say that entertainment is causing the fall of mortality and society. It’s not the games’ fault OBAMA!
Okay, I’ve said my piece. Please, leave your thoughts.
Jay
Andrew
Jesse Segrist
Salem
Ron McOwen
Emily
Matt
Jared
If I wanted to get a rise from people, I would disagree with you just for fun…….but I can’t do it. If anything I feel bad about letting my 3 year old watch Family Guy!! Yikes.
People who play (will be the only ones reading this I assume) will understand that games do not cause people to go kill others or desensitize someone who is not unstable anyway. I actually get sick of this as a topic because it seems it is really only a few nut jobs that get up in arms over this stuff but they get all sorts of press. I mean come on, 2-5 people…in Germany…throw away a game because it causes violence…. And that is news?? I can find more people at the store who don’t believe that dinosaurs ever existed!
It’s interesting that you bring up this topic today because my friend and I were just talking about this the other day. He mentioned something he had seen or read where they took a kid (and I don’t know the age, nor was I able to find the story on an Internet search) and took him out with military personal and gave him the opportunity to shoot live ammunition with the guns that he used to play in all of his war-based video games. The kid couldn’t do it, and from what I understand was nearly in tears. Most people (most is the key word) understand the difference between a game and reality. But then you have these kids: http://www.gamegrep.com/news/13045-boy_accidently_kills_himself_trying_to_imitate_halo/
And here’s my thing– first of all, if you own a gun, why the hell would you have a loaded weapon in your house? Even if you are using it for “self defense” against an intruder, you’re more likely to do more damage to your house and others in it (because, despite the fact that I have a hell of a hard time shooting people in Call of Duty through walls, I know, as should most people, that bullets do go through walls!) Second of all, why do your children a) know where you keep your guns and b) know where the ammunition for it is? If you’re going to be licensed to own a weapon, you should take the time to educate yourself AND YOUR CHILDREN on the proper usage of a firearm.
And lastly, when I play call of duty and I get cussed out by a 10-year old, I’m disgusted. People who cuss in front of their children and don’t teach their children to do as the say and not as they do I think are some of the lowest forms of parents you can possibly find. The fact that you let your child get online and play ANY video game blows my mind as well, especially since parents don’t seem to know what’s going on behind that headset (but I guess video games can make a great babysitter for uninvolved/half-ass parents). Most of the time I hate playing with anyone under the age of 20 online just because of how immature they are. I think parents need to be more educated in the fact that online gaming isn’t rated… but it should be, it should definitely be rated M for mature. My sister, thankfully, was really good about not letting my nephew play teen and mature video games until he actually started showing signs of being mature. Being that he’s only 13, I’m surprised at how well he handles playing online, and he doesn’t repeat any of the crap that he hears from the other kids. I also have a 16 year old in one of my clans who I’ve never heard say a bad thing once. What it all will eventually boil down to (kids and video games and violence) is a) are they already prone to violence and anti-social behaviors and b) did you raise your kid right, manners are not hard to teach, I wish everyone would eventually realize that.
As for if I believe that video games are too violent or not… to me they’re not, for the most part. Some games that seemed to just be based strictly on violence don’t really appeal to me though like Manhunt and I’m not the biggest fan of the Grand Theft Auto series (which I am extremely adamant about my nephew not being able to play until he is old enough to purchase the game itself) –I guess to a degree I’m kind of a prude, and the prostitute thing becoming more and more graphic doesn’t appeal to me in a video game. And although my favorite game to play is based off of a war which obviously means it’s extremely violent, I like the online game play (for the most part, when I’m not playing with kids) and I really can’t justify why I like playing it, except it’s fun to me, the other games, not so much.
But you’ll never see me pretending to be a soldier from call of duty, or an assassin from assassin’s creed, or a jedi from lego star wars… or anything from any other video game I play…won’t happen.
Thank you both for your thoughts! You both present very good points that I agree with. I will never blame a game for the actions of a person, and nor should anyone; the person chooses to act.
It would have been fun to see some opposition though. Lol!
I tried to think of some things that I could use to create a debate in this manner, but logic tells me that just because 1 kid out of the 2million that play halo killed himself, doesn’t create a direct correlation between video game violence and kids shooting themselves. It just doesn’t ever add up and the people who try to make it add up are generally right wing fundamentalist christians who have never played a video game or let their children play a video game that wasn’t rated E in their entire lives, no matter how well they raised their child and taught them to be careful and the difference between a video game and reality. I think it’s a conservative thing to play the blame game. If it wasn’t video games it would be movies, and if it wasn’t movies then it would be rock music (or gangster rap, which ever mood they’re in that day), and if it wasn’t that it would be TV (but I imagine the reason you don’t hear so much about movies and TV violence anymore is because of the corporate sponsorship and ownership between all these companies)… I’m sure at one point, comic books used to cause violence in young teens… I could go on about this forever really.
I guess for some opposition you would have to invite either a non-gamer or a republican to your website
Actually, I’m pretty sure it isn’t a Republican or Democrat thing. If you remember, just a couple of weeks ago, President Obama told kids to spend less time playing video games in order to do homework. Now, generally, this seems like common sense, take care of your responsablilities before play time. However, he specifically mentioned Xbox and Microsoft games. What was the point of that?! i don’t know, but the complaining come from both sides, as well as the blaming game. Everyone on both sides of the party lines perform these actions with the utmost skill and resislience. Maybe we should just keep words like “Democrat” and “Republican” out of gaming debates. Lol!
Those are some good jabs against the Repubs! Lol!
Probably because Obama is a Wii supporter
If you remember, apparently it was a big deal that they had a Wii in the White House (though, not really a big deal seeing as that he has 2 small daughters and Nintendo caters to kids, for the most part– I know they have their T and M rated games, I think they’re trying to compete with the popularity of other systems to try to hold their own against them) But really, if you look up “violence in video games” on youtube, you’ll see a lot of Fox news broadcasts, that’s all I’m saying! Not to sound too harsh against republicans, my boyfriend, and all of my family is republican, soooo I don’t totally hate them 
Wow. Every point I was going to add to this has already been said. I’m glad there’s others out there that share my viewpoints on the matter.