10/01/18

     Video games, a form of entertainment which became mainstream in the 1970s, have been a popular choice for kids during their free time either with themselves or a group of friends. Overtime, as technology got better and games became more realistic, people began to question if video games, especially the ones with violence, were starting to have an effect on the youth. As school shootings and other acts of mass killing began to increase in numbers, video games were usually seen as the main cause of the crime. As this accusation went on, the argument between violence and video games began to rapidly grow.

     Recently, many video games in the genre of war and crime have been top sellers in the stores. Robert Mackey elaborates on this in his blog called The Lede talking about new hit video games “Medal of Honor” and “Yakuza 3.” Medal of Honor is an “intense military simulation” and Yakuza is a game taking you through “lifelike depictions of violence in the Japanese criminal underworld.” (Mackey) Throughout his blog article titled “Consulting American Soldiers and Yakuza Gangsters on Video Game Violence,” it is clear that his main purpose is not to persuade any reader but just to inform. Mackey does not include any of his opinion but only informs the audience of what information from his investigation he has received from letting others try the game. An example of this would be when Mackey went to 3 Yakuza experts to try the “Yakuza 3” game. Surprisingly, all 3 said different things about the game. The first claimed the violence was “lacking”, the second claimed the violence was “overdone” and the third claimed the violence was “overly elaborate.” (Mackey) The audience for this web blog would be people that play a lot of video games focused on violence. This is because Mackey focuses on one question from another web blog, Kotaku, asking “Are games our escapist fantasies, or our outlets for dealing with reality? Either way, why is our most common gameplay choice the pursuit of war?” (Mackey) This also shows that Robert has no side to the argument but, again, wants to inform the audience of the issue and what others believe about the topic. The genre for this blog would mostly fall under an interviewing style of blogging as Mackey does not express his own words but finds others and forwards their stance on it.

     The next source, a newspaper article by The New York Times titled “’Lively’ Discussion, Like Many Before It, on Video Games and Violence,” is written by Katie Rogers, presenting political aspects on the argument between violence and video games. The article was written around the time of the Parkland shooting so the tension about the topic was very high. The article focuses mainly about talks in the White House with people such as President Trump talking about personal issues with violent video games and his son. He claims, ”The video games, the movies, the internet stuff is so violent. It’s so incredible. I see it. I look at some of the things he’s watching, and I say, ‘How is that possible?’ And this is what kids are watching. And I think you maybe have to take a look at it.” (Rodgers) Some quotes outside the White House comes from people who regularly play violent video games stating statistical data that there is no correlation between violence and video games while other people such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) claim that video games are causing people to create chaos and start violent acts using weapons. The purpose of this article is to show readers what stances people are taking upon the topic. Rodgers shows this to readers by mainly giving quotes from political officials and other people while never giving her own opinion about the situation. The audience for the article is mainly people who are interested about what is being done about all the violence going on with the school shootings in the government. She states that “heated opinions at the White House from critics of violent video games and from game makers who reject any connection to mass shootings, but offering no concrete views of his own.” (Rodgers) Katie does not only do a great job giving quotes from both sides of argument but gets quotes from both the political and public opinion. As stated before, Rodgers never includes her opinion making this a non-biased informative newspaper article. The genre of this would be dialogic journalism as the article is mainly focused around the quotes taken from the political and public eye.

