violent video games should not be banned essay

Banning Violent Video Games Argumentative Essay

Introduction: banning violent video games, violent video games should not be banned, violent video games should be banned, conclusion: why video games should not be banned.

The essay is an argumentative one; violent games should not be banned. Recently there has been an endless and fierce debate on whether or not to banned violent video games. For instance, the countries that constitute the European Union are planning to ban some of the European games. However, it is the view of the majority of video games, just like any other games, are there to educate and entertain.

Although there are strong reasons brought forth by those who want violent video games to be banned, here are reasons why we should not; increases self-esteem, reduction of pain, encourages teamwork, sharpening players’ wit, among others (Sterngold, 2006).

With regards to those in support of banning the game, they hold the view that the games continuously poison the minds of the viewers, especially young individuals.

It is worth noting that there are indeed strong points that need to be given a second thought before we rush in banning violent video games. It has been argued and even proved that when kids play such games, especially when the multiplayer type of game is available, then the children get to learn at a very early age to work as a teammate, which requires teamwork. Arguably, this is advantageous as it helps in keeping children together in times of need (Lebrilla, 2010).

For this matter, when they grow up, such individuals will be in a better position to be good team players. This concept has been currently deemed very vital in ensuring the success of an organization. Throughout the game, it is indeed tough to beat the opponent.

However, through concentration, acquisition of skills, and knowledge on how to win, which has been learned from each other, children are capable of the emerging winner. With this, they grow, knowing that to win, there is a need to have a team behind them.

As suggested by Bissell, 2008 violent video games have been thought to help, especially those with very high tempers, to release their anger by not hurting anybody. When very angry and one feels like inflicting pain on another human being or even killing others, it has been thought appropriate to transfer such anger to violent video games. When one engages in a shoot-out with an enemy in a video game, he/she might feel that the mission is accomplished.

Aside from assisting young individuals in sharpening their wits and problem-solving skills, violent video game plays a significant role in helping young individuals, even a few older members of society, to learn how to persevere. On the same line of thought, these games have made it possible for people to have well-coordinated hand and eye movements (Craig et al. 2007).

This has helped in making sure that reflex action/response is normal. The advantage of this is that it will play a significant role in keeping progressive illnesses at bay.

Another major point that is in support of violent video games is that it helps in sustaining the country’s economy. It is apparent that the industry of violent video games has played a significant role in the economic growth of the country. The export of the same product to other nations generates foreign income for the country.

Additionally, a good number of Americans derive their daily bread from the same industry(Konijn et al., 2007). For this reason, banning of violent video games will mean that the unemployment rate will go up, and the money generated from the industry will be lost. The industry generates close to 21 billion dollars annually (Jones & Ponton, 2003).

Additionally, doctors have proved that despite violent games being useful; in releasing anger, it is also helpful in helping a patient reduce pain. The current efforts hospitals show this making to install such games. More importantly, the games help entertain the plays as well as the viewers.

Just like when people feel entertained by watching a football match, violent game provide the same to the affected party. Considering the fact that slightly over 70.0% of American teens play these games, if it is banned, then they will indulge in even more risky activities in their quest to be entertained, for instance, drug abuse (Goldstein, 1998).

It would not be rational if the argument that supports the banning of violent games were not brought to light. It has been brought into the violent limelight game that pollutes the minds of American children.

When young individual engages too much in these games, they are addicted. The result is that they will grow up and may put into practice what they saw. A recent incident where a student walked into an institution of learning and started shooting at others, killing them on the spot, has been linked to violent video games (Anderson & Dill, 2000).

Similarly, just like any other thing that can bring addiction, violent video games, when making a young individual addicted, can be detrimental to their quest to learn. This is because most of the time, whenever they are free will, they spend time playing such games (Ferguson, 2008).

Although it has been argued that the game fosters socialization skills, it is evident that when one plays in non-multiplayer support, they grow up being persons with poor skills to socialize.

From the review of the issue of violent games, even though the game is intense, banning it will bring more harm than good. For those who advocate for the banning, it would be rational to critically analyze the benefits of the game to individuals and even society at large. For instance, it enhances teamwork, helps reduce pain, aids in releasing anger, and improves wit and hand-eye coordination, among others.

However, the disadvantages include polluting or poisoning young individuals, and addiction eats their time hence cannot engage actively in other vital activities. This thus warrants careful consideration from relevant stakeholders such as parents and the government.

Anderson, C. & Dill, K. (2000). “Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings and Behavior in the Laboratory and In Life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 78(4):722.

Ferguson, C. (2008). “Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can Violent Video Games Be a Force for Good?”, Review of General Psychology, 14(1): 68-81.

Konijn, E. et al. (2007). “I Wish I Were a Warrior: The Role of Wishful Identification in the Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Adolescent Boys.” Developmental Psychology, 43(1): 1-12.

Craig, A. et al. (2007). Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy . Oxford University: Oxford University Press.

Bissell, T. (2008). Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter . New York: Macmillan Publishers.

Sterngold, A. (2006). “Violent video games.” Web.

Jones, G. & Ponton, L. (2003). Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence . New York: Basic Books. P. 172.

Goldstein, J. (1998). Why We Watch; The Attraction of Violent Entertainment . Oxford University Oxford University Press. P. 188.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 28). Banning Violent Video Games Argumentative Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/violent-video-games-should-not-be-banned/

"Banning Violent Video Games Argumentative Essay." IvyPanda , 28 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/violent-video-games-should-not-be-banned/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Banning Violent Video Games Argumentative Essay'. 28 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Banning Violent Video Games Argumentative Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/violent-video-games-should-not-be-banned/.

