I realize that today is Thanksgiving, but I want to give my thanks for having video games in my life. I have put more energy into this article than any academic paper I have ever written, so it must come out. If you plan on spending time with your family, do so first, then come back to this.

Now that I have your attention, the time has come. I will be tackling the ever-controversial topic of video game violence. Why? Because video games are getting some seriously bad press lately and it's unfair that this one media is getting heat while others are not. The claim is that children exposed to video game violence are prone to violent outbreaks and anti-social behavior. To keep their children safe, advocates want to ban violent video games and/or violence in video games. But would this solve the problem of violence in children once and for all? After all, our culture is one with many other media influences, such as television, film and the Internet. What's to say that they can't cause the same effects? Should all violent stimuli be removed from our culture?

Argument

Researchers and advocates argue that prolonged exposure to video game violence has permanent effects on young players that increase their aggression levels and distort perceptions of reality that can result in violence without the understanding of the consequences. Games also promote anti-social behavior, leading to introverted lifestyles, sociopathology and delinquency.

I wish prove that only a small percentage of popular video games played by children include any degree of violence and that any increase in youth violence/delinquency cannot be primarily blamed on video games.

Goal

What is the goal of researchers that determine the causality between video games and violence? There are three options: To prevent these games from being made, to prevent retailers from selling them, to prevent people from buying them. We cannot prevent any developer from making any kind of game. It infringes on their right to create, just as it would if we tried to stop a movie from being made. Then again, you don't see any films in theaters with violence on the levels of Condemned: Criminal Origins. Why is that? Because production companies won't pay for it and theaters won't screen it. That has nothing to do with studios who want to make the movie. The studio can make the film, but no one may want to pay to distribute it. Or the distributor may be under pressure not to pay for it. Say a production company pays for it, now we have to limit who can see it. The MPAA would giving it an R or NC-17 rating, restricting who can see it and later buy it. We have the same regulatory committee for video games, the ESRB. If they deem a video game to be unsuitable for younger audiences, they can apply it with the highest ratings for games M and AO.

Clearly, we have the same restrictions for video games as we do for movies. There are similar restrictions placed on television and the Internet. We often hear the phrase "viewer discretion is advised" when we watch primetime network television. Unfortunately, the TV doesn't card your child when he watches something he shouldn't. The Internet isn't much better, when sites restricted to viewers of a certain age need to prove their age by claiming their date. As TV's Dr. House has said, "even a 17 year-old could figure that out." Given these restrictions, the goal of anti-game violence advocates is to increase restrictions on sales when video games have the most restriction of any other medium.

Constructive vs Destructive

The main consensus is that violent video games trigger aggression in the player. That aggression has been linked to physical violence, especially in adolescents (school shootings, suicides, etc). Critics of video games claim that all games are these days involve shooting, maiming and killing other living things (particularly people characters that are played by other gamers). While the majority of retail sales go to violent video games, some of the most prominent games if the past few years have been completely violence-free. Take a look at Maxis studios, who brought us SimCity, The Sims and Spore. Their entire line of games is about creating successful civilizations and to survive. Sure, there's some violence, such as natural disaster or the option to eliminate competition by attacking them (as opposed to charming them into alignment). Another hailed game of 2008 was LittleBIGPlanet, which involves absolutely no violence whatsoever and is, in fact, a completely constructive game. The entire objective is to create things and have fun with them. It has a whimsical soundtrack and even a British narrator. Doesn't get more passive than that! But guess what? It's not entirely violence free. As with any platformer, it has obstacles. They vary from inert walls and the fatal trap (spikes, pool, etc). The spikes in particular make your sackboy pop like a balloon and you respawn from a checkpoint. Why is that? Because games need challenges. Running into a wall is not a challenge, we actually need to have a compelling reason to do well, just like in real life. With racing games, it's just like reality. You drive poorly, you crash, it's simple.

