The Good Games of the Night

The Good Games of the Night

4.  The Games of Night

Jeff Brooker- 9L

Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Diablo and Battlefield are a few names of video games.  These are games that society has called “Bad for our children.”  Video games have been dubbed as bad for our children when very little thought has been done on the part of the positives.  Video games have the tendency to been seen as bad for the eyes and brain where it is the opposite in actual fact.  It also is said to create unnecessary violence however many defence companies uses them to cut costs.  In this essay, I point out the positives of video games and why they are vital to society.

Video games such as “Grand Theft Auto” and “Call of Duty” are first person shooting games.  After children have played these games, it has been said that there has been an increase in child related crimes.  This is not true.  According to the New York Times research division, since the increase in video games sales in the 1994, youth related crimes, such as youth burglaries and murders, have more than halved in New York City.  In 1994 there were approximately 500 youth related crimes per 1000 people whereas in 2010 there were approximately 224 youth related crimes per 1000 people.  I believe this is as children in this changing society have more stress, which causes anger, but can take it out on computerised people instead of real people.  I believe this could on a large scale decrease crime.  

Shooting other people that you do not know does happen in real life.  This in actual fact happens every day by millions of men and woman.  Where? In our Defence Force.  These people have to shoot and kill other people to keep us civilians safe from national enemies such as Al Qaeda and The Taliban.  Men and woman in the army have to be trained to kill enemies on the battle field.  Not everyone is emotionally ready to kill any person you see on the street.  Video games can create a feeling of being able to walk around corner and shoot a man.  A game such as “Call of Duty” simulates war and mass shooting.  The army also uses video game simulations to train soldiers.  This is a cost effective way to ready soldiers to work in the field.  They will stand in front of a screen with their weapon simulators and try to shoot computer generated robots and miss civilians.  This method is excellent as the army can use money they saved from real life simulations to pay for new weapon research to protect us, the people.