Video Game Violence: A Review of the Literature

 

Abstract

            Video games have become quite a popular way of entertainment for millions of people of any age group. But recent video game titles with high levels of violence have made it a hot topic amongst parents and politicians. Some see these violent games as a cause for today’s youth causing terrible crimes against society. Others see them as a freedom of speech which many companies pour hundreds of man hours into programming them. The military, medical field and the workforce find them beneficial in helping to train and teach new participants.   

Video Game Violence: A Review of the Literature

The advent of video games began in1952 when a man by the name of A.S. Douglas created the first graphical computer game-a version of Tic-Tac-Toe. (Bellis) From then on video games have continued to advance through new hardware and software. Such examples include the Wii motion control console, online playing communities like XBOX Live, and voice recognition systems live Microsoft KINETIC. Graphics have come from simple 2D pixels to 3D images that really make the gamer feel as if he/she is exploring a real existent world. But, as graphics and game-play have improved so has the realism in violent images and actions.

            Violent video games that allow a player to take life at will through disturbing practices have come to be a very heated debate lately. Many have pointed their fingers at video games for being the leading cause of school shootings and adolescents committing violent games. Some argue that even though violent video games may cause heighten aggression they don’t necessarily turn an adolescent into a violent criminal. In order to understand the full scope of this issue we must analyze and answer these four questions:

1)      What is constitutes as video game violence?

2)      What are the effects of video game violence?

3)      What events have been influenced by video game violence?

4)      What measures have been taken to regulate the sales of violent video games?

What constitutes as video game violence?

            In recent years violent video games have become the number one selling genre amongst today’s gaming generation. Such titles such as “DOOM, Grand Theft Auto, and Mortal Combat” have been the some of the most popular and criticized games of the past decade. All violent video games originated from the 1976 release of “Death Race 2000” that created much controversy (Greenburg).   Even though graphics at the time were crude it appealed a public that was playing “Ping Pong” and Pac man” at the time. It allowed the gamer to run over white or black stick figures that signified human beings. The show 60 minutes did an episode on the topic of psychological impacts cause by video games. All though this game was considered a tame subject matter, it would launch the genre of violence in video games into the future.

 In 1992 “Mortal Kombat” was released to the public which would escalate the controversy of violent video games. Graphics at this time showed far more detailed images that didn’t look like the blocky figures of predecessors. Blood and gore was recognizable within the “Mortal Kombat” video game where players were tasked with fighting the computer or a cooperative player’s character to the death. Martial arts were utilized in violent ways where the characters were either beaten to a pulp or decapitated. This game title become very popular amongst the youth, but gained an opposite appeal amongst parents. The outcry sparked the creation of the Electronic Software Rating Board (ESRB), a rating system designed to regulate the age of children given access to certain games (Greenburg). A rating of “M” stood for mature that limited players to the age group of seventeen and above. The rating of AO (adults only) was reserved for games that introduced pornography into their titles which were usually removed from local retail shelves.  Take-Two Interactive had this controversy with its “Grand Theft Auto Franchise” when it was subjected to be labeled as “AO” when it included a hidden mission that showed explicit sex. This game was also criticized by the Sex Workers Outreach Project because players could hire prostitutes and later kill them. In 2002 a game called “Ethnic Cleansing” was released on Martin Luther King Day which allowed players to murder minorities such as African-Americans, Latinos, and Jews expressing racial hate through virtual gaming. This rating system helped to regulate the selling of violent games to children, but it didn’t stop companies from continuing to release titles with violence.  

The new century brought new possibilities for the gaming industry with new consoles such as” GameCube” from Nintendo, Play station 2 from SONY, and Microsoft’s XBOX. This allowed companies to experiment with new graphics in which they created far more innovated games. The company “Rockstar Games”, producers of the Grand Theft Auto series, released “Manhunt” in 2003 that followed a survival/gang warfare plot. Players could execute enemies through suffocation with a plastic bag, or beat in someone’s skull with a crowbar. The enemies were given realistic sounds of pain whenever they were being executed. The games levels would rank a player based how brutal their executions were as well as how quickly they progressed through the level. 

Many adolescents are still gaining access to games that are not appropriate for their age. Parents are still in the dark about how to interpret the rating systems of the ESRB.  Many retailers haven’t been warning parents of video games that contain mature content. This has led many to question the ERSB rating process especially when games contain content that falls into the “Adult only” labels. Many companies have learned to take out just enough content to make their games fall into the “MATURE” ratings and some have held back their games. The government has taken initiative to propose policies that would allow control of ESRB and stricter ratings on violent video games.

What are the effects of video game violence?

Research has been done by leading institutions and psychological associations on the effects of video game violence toward children and adolescents.  The American Psychological Association (APA) has gathered quite a bit of information on this topic which has been used as arguments for both anti-gaming and pro-gaming associations.  One such article, done by Dr. Craig A. Anderson, takes eleven myths of video game violence and provides facts to prove these myths wrong. Myth number three states that laboratory experiments are invalid and irrelevant it collecting solid data on aggression induced by violent video games. Arguments against laboratory experiments in behavioral sciences have been successfully debunked many times by numerous researchers over the years (Anderson). Examinations of such issues of aggression have been consistently found evidence of validity. Myth six states there are no studies linking violent video game play to serious aggression, but this as well has been proven false. High levels of video game exposure have been linked to delinquency, fighting at school, and violent criminal behavior (Anderson).  Myth seven is different in that the little or no evidence that has been gathered has proven if violent games affect only a small fraction of players. There is no evidence proving if young children are more negatively affected than adolescents, or males are more affected then females. There is some evidence that shows aggressive individuals are affected more than non-aggressive individuals, but this does not consistently occur. The other eight myths have also been proven false and credited with hard evidence that supports the fact that violent video games do cause increased aggression in children and adolescents.   

