Argumentative Essay On Violent Video Games

Did you know that according to Dr. Bret Conrad, the majority of gamers believe that video game violence has few, if any harmful effects on them personally? Well, many people today play games with simulated violence ranging from games like “Killer” to games like Grand Theft Auto. One example, “Killer”, takes place in multiple New York City high schools at the end of the year. It consists of two teams, each student is assigned a person to shoot and they have to shoot them before they are shot. The students have to use water pistols to shoot their person. Once they are killed, their game is over. While some agree that games with simulated violence are perilous for teens, games with simulated violence are beneficial for teens because they help kids with problem solving skills, keep them busy and helps them help others.

The article, “The Truth About Video Games and Gun Violence” by Erik Kain discusses how video games and gun violence correlates. The author opens up with someone by the name of Aaron Alexis who resorted to gun violence while playing video games that contained violence. There is a violent video game that scares parents and behavioral experts. There has been a debate on whether people who play video games later have violent behavior. Throughout the years, video games continue to show images portraying violence.

As the level of violence in video games increases, so does the level of concern for those who play them. Some people are quick to blame school shootings on games just because the kid played a “violent” game. “The topic of videogames and violence can be compared to the chicken or the egg question, which came first, violent games or violent behavior”(Violence and Videogames). However most kids in mass shootings tend to have easy access to guns and are mentally unstable.

School shootings years ago in Paducah, Kentucky; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Littleton Colorado, have raised the question time and time again. Do violent video games have an influence on children and their aggressive behavior? In all three of these brutal shootings, all the shooters were students who habitually played violent video games. The Columbine High School students who murdered thirteen and wounded twenty-three in Littleton before committing suicide after the shooting, enjoyed playing Doom, a bloody and violent video game. One of the shooters made a customized version of Doom: two shooters, unlimited ammunition, extra weapons, and victims who couldn’t fight back. This customized version of the game

In today’s world, one of the big topics is whether video games cause violence. I strongly believe that it isn’t the case. Having been an avid gamer for most of my life and knowing thousands more, I have seen first-hand video games do not cause violence. I know you don’t want to just take my word for it, so I will show you through others as well.

People say that video games cause players to go on murderous rampages in real life because they copy intense video game content, but this is completely false. Extensive documentation on the mental health of mass shooters exists, and it cannot be ignored. These documented analyses explain the violence of these people. According to Forbes writer Eric Kain, “The age and gender of many mass shooters, including Columbine’s, places them right in the target demographic for first-person-shooter (and most other) video games. And people between ages 18 and 25 also tend to report the highest rates of mental-health issues. Harris and Klebold’s complex mental-health problems have been well documented” (Kain). The fact that the shooters at Columbine had mental health issues and other mass shooters fall in the target range for mental health issues shows that games take no blame for the shootings. The fault belongs to the person and the person alone. “To hold up a few sensational examples as causal evidence between violent games and violent acts ignores the millions of other young men and women who play violent games and never go on a shooting spree in real life” (Kain). The fact that a person plays violent video games does not mean that person will go on a shooting spree in real life. Video games do not cause mass shootings, but mental health issues

There are sports games, puzzle games, and even educational games to entertain gamers. For example, Chess a board game played for thousands of years made it’s way to the computer screen and is present in most computers for free. But unfortunately, the main controversy is over shooter type games which have heavy influence with mass shootings in people’s opinion. One despicable event was the shooting on the Sandy Hook Elementary School. The nefarious Adam Lanza was found to be a fan of violent games like Call of Duty and Gears of War that revolve around shooting targets (People) as one of the main objectives. Society could put blame on the creation of first person shooters genre of this tragic event but it was not significantly major part. The state attorney of the investigation reported that “Shooter had significant mental health issues that…did affect his ability to live a normal life.” (Good) Adam Lanza played first person shooter games but was seen most of the time before playing Dance Dance Revolution with his close friend in a theatre arcade. That friendship with his close friend came to an abrupt end and life may have gone worse for Adam. There were struggles in school finding a niche and with his family being divorced when he was young. Real life events have the impact to change someone drastically to make an individual unstable to coexist in the real world. Experts can say playing violent video games are boosting the aggression inside of people to become violent. On the other hand “exposure to video game violence neither increased aggressive behavior, nor decreased prosocial behavior” (Ferguson) according to a video game violence researcher themselves. They researched thoroughly in their lab looking for the answers and could not prove video games caused people to act violent. When a person decides to commit heinous massacres their reasons cannot be because the video

According to Forbes, video games author and political blogger Eric Kain, “More than half of mass shooters over the last 30 years had mental-health problems” (Kain). He also imparted that “people between ages 18 and 25 also tend to report the highest rates of mental-health issues” (Kain). In most cases, it is not the video games that culprits played to cause their violent behaviors, but rather their mental condition. For the rest of the cases, however, the quick condemnation on video games possessed other factors that contributed to violence. Author Karen Sternheimer detailed, “Poverty, neighborhood instability, unemployment, and even family violence fall by the wayside in most of these studies” (Sternheimer). Seldom do cases truly narrow causes down to video games, if any at all. While it is easy to accuse, we shouldn’t be quick to blame video games for offenders who indulged in them and later exhibited violence when a myriad of other plausible causes exist as well. Video games may appear to be the easiest explanation for violence, but are we answering the correct question with it? Is it possible that we are only using video games because it is the quickest solution for a much broader social complication? Morality says no: violent video games portray felonious acts and brutality, so it is obvious that those who play it are more likely to manifest

On July 22, 2016, an 18 year old male began to open fire on the Olympia Shopping Mall in Munich, Germany. After successfully killing ten and injuring 36 more, the gunner turned the firearm on himself and ended his own life. After a long investigation, it was reported that the shooter was a fan of First Person Shooter (FPS) video games. This newfound information sparked a new flame to the decade old argument of how video game violence leads to aggressive behavior and more real world violence in teens and young adults. While many news posts spread the word that videogame violence is negative, there have actually been an overwhelming amount of studies and debates that result in videogames with violence having mental and physical benefits to the player.

