Violent Video Games: Harmless, or Nothing to Worry About?

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in the United States causing immense controversy in the video game world (Ivory 2).

Going back to the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, in “This is your brain on violent video games: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following violent video game exposure”, the experiment gave promising results. “Acute desensitization following game play was determined using the amplitude of the P300 (P3) component of the event-related brain potential (ERP)… P3 amplitude provides a useful measure of desensitization to violence in the present context.” (Engelhardt 1034) The authors’ findings in the experiment gave them conclusive answers. The participants who had little to no previous experience playing violent video games showed a significantly higher desensitization after game play, based on their P3 amplitudes, than before playing the violent video games. Their neural brainwaves showed less negative emotion reactions towards violent pictures (Engelhardt 1036).

In “A Plea for Caution: Violent Video Games, the Supreme Court, and the Role of Science.” from the scholarly journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings by Ryan Hall et al, talks about the federal case that would give states the right to limit freedom of speech by banning violent video games. The case is called Schwarzenegger v Entertainment Merchants Association (Hall 315). There have been a total of eight states that have tried to pass legislation banning these games. To draw this much attention there has to be some sort of validity to this issue.

“The Causes and Consequences of Presence: Considering the Influence of Violent Video Games on Presence and Aggression” from the scholarly journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments the conductors of the experiment found consistent data to their hypothesis’, that those with more exposure to violent video games will show more anger and hostility than those who are not as exposed to violent video games. Their findings showed that males had significantly more aggression because of the video games than females. The hostility and aggression mainly showed its face when players would get frustrated with the game and would become verbally aggressive. “The interactive nature of video games also requires active participation and a higher level of presence. This active participation and increased presence may make it even more likely that exposure to violence will increase aggression.” (Nowak 256)

One of the most popular and largely followed violent video game, World of Warcraft, players are able to create a character that resembles almost anything they want it too. They use weapons, magic, and other items to hurt and kill other players while they fulfill quests. This game is known to be one of the most “addicting” games that are out there. In fact, rpgownage.com shows a total of ten documented deaths that are related to this very popular game. One of these deaths was a teenage boy who committed suicide. In his note he explained that he was sacrificing himself to be “with the heroes” of World of Warcraft. Another teenager in China jumped out of a twenty-four story window to reenact a scene from the game (Ferdinands 1). Are these actually just games, or is there actually some validity to the

In “The Effect of Video Game Competition and Violence on Aggressive Behavior: Which Characteristic Has the Greatest Influence?” from the scholarly journal Psychology of Violence by Paul Adachi and Tina Willoughby, they found a noticeable rise in aggression. The cause of the aggression was not the in game violence, but in fact the competitiveness of the game. This was also tested with nonviolence games. Overall the authors found competitiveness as a greater cause of aggression than violence video games (Adachi 259).

In Holly J. Bowen and Julia Spaniol’s scholarly journal “Chronic Exposure to Violent Video Games is Not Associated with Alterations of Emotional Memory” form Applied Cognitive Psychology, they conducted an experiment involving one hundred and thirty-four participants in which they found no conclusive answers suggesting violent video games caused any type of aggression. They desensitization that occurred in the experiment seemed to last less than fifteen minutes and there was no valid evidence that proved it was caused by the video games themselves (Bowen 906).

Christopher J. Ferguson, whom I have mentioned earlier, is the author of another scholarly journal of the issue called “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: A Meta-analytic Review of Positive and Negative Effects of Violent Video Games” from Psychiatr Q. There has yet to be data that shows consistent data on the relationship between violent video games and real-life violence and aggression. He talks about how some studies come up with conclusive data while others do not find any at all. Some studies show violent video games increasing aggressive thoughts, but do not necessarily lead to aggressive actions.

Ferguson talks about the Virginia Tech University Massacre in which Seung Hui Cho killed 32 people. Instantly media started placing blame on violent video games without any evidence or claims. Violent video games seemed to be the “go-to” for everything involving youth and violence in today’s society. Later it was stated that Cho had no possession of any video game (Ferguson 309).

In 2005 Hillary Clinton proposed a bill that would make selling “Mature” rated games to minors a federal offense. Clinton, along with, Connecticut senator Joseph Lieberman, Democratic Indiana senator Evan Bayh, and Democratic South Dakota senator Tim Johnson proposed the Family Entertainment Protection Act, which died in committee (Krpata 4). The Entertainment Consumer Association is one of the many interest groups that focus on video games. They are against, “…the legislative efforts to “unconstitutionally” restrict access to interactive entertainment and looks to protect consumers from outside forces, which try to mould their behavior.” They argue that the first amendment should extend to video games. The American Civil Liberties Union has also defended these games saying that video games have a right to free speech (Friederich 2).

Though there are many interest groups supporting violent video games, there are many against it as well. The Parents Television Council has adopted a campaign to get rid of the sale and advertisement to minors for these games. They are looking for enforcement of the ESRB ratings and bigger penalties if sold to minors (PTC 1). The Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence are a group who are completely against violence video games. While looking at their website I found no actual goal or real information, but instead just many articles that bashed video games in a very exaggerative matter.

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