Videogames a harmless pastime? Or a plague that is taking over the world? For most gamers this is a rather stupid question that is answered by the prior. However, for non-gamers, especially parents, this question poses a very real concern. Both sides have different experiences with the item in question and therefore have different opinions of what the correct answer is. However, maybe the answer isn’t one of the options given; perhaps it in their own right they are both write.
People with hands on experience with videogames have more knowledge on the topic, and therefore should be able to form an educated opinion. However, this opinion is extremely biased favoring the game industry, and therefore are not going to see all the problems that games may contain. To them it is an experience of living as someone other than them self in a world that is not their own. Getting a chance to sniper the enemy in the head when they are being hunted down by a mob of monsters or the undead is very rewarding, it means you get to live longer. However, to the person who walks in the room to see the player sniping people may think that they’re happy about killing, and miss the point of what they’re really doing. As Stephen Totilo pointed out in this review on “Resident Evil 5”, “A lot of genuinely horrible actions depicted in video games don't seem horrible when viewed by the player of a game. They horrify only the onlookers watching you play -- or watching the trailer of someone else playing.”
Being unaware of what most videogames are about, many parents only see that their children spend hours a day on them. When they do happen to read the back of the case and they see that it says “mature content” they naturally assume the worst, but you know what they say about assuming. If they do watch their children play they may see the situation described above and fear that their child is planning the next Columbine shooting. What these viewers don’t seem to understand is that most gamers play these games because they either would never or could never do these things in real life. If parents are worried about which videogames their children play they should also be weary of what movies they watch. If, for example, parents allow their children to watch action movies where there is a lot of killing, then why, when they see those children play action videogames should they freak out? What is the difference between the two? Is it only due to being a spectator for the movie, and being the “in” the movie for a videogame? It seems like the parents should be happy that the children have enough sense to only be imitating the action where it is safe and fictional, and not out in the real world.
Both views are reasonable, because while a lot of games are harmless, there are those that go overboard. In the end if non-gamers really see videogames corrupting the youth then all they have to do is not buy them the game system, because without the system you can’t play the games. Besides, what kid can afford an over $300 game system?
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I think this post highlights one of the issues within the violence/videogames debate, that at least two of the sides (gamers and parents) need to be more aware of not only each other but also the actual level of violence that's present in some videogames. Perhaps part of the problem concerns too many knee-jerk reactions on these two sides. Is this possible?
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