Are Violent video games really to blame?

Video games tend to be the reason many youths shootings happen, or so it is thought. In recent years violent video games have been the target of many parents and psychologists. When looking at all the facts, it is sometimes hard to tell whether violent video games are really to blame for youth aggression or other signs of violence.

In recent years, video games have been portrayed as an evil entity that can make many youth today murderers/criminals, and causes them to be antisocial, and become lazy. On the flipside many of these kids that are said to become these criminals cannot buy these games themselves, so who is buying them these game? According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) “94% of game players under the age of 18 report that their parents are present when they purchase or rent games” (Industry facts). So obviously, parents are there when the game is purchased. In this high and mighty society that we live in now a days, parents think they aren’t to blame, video games are.

Video game violence has always been the first head on the chopping block when school shootings happen, or other criminal activities happen with youths. On the day of the Virginia Tech Massacre, Dr. Phil McGraw was one of the advocates who stated video games were the problem. Dr. Phil said, “You cannot tell me — common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games… and recognizing that the mass murders of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.”(King) Now of course this statement was quoted the day of the massacre, so there was no clear motive yet and Dr. Phil had made that assumption because it was a student at a school so it had to be video game’s fault.

Of course there are some rare occasions where kids will use video games to help them commit a massacre. For instance, the Columbine High School massacre was an incident that put video games up on the chopping block. The incident happened in 1999, when two high school kids went on a shooting spree in their high school. When the investigation happened, it was found that both of these boys played Doom, and Quake, both very popular first person shooter computer games. But as Janelle Brown, a writer for the website Salon, said, “Everyone is always quick to point out murderers that play violent video games, but no one ever thinks of the millions of people that play video games and aren’t murderers” (Brown, par. 11).

Another such event of a person letting video games run their lives is the case of Devin Moore (born Devin Darnell Thompson). In October of 2005, he “was arrested for stealing a car, he grabbed a pistol from the police officer and gunned down three officers in less than a minute. Before that, he had never been seen with a weapon. But for months before the shootings, he had spent time stealing cars and killing cops in Grand Theft Auto” (Piepenbrink, par. 4).

Jack Thompson is a big advocate of the thought that video game violence can cause real world violence. Jack Thompson is a lawyer from Florida who led many lawsuits against video game companies such as Rock Star the creators of the Grand Theft Auto games, and the game Bully. Jack Thompson, when protesting the game Bully with a group called the Peacoholics, believed that the game would cause children to act violently with other students. Not only was Bully exposing teenagers to violence, but it also showed some sexual actions too, such as kissing other males in the game, and dissecting a rat’s testicles. He also refers to the game as a “Columbine Simulator”, because he fears that the release of this game would cause another Columbine like incident. Fortunately no reports showed that the game bully has made any youth, fight another youth, kiss another youth of the same age, or go steal bikes.

Looking at all these statments that video games may or may not have done, what precautions are being done to prevent it from even occurring? Well in 1994, a year after the game Mortal Kombat was released, an organization called the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) was created to give these games a rating. Every game since 1994 has had to get a rating from the ESRB before they can be sold. The way the ESRB works is,
“prior to the game being finished and released, the game publishers must fill out a questionnaire (Often supplementing response with lyric sheets, scripts, etc.) specifying exactly what pertinent content(as defined by ESRB) will be in their game… Publishers must provide a DVD which captures all pertinent content. This includes typical gameplay, missions, and cutscenes, along with the most extreme instances of content, across all relevant categories, including but not limited to violence, language, sex, controlled substances and gambling. Pertinent content that is not playable (i.e., “locked-out”) but will exist in the code on the final game disc must also be disclosed. Once the submission is checked by ESRB for completeness, which may also involve ESRB staff members playing a beta or alpha version of the game, the video footage is reviewed by at least three specially trained game raters”(How the rating process works).

