Videogame Violence

With the upcoming release of the ultra-violent video game 25 to Life, game developers are once again under fire by politicians and activist to rethink the content of their games. 25 to Life is an action shooting game that pits law enforcement against gang members in battle. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) has taken the developer Edios to task for the questionable content of the game. The senator wants this "cop killer" game boycotted by retailers and has even went so far as to appeal to Microsoft and Sony to end their licensing agreement with the game maker (www.afterdawn.com). This is just the latest of games that have come under fire by law makers for the subject material they contain. This has become a fairly hot topic in society today with the rise in violence and popularity of video games such as the Grand Theft Auto, Doom, and Halo series. Many activists feel that these games in the hands of children can lead to insensitivity to violence amongst other things. This leads to the question: are game manufacturers acting unethically by producing ultra-violent or realistic games?

Discussion

I suppose the first thing I should say is: I feel it is in no way the moral responsibility of the game manufacturers to curb the content they put into games. That being said, a few of the reasons they are trying to ban violent video games as according to psychologists is: Children may become more aggressive and develop favorable attitudes about the use of violence to resolve conflicts. Children may become desensitized to violence in the real world around them, less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others, and more willing to tolerate ever-increasing levels of violence. Children may begin to believe that the real world is as mean and dangerous in real life as it appears on the media and in video games (www.salsa.net). To this I ask: what about me? What about people like me? Responsible, moderately well rounded, educated adults? Should I not get to play the games that were intended for me? And the truth is, the games that everyone is up in arms over are made for me, an adult. That's why the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) was implemented. Not unlike movie ratings the ESRB provide information about video and computer game content before u make a purchase. ESRB ratings have two parts: the rating symbols which suggest age appropriateness for the game, and the content descriptors which indicate elements in a game that may have led to the rating symbol or may inform you of questionable content (www.ESRB.com ).If you are under age and you try to get into an R rated movie they ID you unless you have a parents supervision. It is supposed to be the same way for videogames. I worked during the holidays at a video game store and if the person wasn't noticeably of legal age to purchase a certain game we had to ID them. If you did not comply with this you were warned once and then let go. This leads me to a major problem of mine on this subject. Many of the times the kids came back with a parent whom we informed of the rating and the content, most of the time the parents shrugged their shoulders and purchased the game for the child anyway. If a parent shows no concern for the games their kids play, why should a game manufacturer have to? The truth is too many parents look to TV and video games as a baby sitter and then wonder why their kids might have problems later on. I'm not going to turn this into a parenting issue, but in all honesty that does have a lot to do with it. If you make an informed decisions about the games you allow them to play you can keep them away from games that you might object to, also if you teach them right from wrong and reality from fantasy they can perhaps even play violent games with out an adverse affect on their personality. With that being said I still don't feel video games play an adverse role in the actions of kids. After Columbine a lot of media brought to the forefront the fact that