The Violence of Video Games as an Indispensable Part of Them

The violence of video games as an indispensable part of them

In our modern society and with 24-hour access to the computers and the Internet, it is no surprise that people of all ages are using computers as an entertaining tool. Video games are especially popular among children and adolescents. Contemporary games are extremely different from the games of the past years, because nowadays games are realistic and thus have a great impact on the player’s consciousness. The impact may vary depending on the main idea of a game: some games teach socialization, some of them develop brain activity, and some pose a threat to the player’s behavior and mental abilities because of the violence they contain. Personally I think that anyway people need to spend more time socializing in reality but not playing computer games, and owing to the fact that all games are different, not all of them should be banned but not only the violent ones.

First of all, the author of the article speaks about associating violence with pleasure because of the rewards given in a game for making violent actions. The games based only on violence like ‘Counter Strike’ should be banned with no exceptions. But what to do with the games, which actually develop some skills and do not have killing, kidnapping or any other violent actions as the main part of the gaming process? ‘Need for Speed’ is one of such games, as the main idea of the game is to win the drug race. However, there are some episodes, when a player has to imply violent actions to win. For example, there is an episode, where it is necessary to throw the driver from the car through the circles of fire. As for me, the process of throwing itself and the moment when the driver dies are very realistic and violent. Taking into consideration the harmful effect of the elements of violence in the generally neutral games, the game developers of such games have to exclude violent episodes from the non-disorderly games.

Secondly, the article says that any repeated action sticks in one’s memory and becomes a usual behavior. Players adopt the model of violent behavior from the video games and risk to become criminals. The fact that negative behavior is copied quicker than the positive is widely known. For example when children spend time with their elder brothers and sisters they tend to memorize bad words and reproduce the examples of bad behavior rather than of good – the same happens with video games.

Thirdly, the harmful effect of the violent games on the decision-making is described in the article. However, not only is violence threatening to the ability of mature thinking and socializing but also poses a threat to the general psychological wellbeing of the players. Players are constantly on the stretch and totally control their actions while playing. On the one hand, playing games may be good if video games are actively chosen as a response to negative emotions and used in moderate doses so that players learn to quickly redirect attention. On the other hand, feelings of the constant strain, fright, ruthlessness along with the desire to win all costs sink into the minds of the players, so that they cannot keep in their emotions and burst into a rage every time they lose a game.