Dare I forget to mention the growingly popular music genre? Almost every active video game home right now includes at least one game that is related to Guitar Hero, Rock Band or Dance Dance Revolution. They are relatively easy to create (add existing soundtracks to pretty interfaces) and come with expensive peripherals. Publishers and retailers dream come true, but not so much for cash strapped parents. Still, violence free. In fact, these games bring people together and are often the center of party entertainment.

There are definitely video games out there that embrace creative processes only and must either reduce aggressive tendencies or not have an effect at all. Are these types of video games tested at all during research aimed at blaming video games for violence? For a more thorough experiment, add in multiple types of games as a control. I would imagine that even though create games do not involve or promote violence, its perfectly plausible for a player to become frustrated to the point of outburst simply because they are not getting the desired result. As an example, I want to build a magnificent Rube Goldberg device in LBP, but halfway through the run, something breaks, forcing me to stop the simulation and fix it. That would definitely aggravate me. After prolonged aggravation, I could definitely reach an outburst. Is that so unbelievable? Did the game cause my violence? Hardly. It tested my patience, which is completely independent of the game's material and is unique to me. That makes my outburst a result of an inherent part of my behavior that was just triggered by the stimuli, in this case a creative game.

To be fair, I will give examples of purely destructive games where the player must destroy things, kill people or otherwise unleash violent mayhem to progress through the game:

• Halo series: Repel an alien invasion with futuristic weapons. The multiplayer feature sparked console parties where players shoot each other.
• Battlefield Bad Company: Typical military first person shooter that features a destructible environment, allowing players to destroy buildings and landscapes. Not any more violent than other shooters, but the destruction is sometimes more fun than the gameplay.
• Manhunt series: Stealth action meets snuff when the main character must sneak around enemies and eliminate them with various tools of the trade. Executions are displayed with faux security camera effect to show all angles of death.
• Condemned series: Forensic investigator Ethan Thomas must use CSI-type tools to find hints to the origin of a maddening disease that turns everyone into zombies. Combat emphasizes on melee weapons, such as pipes, shovels, rebar, etc to produce intimate violence.

Prominent Figures

Sweeping the headlines right now is Iowa State University Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson, the director of the Center for the Study of Violence. He presented results from his study, which is published in the November issue of Pediatrics, the professional journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. His extensive research is aimed at linking growing popularity in violent video games and rising tends in youth violence. He disagrees with the "catharsis hypothesis" that states that playing violent video games has a relaxing effect on aggressive players and that consistent exposure will keep them docile. He argues against it with the hypothetical that giving violent crime prisoners these games would not rehabilitate them. That can't be proven until it's tested, but I agree with Anderson only because the majority of violent crime prisoners probably didn't become violent because of video games. They were most likely products of low socio-economic status, poor parenting and overall unwise personal choices. I have yet to see studies or research from Anderson that widen the investigation scope to all video games and the children that play them in order to find what kind of children are most likely to be affected and why. After all, that's what a psychologist do.

Playing a different front on the war against video game violence iswas Jack Thompson, one of the most outspoken critics of video games recently, using his position as a Florida attorney to battle game publishers such as Take-Two for the Grand Theft Auto series. Thompson, motivated by his conservative Christian faith, took unorthodox and even illegal action against his opposition in order to have them succumb. This caused his disbarment from the Florida bar without opportunity to reapply ever. He was one of the most successful anti-violent game advocates and he took himself out of the picture.

Studies

Iowa State University faculty member Craig Anderson, a seemingly prominent figure in the field of violent media, has collected results of experiments performed on American and Japanese gamers. Japan has a significantly lower rate of violent crimes than America, so Anderson thought that this variable would prove that the controlled video games would have similar effects on both subjects. To researchers like him, if violent media of any kind increases aggression in subjects of different cultures, then the only real conclusion that we can come to is that the media itself is the cause.

