Stop with the Blame
Violence in video games has been a controversial topic from the conception of simple classic video games like Pac-man, Space Invaders, and Super Mario. This debate has pushed into the modern age and games like Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and Halo dividing consumers and critics alike into two separate sides of the arena. In one corner, you have the critics relating, connecting, and blaming violence in the video games to many unfortunate and tragic events committed by the young while on the opposing side you have the rational, statistically backed group stamping the studies and research done thus far as faulty. The way we look at video games and how we research their tie to violence could potentially need correction. …show more content…
Most of these studies done over the years have tried to link horrific events like school shooting and domestic terrorism with video games. Seldom have we heard about how violent crimes have gone down excessively over a period of a decade. Many articles have been published trying to display non-biased statistics and shed light on the reality of this. C.J Ferguson writes how there is no actual link between video game violence and actual violent crimes in teens; he even displays statistics on how youth violence have actually dropped in correlation with the amount of video games sold. The reality of the matter is that violent juvenile crimes in the United States has been declining as violent video game popularity has increased. Arrest for juvenile murders have fallen 71.9% between 1995 and 2008. The arrest for all juvenile violent crimes has declined 49.3%. In all of this, video game sales have not decreased, instead they have more than quadrupled. In 1996, video game sales were at 2.6 billion dollars whereas in 2008 they rocketed to above 11.7 billion dollars. This means the more video games that have been sold; statistically the less violent crimes have actually been seen. Another thing these statistics would also suggest that not only do violent video games not increase teen violence, they might actually assist in prevention of violence by handing teens a …show more content…
Many researchers’ and non-gamers’ problem with video games and their users is the lack of understanding why violent video games are enjoyable. A world war two veteran living in Burlington explained in a personal interview that boys who played violent video games reminded him of the horrific situations of war him and his army-men had to suffer through and could not fathom why a healthy able minded human being would actively play a fantasy role instead of any physical activity. Many studies suffer because they are conducted by people who have natural biases to video games either because of their own experiences or simply from lack of knowledge of the topic hence considerable amounts of money are funneled into research projects that are basely constructed by people who are looking to support their claims instead of just looking for the
Violence in video games has been a controversial topic from the conception of simple classic video games like Pac-man, Space Invaders, and Super Mario. This debate has pushed into the modern age and games like Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and Halo dividing consumers and critics alike into two separate sides of the arena. In one corner, you have the critics relating, connecting, and blaming violence in the video games to many unfortunate and tragic events committed by the young while on the opposing side you have the rational, statistically backed group stamping the studies and research done thus far as faulty. The way we look at video games and how we research their tie to violence could potentially need correction. …show more content…
Most of these studies done over the years have tried to link horrific events like school shooting and domestic terrorism with video games. Seldom have we heard about how violent crimes have gone down excessively over a period of a decade. Many articles have been published trying to display non-biased statistics and shed light on the reality of this. C.J Ferguson writes how there is no actual link between video game violence and actual violent crimes in teens; he even displays statistics on how youth violence have actually dropped in correlation with the amount of video games sold. The reality of the matter is that violent juvenile crimes in the United States has been declining as violent video game popularity has increased. Arrest for juvenile murders have fallen 71.9% between 1995 and 2008. The arrest for all juvenile violent crimes has declined 49.3%. In all of this, video game sales have not decreased, instead they have more than quadrupled. In 1996, video game sales were at 2.6 billion dollars whereas in 2008 they rocketed to above 11.7 billion dollars. This means the more video games that have been sold; statistically the less violent crimes have actually been seen. Another thing these statistics would also suggest that not only do violent video games not increase teen violence, they might actually assist in prevention of violence by handing teens a …show more content…
Many researchers’ and non-gamers’ problem with video games and their users is the lack of understanding why violent video games are enjoyable. A world war two veteran living in Burlington explained in a personal interview that boys who played violent video games reminded him of the horrific situations of war him and his army-men had to suffer through and could not fathom why a healthy able minded human being would actively play a fantasy role instead of any physical activity. Many studies suffer because they are conducted by people who have natural biases to video games either because of their own experiences or simply from lack of knowledge of the topic hence considerable amounts of money are funneled into research projects that are basely constructed by people who are looking to support their claims instead of just looking for the