Pro:
By Samantha Garrett
Reporter
Maybe the people who made those first tentative steps toward electronic games didn’t realize that it would be what it is today-that it might become not only one of the most successful industries, but one of the most violent ones as well. That is, however, exactly what it has become.
With all that violence and gore, it’s no surprise that it would piss off mothers collectively and in general. What parents in their right mind would want their children exposed to something so prolifically violent, gory, disturbing, and traumatizing?
Well, probably none, which is why they have that whole game rating service, which will let a parent know that a game is rated anywhere from EC for Early Childhood to AO for Adults Only, which could mean content anywhere from picking out which block isn’t yellow to-well, you can probably figure out the other one.
However, most games fall into the range of relatively mild to quite violent, which would be games meant for teens or mature audiences. Those games contain the whole shoot-everyone-in-sight aspect with the occasional hooker-killing flair. Weird and sometimes disturbing, they’re otherwise unsurprising. After all, if teenage boys can’t get that kind of violence in video games, they’ll find it somewhere else. Before shooting simulations there were BB guns. Point is, we really should accept these games; they’re never going to go away.
If they aren’t for you, don’t play them-that simple.
For those who don’t want to expose their children to those kinds of games-well, it’s just that easy. They can’t even buy them unless they meet the age requirement, so, unless the parent is going out and buying those games for their children in the first place, the kids have no real access to them. It doesn’t matter how appalling something is-if the kid isn’t seeing or experiencing it, it probably doesn’t matter.
In any case, we all understand that children should never be exposed to anything violent, offensive, confusing, politically incorrect, or fun. So, naturally, they shouldn’t be exposed to video games that are intended for audiences older than elementary school students.
That’s where it gets funny, though. Every once in a while something will show up on the evening news.
The connection is always vague-perhaps some kid somewhere got into a fight with a classmate and was suspended, and then the parents of that child decided that the reason why-because they would never raise their child to be violent-was because of some video game they bought him. Not only that, but they weren’t even going to buy the kid the game, but he kept bugging them to get it-and he never shuts up unless he’s sitting in front of the hypnotizing glow of the television-so they had to, really, if they wanted to have a social life again.
The problem really isn’t video games and violence, because before violent video games there were violent television shows, and before that violent movies, and before that just plain violence.
The problem is with the parents, because it’s their responsibility to check the things they give their children and to instill in them proper values so that, even if the kids do get the enriching opportunity to play Grand Theft Auto, they will at least understand that they can’t go out and steal a police officer’s car.
Con:
By Gregory D. Cook
Multimedia editor
Violence is human nature.
Biblical accounts suggest that by the second generation of man’s tenure on planet Earth, he had already figured out, without the need of an instruction manual, how to use a rock to bash in the head of his brother as an effective, albeit primitive, form of stress relief. As history tells its continuing tale of violence into the present, it seems the only time we “turn the other cheek” these days is to put it on the other side of the rifle stock.
We have refined the science of violence to a near-perfect art form over the years, and have created a culture of brutality in which we even turn to violence for recreation, bombarding ourselves with violent movies, television programs and video games.
In video games especially, the violence takes on an even more ominous pallor. The interactive nature of video games gives their players a degree of control over the simulated situation.
Violence in video games is in no way a new concept. The very first video game, the Cathode Ray Amusement Device, patented way back in 1948, was, of all things, a missile simulator. Players steered their missiles across a screen, trying to destroy targets. While this technology was light-years more advanced than a rock to the head, it was just a pale foreshadowing of the realism presented by today’s modern video platforms.
Today, the violence depicted in video games, such as the Grand Theft Auto series, rivals the special effects found in many movies. Players happily shoot, stab, burn, bludgeon and run over their simulated victims, who react in a realistic manner, oftentimes screaming and begging for their lives -all in the name of recreation.
Why, when we need do little more than look out of our front windows to find real violence, do we feel the need to simulate it for fun? Is our civilization heading toward a more peaceful existence, or will we fail to overcome our base instincts and violent nature?
Video games have typically been the province of the young and impressionable. The violence depicted in games with game play that closely mirrors the real world cannot help but desensitize the players to some extent. It is not fair to say that little Timmy will grow up to be a “yay” dealer, roaming the streets with an assault rifle, carjacking people at will because he played a few hours of San Andreas. But it also cannot be denied that the violence in such games can erode our sensitivities a little bit each generation until what was once unheard-of, becomes accepted.
An argument has suggested that violent video games can serve as an outlet for aggression with simulated violence actually lessoning a person’s desire to be violent in the real world.
Of this line of thought, I would ask one question: When you see a picture of a plate of delicious food in an advertisement, does it make you more or less hungry for the real thing?