The video game industry is incredibly large in scale, often become neck-to-neck with the movie industry. Almost every American has some experience whether it was on a personal computer (PC), a home video game console or games on a mobile device. Violent video games have been under fire for about a decade and a half for tragedies that have been tied back to the violent video games. The root of the debate has came from home video game consoles and PC as violent games that depict gore and shooting fictional characters. New games that depict similar content get released for consumers every year. The tragedies that result from the believed influence have led to outcries for banned violent video games.

Playing video games does not cause violent behavior. Don’t get me wrong, some video games show horrific acts of violence. “A recent survey found that 92 percent of U.S. kids--ages 2 to 17--play video games, and their parents bought 225 million of them last year to the tune of $6.4 billion.” (Sider 79).What’s here to argue is that violent video games do not cause violence among children, but the blame for violence should be on the individual and people who should have taught the individual better. If kids are not able to see the difference between reality and fantasy, then they really can’t be blamed for committing acts they see in a game and then imitating, not fully understanding the consequences of doing it in the real world.

Violent video games are advantageous because they can help people relax and deal with social problems/stress. For example, “No study has ever shown that violent video games result directly in actual violence, let alone mass shootings” (Kain). Also, “None of these extreme acts, like a school shooting, occurs because of only one risk factor; there are many factors, including feeling socially isolated, being bullied, and so on,” said Craig A. Anderson, a psychologist at Iowa State University” (qtd. In Carey). These quotes show that violent video games are not the reason for violence and shootings, hence they should not be blamed for these atrocious acts. Instead, violent video games should be looked on as a positive influence in people’s lives as they can help them stay preoccupied, and not have them focus on the negatives in their lives such as being bullied, not being socially welcomed and other dilemmas they may be experiencing. “In fact, numerous studies have been conducted and the results are mixed. Some studies have shown that video games increase aggression; others show the opposite” (Kain). In other words, even though some studies have shown that video games increase aggression; there are other studies that have shown video games releasing aggression and ultimately relaxing the player. Critics may argue that violent video games increase aggression and make people more violent. “Sure enough, compared with a group who had played a nonviolent video game, those who had been engaged in “Mortal Kombat” were more aggressive across the board” (Carey). However, violent video games can relieve stress and aggression; calming them down and making them safer to be around.

Diverse surveys have presented uniform clues suggesting that publicity of violence is a vital risk component pertaining to hostile attitudes. Aggressive video game controversies are consequential on irregular grounds, ranging from the depiction of hostility, sexism, as well as ethnicity, alongside constructive portrayal of offensive conducts among others. Video gaming has been undeniably, evaluated for its connections to addiction along with hostility however, traditional varying assessments notably attained conflicting results. On the contrary, contemporary analysis have reported that exposure to insensitive video games would impose particularly a gradual rise in hostility, which might accordingly integrate with the actual

When parents read on the Internet that the Columbine shooters were regular players of violent video games, they may ask, “Could my kid become this violent from the video games he plays?” Violence is a behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill. Video games are digital games that allow one to access a virtual world in which they are tasked to complete levels created by the developers. Could these two have a correlation together? In other words, could playing violent video games cause people to replicate the virtual violence in the real world? Although some believe they promote violence, video games actually help to improve the cognitive skills and social skills in players.

“Learning is a deep human need, like mating and eating, and like all such needs it is meant to be deeply pleasurable to human beings.” ― James Paul Gee, Why Video Games Are Good for Your Soul: Pleasure and Learning. Some people have controversial argument that violent video games should be banned, claiming about the content of video games can change the behavior and attitudes of the players. Since the early 2000s, advocates of video games have emphasized their use as an expressive medium, arguing for their protection under the laws governing freedom of speech and also as an educational tool. Violent video games allow players to divert their aggression into the virtual world instead of the real one. Video games have become not only a form of entertainment, but also another way for people to escape reality and to enter their own virtual fantasy. James Gee explains that, if you blame violent video games for horrific events that have occurred is much like putting the blame on food for the cause of obesity. According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), 58 percent of all Americans play video games, and nearly half of Americans over 50 play. The organization also found that 45 percent of gamers are women and that the average gamer is 30 years old. Gameplay is also on the rise — one study shows that average daily video game play among kids ages 8 to 18 rose from 26 minutes per day in 1999 to almost 110 minutes (nearly two hours) per day by 2009. The numbers are even higher for boys, 25 percent of whom play video games for four or more hours per day. Violent video games should not be ban because violent video games can be good for developing cognitive, physical, and many more hidden skills, help to understand and learn to control emotions, and banning violent video games is against the fourteenth amendment of the United States.