1. IvyPanda . "Banning Violent Video Games Argumentative Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/violent-video-games-should-not-be-banned/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Banning Violent Video Games Argumentative Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/violent-video-games-should-not-be-banned/.

• Multiplayer Online Battle Arena Video Games and Technologies
• Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games
• Should Animals be Used in Research: Argumentative Essay
• Argumentative Essay Writing
• London Olympic Games: Banning Reasons
• Choosing The Best Sharpener for Kitchen
• Political Philosophy: Liberalism and Libertarianism
• Has the Internet Positively or Negatively Impacted Human Society? Argumentative Essay
• Pros and Cons of Abortion to the Society Argumentative Essay
• Division of Labor and Capital Accumulation as Sources of the Wealth of Nations
• Importance of Adopting Children
• Stereotypes of American Citizens
• Social Care in Ireland
• Evaluating the debate between proponents of qualitative and quantitative inquiries
• The Effects of Social Networking Sites on an Individual's Life

Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned Essay Sample

Violent video games have been a hot topic for debate over the past few years. Some argue that they are bad because they teach kids to be more aggressive and less empathetic, while others argue that they don’t cause any harm. In this sample, We are going to discuss why violent video games should not be banned from schools or libraries in the US.

Essay Sample On Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned

• Thesis Statement For Should Video Games Be Banned Essay
• Introduction – Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned Essay
• Main Body – Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned Essay
• Conclusion On Mobile Games Should Not Be Banned Essay

Thesis Statement For Should Video Games Be Banned Essay Violent video games should not be banned from schools or libraries in the US because they do not teach kids to be more aggressive and less empathetic. Introduction – Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned Essay After the tragic mass shootings that have happened recently, there has been a big debate on what caused these people to do this. Some say it is because of mental illness, while others say it is because they played violent video games. Get Non-Plagiarized Custom Essay on Should Video Games Be Banned in USA Order Now Main Body – Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned Essay Now I’m not saying that playing violent video games will make someone go kill everyone in their school, but there are some other things that come along with it. For example, when people play violent video games for hours and hours every day, they are usually isolated from other sources of entertainment like books or sports. Also, kids are naturally prone to violence anyway because they are still learning about how to deal with their emotions at an early age. When you don’t teach them healthy ways of dealing with their negative emotions, they’ll end up taking it out on other people. Another reason why violent video games should not be banned is because of the benefits that come along with them. For example, research has shown that kids who play violent video games usually have better hand-eye coordination and the ability to multi-task. Also, there are studies that show that playing violent video games can actually make people more empathetic towards others when they put themselves in someone else’s shoes. Buy Customized Essay on Should Video Games Be Banned At Cheapest Price Order Now Conclusion On Mobile Games Should Not Be Banned Essay In conclusion, I think that banning violent video games from schools or libraries would not solve the problem at all because there are some benefits to playing them. Not only does it make kids more athletic and smarter, but it actually makes them more empathetic towards others. I think that if you are going to ban violent video games, then you should also go ahead and ban all other forms of entertainment, or else you could be taking away something that can actually help kids learn instead of just sitting in a corner being bored out of their mind. Hire USA Experts for Should Video Games Be Banned Essay Order Now

Get Assistance From Student Assignment Help At Affordable Price

Get the best essay writing assistance from the Professional Essay Writers of StudentsAssignmentHelp.com. You can check the essay samples given on our website to have a knowledge of what kind of writings our team provides. We provide assistance on different types of essays that students can require to write in their university.

Three-layered essay to five sections essays everything can be written by the given experts and that is too at very low cost. Emergency essay writing services are also given by the top-rated essayist to the graduates as well. Above all, the most important help that cannot be avoided by the college and school students for their essay writing work is essay editing help for the sake of removing major and minor mistakes from it.

Explore More Relevant Posts

• Nike Advertisement Analysis Essay Sample
• Mechanical Engineer Essay Example
• Reflective Essay on Teamwork
• Career Goals Essay Example
• Importance of Family Essay Example
• Causes of Teenage Depression Essay Sample
• Red Box Competitors Essay Sample
• Deontology Essay Example
• Biomedical Model of Health Essay Sample-Strengths and Weaknesses
• Effects Of Discrimination Essay Sample
• Meaning of Freedom Essay Example
• Women’s Rights Essay Sample
• Employment & Labor Law USA Essay Example
• Sonny’s Blues Essay Sample
• COVID 19 (Corona Virus) Essay Sample
• Why Do You Want To Be A Nurse Essay Example
• Family Planning Essay Sample
• Internet Boon or Bane Essay Example
• Does Access to Condoms Prevent Teen Pregnancy Essay Sample
• Child Abuse Essay Example
• Disadvantage of Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) Essay Sample
• Essay Sample On Zika Virus
• Wonder Woman Essay Sample
• Teenage Suicide Essay Sample
• Primary Socialization Essay Sample In USA
• Role Of Physics In Daily Life Essay Sample
• Are Law Enforcement Cameras An Invasion of Privacy Essay Sample
• Why Guns Should Not Be Banned
• Neolithic Revolution Essay Sample
• Home Schooling Essay Sample
• Cosmetology Essay Sample
• Sale Promotion Techniques Sample Essay
• How Democratic Was Andrew Jackson Essay Sample
• Baby Boomers Essay Sample
• Veterans Day Essay Sample
• Why Did Japan Attack Pearl Harbor Essay Sample
• Component Of Criminal Justice System In USA Essay Sample
• Self Introduction Essay Example
• Divorce Argumentative Essay Sample
• Bullying Essay Sample

