There has been quite a bit of talk lately about video games being part the reason for violence in our society, and this is not the first time and it probably wont be the last.
I believe there are many reasons why we have violence in society and the causes range from many things such as poverty, lack of education, lack of mental health care, low income and the list goes on… It is too easy to point the finger and blame books, movies, television, music and video games, yet it seems to happen every decade. Similar incidents happened before in the mid-eighties when elected groups tried to censor music as if it was the cause of problems across America. Dee Snider from the band Twisted Sister stood before a panel of elected officials and made it clear that artistic expression is never the blame and that people need to take responsibilities for their own actions. Anyone can interpret a song anyway they want and if you are looking for violence you can probably find it, but if you are looking for something less sinister you can probably find that too.
During that same decade, video games were filled with fun happy characters, simple plots and colorful graphics. Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System has a plumber trying to save a princess, Pac-Man is a little yellow circle being chased by ghosts and Frogger just wants to cross the road. The only concern parents had with video games back then was the time it took away from their children doing homework.
But since the mid-nineties, video game graphics were starting to look more realistic which allowed game developers to expand video games and reach new levels of entertainment. Games that depicted war and crimes started to became popular on modern consoles like PlayStation and Xbox. Blood and violence in video games could match that of violent movies… and so what? … how is this any different than the tons of movies that have already been out long before video games existed?
The reality is that video games today do come with ratings on them, the very same ratings you will find on movies. Violent games are allowed to exist along side many other types of games such as sports games, role playing games and puzzle games, much the same way violent movies are allowed to exist along side comedies, romance and drama. So why target video games when you can just as easily go after movies, the internet, television and music? …because people have tried it before and they have failed!
What about systems out there that offer family friendly titles that you can surround yourself with, games that don’t show blood and guts or have scenes with disturbing content? By next year we will see the launch of the new Intellvision Amico, a system that will pride itself on not having violent content and focusing only on family friendly material, showing us that not all video games need violence to win over an audience.
So, blaming an entire industry for societies many acts of violence is a huge stretch and in my opinion lazy. Lets instead focus on better education, better health care and leave artistic expression alone. Censorship is not the solution.
Brian