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As more and
more people are drawn into playing video games, more and
more games are including violent content. In a recent survey,
40 out of the 47 top-rated video games from Nintendo contained
violent and aggressive themes. This includes extremely accurate
representations of fighting and weapons. A large majority
of video games require the gamer to execute violent actions,
such as killing the enemy with a gun, in order to win the
game. There is also proof that many children find violent
games more enjoyable and would prefer them over non-violent
games.
Some argue that the emotions and attitude of the gamer can
be affected with repeated playing of these video games.
This argument is based on the assumption that as a gamer
plays, he or she will actually feel like the character in
the game. They will feel the emotions, use the language,
and act in the same behaviour. This effect is enhanced with
the technology available to gamers today, such as controllers
shaped like guns and steering wheels which add to the realism
of the illusion. In particular, youngsters often will follow
the examples, acting out these violent roles themselves.
Some studies link these games to hostile biases, increased
arguments and physical fights, and lower awareness of one's
personal conduct. Statistics from these kinds of studies
show that there is an increase of children physically fighting,
whether or not the children initially had hostile attitudes.
In extreme cases, there have been incidents with young people
pulling dangerous stunts with cars and firearms after playing
video games containing the same actions. Some of these incidents
have left tragic results.
The effects are generally divided into four categories:
the aggressor effect, the victim effect, the bystander effect
and the appetite effect.
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The first
effect, the aggressor effect, states that a person exposed
to a substantial amount of violent video game entertainment
will become more aggressive, more violent, more irritable
and meaner. |
The victim
effect states that a person exposed to the same violent
entertainment as above will feel less safe. The person will
perceive the world as a scary, dangerous place, scaring
themselves and becoming more self-protective, such as carrying
weapons and fighting in self-defense. However, in their
attempt to protect themselves, they usually bring attract
more violence and harm instead. |
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The bystander
effect describes the condition in which a person has become
desensitized, more callous and less sympathetic to violence
and its victims as a result of extended exposure to violence
itself. |
The last
effect, the appetite effect, states that substantial amounts
of exposure to video game violence will create a craving
in the person for more experiencing more violent entertainment.
In other words, the more one plays a violent game, the more
a person wants to play it.
The accusations go further, stating that violent video games
may be by far the most effect form of media to encourage
violence. This reasoning is based on the six following points:
1. Research shows that people stand a greater chance of
imitating a person if they find a way to identify or relate
that person to them. Most of the time, people do not identify
with characters in forms of media such as books and movies.
However, video games bring gamers straight into the heart
of the action. In fact, games such as “first person
shooters”, which is designed to let the gamers see
as if they were inside the bodies of the characters, are
designed so that the gamers feel that they are actually
committing and not just watching violent actions.
2. Additional research also show that violent video games
very easily influence gamers because it require the gamer
to actively participate, such as using issuing commands
with the controller in response to the actions on the display
Active participating is actually very effective method of
teaching. Thus, gamers quickly learn to be violent when
playing violent games. This is also the rational behind
the effectiveness of educational video games.
3. To learn something properly, one must know every step.
Video games are just the perfect way to learn how something
is done because in most tasks there are many steps. Video
games often do full simulations of these steps just as if
the gamer was practicing them. This is why educational games,
such as the Jump Start series, were created to teach children
knowledge such as math. However, this also means that one
can easily learn how to use a specific firearm if that firearm
appeared in a “first-person shooter” game; whole
sequences of reloaded, firing and other usages are depicted
right in front of the gamers’ eyes. A television show
or comic book usually does not display every single step;
video games do, and so video games are more effective teachers
that any other forms of entertainment. A gamer can learn
how to use violence to a very high degree just by playing
a game and in effect practicing virtually. In fact, video
games are so effective at teaching the use of firearms that
the U.S. Army has licensed the game engine of the Rainbow
Six series to teach soldiers proper attack methods and the
U.S. Marines used an adapted version of Doom II called Marine
Doom to train Marines in 1998. A newer video game, America’s
Army, has superseded these games as a training tool. America’s
Army, a bloody “first-person shooter”, has also
been released to the public as a recruitment tool for the
U.S. military.
4. Video games contain continuous, uninterrupted violence.
This kind of violence is not found in any other forms of
media. Movies may show a few minutes of fighting and switch
to the next scene, but a video game has the user continuously
see and reacting to violence for the whole duration of the
game. Studies conducted in 1994 have proven that violence
has a far greater impact on people if it is continuous and
so violent games make deep, lasting impacts on gamers.
5. Gamers experience the same violent act over and over
in video games because video games are often replayed many
times because of their attractiveness, or because gamers
want to get better at the game with practice. The game itself
will make the gamer do the same violent action again and
again, such as firing a firearm. However, movies and books
are not usually repeatedly viewed or read in repetition
anywhere close to the repetition in video games. Thus, players
develop violent habits by repeatedly playing violent video
games that do the same act over and over again.
6. Almost all video games reward players that complete a
goal and violent games are no exception. These reward system
is unique to video games and is not found in other forms
of entertainment. Rewards take the form of extra lives,
new items, or unlocking new parts of the game. This reward
system leads to three problems. First, the rewards increase
the frequency of aggressive behaviours inside the game.