Get Free Assignment Quote

Enter Discount Code If You Have, Else Leave Blank

Violent video games: content, attitudes, and norms

• Original Paper
• Open access
• Published: 16 October 2023
• Volume 25 , article number  52 , ( 2023 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Alexander Andersson   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4911-3853 1 &
• Per-Erik Milam 1  

3456 Accesses

Explore all metrics

Violent video games (VVGs) are a source of serious and continuing controversy. They are not unique in this respect, though. Other entertainment products have been criticized on moral grounds, from pornography to heavy metal, horror films, and Harry Potter books. Some of these controversies have fizzled out over time and have come to be viewed as cases of moral panic. Others, including moral objections to VVGs, have persisted. The aim of this paper is to determine which, if any, of the concerns raised about VVGs are legitimate. We argue that common moral objections to VVGs are unsuccessful, but that a plausible critique can be developed that captures the insights of these objections while avoiding their pitfalls. Our view suggests that the moral badness of a game depends on how well its internal logic expresses or encourages the players’ objectionable attitudes. This allows us to recognize that some games are morally worse than others—and that it can be morally wrong to design and play some VVGs—but that the moral badness of these games is not necessarily dependent on how violent they are.

Similar content being viewed by others

Value, violence, and the ethics of gaming

Michael Goerger

Integrating Poor Taste into the Ongoing Debate on the Morality of Violent Video Games

Garry Young

Violent video games and morality: a meta-ethical approach

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Violent video games (VVGs) are a source of serious and continuing controversy. They are not unique in this respect, though. Other entertainment products have been criticized on moral grounds, from pornography to heavy metal, horror films, and Harry Potter books. Some of these controversies have fizzled out over time and have come to be viewed as cases of moral panic. Footnote 1  Others, including moral objections to VVGs, have persisted. The aim of this paper is to determine which, if any, of the concerns raised about VVGs are legitimate.

Moral objections to VVGs have three main components, which can be understood as answers to the following three questions:

Moral Question: Why are VVGs morally bad or wrong?

Comparison Question: Why are they worse than other forms of violent entertainment?

Regulation Question: What should be done about them?

For example, one might argue that VVGs desensitize players to violence thereby making them more likely to act violently themselves, that VVGs do this more effectively than violent films or books, and that VVGs should therefore be prohibited or strongly regulated.

In this paper, we evaluate the most common answers to the moral and comparison questions, but set aside the regulation question. Not only does regulation raise a number of other ethical considerations—including free speech, paternalism, and policy design and enforcement—it also requires that we first understand the comparative badness of VVGs.

The paper is structured as follows. Section “ Background and preliminaries ” gives a brief overview of the controversies surrounding VVGs and explains how we will structure and focus our evaluation. Section “ The causation argument ” considers the claim that it is wrong to design and play VVGs in virtue of their bad consequences and concludes that the empirical evidence that playing VVGs causes bad outcomes is inconclusive, and that even if we grant that they have bad effects, VVGs are not distinctively bad in this respect. Section “ The violence argument ” considers the claim that VVGs are bad in virtue of features like realism that are independent of their consequences, but we conclude that existing accounts of these features fail to adequately explain why some VVGs should be considered morally objectionable. Having rejected these accounts of the comparative badness of VVGs, Sect. “ The internal logic of violent video games ” offers an alternative explanation.

Background and preliminaries

There is a history of blaming VVGs for violent acts such as school shootings, mass shootings, and murder in the United States. Footnote 2 Games such as Mortal Kombat, Doom , and Manhunt have all caused controversy in the past. They depict gory, brutal, and gratuitous violence as entertainment. For the uninitiated it may be inexplicable why anyone would enjoy what is happening on screen. Hence, the popular sentiment seems to be that there must be something morally bad about these games.

Since VVGs have been picked out as especially bad, we want to investigate whether it is justified to single them out for criticism. We will argue that most, but not all, common criticisms of VVGs are unjustified. Moreover, any justified criticism will also apply to other forms of entertainment. Thus, for any particular VVG, we must conclude either that it is morally permissible to design and play it or that it is morally wrong to create and consume other relevantly similar entertainment products. Which conclusion is warranted will depend on the details of the case.

However, there are multiple ongoing debates about the comparative badness of VVGs, so, before making any substantive claims, let us first explain how we will structure and focus our investigation.

Targets . While concerns about VVGs appear to be about the video games themselves, games are not natural evils like an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. They are designed and played—not to mentioned commissioned and distributed—by moral agents. We therefore focus on the two most plausible targets of these criticisms: players and developers. Insofar as a game is criticized on moral grounds, we take this to be a criticism either of those who created its content or those who created the particular instances of violence by playing the game. Some may object that critics should direct their objections and blame at the companies that commission the games and the governments that fail to regulate them properly. Maybe so. But such criticisms presuppose that there is something objectionable about the games themselves or about playing them.