After all that is completed the game is given a rating, and then the game can be released.
But if this has been going on since 1994, and the Columbine incident happened in 1999, then there had to be some miscommunication for this game to have influenced this youths so much. According to Gamestop.com, a retailer of video games, refuses to sell video games with an ESRB rating of M for mature to minors. When Doom 2 came out in 1995, these students would have been 14, and these kids would have needed parental approval to get this game. This isn’t the fault of the parents and not the video games. There is a point at which someone has to tell the parent, you aren’t perfect, this is your fault for letting your kid play these games and now everyone must pay the consequences. According to a survey by Peter D. Hart Research Associates “in March 2008, 86% of parents with children who play video games are aware of the rating system and 78% say they regularly check the rating before buying computer and video games for their children.” Now 78% of all parents actually checking the box for the rating is a good thing, but that also means 22% of those parents that surveyed don’t look at the rating and when parents fall in to that 22% then Columbine like incidents may happen.

According to the American Medical Association (AMA)
“In their 2001 meta-analysis, Anderson and Bushman quantified the effects of exposure to violent video games… found that short-term exposure to video game violence was significantly associated with temporary increases in aggression… In 2004, using an improved methodology, Anderson again concluded that a positive association exists between exposure to video game violence and aggression” (American Medical Association par. 11).

But they also criticize the game industry also with this statement “Not surprisingly, the video game industry’s own research has concluded that there is no causal relationship between video game violence and aggression” (American Medical Association par. 12).
Additionally, researchers such as VanEenwyk and Bensley and Griffiths found that the most compelling evidence for a positive association between video game violence and aggressive behavior in youth occurs in children younger than age 10 years, but when older children were evaluated, the evidence was not as strong. Research by Huesman and Taylor supports short-term increases in aggression but cannot document a demonstrable long-term effect (American Medical Association par. 12).
Unfortunately for that report the age of the average gamer has been moved up to the age of 35. According to the ESA, meaning a lot more games are going to be made specifically for more a mature audience (Industry facts).

The ESA showed statistics that show, from 1996 to 2006, the crime rate has gone down dramatically, while video game sales have almost doubled as illustrated in fig. 1.

From what I can tell from all my research, everyone’s opinion is hard to base on facts, when facts are really hard to come by. While we fit the AMA, and the ESA facts against each other who is really right? The AMA shows that video game violence, can really cause aggression to grow inside youths, but isn’t that how most kids act? Quoting Mark Frielder CEO of the website gamedaily.com, said in an interview, “my two boys punch and kick each other all the time and they’ve never played video games… and they’re four and six” (Frielder). If we all look inside, we know many kids who are aggressive when we are young, but we don’t label them as being “aggressive”, we label it as kids “playing rough.” With that said, we can go back and ask the question again, do violent video games make youths violent? I would have to say no to that question, because being a gamer myself I am not aggressive. I’m actually a very kind hearted person, but when I’m at home I like to play violent video games too, because I find it as a source to vent my stress into, so I find that video games do the opposite of what people say and reduce aggression if anything.

There are documented cases where kids have used games to become “trained killers” but prior to them playing, they had to have had something wrong with them. These kids may have a mental handicap, or they could have been ignored by their parents and they want attention, or maybe they could have been beaten at a young age to make them aggressive in general. Whatever the case, video games in my opinion can’t make a person mentally insane to where they kill a vast amount of people, and anyone with a working mind would find that insulting.

Work Cited
American Medical Association. Featured Report: Emotional and Behavioral Effects of Video Games and Internet Overuse (A-07) Full Text. 16 November 2008. <http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/17694.html>

Brown, Janelle. “Doom, Quake and mass murder.” Salon. 23 April 1999. Open Salon. 13 November 2008. <http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/04/23/gamers/index.html>.

Entertainment Software Association. Essential Facts About Games and Violence. 13 November 2008. <http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_Violence_2008.pdf>.

“ESRB Ratings”. Gamestop. 14 November 2008. <http://www.gamestop.com/gs/help/Ratings.aspx>.

Frielder, Mark. Interview. Attack of the Show. G4TV. Los Angeles. 10 August 2006.

“How does the rating process work?” ESRB. 13 November 2008. <http://www.esrb.org/ratings/faq.jsp#16>.