     The third source is a scholarly source titled “Violence in E-Rated Video Games” which comes from the The Journal of the American Medical Association. Written by Kimberly Thompson, she talks about how violence is not only in mature rated games but can also be found in games rated for everyone. Thompson creates her own method by playing 55 well known everyone rated video games and tries to find any sort of mature content such as alcohol use, tobacco use, sexual content, etc. The purpose of this article is to persuade readers into believing that violence is found in video games made for all ages by using statistical evidence. According to Thompson, 20 of the 55 video games included no violence while the other 35 had to include some sort of “intentional violence” to continue in the game. Some games such as “The Legend of Zelda” series “had progressively less violence” while games such as “Super Mario Bros” series had “a less clear trend” being demonstrated. (Thompson p. 592) The audience for this article would mostly be parents that let their kids play E-rated video games. This is because Thompson spends all the time in the article exposing the violence that can be found in everyone rated video games only being played in 90 minute intervals. The stance taken in the article is clear that Kimberly believes that E-rated video games are not really any different from mature rated video games. She states towards the end of the article that, “No games provide messages about not using violence, and some games reward or require violence and the destruction of objects.” (Thompson p. 592) The genre of this would be a statistical-opinionated article as Kimberly Thompson relies heavily on stats from her own experiment that she uses to persuade the audience that violence can be found in some everyone rated games.

     The final source, coming from Discover Magazine, titled “Let’s End the Debate About Video Games and Violence,” Christopher Ferguson talks about the debate about the effects of the video games that are inflicted on the youth. Ferguson mainly speaks about being a researcher and how he replicates many experiments to find conclusions only supporting “that violent video games had little impact on kids’ aggression, mood, helping behavior or grades.” (Ferguson) This states that video games actually have no effect on children, positively or negatively. He then counters experiments that find a correlation using information from the Supreme Court stating, “any impacts due to video games are nearly impossible to distinguish from the effects of other media, like cartoons and movies.” (Ferguson) The purpose of this magazine article is to persuade the audience that video games does not affect a child at all, so even if violent or not, the game will cause no change in behavior. He claims multiple times throughout the article that “there is no evidence to support these claims that violent media and real-world violence are connected.” (Ferguson) Using the previous evidence, it is clear that Ferguson’s stance on the issue between video games and violence is that there is no correlation. The intended audience that he goes for are mainly people who believe there is a correlation but can also be towards anyone confused about the argument trying to learn more. This is because he first explains the history why video games has always been a link stating in the early 2000s, “groups like the APA began working to connect a methodologically messy and often contradictory set of results to public health concerns about violence.” (Ferguson) Following the history, he talks about his own research where he “examined 101 studies on the subject.” (Ferguson) The genre of this article would be a scientific-historical magazine as Ferguson talks about the history and statistics relating to the false link between video games and violence.

     All together, it is clear that there are many sides to the issues between video games and violence. Articles such as “Consulting American Soldiers and Yakuza Gangsters on Video Game Violence” and “’Lively’ Discussion, Like Many Before It, on Video Games and Violence” are supports that many people take a neutral side towards the discussion. In other cases, articles such as “Let’s End the Debate About Video Games and Violence” and “Violence in E-Rated Video Games” are clear that they either support or go against the correlation of video games and violence. This disagreement exists because both authors are researchers that created their own experiments and conclusions to prove their point. Ferguson would mainly disagree with Thompson in the fact as she has only done a small amount of experiments as he has done over 100. Also there is many bias factors that exist throughout the experiment such as what is considered to be violent. As many disagreements still develop around this topic, one thing that can be agreed on is there seems to be no end to it.

 

Work Cited

“Consulting American Soldiers and Yakuza Gangsters on Video Game Violence.” Nytimes.com Blogs 13 Aug. 2010. Global Reference on the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources. Web. 22 Sept. 2018.

Ferguson, Christopher J. “Let’s End the Debate About Video Games and Violence.” Discover, 19 Feb. 2018, blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2018/02/19/lets-end-the-debate-about-video-games-and-violence/. Video Games and Violence

Rogers, Katie. “‘Lively’ Discussion, Like Many Before It, on Video Games and Violence.” New York Times, 9 Mar. 2018, p. A14(L). Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.central.ezproxy.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A530332151/AONE?u=cuny_centraloff&sid=AONE&xid=d89747d8. Accessed 22 Sept. 2018.

Thompson, Kimberly M, and Kevin Haninger. “Violence in E-Rated Video Games.” JAMA, vol. 286, no. 5, 2001, pp. 591–598.