Even though it’s proven that games do cause increased aggression in individuals, psychologists believe that many other factors as well as exposure to violent video games cause children and adolescents to commit violent acts on society. In many cases these individuals have suffered from depression, hostile family environments, and non sociable personalities. Video games have been considered a scapegoat for violent crimes caused by adolescents. One reason why is many adolescents use their heavy use of playing violent games as an excuse for their actions. It most cases though the accused have been shown to have mental health problems that may have had a larger factor that drove them to commit a crime.

Some researchers believe that video games do contain psychological benefits as well as benefits with the work force. So far evidence has shown that video games can help adults improve their fundamental abilities to reason and solve problems in novel contexts. The U.S. military has using simulators to expose soldiers to war- like scenarios in order to simulate real life combat. The idea behind this is to prepare the soldier for the rigors of combat stress and to insure that soldiers are less susceptible to mistakes. The Air Force has used simulators to train pilots to fly all types of planes from bombers to fighters. This has made it much more conventional than having rookie pilots fly billion dollar planes that they could crash and even lose their lives. The medical field has even introduced to the idea of using virtual reality to teach. Medical students have the ability to perform virtual surgical procedures or talk to a virtual patient. Some also think video games help to improve someone’s social skills due to online communities such as XBOX Live” or “Playstation Network.” Video games have also been proven to help those diagnosed with attention deficit disorders.  Video games are continuing to show benefits for many aspects of society instead of doing harm.

 What events have been influenced by video game violence?

The most infamous and unforgettable event that blamed video games was the shooting that occurred at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Two teenagers, Dylan and Eric Harris, enacted an all out assault on the high school killing twelve students and a teacher, after of which they took their own lives. People were shocked to see two supposed, normal boys commit such a terrible crime. Amongst acquired evidence was the computer game “DOOM” in which the boys liked to play constantly. At the time this game was licensed by the U.S. Military to train soldiers to kill enemy combatants efficiently. The evidence showed that the boys had modified their game to simulate an all out massacre. Many people began to believe that the video game’s violent nature may have been a contributing factor in influencing these teenagers.

Attorney Jack Thompson, known as the video game crusader, has been at the forefront of anti-gaming protest. He believes that violent video games are murder simulators that turn adolescents into hardcore criminals. In one such case, 18-year-old Devin Moore shot down two police officers and an emergency dispatcher in cold blood after being suspected of stealing a car. The young man was known for playing “Grand Theft Auto” night and day for months on end. Thompson believes that this violent game trained Moore into lashing out at the police and performing a scenario that to all is too common in “Grand Theft Auto”. Thompson continued to say that if it weren’t for this video game. Moore wouldn’t have had the knowledge to perform this crime. Moore even stated to police that, “Life is like a video game, everybody’s going to die sometime”. One of the officer’s family has sued both GameStop and Wal-Mart for selling Moore the “Grand Theft Auto” video games. The companies say they bear no responsibility saying that they were simply following ERSB rules, and since Moore was 18 he could buy the video game with proper identification. Take-Two interactive, creators of Grand Theft Auto, insist that their video game is not capable of turning gamers into criminals. 

Table 1

 Table 2

Results from a 2007 Poll to the Question: "Do you Think Violent Movies and Video Games Inspire Mentally Unstable People to Commit Acts of Violence Like the Shootings at Virginia Tech?"

 

On table #1 it gives statistics on video game sales and youth violence through 1996 to 2005. The dotted line shows that youth violence has steadily dropped over the years. Video games have sky rocketed over the years with over 250,000,000 units sold in the year 2004 alone. On table #2 is a poll conducted in 2007 over the question of whether violent games inspire mentally unstable people to commit violent crimes. According to the results most people agree that video games are big factor in influencing criminal acts.

What measures have been taken to regulate the sales of violent video games?

            The topic of violence of video games has even begun to reach legislation of the U.S. government. Politicians have begun to set down laws to prohibit the selling of violent video games to minors. Many of these proposed laws though have been struck down by the court systems. The state of California created a bill in 2005 that stated it would be a crime to sell or rent certain fames to minors (Schiesel). Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger along with other representatives insist that these laws will protect children from being exposed to harsh violence that may cause psychological problems for them in the future. A federal judge in San Jose declared the law was unconstitutional affecting the first an amendment, “right to free speech.” Some supporters of the laws have started to question why media violence  doesn’t have the same regulations as smoking or alcohol. The Gaming industry on the other hand believes that is they’re constitutional right to create video games with violent genres. They say they there work is no different from authors expressing their rights in books or directors expressing their rights in movies or documentaries.

Conclusion

            These four questions are asked quite a bit whenever the topic of video game violence is brought up. It is number one factor when trying to conduct investigations on why young individuals commit horrible crimes against society. Anti-gaming associations say violence in video games and virtual reality are nothing more than murdering simulators, are the underlining cause why these adolescents act out the way they do. Game companies insists that metal illness and poor parenting are the reasons why children and teenagers cause crimes.  Either way you see it video games will continue to be questioned whenever such violent events occur.

             

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Reference Page

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