Extended Definition Essay: Violent Video Games

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1 Nolan Deogracias S20 Extended Definition Essay: Violent Video Games Violent video games have been a scientific and social issue ever since the late 1970's. Violent video games content include acts like murder, decapitation and amputation, the players are then rewarded by doing these violent acts throughout the game. Violent video games have been receiving massive publicity by the mass media due to recent school shootings the past decade. Further studies conducted on violent video games concluded that by rewarding players with such violent behavior in-game psychologically influences the player to act violently in the real world. Yet video game advocates argue that majority of the research that try to connect video game violence with real world violence are majorly flawed and have unreliable measures of violence and aggression such as the noise blast test. Many advocacies to both the pro's and con's of the issue are claimed biased by the opposing side. Without a common ground to base what violent video games are, many conclusions from both sides may not be regarded as concrete evidence. This causes more debate between sides and keeps the issue unresolved up until today. To simply define the term 'violent video games', we must separate the term into half which are the words 'violent', an adjective, and 'video games', a compound noun. The word 'violence', as a noun, generally means an action (usually physical), word/words or force intended to inflict harm, and when used as an adjective, describes an act or an object with an intention to harm or contains violence in some manner; some examples of violence are profanity and murder. In the other hand, the compound noun 'video games' consists of the words 'video' and 'games', and when merged together, it's a word that 1

2 describes a programmed electronic game wherein the player controls what is displayed on a television or computer screen based on how they act upon the rules of the game. When the two halves combine violent video games are NOT defined as video games wherein the player performs violent acts because the game tells the player to, violent video games doesn't necessarily mean every violent act in the game is the players choice but it means the contents of the video game itself contains violence, so violent video games better defined as games that include violent natured content. To have a better understanding of the term, definition alone is not enough, but to know the origin and as to why the issue on violent video games remain unresolved. The controversial issue of violent video games started back on the release of the game Death Race during The objective of the game was to run over gremlins to get the highest score, controversy ensued when the gremlins were portrayed as human figures and word got out that the development name for the game was Pedestrian. The reception of Death Race "...triggered outrage not only because it was violent, but because it depicted violence which questioned the state's monopoly on legitimized violence and did not follow culturally accepted narratives of violence..." (Kocurek, 2012), this caused protesters to remove the arcade cabinets of Death Race from arcade stores and burned them in parking lots. With the negative reception of the video game, developers eventually stopped production of Death Race. A more significant violent video game controversy involved the game Mortal Kombat, in which it prompted the American government to directly intervene. The game Mortal Kombat is a fighting game, fighting games are games in which two players compete in a brawl or warrior type fighting using prerendered move sets per character, Mortal Kombat in particular displayed excessive violence in which 2

3 each of the characters finishing moves included decapitation, cutting in half with a blade sword, spine ripping, electrocution and head exploding. Following the release of the game in 1992, due to public outcry, the American Congress held hearings in-order to regulate the sale of video games. As the video game industry was threatened by a federal regulatory commission, on September 1, 1994, the video game industry volunteered to create the Electronic Software Rating Board (ESRB). Ever since the Electronic Software Rating Board was established video games are now labeled according to their content and sold to their appropriate age groups such as EC (early childhood), E (everyone), E 10+ (everyone 10 and up), T (teen), M (mature) and A (adults only). The issue of violent video games escalated on April 20, 1999, when the Columbine High School shooting occurred. It was found that "The two teenage shooters were revealed to be avid players of weapon-based combat games Wolfenstein 3D and Doom."(ProCon.org, 2014), this evidence was heavily publicized by the mass media as they accused video games was the cause of the massacre. Another shooting occurred on April 16, 2007 at Virginia Tech shooting, the initial reaction of popular figures such as the T.V. show host Dr. Phil and the republican political figure Mitt Romney claimed that violent video games were the cause of the shootings and yet it was found that the shooters of the Virginia Tech shooting did not play any video games and was actually mentally ill. More school shootings occurred in between , like the more recent York University shooting on March 6, 2014, as more activists, politicians, researchers, alarmists and professionals are alarmed that video games are rising in popularity at the same time, this coincidence caused debates whether or not video games do affect the users violent tendencies. A recent public debate in 2008 held at the United States of America talked about violent video games and their effects, activists debated whether or not action must be taken against violent video 3

4 games. Video game advocates claim that the mass media influenced the general public into believing that violent video games are to blame for the cause of violence causing bias in the mindset of the general public. Video game advocates, Kutner and Olsen, also added that adolescents who do not play video games are more likely to behave violently and video game play is part of an adolescents social setting. Video game activist, Henry Jenkin (2008), presented statistical data regarding crime and media consumption: According to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low. Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population. It's true that young offenders who have committed school shootings in America have also been game players. But young people in general are more likely to be gamers 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure. The moral panic over violent video games is doubly harmful. It has led adult authorities to be more suspicious and hostile to many kids who already feel cut off from the system... (Jenkins, 2008, para. 2) Bushman B. (2013) then wrote an article arguing that people who deny that violent video games cause violent thinking are affected by fallacious reasoning, cognitive dissonance reduction, stubbornness, catharsis theory, third person effect, denial and lack of understanding on the psychological field. He then concluded: These processes combine to create an atmosphere in which people come to conclude that 4

5 violent media are not harmful, even though hundreds of studies conducted over several decades have shown that violent media are in fact harmful, and the overwhelming majority of social scientists working in the area now accept that media violence poses a danger to society. Most of us don t like to admit that the things we enjoy doing might also be bad for us, whether that be playing violent video games or eating chocolate. One key difference between eating mass quantities of high sugar foods and playing violent video games is that in the first case, you are the only person who is harmed by the action, whereas in the second, there is potential to harm others. (Bushman, 2013, para. 9) Throughout the never ending debates on the issue, it is evident that much of what they defend are based off scientific knowledge, research and statistical data, making it difficult to understand who is right or wrong with an unbiased decision. 5

6 REFERENCE LIST: Brushman, B. J. (2013, February). Why Do People Deny Violent Media Effects? Retrieved from ESRB Rating Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved from Jenkins, H. (n.d). Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked. Retrieved from Kocurek, C. A. (2012, September). The agony and the exidy: A history of video game violence and the legacy of death race. The International Journal of Computer Game Research, vol 12(1). Retrieved from ProCon.org. (2014, March). Video Games ProCon.org. Retrieved from Walch T. (2014, February). BYU Hinckley lecture: science is clear, violent video games cause aggression. Hinckley- Dessert News. Retrieved from lecture-science-is-clear-violent-video-games-cause-aggression.html?pg=all 6