Topics . Even limiting our attention to developers and players leaves many issues to consider. Multiplayer online gaming has given rise to concerns about toxic environments and interactions, which may be influenced by the violent content of many of these games. This is a serious problem and one where reforms are possible and can make a real difference to the well-being and experience of gamers, but we will not address it here. Nor will we consider the moral status of violent assault on another player’s avatar—e.g. robbing them for items, killing them out of spite, or ‘griefing’ them. These kinds of behaviors also deserve attention, but they introduce potentially confounding variables into an analysis because they involve moral agents who can be harmed through the treatment of their avatars. We therefore limit our focus to single-player VVGs Footnote 3 —i.e., video games that include violence or violent themes—including those singled out in debates about the ethics of VVGs, like Doom, Grand Theft Auto V, Last of Us II.

It should also be noted that while we use the term “VVG” to denote a specific category of games, what we are essentially interested in is moral agency in games in general. However, since most discussions relating to this topic focuses on violence and VVGs, that is where our main focus will be as well. Having restricted our task in these ways, let us now consider why it might be morally wrong to develop or play VVGs.

The causation argument

Probably the most common objection to VVGs is that they have (or risk) bad effects. According to the Causation Argument, video game violence is morally bad because it causes players to be more aggressive and violent, which is bad both for the players themselves and for those who are therefore more likely to be victims of their aggression and violence (e.g. classmates, family members, coworkers). This claim—that VVGs influence players’ behavior outside of the game—is sometimes called the ‘contamination thesis’ (Goerger, 2017 : p. 97). Peter Singer puts the point succinctly: “The risks are great and outweigh whatever benefits violent video games may have. The evidence may not be conclusive, but it is too strong to be ignored any longer” (Singer, 2007 ).

Because this moral argument relies on empirical premises, it is important to spell out what would constitute a strong empirical case against VVGs. We identify four criteria:

The violent content of VVGs must cause the bad effects.

The bad effects must be worse than other tolerable forms of violent entertainment.

The bad effects must counterbalance whatever good effects these games have.

There must be sufficient consensus among researchers about (i), (ii), and (iii). Footnote 4

Let us be clear about these requirements. One need not show that VVGs are entirely, or even overall, bad in order to condemn them on moral grounds. Societies rightly criticize and regulate many products that are overall bad even while acknowledging that they are good in some respects (e.g. cigarettes). Societies sometimes even criticize products that are good overall on the grounds that they should be better (e.g. unsafe cars or energy inefficient appliances). Insofar as the Causation Argument is concerned with the effects of VVGs, our suggestion is simply that we think like consequentialists when assessing them. We should be concerned with all the effects and with everyone who is affected; we should be concerned with the magnitudes of the effects, their likelihood , and our confidence in the empirical evidence of their risks and consequences; and we should assess these effects relative to all available alternatives .

We can start with the empirical case against VVGs. The large empirical literature suggests four ways that players might be affected. First, players may become more aggressive after playing VVGs (Anderson et al., 2010 ; Lin, 2013 ; Kepes et al., 2017 ; Farrar et al., 2017 ; Shao & Wang, 2019 ). Measures of aggression range from self-reports of engaging in aggressive behavior to indictors like “how long a participant blows an air horn at an opponent after playing a violent game” (Goerger, 2017 : p. 98). Second, VVGs may desensitize players to violence (Deselms & Altman, 2003 ; Funk et al., 2004 ; Carnagey et al., 2007 ; Bushman & Anderson, 2009 ; Engelhardt et al., 2011 ). Desensitization is also measured in different ways, including how long it takes for participants to help others in (simulated) need or how lenient a sentence they give an imagined criminal. Third, it has been suggested that VVGs train players how to kill (Grossman & DeGaetano, 1999 ; Leonard, 2007 ; Bushman, 2018 ). For instance, Bushman showed that players firing a real gun at a human-shaped mannequin were more likely to aim at the mannequin’s head after having played a violent first-person shooter (FPS) game. Footnote 5 Fourth, Wonderly and others suggest that playing VVGs, especially given their increasingly realistic depictions of violence, may diminish one’s capacity for empathy (Wonderly, 2008 ; Funk et al., 2004 ; Bartholow et al., 2005 ). If any of these four causal hypotheses is correct, then condition (i) would seem to be satisfied.

However, there is significant disagreement about these findings and their significance. First, none of the existing research claims that playing VVGs has directly caused anyone to commit actual acts of violence in the real world. This is not surprising, but it is a notable point of contrast with other products and behaviors that we might wish to regulate or ban (e.g. dangerous toys or incitements to violence). Second, there is disagreement about how to interpret the results of the studies cited above. Some have questioned the practical significance of increased aggressive behavior measured in a lab environment (Ferguson and Kilburn 2010 ; Goerger, 2017 ; Hall et al., 2011 ). Others have argued that the field suffers from a publication bias that favors finding an effect of VVGs on aggression (Ferguson, 2007 ; Ferguson & Kilburn, 2009 ; Hilgard et al., 2017 ). Footnote 6 Third, and perhaps most interesting, some have argued that it is the form of a game, rather than its content, that causes aggression. One study suggests that playing games that thwart a player’s fundamental need for competence led to increased aggression (Przybylski et al., 2014 ). Another showed that competition rather than violence causes aggression (Dowsett & Jackson, 2019 ). These studies suggest that features other than violence are of equal or greater concern. Thus, while there is provocative evidence about the bad effects of playing VVGs, there is insufficient scientific consensus. Footnote 7

Suppose that empirical studies had decisively demonstrated that VVGs cause increased aggression and violence. Do we have reason to believe that the bad effects of VVGs are worse than the bad effects of other violent entertainment that we presently tolerate? Some research suggests that VVGs cause more aggressive behavior than watching violent movies or violent gameplay because they are interactive (Lin, 2013 ). However, Lin points out that, “very little prior research has directly addressed the issue of media interactivity with regard to violent effects” ( 2013 : p. 535). Thus, while there is some support for condition (ii), there is far too little evidence to reasonably conclude that VVGs have worse effects than other violent entertainment (e.g. movies, television, books, or board games).