Secondly, giving out rewards tends to instil a positive
attitude regarding the use of force to solve conflicts inside
the gamer. Thirdly, the reward patterns attract players
to continue playing the game, exposing themselves to more
violence.
In recent times, a couple of figures and organizations have
publicly spoken out against the violent content available
in video games. One of those, Jack Thompson, has created
quite a stir in the media for his arguments and actions
against the issue. His main objective is to prove that several
recent acts of violence in the United States are perpetrated
by those that play violent video games. Some of his targets
are 1997 Paducah schoolhouse shootings, the Columbine shootings
and the Washington Sniper. He claims that these incidents
are the result of gamers that play games such as the Grand
Theft Auto series and the Manhunt video game. Thus, he has
mounted a vocal attack against Rockstar Games, maker of
several violently-themed games such as those aforementioned.
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| This time,
it was found that the sniper in this incident personally
owned a Playstation 2 video game console, on which he played
the driving/ shooting game The Getaway. Like before, Thompson
reckons that the behaviour of the sniper is due to his playing
of this video game. |
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The bystander
effect describes the condition in which a person has become
desensitized, more callous and less sympathetic to violence
and its victims as a result of extended exposure to violence
itself. |
| Last year,
a murder occurred in Leicester, England, in which the victim
was brutally stabbed to death by his friend. It was then
discovered from the mother of the victim that the killer
was obsessed with the game Manhunt, another violent video
game by Rockstar Games. In fact, the way the killer stabbed
Pakeerah was very similar to the way killings are carried
out in the video game. Because of this, both Thompson and
the killer's mother have blamed this act of violent on the
influence of the video game, stating that it encourages
“brutal killing”.
Although Thompson has gained widespread media coverage
for his views, there are a notable number of people, especially
the gamers and game developers that have responded to his
loud, open avocations. A widely accepted view among those
who oppose him is that Thompson is not a serious advocate
for restricting and managing video game production and distribution,
but rather a man out to create a sensation for fame and
profit. They explain that Thompson is from an older generation
who cannot accept the new and the unknown and so tries to
block video games. In addition, they have compared Thompson’s
arguments to previous unsuccessful oppositions in the past
against new trends such as comic books and rock and roll
music. Finally, the greatest blow to Thompson’s creditability
is that his license to practice law in the American state
of Alabama has actually been revoked once after instigating
a lawsuit with the Sony on the topic of violence in the
Grand Theft Auto video game. He has also been involved in
several investigations regarding his law practice.
One should also keep in mind that while there are studies
that are out to prove that media violence, especially video
games, are directly related to violent behaviour, there
are also studies that attempted to prove that media violence
is not a factor in violent behaviour. In the December of
2001, the Surgeon General of the United States was a figure
who spearheaded a study that ultimately announced “findings
suggest that media violence has a relatively small impact
on violence.” Others claim that video games have little
to no effect in creating violent behaviour, especially when
compared to other forms of entertainment that contain violence
such as movies. They point out that the graphics of the
games are not entirely realistic and that many actions,
such as shooting space ships in Space Invaders, are too
abstract to be related to anything that is possible in everyday
life. In addition, violence in video games are often directed
against non-human characters such as robots, monsters and
zombies. However, they did not have a rebuttal for the fact
that new hardware and software allow games to be increasing
realistic and that a slew of new games actually contain
violence against humans.
Most of all, the supporters and members of the video games
industries have criticised the studies against violent video
games themselves. They state that there are many deficiencies
in the studies. The following are some of the problems they
see in these studies.
1. There are not enough studies to seriously consider possible
negative influences from video games.
2. The experiments were conducted in a setting that did
not take into account factors such as trivial measures,
the artificial setting, and unrepresentative participants.
3. “Correlation is not causation.” Although
the studies may have found a link between certain behaviours
and video games, video games may not be the cause, or the
sole cause of the behaviours.
4. Although studies show that violent video game play may
change a person’s aggressiveness and views, they do
not show that the games cause serious aggression or criminal
acts.
5. The violent media affected only a certain number of already
disturbed people and not the whole population.
6. The effects of media, such as video games, on people
are trivially small.
7. The sample sizes of the studies are too small for accurate
results.
8. Studies do not clearly differentiate the difference between
“violent” and “non-violent” games
based on their actual violent content. A “violent”
game may contain a little violence such as reckless driving,
to extreme violent such as mass murder.
9. Studies established weak control groups that played “non-violent”
games that were actually more boring, frustrating and generally
less attractive than the “violent” game. Thus,
the results are not a good indication of the effects of
the “violent” game.
10. Some studies have not properly defined the definition
of “aggressive and violent” behaviour. However,
these studies measured the effects of a “violent”
game by measuring the amount of “aggressive and violent”
behaviour displayed by a gamer. For example, some studies
view hitting an inanimate object as “aggressive behaviour”,
but modern definition of aggression state that the behaviour
contains am intent to harm another person and therefore
hitting an object is not valid.
11. There have not been any longitudinal studies and so
no valid conclusion about the long-term effect of video
games can be drawn.
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