Initial Research

When I initially began to research the "common man's" opinion on video game violence, I expected a mixed response. A few who say let it be, and others who think it should be regulated. But I was quite surprised at the overwhelming number of very vehement blog posts speaking out in favor or at least with neutrality toward video game violence. Scanning through a number of these posts, I began to pick out several common themes in defense of violent and otherwise immoral content in interactive media:

It's not games that are violent; it's the gamer's choice to create violence
Yup-the old adage about "no dangerous weapons, only dangerous people". When a player buys a game, according to this claim, he has a choice whether or not to indulge in violence. This is not all untrue; with more and more new games embracing the idea of "player creating the storyline" by giving the player free reign over the game's world, any player can avoid fighting and violence by merely choosing not to. Right? In theory, yes. But let's face it: the average gamer does not buy World of Warcraft or some similar game so he can go and buy and sell armor. He buys it because he wants a piece of all that sword-and-magic action! Violent games are bought and sold by virtue of the fact that they contain violence. Granted, however, buying the game in the first place is the gamer's choice. Which leads into further points...

Video games are not responsible for trashed minds; people are driven to play them because of extenuating circumstances that make them enjoy violence.
With so much attention being given to video game violence after various school shootings and other incidents of juvenile violence, it's no wonder someone brought this up. I tend to agree with this statement. It is a gamer's choice to buy a game, no matter what it is. Here's the story you'll never hear: Schoolchild goes to store to get milk for his mother, but accidentally gets lost in the local GameStop. While inside, he sees lots of strange boxes, one of which has the words "Doom3" on it. Full of curiosity, the schoolboy buys it, goes home, and turns into a homicidal maniac with a shotgun when he grows up. No-when a violent game is bought, a conscious, understanding choice is made by the gamer. He or she buys the game because they want to play what is inside, and any decent back cover will let you see what sorts of gore and heavy weaponry are enclosed.

Video games are just another form of escape.
Ever been to a play? Read a book? Seen a movie? Video games are just the same, or so the argument goes. And so much the better, if video games allow people to get out their frustration on the screen instead of in real life. After all, aren't all forms of entertainment some form of escape from the trials of reality? Not exactly. All these forementioned types of entertainment try to create their own realities in your mind, and succeed with different levels of intensity. A book comes at the basic level. Your mind has to do all the interpreting, but after all that hard work, you get a pretty decent mental image of what just happened on page 138. A play is one step up. Your brain is saved the effort of some of the processing because the audio and video feeds are already directly hooked up through your primary sensory inputs. Same with a movie, only the video input increases a hundredfold in realism. But a video game is different from all these. Not only does it feed video and audio to your senses, it lets you feed data back. Tactile interaction is one of the main factors that makes reality, well, reality. Of all these forms of entertainment, the video game creates something that is far more uncannily realistic than any of its counterparts, and to this end I argue that it is not just another form of escape. Your mind sees and works with the video game reality just like it was reality, even if it is not. That mind is the same mind that deals with the real world, and I find it hard to believe that such an impact- tactile, video, and audio, just like a memory-does not have some impact on the mind's interaction with actual reality as well.

Video games should not displace parents as moral teachers to children.
One last-and interesting, considering the points already shown-common theme I saw brought up was about the role of parenting vs video games. There is nothing wrong with video games, so the argument goes, as long as the user can separate it from reality. In the case of small children, with porous minds that soak up any and every influence around them, this may not be so simple. And as long as the computer provides an effective babysitter, many a harried parent may not consider the ramifications of buying a violent pacifier for their attention-demanding child. In this case, the gamer is not making an intelligent choice upon buying the game. They are merely being fed. I agree that parents need to exercise caution when buying computer games for their children. Mom and Dad need to establish their children with a strong moral background before (IF AT ALL) they can indulge them in alternate realities where such morals may take a back seat.

This is obviously far from a comprehensive list of every argument about violence in video games, but it's a few for me to think about. Probably more to come on this subject when we're forced to do another assignment.