Do Violent Video Games Desensitise Us To
The Real Thing?
Gaming is a fairly new industry when you think about
it but the argument, whether or not violent video games are appropriate, has
been going on for some time. I believe that violent video games are fun to
play, a good way to get frustrations out and relax. I have been playing violent
video games such as Battlefield all my life and I am not a violent person, in
fact far from it. The idea that violent video games promote violence is
completely preposterous to me, violence comes from upbringing.
“We calculate that video game unit sales
increased by an average of 9.6% per year. Assuming this applies to both violent
and non-violent games, our estimated violent video game-to-violent crime
elasticity of approximately -0.03 would predict almost 0.3% fewer violent crimes
per year due to violent video game sales.”(Social Science Research Network,
2008) this study suggests that violent video games actually reduce violent
tendencies, I believe this to be because people take anger out in games rather
than real life. If for example a person was very stressed or angry about
something, they could play a violent video game and take the anger out there
instead.
Violent people may
play violent video games, this does not mean they are violent because of the
video games. Try as we might, we as gamers cannot seem to get this point
across. Are violent films not just as bad as violent video games? If it is
indeed the case why not ban everything to do with violence, while we are at it let’s
ban kitchen knives and power tools, to keep the crazy violent people from doing
any harm. Maybe that was a bit extreme but I'm sure that most of the population
enjoys a good horror film, however we don't go around re-enacting everything
that we see. In my opinion the effect of violent video games is lost, amongst a
sea of violent images shown throughout films, television and the internet.
I understand that
if a person plays violent video games, they may become immune to the effects of
real life violence, becoming 'used to it'. This could reduce the effect of
drink driving adverts such as Drink
Driving Pub Crash (Think! Road Safety, 1992), people who play violent video
games would not be the only people affected by this. If a surgeon is operating
every day, five days a week, would he or she not also be immune to the effects
of this advertisement? I believe the answer to this is yes, meaning that if
violent video games did not exist, there would still be ways to desensitize the
population to violence. The news show distressing images every day, would this
not also desensitize people to the impact of violence? Again I believe the
answer to this would be yes, making the impact of violent gaming negligible in
this digital age.
Video game design
is an art, this should not be tarnished by the select few individuals who do
not have the common sense to realise that it is not real. The correlation between
violence and violent game releases, according to the study by the Social
Science Research Network, is that violent games reduce violent crime. I am not
completely confident to say that this is fact, as these studies are never an
exact science, but the results are interesting. The effort and time that goes
into modeling characters, texturing, animating and rendering an entire game is
fascinating. The artists should not suffer for other people’s ignorance, we
decide our own actions, not anyone or anything else.
In conclusion, the argument that
violent video games desensitize the players is valid. This does not mean that
if violent video games did not exist, that there would not be other ways to
desensitize people to violence. I therefore believe that the argument has gone
on for far too long. As long as you give the right of free will, there will be
ways to desensitize people to violence, despite banning violent video games. As
technology advances and times move forward, new methods of creating awareness videos
will be developed, making them more effective for today's digital environment.
Video games will become more realistic in the future, not any more so than
films however. This leads me to believe that violent video games are not the
issue at all, it is our society that is the issue. More time put into awareness
of child upbringing would reduce the amount of violent acts within society,
this could be done similarly to drink driving advertisements. If children are
brought up properly, they will become mature and understanding adults, less
likely to commit crimes or act in a violent nature. Do you become aggressive
and have urges to commit atrocities after playing violent video games?
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Bibliography
Car Keys UK (2009) Drink driving pub crash road safety advert. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEVbSB2vz_8 (Accessed: 12 October 2015).
Gunter, B. (1998) Effects of Video Games on Children: The Myth Unmasked. United Kingdom: Continuum International Publishing Group - Sheffie.
LiveScience (2014) Do violent video games boost aggression? Study adds fire to debate. Available at: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/03/25/do-violent-games-boost-aggression.html (Accessed: 12 October 2015).
More from the web (no date) Available at: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/14/study-finds-violent-games-reduce-violence-hmmmm/ (Accessed: 12 October 2015).
Park, A. (2014) Violent video games: they may make kids think in more aggressive ways. Available at: http://time.com/34075/how-violent-video-games-change-kids-attitudes-about-aggression/ (Accessed: 12 October 2015).
Video Games ProCon.org (no date) Available at: http://videogames.procon.org/ (Accessed: 12 October 2015).
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