Violent media is just triggering aggression that is already there. In medical terms, it is a "pre-existing condition" that is just activated by seeing/experiencing violence. The media cannot be blamed for triggering aggression that is already there, even if it is the goal of the game. Unlike infamous Japanese media that is strongly linked with epileptic seizures, violent video games have a much more varying effect on its audience. If certain portions of the audience cannot contain the physiological effects outside of the stimuli, I would hope medical experts would say that those people should avoid that stimuli. Do not take away something that has no effect on the majority of the audience because a minority suffers from negative side-effects. With that logic, we would have to ban most of our film, television and internet broadcasting because of this. However, video games are the only lobby to have activists say that it should be censored or have restrictions on its sales. Keep in mind that film, television and internet media have very little restriction on who can access them (retail stores may be required to ask for ID for mature titles, but rarely do; television and internet access cannot be restricted without parental intervention). As it happens, most of the publicity for restrictions on who can access any kind of mature content goes to video games. Retail stores are constantly in the presses for not selling M-rated games to minors or adults purchasing them for minors with as much as an 80% effective rate as of May 2008. This is the strongest form of restriction for any of the media I have listed and yet lobbyists say that this is not enough (for video games; TV, film and internet media is still ignored).

Listed are excerpts from various studies attempting to link video games with violent behavior:

Washington Post:

Anderson said the collaboration with Japanese researchers was particularly telling because video games are popular there and crime and aggression are less prevalent. Some gamers have cited Japan's example as evidence that violent games are not harmful.

Yet the studies produced similar findings in both countries, Anderson said. "When you find consistent effects across two very different cultures, you're looking at a pretty powerful phenomenon," he said. "One can no longer claim this is somehow a uniquely American phenomenon. This is a general phenomenon that occurs across cultures..."

"We now have conclusive evidence that playing violent video games has harmful effects on children and adolescents," Anderson said.

Des Moines Register

The [Japanese] culture is so different, and their overall violence rate is so much lower than in the U.S. The argument has been made - it's not a very good argument, but it's been made by the video game industry - that all our research on violent video game effects must be wrong because Japanese kids play a lot of violent video games and Japan has a low violence rate.

By gathering data from Japan, we can test that hypothesis directly and ask, 'Is it the case that Japanese kids are totally unaffected by playing violent video games?' And of course, they aren't. They're affected pretty much the same way American kids are.

We were surprised to find that exposure to violent video games was a better predictor of the students' own violent behavior than their gender or their beliefs about violence... We were also somewhat surprised that there was no apparent difference in the video game violence effect between boys and girls or adolescents with already aggressive attitudes.

I'm curious who is claiming that this is an American phenomenon. Sure, America is the "Wild West" with our cowboy ways of "shoot first, ask questions never", but other cultures have violence, too. So, we've established that the immediate effect of violent video games has the relatively same effect on multiple cultures, which may indicate that the video games have the ability to raise physiological signs of aggression. Essentially, what this is saying is that when comparing the effects of violent video games on the Japanese and Americans, there was a relatively identical effect on both subjects, relative to their respective baselines. Anderson also said that video games are a predictor of violent behavior, not a cause of violent behavior. This supports my belief that violence and aggression are inherent to individuals and only accessed by stimuli. This would have been a great opportunity to expose the subjects to non-violent games to see how they changed from their baseline.

American Academy of Pediatrics

Youth violence is a public health issue in the United States, because it accounts for so many deaths.²³ Only accidental injury consistently leads homicide as the cause of death of 1- to 24-year-olds. For those aged 10 to 24 years, homicide is the leading cause of death for blacks and the second leading cause for Hispanics. Finally, it is worth noting that in 2005, 12- to 20-year-olds committed 28% of the single-offender and 41% of the multiple-offender violent crimes in the United States despite comprising only 13% of the population.²⁵

