Anthony+Russo

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The gap between the world we know, and they world we've created.
There is major controversy between whether or not violent video games can be blamed for violent behavior in the teens that play them. There have been many cases where the use of violent video games has been the number one argument in causing the violent act to be committed. However, this argument has never held up strongly while prosecuting the young offenders involved. The idea that violent video games create violent people arose with the creation of these violent games. Games such as //Doom// or //Duke Nukem// depicted large amounts of violence and gore, a first in the gaming world. This was only possible thanks to the evolving world or gaming technology which improved the graphics developers could use to create better looking games that more accurately depicted what they were trying to show. From this point forward the ever increasing technology available to game developers allowed them to create violent, gory games which could realistically depict these actions as if they were taking place in real life. The problem with this only increased as games such as the //Grand Theft Auto// series allowed players to commit other questionable acts such as car theft and soliciting with prostitutes, as well as of violence and gore. It is these negative acts that alerted parents and the concerned public to the content of the games their children were playing.

The theory that violent videogames provoke violent behavior is supported by the idea that violent video games “increases accessibility of violent thoughts.” (Anderson and Dill, 773) What this does is simply allow a non-violent person to act in a violent way. This violent act leads to a state of arousal which reinforces a positive feeling towards the violent act just committed. This cycle of violence and pleasure re-enforces itself in a constant loop. This re-enforces the idea of bitterness towards enemies. This is the theory that viewing violent acts is desensitizing, in the way that the person committing the act feels no remorse after it has been committing, allowing this feeling to seep into their everyday lives eventually making them hostile in certain situations. (Anderson and Dill, 774) This aggressive action, in the long run is said to weaken the relationships a person has with less aggressive people who are not aware of the experiences of the person, and will also support their interaction with those who are also aggressive. (Anderson and Dill, 775)



There has been much research regarding whether or not violent video games create violent people. However, there has never been proof that it is true as they would like it to be to explain such violent acts as the murders at [|Columbine High School] in 1999. However, while trying to prove this, another more realistic theory has been uncovered. Studies on aggressive behavior after playing violent video games show that aggressive behavior is mostly prominent amongst people who already have highly aggressive behavior before playing violent video games. This means that people are only likely to become violent if they have a history of aggressive behavior before hand. This does not mean that violence in video games allows for people to become violent people. For example, in the case of [|Daniel Petric], who killed his mother, and wounded his father with gunshots to the head over a dispute involving the game //Halo 3//. In this case, Petric had been bed ridden for a year after a snowboarding accident. It has been said that Petric was in an unstable mental state during the time of the murders, due to the srtessfull and monotonous time he spent alone after his accident. Being limited to his bed for almost a year he had become so addicted to the game that his view of reality was altered to him believing that like in the game, death had no consequence.



Video games, violent or not engage the player in two separate ways, in the real world, and in the game world (Juul 1). It is the separation of these two realities that make games what they are. As a player plays a video game they are reacting in the real world to accomplish goals in the game world (Juul 2). No matter what these goals are, they always remain in the gaming world. Without these rules and goals there would be no games to speak of. The importance here is the separation of the two worlds. This is what keeps violence within video games, and does not allow it to spread to the real world. This is clear because if it were not so, it would be easy to assume that every teen who has ever played a violent video game in which he or she had to kill a person or other life form in any way, would committed murder. This is an extreme example, but it illustrates the idea of separation. The reason this is so is because of the differentiating set of rules the real world and the game world have (Juul 55). For instance, there are the obvious rules, or laws, that we abide by each day. In the game world, the user is limited to the use of a controller of some form, they must be in a certain area to play the game, and they must obviously be playing the game in order to fulfill its rules. This limits the user to only be able to experience those feeling at a certain time and place. All of these limitation do not allow the player to relate the game values to the values of the real world due to tight restrictions.

In some cases however it is possible for an obsession or other altered mental state to spark aggression in some teens who play violent games. Some people are not able to see the difference between the real world and the game world. This can lead to aggression from the game world, entering the real world where it can lead to negative outcomes. In these cases a heightened feeling of aggression caused by a video game carries over into the real world (Anderson, Gentile, Buckley 133). In the case of Warren Leblanc who killed his friend, allegedly because of his obsession with the game //Manhunt 2//, it was said that it "could well be that the boundaries [between the game world and the real world] for him became quite hazy". Severe states of obsession and other mental conditions can lead to extremely over aggressive behavior which in the most extreme cases can lead to acts of murder.

Manhunt 2 (Warning: This video contains graphic content)
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These cases are, no matter how tragic, are also rare. There are few stories of teens being spun into a killing rampage because of video games specifically. It takes a certain mental instability for a person to become so deranged, and have such a skewed reality of the world (Galloway 71).

The assumption that video games create violent people is a grotesque over simplification of the problem. In the most rare cases, it is most important to point out that the teens who encounter the worst problems with video games, have prior issues to contend with. It is unfair to say that a video game can create a murderer when studies to show that these games do create over aggression, also show that previously aggressive people are more attracted to violent video games. The actual effect that video games have on healthy teens is a gratification that they can only find as they play such games, not as they interact in their normal lives.

Angry Gamer (Warning: This video contains coarse language)
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FPS-Doug (Warning: This video contains coarse language)
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Images Used
Doom: http://free-pc-videogames.blogspot.com/2008/07/doom-1-doom-i.html

ESRB Rating: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

Angry Gamer: http://xboxoz360.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/angry_game_player.jpg