Even if the evidence supporting the Causation Argument satisfied conditions (i) and (ii), we could not yet condemn VVGs. We must also consider the benefits of playing these games. Studies suggest that some non-violent games enhance prosocial behavior among gamers (Sestir & Bartholow, 2010 ), that cooperative games decrease aggression (Gentile et al., 2009 ; Schmierbach, 2010 ), and that video games strengthen our ability to engage in ethical decision making (Madigan, 2016 ). We should be as critical of these studies as we are of those that condemn VVGs, but our point is simply that potential harms should be weighed against potential benefits. One compelling point in favor of VVGs is their incredible popularity. While it is difficult to find concrete and specific information, the following data give a rough picture of gamers’ revealed preferences: as of 2019 more than 2.5 billion people play video games, the average gamer plays more than 6 h per week, roughly half of that play is on consoles and computers (the rest is on tablets or phones), 9% of games are rated M for Mature (the category that contains most controversial VVGs), but those games are among the most popular in terms of sales. For example, Grand Theft Auto V is the third highest selling video game, and the highest grossing entertainment product, of all time (Narula, 2019 ; Limelight, 2020 ). Another compelling point is the suggestion that VVGs, like all games, are experiments in agency. For designers they are an art form whose medium is the agency of the player. And for players they are an opportunity to experiment with the alternative forms of agency created by designers (Nguyen, 2019 : p. 423).

The strength of the Causation Argument depends on various empirical claims. We have shown that none of the relevant claims has been established to a sufficient level of confidence. Furthermore, even if they had been, an outcome-focused argument must assess VVGs in the same light as other risky phenomena and it is not obvious why we should view VVGs as overall worse than many products and activities we accept (or tolerate). Nonetheless, if VVGs are harmful to the players, even relatively weak empirical evidence might be sufficient to ground a moral imperative to develop and play non-violent games rather than VVGs.

The violence argument

Perhaps it is not the effects of VVGs that make them morally objectionable but rather some feature of the games themselves. A second kind of argument, call it the Violence Argument, pursues this line of thought, arguing that VVGs are bad because they represent violence for the purpose of entertainment and that it is therefore (at least pro tanto ) wrong to develop and play such games. Footnote 8

Of course, many types of media represent violence, whether for educational purposes (e.g. non-fiction and journalism) or for entertainment (e.g. poetry, novels, comics, film, and television). Thus, if we are justified in appreciating or tolerating violence in these genres, then the Violence Argument must show that the ways VVGs represent violence are distinctively bad. The most common suggestions are that they are distinctively bad because they are much more realistic, interactive, and immersive.

The depiction of violence in video games has become more realistic as technology has improved. While Mortal Kombat and Doom’s 16-bit violence provoked American parents in the 1990s, they could scarcely have imagined the high-fidelity violence of games such as The Last of Us II. Nothing is left to the imagination as headshots leave a spray of blood and brains, heads are smashed to pieces with baseball bats, all while the victims plead for mercy or shriek in agony. These kinds of advances led Waddington to worry that, as video game violence becomes more realistic, it will be increasingly difficult to differentiate real from simulated transgressions ( 2007 : p. 127).

However, in order to support the Violence Argument, it must be the case that VVGs represent violence in a way that is more realistic than other media and that more realistic representations of violence are morally worse than less realistic representations.

On the first point, video game violence does not seem more realistic than violence in other media. Consider two related forms of realism: content realism and context realism. Footnote 9 A representation is content realistic to the degree that it depicts what would happen in real life. For example, a game might accurately depict how bones break or what happens when a bullet strikes a torso. In this respect, VVGs can be surprisingly realistic, but less so than many films (e.g., Saving Private Ryan ) and much less so than many real videos that people watch for amusement (e.g., the watermelon catapult). Moreover, their content realism is mostly limited to the visual modality. A written representation of violence might have similar content realism, but no visual component (outside of imagination). A representation is context realistic to the degree that it represents a situation that could plausibly occur. This is somewhat relative. A war setting is surely more realistic than, say, battling demons on another planet, but is World War II a realistic context for a millennial gamer? Here too, most VVGs seem less realistic than other media, which often depict disturbing forms of violence for dramatic purposes (e.g., intimate partner violence or police brutality).

On the second point, representing violence may sometimes be worse if it is more realistic—even ignoring any harmful effects on the player like stress or nightmares. Some realistic contexts seem obviously morally worse than others. Public reactions to games seem to match this intuition, as when many objected to The Slaying of Sandy Hook , whose setting was the location of a tragic school shooting. However, this worry does not necessarily transfer to those VVGs that are common targets of criticism, like the Grand Theft Auto series.