First of all, violence is a public safety issue, not a public health issue. Disease is a public health issue. Comparing violence to a disease can be saved for another discussion. Anderson uses statistics of mortality rates/causes to explain the effects of violent media in America. Other than accidents, homicide is the leading cause of death among American youths. I'll admit, that's sad, but the sources used do not account for video games being the cause of these statistics. Using minority homicide rates do not prove that video games caused their violence. I would say that it's more likely caused by degrading inner-city conditions with high crime rates, low education standards and virtually non-existent parental supervision. Do you really think the Bloods and Crips are so violent because they're playing CounterStrike in their downtime? Don't use irrelevant statistics to argue a point. This information is definitely useful for a greater purpose that really should be prioritized above removing violence from video games: removing it from our streets. If we focused more on improving neighborhood safety, parental responsibilities and education standards in high crime rate areas than banning the next Manhunt game from an entire country, perhaps we wouldn't have as many delinquent young people.

CBS

Today's study of 1,102 teens shows that almost all teens - 97 percent - play video games, that kids often play with someone else (65 percent) and that the three most popular types of games are not violent. Instead, they involve racing, puzzles and sports.

Finally, a study that analyzes video games, not violence. This study isn't about the games that have violence or violence statistics. It's about the games that don't have violence, which happens to be most of them. A simple survey of the 10 most popular games played by children include only 3 violent games (including Halo twice and not including sports). The most popular type of game seen right now in homes and in retail stores is the virulent "music and rhythm" genre (Rock Band, Guitar Hero). No violence, no combat, just music playing. Also, the 3 most popular genres are non-violent. Other than the violence aspect, this study found that gaming is a social activity for players, interacting with people offline and online. Technology has become a catalyst for social networking and anything that gets kids to work and play together are certainly welcome in the home.

The fair study would be to take a wide sample of subjects, those with varying video game histories, have them play constructive and destructive games, then see how they are physiologically effected compared to their non-gaming levels show. Current research is aimed at finding the link between video games and violence. Using the severity of the effects still seen in the decreasing number of cases is not a complete study.

Inconsistent Effects

From the exhaustive research that Anderson and others have conducted on subjects of all ages and backgrounds, we can see that there is a rise in aggressive tendencies after playing violent video games. The major argument is that violent video games are linked to violent outbursts that result in harm to one's self or others. However, we have to take into account how many subjects exposed to video game violence are prone to violent outbreak and out of a larger study of violence (say, violence rates in the US total), how many of those were influenced by video games. The two aren't necessarily related, but together, they can prove that video games are not the primary cause for increased violence in youths.

If violent video games have the relatively identical effect on all subjects (US vs Japanese, male vs female, young vs old), how do you account for isolated outbursts of violence? Not all subjects react the same way. There is something inherent to the individual subject that video games trigger. Removing the violent video game stimuli does not remove inherent aggression. Again, this just leaves room for alternate stimuli to access this aggression. If the studies show that young males act more aggressively than older males or females of any age, I'm pretty sure they're finding biological remnants from when aggression was vital to young male survival. Psychological studies cannot ignore the fact that we are just apes with clothes. We are not above primal instincts of survival that ensured the survival of our ancestors.

What's more interesting is that the US Department of Justice statistics (1975-2005) show that out of the entire population, the total crime rate remained steady from the 1970s to the '90s, but sharply decreased after the mid '90s, the same time that video game technology, the kind that allows us to generate more graphic violence, was introduced. We also see that homicide rates for offenders aged 24 and younger decreased at that same time. This means that the frequency of video game age murders was decreasing after 1995 by as much as 25% from the original figures. Homicide victimization rates also decreased at that time by almost the same amount for ages 14-35. And while non-fatal gun related violent crime has increased slightly from 2004, the half a million incidents per year don't even come close to the 1.25 million from 10 years earlier. If violent video games are influencing children to commit violent acts and the entire country is become more murderous, why don't the DoJ statistics support that? Just because we give more press to youth violence doesn't mean that it's a growing trend. Now, the severity of the effects may be increasing in the remaining children that are affected, from mild delinquency to serious sociopathic behavior. So, we've got a decrease in crime levels, but an increase in

Many of these physiological studies report that the signs of aggression are apparent with all subjects exposed to video game violence with relatively similar degrees. With these results, we can come to the conclusion that the games induce aggression in the players. That's fine. At some point, there's no arguing that playing the game raises aggression. It's necessary to play the game. However, the real test would be to see how long the effects last. If the physiological effects of violent stimuli dissipate immediately afterwards, that would have significantly different implications than if the effects lasted much longer.

