Video games are a relatively new form of entertainment media, only having come into existence in the past 35 years and are ever increasing in popularity. The one thing that separates video games from other media like movies and books is the interactive aspect of video games, turning the consumer from a bystander observing events play out into an actor directly involved with the story. Being a piece of media, video games, ones that portray violence in particular, get blamed for helping to cause tragic events such as the columbine shooting for happening. Some of the perpetrators of said acts claim that the video games they played in their free time did give them the idea and influenced them to go out and commit these atrocities. However, violent video games do not cause aggression in youth, and contradictory accusations are the product of a culture that likes to blame anything but the people responsible.
Throughout the world, different systems exist to judge video games and inform the consumer about the general age minimum of who should play them. Most European countries use the ratings developed by PEGI, Pan European Game Information, to label the games sold in their stores. This system consists of 5 main age ratings, 3, 7, 12, 16, and 18, as well as a variety of image sub-labels that tell what some of the game’s content includes, such as whether or not illegal drugs and/or offensive language appears in the game. The USA rates video games based off guidelines set in place by the ESRB, Entertainment Software Rating Board. This system of judging games is more obscure than that of PEGI because it doesn’t implement age, but rather a collection of more general terms. Due to these non-specific classifications, a lot of really violent games get labeled for sale to young audiences. This leads to forty percent of large retailers selling games meant for adults to children without any sort of parental guardian present (Paterson 194). However the labels very clearly state...