So much of our entertainment and culture is centered on violence. It is shown in almost every form of media we have — music, movies, television, advertising and books among the group — yet video games are made the scapegoat.
Back in January, Vice President Joe Biden called to meet with a group of game industry leaders after establishing a task force on gun violence. The task force also met with several gun-rights groups, the biggest name being the National Rifle Association.
As a gamer for several years, it’s a little offensive to me that so many people put the blame directly onto video games while the same violence is ingrained so deeply into so many other aspects of our culture.
There is yet to be any correlation between games and real-life violence, no matter how much people accuse them of being the big problem. In fact, it is actually the opposite, at least for youth gamers. Since 1994, government statistics report that the number of violent youth offenders has fallen by more than half to 224 per 100,000 people. But the number of video games sold has more than doubled since 1996.
On another note, video-game content is rated by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. The four main ratings are “everyone,” “everyone 10+,” “teen” and “mature.” In the descriptions for all, mild violence is allowed, but the intense violence, blood and gore is reserved for the mature games — for players age 17 and up. With this, 91 percent of parents say that they pay attention to the content of the games their children are playing. Game companies are strict with their content ratings, and stores are very cautious as to who is buying their games — I have been carded for every mature-rated game I have bought.
Only 18 percent of games sold fall into the shooter category. While there is violence in many of the other genres, 37 percent of sales fall into family, racing and sporting games — which are mostly absent of any forms of violence.
I’ve written before about the things games do you for you, including giving people an outlet for their stress. Violent games often work this way. Even if you are the most non-violent person who wouldn’t even hurt an ant, shooter games can make you feel calmer and more relaxed. People put the blame on games here — that people get relief with the joy they get from their cyber kills — but they’re missing the biggest aspect: games are a world that isn’t real.
As much as I would like to be as masterful as my imperial soldier in ‘Skyrim’, or as stealthy as Desmond Mile’s ancestors in ‘Assassin’s Creed,’ or as badass as Commander Shepard in ‘Mass Effect’, I never will be. They are in fantasy worlds, involving characters, places and actions that aren’t realistic to the world I live in.
I also wouldn’t be like any of those characters because I’m not violent, and because I see the line between fantasy and reality.
I come from a family where guns have always been around. All the men in my family have been hunters, and it’s always been normal to me. I grew up seeing guns used in a safe manner, and I watched them used for sport, never as weapons that would be used on a person.
I play violent games, I watch violent movies and I listen to music with violent lyrics and undertones. Sure, somehow and somewhere these things might invoke a different kind of emotion in someone different than me, but for many fans — if not most — violent media just offers us a side of life that we don’t see in our real lives and don’t want to see.
We spend such a great deal of energy pushing the blame onto things that haven’t even shown a connection to violence instead of investigating what could be the real cause. I look forward to the day we find the real cause of all the violence and the day that kids don’t have to fear going to school.
Sophie Kruse is a freshman studying journalism at Ohio University and a columnist for The Post. Do violent video games cause violence in society? Email Sophie at sk139011@ohiou.edu.
