Essay about Video Games and Violence Cause, or Scapegoat

It seems like everything coming out about video games is bad. A student tried to kill his fellow classmates, and he was an avid Call of Duty player. A study has been released that proves that playing video games will turn you into a criminal. The many benefits of games and gaming, such as their possible applications to education and their ability to tell more complex stories than other forms of media, are almost universally ignored. I know better, though. Between the lifetime I’ve spent playing and loving video games, and the articles I’ve found, I can tell you that video games do not cause violent behavior or thoughts. First of all, to assess the opposite claim: video games, especially popular ones, tend to be violent, using fighting as†¦show more content†¦In addition, many studies use games that are wildly outdated and mismatched in their studies. One such study used the games Wolfenstein 3D and Myst, both from the early nineties, and in completely genres. C ertainly more modern games would be more appropriate for proving whether or not violent games cause violent behavior, and certainly with less of a disconnect between the games than there would be between a shooter and a puzzle game, which Wolfenstein 3D and Myst are respectively.(Kushner) Furthermore, no one is using video games as any sort of indicator of possible future violent behavior. The blame only comes after a major violent incident. Partially, this is because of how ubiquitous gaming has become. A study in 1996 showed that 98.7 percent of children, regardless of gender, had played video games, with violent games being particularly popular with males (93 percent had played fighting game â€Å"Street Fighter II† alone.) That was just in 1996, meaning the number has surely grown since then. With that many people playing video games, it’s almost impossible to find a crime that can’t be blamed on video games with the â€Å"They played games, that must be t he cause† argument. 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