I was ganged up against by my "University" friends on how games have this huge impact on society and modern culture. We all can agree on that, but that’s not the issue, so let me get to the point. They claim that it’s because of that strong influence it has on our culture that makes the violent games another axis for breeding hate and more violence into today’s youths. Well I held my ground and I decided to write about this overly discussed issue, which for all us gamers is an old, old topic not worth discussing, but I’m writing about it anyways…? (contradiction?)

Yes as gamers we all know that Video games along side music and the internet are the scapegoats for the violent behaviour of the youths in our community. Lets just point out and scream and blame instead of holding back and thinking about it for a second. Yes there are mature content in video games much like all other medias. No I don’t believe in having restrictions on how far developers want to make a game violent, gory, sexual or whatever explicit content. We don’t have these barriers on movies, but everyone breaks into a riot when a video game does? Double standards maybe? This is going to be closely tied into my previous post about the topic as a whole really and yes, there has been many protocols in place to censor the games and make sure that the games are distributed properly and yet the people are still in arms.

The video games with mild violence are the modern equivalent of the 50-60s Indians vs. Cowboys or the 80-90s Cops & Robbers. But let’s take a look at the Cops vs Robbers game, here we have kids forming a gun-like shape with their hands or have a plastic replica to shoot down their friends. These actions potentially have an effect on the children before they play, while they are playing, and the affects after they played the game. I find that those games are strong forms of acting out violence, but nothing really spawned from those kinds of games. Ask you parents ask your grand parents, because anyone can take anything out of context like I just did and make it seem so vile. People recently have an issue with violence in video games, but are we that naive? Violent games have existed far before video games came along.

Kids at the age of around 5 - 6 they shouldn’t have developed a strong care about things like video games it doesn’t factor unless the Parent brings it into their home. Also in this age group kids are fairly developed in terms of being able to tell from reality and unreality. After all they should be doing quite a bit of pretending and using their imagination with stuff like arts, comics, animations, and etc. Not saying all youths develop the same but for the average child they should be able to diversify between the two in that age group. Cause what are video games for the most part? It’s a physical extension of another person(s) creativity and imagination.

In addition Developers and Publishers don’t produce games that are graphic for youths that are younger 16 especially 10 and under. Those games that come out have certain age group ratings conducted by the ESRB. The Developers only make certain games with certain content depending on their intended target audience. If the Parents are buying these games regardless then who is at fault? It’s the same as parents taking their youths to the 18a+ movies, but that seems to be more accepted in our society.

Video games are no different from a movie, a television show, the news/newspaper, or content on the internet. In fact I’ve seen some terribly shocking things on the news and the newspapers that are far worst than a video game. Seriously though, If you fear the nature of these Medias then take the actions to censor them from your kids and educate them about them. Don’t just shield them from it, give them the mental tools to deal with the media and what they will see and experience from them. Cause I believe that we all agree that what happens outside your front door (or sometimes indoors) is far more influential than a virtual game.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that video games have a minuscule impact on a violent person’s motivation to be violent. If that youth is violent analyze the youth’s environment (home/school), how he was raised, the people he/she interacts with, the emotional and psychological stability of that kid. When ever a kid does something terrible and, oh wow, they played Medal of Honor everyone goes wild. People just want a scapegoat for the fact that many of these kind of youths go unnoticed, or ignored and no one wants to take responsibility for not acknowledging the troubled kid and getting him/her some help. This is no different to how people reacted to the Teens involved in Columbine Tragedy listened to Manson and everyone pointed the finger of blame at him. No one is a puppet, Manson didn’t guide them or force them to do anything that they would have done on their own and video games are on the same level.

I was ganged up against by my "University" friends on how games have this huge impact on society and modern culture. We all can agree on that, but that’s not the issue, so let me get to the point. They claim that it’s because of that strong influence it has on our culture that makes the violent games another axis for breeding hate and more violence into today’s youths. Well I held my ground and I decided to write about this overly discussed issue, which for all us gamers is an old, old topic not worth discussing, but I’m writing about it anyways…? (contradiction?)

Yes as gamers we all know that Video games along side music and the internet are the scapegoats for the violent behaviour of the youths in our community. Lets just point out and scream and blame instead of holding back and thinking about it for a second. Yes there are mature content in video games much like all other medias. No I don’t believe in having restrictions on how far developers want to make a game violent, gory, sexual or whatever explicit content. We don’t have these barriers on movies, but everyone breaks into a riot when a video game does? Double standards maybe? This is going to be closely tied into my previous post about the topic as a whole really and yes, there has been many protocols in place to censor the games and make sure that the games are distributed properly and yet the people are still in arms.

The video games with mild violence are the modern equivalent of the 50-60s Indians vs. Cowboys or the 80-90s Cops & Robbers. But let’s take a look at the Cops vs Robbers game, here we have kids forming a gun-like shape with their hands or have a plastic replica to shoot down their friends. These actions potentially have an effect on the children before they play, while they are playing, and the affects after they played the game. I find that those games are strong forms of acting out violence, but nothing really spawned from those kinds of games. Ask you parents ask your grand parents, because anyone can take anything out of context like I just did and make it seem so vile. People recently have an issue with violence in video games, but are we that naive? Violent games have existed far before video games came along.

Kids at the age of around 5 - 6 they shouldn’t have developed a strong care about things like video games it doesn’t factor unless the Parent brings it into their home. Also in this age group kids are fairly developed in terms of being able to tell from reality and unreality. After all they should be doing quite a bit of pretending and using their imagination with stuff like arts, comics, animations, and etc. Not saying all youths develop the same but for the average child they should be able to diversify between the two in that age group. Cause what are video games for the most part? It’s a physical extension of another person(s) creativity and imagination.

In addition Developers and Publishers don’t produce games that are graphic for youths that are younger 16 especially 10 and under. Those games that come out have certain age group ratings conducted by the ESRB. The Developers only make certain games with certain content depending on their intended target audience. If the Parents are buying these games regardless then who is at fault? It’s the same as parents taking their youths to the 18a+ movies, but that seems to be more accepted in our society.

Video games are no different from a movie, a television show, the news/newspaper, or content on the internet. In fact I’ve seen some terribly shocking things on the news and the newspapers that are far worst than a video game. Seriously though, If you fear the nature of these Medias then take the actions to censor them from your kids and educate them about them. Don’t just shield them from it, give them the mental tools to deal with the media and what they will see and experience from them. Cause I believe that we all agree that what happens outside your front door (or sometimes indoors) is far more influential than a virtual game.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that video games have a minuscule impact on a violent person’s motivation to be violent. If that youth is violent analyze the youth’s environment (home/school), how he was raised, the people he/she interacts with, the emotional and psychological stability of that kid. When ever a kid does something terrible and, oh wow, they played Medal of Honor everyone goes wild. People just want a scapegoat for the fact that many of these kind of youths go unnoticed, or ignored and no one wants to take responsibility for not acknowledging the troubled kid and getting him/her some help. This is no different to how people reacted to the Teens involved in Columbine Tragedy listened to Manson and everyone pointed the finger of blame at him. No one is a puppet, Manson didn’t guide them or force them to do anything that they would have done on their own and video games are on the same level.