“Industry Facts.” The ESA. 13 November 2008.< http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp>.

King, Larry. “Virginia Tech Massacre.” Larry King Live. Cable News Network. New York. 16 April 2007. Transcript. 16 November 2008. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0704/16/lkl.01.html

Piepenbrink, Linda. “Violent Video Games Teach Anti-Social Behavior.” At Issue: Video Games. Ed. David M.Haugen. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Valencia Community College,CCLA. 13 November 2008 <http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=GSRC&type=retrieve&tabID=T010&prodId=OVRC&docId=EJ3010289219&source=gale&userGroupName=lincclin_vcc&version=1.0>.

“VIDEO GAME CASES – BULLY”. Jack Thompson. 13 November 2008. <http://www.jackthompson.org/video_game_cases/bully.htm>.

First Post

Okay this is a bit odd for me because i’ve never actually had to use wordpress before or other kinds of blog websites like live journal and other things like that. So to start out with my first post I would like to start with an essay that i had previously thought of but never got around to doing it until now, which is the perfect opportunity to play around with wordpress. So here is my classification essay on the Japanese students

The types of Nihongo no kokosei (Japanese student)

Throughout the three years that I took Japanese in high school, I feel as if I had learned very little. Sure I learned some words here and there, but when it really comes down to it, all I really have is a trusty little dictionary that will hopefully get me out of any situation. Nevertheless, if I really did learn anything in that Japanese class of mine it is that there aren’t that many different kinds of people that take the class, there are only about three with some sub-categories thrown in. There are the Anime fans/gamers, the average Asian kid, and the know-it-alls who tend to not fall into either of the prior categories.

Really the majority of the kids that take Japanese in high school are the ones who are really into anime, or the ones that play lots of Japanese games, usually they intertwine very finely. To get a better idea of them these are the kids that dress up as their favorite characters and go to conventions, or they have their favorite character as a key chain. These people always go into class thinking it’s going to be easy because they have a head start knowing a few words that people would usually never use in conversation. These people always end up leaving the class at any point from, the first semester until the second year because:

A) They are tired of the teacher yelling at us, all the time for reading mangas in class

B) They got the two years of credit they need for college

C) They got tired of trying to learn something in that class because they thought it would be a breeze (it seriously isn’t.)

D) They think it is too hard and don’t want to put forth the effort and go to an easy class like Spanish

However, sometimes just sometimes, there are some gems in this group who really want to learn the language and just tend to dabble in the anime community.

There are also the Asian kids that take the class. Now when I refer to the term Asian, I don’t mean they have to be from Japan, I mean they can be from anywhere in the continent of Asia. All sorts of Asians take the class, from the stereotypical A++ Asian, to the very lowly lazy Asian, from the Japanese to the Philippinos. The Asian student tends to think, oh I’m Asian (he could be Vietnamese) and this is Japanese it should be a breeze because it should come naturally to me. This tends to be the case too, because I was the only Japanese student in the class, and I did horrible in that class. Although almost all the time that is true, the chances of a Japanese student actually taking a Japanese language class is almost slim to none, but there always seems to be at least five Asian kids in the class.

The last group of students that actually take Japanese are the know-it-alls. These are the people who will be the valedictorians and the people trying to push them self into being all they can be. Hell I would love to be one of them but laziness came over me in about grade four. But not only are these people taking the Japanese class, but they also take another language class like Spanish or so. They will purposely make you look like a fool in the middle of class just to make them self look smarter. These students seriously tick me off sometimes, but fortunately for you if you need help they are always there for help, so you can’t hate them completely.

Therefore, if you are thinking of joining a Japanese class you may really want to think about what kind of group you want to belong to. Obviously if you join it because you like manga and anime, then you may be in a world of hurt, so you may want to leave your cosplay outfits at home. As for the Asian kids, it may be easy for some but work your butt off because you’ll need to in that class.  For the smart kids, I know you’ll do well if you do what you do naturally. But if you fit into any of those categories, then you’ll be fine friend wise, academically though you may need to be the last group.