Benefits of Violence

One has to wonder at some point, "What is the benefit to having video games with simulated violence? Why can't we all just play Dig Dug?" Here's why: Since the advent of the first person shooter, players have been training to use weapons, particularly firearms. Of course, that's what advocates say is teaching children to use guns. It's also teaching adults how to use guns without the need for expensive weapons, firing ranges and ammunition. Simulations do not cost as much as the real thing and have been a great benefit to saving money to instruct the use of weapons. No such thing, you say? Tell that to the free game America's Army, brought to us by... the United States Army. Other than getting the game engine and distribution help from other publishers, the game is almost entirely developed in house (Uncle Sam's house). Its main purpose is to train players/recruits in the use of weapons, combat and strategy. Of course, the primary audience is prospective recruits who play video games (high school age). How dare they target our children with things that they like. Oh wait, we also like college money and they throw that incentive at us all the time. If you have a problem with how the Army is reaching out to children, take it up with them, since they are responding to a spreading apathy towards joining the military among teens. American society has changed drastically in the past 100 years, but especially when the news delivers statistics of countless deaths, young people aren't going to join unless the military changes its tactics.

Emulation of Games

Let's use the argument that violent video games cause violence in subjects. Why? Is it because they're emulating their stimuli? Perhaps they have such a strong emotional bond to the material. Kind of like the bond I had with a video game that I played religiously, City of Heroes. The massively multiplayer role playing games are great examples of immersion to the point where players assume their virtual identities in real life. In my case, I played both sides of the game, as a super hero and super villain. As a hero, I fought street crime and evil masterminds. As a villain, the opposite. And yet, you never saw me putting on a costume and fighting burglars. I do not emulate the games I play, films I see or websites I view (other than *gasp* start a blog and podcast about the things that I like). I'm not saying there isn't emulation. There is a huge subculture of media fans that assemble to assume the identities of certain characters. This is often called cosplay (costume play) to insiders or just plain dress-up to outsiders.

Keep in mind that cosplayers represent the most active gamers in society. Without demeaning their hobby, they have no lives outside of video games. They spend exhaust their free time either playing or creating/wearing costumes of their virtual avatars. They attend conventions and re-enact events, cinematics or even battles. Is it violent? Simulated, sure. Does anyone get hurt? No. Conventions of any size have very strict rules on what kind of violence can be simulated. No sharp weapons, realistic weapons must be tagged and even bound to holsters, or not welcome at all. These are people who are aware of their involvement with their media and embrace it in a creative way. They could easily be exposed to over 100 hours of video game violence a week and not have a hint of aggression in their daily lives.