The game (GTA) not only depicts drug and gang related violence, but it presents that violence in a largely consequence free environment. Further, this crime is ‘real’ in the sense that similar crimes and criminal enterprises currently control broad swaths of metropolitan areas like Los Angeles … Players are, essentially, being entertained by the misery of others and are thus disrespecting the object of value (Goerger, 2017 : p. 102).

While there is plenty to criticize about GTA , Georger’s comments are mistaken. First, he seriously misrepresents (or misunderstands) the degree to which GTA accurately depicts the level of crime in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles. There are no “broad swaths” of American cities that are controlled by criminal enterprises. Second, while such games do make light of real violence, these representations are neither more realistic nor more violent than many films and television series. Thus, even if we accept that representing violence can be morally bad, it is not the case that most VVGs, including common targets of criticism, are worse in this respect than other tolerated forms of media.

Interaction

Another salient feature of VVGs is that they are interactive in a way that some other media are not. While a movie audience may hope that Woody Harrelson decides to stop at a supermarket and kill some zombies in order to get a Twinkie, a player of Redneck Rampage can make that happen. The player’s experience is interactive insofar as their actions, “make a significant difference to what happens in the environment” (Chalmers, 2017 : p. 312). Some therefore press a version of the Violence Argument according to which being a passive consumer of violent films or books is less bad than “performing” violent acts in a video game (Tillson, 2018 ). Footnote 10

Our view is that violent interaction itself, ignoring the realism and immersive experience of the interaction, is not morally bad. Moreover, even if it were, it would not be worse than other forms of entertainment. A writer interacts with her fictional characters with a similar degree of agency as a gamer does with the non-playable characters (NPCs) she encounters. The writer’s interaction is unrealistically one-sided, but she can nonetheless choose to kill them off and to do so in a brutal fashion [e.g., (redacted to avoid spoilers)]. This does not seem bad at all. Or consider games of make-believe. Kids playing war with toy guns is just as interactive as video gaming. In order for there to be a war, the kids must perform some actions, just as a player must control her avatar in order for there to be in-game violence. Traditional roleplaying games and board games—whose content can be just as violent as VVGs—requires a similar degree of interaction. In order to claim that VVGs are worse than other violent entertainment, one would have to show that video game interactions are different in kind from the forms of make-believe involved in writing fiction, roleplaying, and other violent entertainment. If anything, the fact that enemies are programmed and that experience is mediated by controllers and other devices would seem to make video games less interactive than your average game of Cops and Robbers or Dungeons and Dragons. We therefore conclude that VVGs are not worse than other violent entertainment in virtue of being interactive.

Finally, VVGs might seem morally bad, and worse than other media, because players can more easily become immersed in the violence of the game. This is bad because, regardless of whether a game is visually realistic, it is bad to experience that violence as real. If part of the value of games is that they allow us to inhabit a ‘temporary practical agency’ (Nguyen, 2019 : p. 438) within which we can “occupy alter-ego points of view and practice new strategies by accessing possible spaces of action and affective responses” (Schellenberg, 2013 : p. 509), then the value of such experiments presumably depends on the design of those practical agencies and the contexts in which players inhabit them, including whether they are suffused with violence that is experienced by the player as real.

Immersion occurs when a player experiences the game as if it is real or as if she herself were experiencing the events of the game in the shoes of her character. One dimension of immersion is ‘presence,’ or “the sense of being present at that perspective” (Chalmers, 2017 : p. 312). The immersiveness of a game depends, in part, on its realism. Content and context realism can make immersion more likely, but perspectival fidelity is also important (Ramirez, 2019 ). A representation has perspectival fidelity to the degree that the structure of the experience is realistic. For example, a video game has lower perspectival fidelity if the player uses a controller rather than a VR set up, if the representation includes non-diegetic sound (e.g., music) or a heads-up display (e.g., location, health, remaining ammo), and if the point of view is third- rather than first-person. Importantly, VVGs are unlikely to have greater perspectival fidelity than other media, except insofar as they are more likely to have a first-person perspective. Footnote 11 However, even in this respect the experience they provide has lower fidelity than, say, children playing war, teens playing paintball, or adults performing historical recreations of famous battles.

A more general problem with the argument that VVGs are bad because players are more likely to have an immersive experience of violence is that it is simply not clear whether being immersed in a VVG is worse than being immersed in another violent or disturbing source of entertainment. For example, films and novels are generally praised when they effectively draw in a viewer. Such praise may reflect their aesthetic value, which is compatible with being morally bad, but the same could be said about VVGs. Footnote 12

An objection

At this point, defenders of the Violence Argument might object that, by addressing these factors in isolation, we have made a strawman of their position. Movies can be realistic but not interactive; novels can be immersive but not interactive; tabletop roleplaying games can be immersive but are not usually realistic; and kids playing war can be interactive but lacks a certain kind of realism. The problem with VVGs—and what makes them distinctive among violent forms of entertainment—is precisely that they are realistic, interactive, and immersive.

If the problem is the combination, then VVGs might be distinctively morally bad even if possessing just one of these features is tolerable. Just as a gun is composed of innocuous pieces which, once assembled, constitute a dangerous weapon, so the combination of realism, interactivity, and immersiveness may render video game violence morally objectionable.

However, the problem with this line of argument can be seen by reflecting further on the analogy. The problem with an assembled gun is not that all of its components are in one place. The problem is that a functioning handgun affords certain actions that its unassembled pieces do not. Footnote 13 This is not true of VVGs—or, at least, the evidence for this claim remains inconclusive. In order for the combination of realism, interactivity, and immersion to render video game violence distinctively bad, opponents of VVGs must show either that developing such games makes them dangerous (the Causation Argument) or that this combination is itself distinctively bad (the Violence Argument).

