Do Violent Video Games Promote Real Life Violence?
Some people blame movies for promoting violence, other people blame music and there are those people that blame video games. Video games have been around since the 1970’s. They were first presented as a commercial entertainment in Japan. Then they spread throughout America and Europe making video games the number one choice of entertainment(. New technology is just keeping the games rolling and rolling. That’s not the only thing rolling, as the records show that last decade crime rates have been increasing heavily. Who is to blame for this cause? Is a question people ask each day. The common answer we get is violence in video games, but not everyone believes this is the reason.
Douglas in his book titled, Media Violence and Children stated that it all started in 1976 when the very first violent game got released. The game was called Death Race. The point of this game was to run over the stick figures that were walking around. Every time you hit a stick, a little cross would appear on the screen signifying a grave (137) . Parents right away started complaining that this is setting a bad example for the kids. But the company didn’t care so much as their salaries doubled and quadrupled. When people think of video games they assume they are for kids and teens. The ESA (entertainment software association) stated as of 2008, that the average age of a gamer is thirty five years old (3). Another type of misunderstanding is people assume that almost all of gamers are male, well wrong. The records from ESA show that forty percent are females and sixty percent are males(4). The common violent games today that are played most often are Counter Strike, Doom, and Halo. Video games like these are very popular because people tend to like violence in games. So the question we may ask our selves is why does violence in video games cause real life violence? In 2008 there was a book written about all different...