Video Game Violence: Is There Only a Thin Line Between Virtual World and Reality
This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.
“Nothing good ever comes of violence.” This is a quote which is said by Martin Luther. It is ironic because even though the majority of the people view violence as something bad and evil, we still see it daily everywhere; we see it in our favorite TV series, newspaper, computer games etc. It seems as if violence is a part of our culture. Because of this, people are starting to question the effect of exposure to violence on us; many say that violence in media causes us to be violent. Although various kinds of media expose us to violence, video games is one of the most popular things that people believed to have the worst effects on the players. Therefore, many countries now ban video games that are violent.
The focus of my research paper will be to argue against video game policies, specifically Thailand’s. The first source I am going to use is a news article from The Scotsman, August 5, 2008. This article will complicate one of my hypotheses that violence in video game has no influence on the players, because according to the article the murderer claimed that he robbed the taxi because he needed money to play video games and used this method because he thought that it is very easy to do in the video game. He tried to recreate the scene in which the character in the game robs a taxi driver and flees the police by driving the taxi. He failed to flee the police because he doesn’t know how to drive a car, but he also said that he thought he would be able to drive a car by just learning how to by driving one in a video game. This would therefore be challenging for me to argue with, because it is a good counter-example that shows that the video game influenced the murderer so much that he began to mix it with reality.
Comments
I am really interested in this topic. Not only is this about gaming, it is also about society in general and how we continue to generate violence within it. This should be a good topic to research about. Then you narrow your topic down to researching on how violence in video games promotes this violence among the community. Nice Title: it makes the audience think how we are making games more real as time goes on.
Posted by: Jules Sharpe | October 13, 2009 11:15 PM
This is a great topic -- I actually debated writing about this as well. I would like to augment your (already strong) counter-argument by adding that a few cases of violent murders have also been seen in public areas of Japan whose perpetrators have admitted to killing in a style that would have been "tasteful" in video games or at least inspired by popular violent games. I think you should remain open-minded about your thesis until you have gathered enough sources to make a rational decision on whether or not violent games have an effect on real life. It may become very difficult to support your current thesis if your counter examples continue to grow stronger. Good luck, and have fun!
Posted by: Akiko | October 14, 2009 01:21 AM
This topic is awesome because it brings in so many different cultures. This is a world wide problem but it has only been addressed in a few cultures. I think it is fairly narrow but it might be interesting to bring in many other cultures like GTA in America. I like where you are headed though but be sure to keep the descriptions up and explain the laws thoughtfully as main will not understand them
Posted by: JD Haddon | October 14, 2009 01:30 AM