This latter point seems to be what Ali ( 2023 ) alludes to in relation to virtual reality experiences: “VR pushes the virtual closer to the nonvirtual, making, e.g., VR experiences as valuable (in reproductions), or closer in value (as simulations), to their nonvirtual counterparts” (Ali, 2023 : p. 241). It seems plausible that realism, interactivity, and immersion can enhance one’s experience of some piece of entertainment—as actors in films and plays can attest. However, Ali’s ( 2023 , 2015 ) account falls short when it comes to explaining what makes a VVG morally objectionable. According to his view, badness varies with realism. This may be true for reproductions and simulations, which, by definition, vary with realism. Yet, it is not obviously true for video games, where the badness appears to be dependent on other factors. Ali ( 2015 ) highlights one aspect that appears to be the decisive factor for why this is the case. VR simulations, unlike VVGs, lack context and story. Footnote 14 Thus, in order to make the case that virtual violence can be morally bad even in games where the violence is situated within a narrative and performed in pursuit of a goal (i.e., VVGs), we must look for explanations elsewhere. In the next section, we consider alternative critiques of video games and offer an account of our own.

The internal logic of violent video games

We have argued that the level of concern about the outcomes of developing and playing VVGs and about the fact that VVGs are realistic, interactive, and immersive is unjustified. However, there may nonetheless be something morally objectionable about developing or playing VVGs. In this final section, we try to capture the kernel of truth at the heart of the widespread and persistent objections to video game violence by identifying what we take to be a reasonable concern. Our account steers a middle course between moral panic and facile defenses of VVGs by embracing the similarities and continuities between violent and non-violent video games, as well as between video games and other forms of entertainment. In doing so, we build on other recent arguments that have illuminated legitimate ethical concerns about video games, while suggesting that these arguments indict video game violence in ways that they fail to recognize.

We suggest that the most plausible moral objection to VVGs is that some of them generate or perpetuate morally objectionable norms of appropriate violence—i.e., norms of when violence is an appropriate response to a situation. This objection suggests that violence is indeed problematic, but also that it is one dimension of a more general moral concern.

One way to assess VVGs is to imagine uncontroversially immoral games and isolate their objectionable features. It would be reasonable to condemn both the developers and the players of racist or misogynistic games in which the aim is to, say, exterminate Jews or sexually assault women. For many, such concerns depend neither on the kind of effects identified by the Causation Argument nor on their realism, interactivity, or immersion (Patridge, 2011 ). A natural explanation of what precisely makes such games objectionable is that it is wrong to be or act in racist or misogynistic ways and the developers and players of such games are (usually) acting in these ways simply by developing or playing the game. For example, we might say that a misogynistic game either subordinates women or depicts their subordination, and that players participate in that subordination—or at least demonstrates a failure of sensitivity to and sympathy for women (Patridge, 2011 : p. 310)—by playing the games, even if the women depicted are not real.

If one accepts this kind of explanation, one might further argue that non-racist and non-misogynistic VVGs could have content that is similar in morally relevant ways. Footnote 15 If a misogynistic game can subordinate women, then a game where the player aims to kill enemies can subordinate whichever group is depicted as the enemy. Just as misogynistic games depict female characters as fitting targets of assault or abuse, violent games depict certain characters as fitting targets of physical violence. And if sexual violence is bad, in part, because it is violence, then removing the sexual dimension cannot render the game morally innocuous—though it would certainly make it less bad. Call this the Analogy Argument .

This argument has a certain plausibility, but does not succeed as stated. To see why, consider two ways in which the defender of VVGs might reply. First, they could reply that what is morally objectionable is not the content of a game, but how one plays it. One who revels in killing innocent bystanders is acting wrongly in a way that a person who plays the same game in order to complete it as quickly and bloodlessly as possible is not. Call this the Sadism Reply . On this way of thinking, it is the mental state of the player, not the content of the game that explains its badness.

The inadequacy of the Sadism Reply is fairly obvious. Sadism—understood as taking pleasure in the wrongful treatment of others (i.e., in moral evil)—is not the only attitude we find morally objectionable. Schadenfreude—understood as taking pleasure in the non-moral suffering of others (i.e., natural evil)—is another, and there are more, from racism and sexism to simple indifference to others’ well-being. If sadism in VVGs is problematic, then so are these others attitudes. Moreover, non-violent games can be played in sadistic ways—e.g., choosing, in The Sims , to drown your neighbors in your swimming pool—and are therefore open to the same critiques, which seems implausible. Finally, it is unclear how we can condemn a player’s sadistic pleasure in doing virtual violence when we cannot condemn virtual violence itself. The wrongness of taking sadistic pleasure in another’s suffering arguably presumes the wrongness of causing that suffering, but the Sadism Reply attempts to deny the latter while shifting criticism to the former.

