Debate Task

In class, we debated the effects of video games on the general public and whether or not they make players violent in real life also. Below are a list of points that were made during our debate for both sides of the argument.

YES

  • Violence themed video games induce aggressive behaviour in people during play.
  • Studies have shown links between violent video games and the player’s behaviour.

NO

  • Been proven that video games aid in skill development that can be transferred to real-life situations.
  • Many “Gamers” use video games to relieve themselves of stress and anger.
  • They are not real, they do not mean anything important, everything within the confines of the game is completely fictional and just a simulation.
  • The large majority of testers used in research studies on this topic have only experienced aggressive behaviour changes whilst play the game, once the game is over they will shortly return to the state of mind they had before they began playing.

Conclusion

In my opinion, based on the points mentioned in our debates, I believe video games do not make player’s act in violent ways whilst not playing games. I do agree that violent video games make player’s respond violently but only whilst playing the game and this same link can be found in any competitive sport. The people who commit crimes in the real world and then blame their actions on the things they find in video games are just looking for an excuse to attempt getting away with their crimes. The game did not encourage them to commit real crimes and they are fully aware of their own actions and the consequences they have.

Censorship

  1. Censorship is when content is removed or edited over to stop said content from becoming an issue in the real world, for example, many shows tackle old stereotypes and censor the characters language so that the actor can portray a bad influence character without teaching that behaviour to someone in reality.
  2. Governments regulate the content released by companies and other materials because they aim to remove negative views and language or actions from the eyes of the public as to discourage the behaviour they would see if the content was not censored. Many of these things are done to hide mature content from children so that they can discover these things as adults and can understand the consequences of the actions done by fictional characters.
  3. An example of positive censorship is that children do not run around being irresponsible and offensive when they do not understand the full weight of their actions.

Case Study

Many developers have had to remake games due to the censorship rules in different countries a brilliant look on this is the Censorship Gaming Youtube Channel there is a video addressing how German censor violence in video games. The link below leads to the forementioned video.

In my opinion, Germany’s Government were wrong to censor the games in this way since it did not remove the violence at all it just replaced the images so robots were destroyed instead of humans and this completley ruined the purpose of most video games, even changing the games completely in some cases.