My Experience

I was born in 1985, the year the Nintendo Entertainment System (née Famicom) was introduced to the US. Obviously, I was too young to play at birth, but it was only a matter of time. It wasn't my first console, however, as my father had purchased the Sears-Roebuck equivalent of the Intellivsion (1980) and I was raised on various 8-bit games that I can't remember the names of anymore. These games had some form of violence as the objective. You didn't maim, shoot or immolate anyone, but you conquer your opposition in one way or another. Then came the NES and its flagship game, Super Mario Bros., arguably one of the greatest selling franchises in game history. Everyone loves Mario: he's cute, round and has an Italian accent. What does he do? He's a plumber! He saves the princess! He defeats the villain! Stereotypical (I'm trying to avoid "Joe the Plumber") unlikely hero is called upon to save the damsel in distress and everyone lives happily ever after. How does he accomplish this? He jumps on people! He crushes them into the ground until they turn into gold coins. This is violent by definition, but I don't jump on people I don't like in hopes that I can transform them into money. Moving on, I had the Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, Sony Playstation 2, Microsoft XBOX, Nintendo Gamecube, XBOX360 and PS3 (as well as various handheld devices and, of course, PC gaming). My point is, I have been playing video games ever since I can remember. The game material wasn't always violence free, nor was it gruesome snuff. I've played basically every type of video game on every type of platform, from Pokemon to Silent Hill. I have played some of the most harmless games and also some of the most violent things Clive Barker could ever imagine. Do I have a history of violent outbursts because of an uncontrollable rage? No. Why? Because I can control myself. Blame individuals for not being able to control themselves. If they can't, don't let them play violent games. How do you do that? You can't, tough. As someone whose parents never restricted what he can have (short of hardcore pornography until he graduated high school), I can honestly say that the whole notion of censoring what children have access to is up to the parents/guardians and no one else. Stop punishing creators and retailers for not doing your job. This is where parents say, "Don't tell me how to raise my children." This is where I say, "I'm not telling you how to, I'm just telling you to raise them so I don't have to."

Negative Effects

I won't ignore the highlighted negative influence that video games have had on young players. Just recently, a Canadian teenager ran away from home because his parents took away his XBOX because they thought he was playing too much Call of Duty. His body was found shortly after in the woods. Before you blame his death on video games, autopsy results indicate that he died as a result from falling from a tree. He must have climbed it for food or to sleep in and fell. Unfortunately, video games don't teach us to climb trees, but if he was armed and a bear was attacking him, I'm sure all that virtual shooting would have come in handy for self defense. In all seriousness, I fail to see that this case has anything to do with the fact that Call of Duty is a shooter. If anything, he was just addicted to the game, which in itself is a separate psychological dysfunction. Perhaps this addiction is the real threat to our society and should be the target of psychological examination. In the past few years, we have seen addicted players actually die from malnutrition and unhealthy lifestyles. Many countries where video gaming is considered a professional hobby have actually created medical centers where players can be treated for their addiction. Like with violent side effects, this happens in isolated incidents and does not account for the majority of the gaming community.

Conclusion

Popular studies reaching the media right now are claiming that video games are causing our children to become more aggressive, violent and prone to sociopathic behavior. They are targeting the first person shooter and third person action genres in particular for their objectives of attacking, destroying and even killing other characters with weapons similar to real ones. These games are training young players in how to operate deadly weapons and influencing them to commit violent crimes against their better judgement in ways that would ruin their lives permanently. They also decrease human interaction to the point where we are no longer able to socialize in person with other people and it will deteriorate our society. The results of these effects on children are an increase in violence in America that can be traced back to prolonged exposure to the video games they play.

These claims are all in accurate representations of the statistics provided by the Department of Justice and research studying overall video game trends. Violent video games account for less than a third of the games played by a wide sample of American children. The most popular games do not even include violence or any type of aggressive play other than sports. These popular games are, in fact, responsible for an increase in social behavior among children because of the cooperative and creative gameplay. Even online games, which are attributed with having the strongest antisocial effects on behavior, are responsible for a level of interaction unseen ever before in history. Players can communicate, cooperate and even participate in the lives of others from across the world.

I would recommend to psychologists, sociologists and video game advocates to analyze the overall effects that video games are having on young players before coming to conclusions. Check all types of games and more importantly, all types of media to really determine what is having negative effects on them. We won't be able to completely neuter our society of aggression and violence, but we can at least identify the root causes in stimuli and inherent human nature and leave it to parents and guardians to make ensure that bad combinations don't mix. Until then, I'm going to play all the violent video games I want and smile at every person I see just to show them how well-adjusted I am.