Second, the defender of VVGs could point out that misogyny is morally objectionable because its targets—women—are an oppressed group in society. Call this the Power Reply . On this way of thinking, an otherwise identical gender-reversed game, where women victimize men, would not be objectionable in the same way. And, they might say, what we find in most VVGs is precisely that, violence that is admittedly gratuitous but nonetheless morally acceptable—or at least tolerable—because it is not gendered. (Similar points could be made about other dimensions of oppression.) Patridge argues that the content of some video games has “incorrigible social meaning” that targets women and marginalized groups ( 2011 : p. 308). For example, the meaning of a black character eating watermelon is explained by particular social realities (e.g., the persistence of demeaning racial stereotypes) and is incorrigible in the sense that it is difficult to interpret in any other way because of those realities (i.e., there is no plausible interpretation of that image that does not reference those stereotypes). However, Patridge suggests that violent content often either lacks social meaning or has social meaning that is reasonably interpretable in a way that does not implicate some reprehensible feature of our shared moral reality, like racism, misogyny, or homophobia ( 2011 : p. 310).

Even if Patridge is right that most video game violence itself is unlikely to have the incorrigible social meaning of games like Custer’s Revenge , it does not follow that it does not implicate reprehensible features of our shared moral reality. Whether it does is an open question. Content with incorrigible social meaning implicates our shared moral reality by forcing us to recognize that some words, images, or ideas are inextricably linked to hateful and prejudicial ideologies. If video game violence can itself implicate other reprehensible features, what might those features be and how would they be implicated? Our answer is that power norms—i.e. norms of domination and subordination—are just one type of objectionable norm that can be built into the ‘logic’ of a game. Footnote 16 Another type is norms of appropriate violence, which, while often bound up with power norms, are separable. We would rightly criticize a society whose logic of appropriate physical violence included, say, occasions when one is frustrated with a coworker—and this is true independently of the coworkers’ respective social status. But if this is right, then why is a game whose logic of appropriate violence includes anyone who gets in the way of your mission not objectionable on similar grounds? Thus, while both replies warrant revisions and qualifications of the Analogy Argument, we can begin to see how a revised version of the argument might be successful.

Call this revision of the Analogy Argument the Internal Logic Argument (ILA). The ‘logic’ of a video game is the structure, incentives, and constraints that guide player behavior. It is a matter of what the player can do and what they are encouraged to do in the game. In other words, it is the set of ideas (mission/quest, combat, survival) and practices (enacting those ideas via the means provided and avoiding obstacles to doing so) that allow the player to have a successful playthrough—e.g., to progress in the game, to be enjoyable, and be an opportunity to engage in the ‘art of agency’ (Nguyen, 2019 ). Footnote 17 Understood in this way, the logic of a game includes what Nguyen calls its “value clarity,” in that it stipulates a clear structure and conditions for success ( 2020 : 20). However, whereas Nguyen is most concerned about players applying the simplified logic of a video game to contexts where values are more opaque and complex, we are concerned with the content of a game’s internal logic. Our suggestion is that the logic of a game can express, encourage, and legitimate objectionable attitudes and norms of appropriate violence.

As noted above, games such as Custer’s Revenge can express attitudes of hatred and prejudice by targeting specific groups in its gameplay. When it comes to VVGs, Postal 2 , whose tongue-in-cheek comments are prompted when excessive and degrading violence is exerted on innocent bystanders, expresses a lax attitude towards violent behavior. The logic of the game, manifested in minor rewards, treats civilians as fair game when the player’s character is on his way to pick up milk from the store.

A game’s logic and gameplay mechanics can also encourage problematic player behavior. The internal logic of some games is straightforward and explicit. A game may have an obvious theme that directly guides gameplay (e.g., Duck Hunt or Super Columbine Massacre ), or it may incentivize particular ways of playing by awarding points, experience, and trophies for particular results. But a game’s explicit themes, rewards, and punishments do not exhaust its logic. Just like real life, games are full of subtle incentives and nudges that shape how one behaves. Examples include whether a particular NPC can be killed, how players’ treatment of NPCs affects their success, and how the design of a level or quest privileges particular strategies for completing it. Footnote 18 A game embodies norms of appropriate violence based on how violence is afforded by the structure of the game (whether enemies can be avoided, how they can be dealt with, what kinds of items one can acquire and how frequently, etc.). Christopher Bartel gives a relevant example from Grand Theft Auto IV , in which the player is forced to shoot their way out of a bank robbery scenario by attacking the police ( 2015 : p. 290). It is not possible to try to evade the police or succeed in the scenario in any other way.

Miguel Sicart has argued that developers set the ethical boundaries of a game through the formal structure of the game (e.g., game rules) and the actions afforded to the player (e.g., game mechanics). As a result, games are “always ethically relevant systems, since they constrain the agency of an ethical being” (Sicart, 2009 : p. 6). We extend this idea, holding that if a game can constrain players’ behavior, then it can also funnel their behavior in particular directions—though the influence the game exerts may not reflect any intention on the part of the designer. For example, in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City the player can have sex with a prostitute in order to temporarily increase their maximum health. This is not a necessary feature, since the success of a playthrough in Vice City is not dependent on the player’s ability to buy sex. However, it represents a decision by the game designers which codes this act as ‘good’ by increasing the player’s max health.

If a game can express and encourage certain morally problematic attitudes and behaviors, it can also legitimate those attitudes and behaviors. Just as “games threaten us with a fantasy of moral clarity” (Nguyen, 2020 : p. 21), some ways of playing VVGs and the attitudes expressed by doing so may extend beyond the game. In one of the main missions of GTA V , titled “By the book”, the player is forced to torture an NPC in order to progress in the main story. The player can only achieve a “gold rank” on the mission if they waterboard, electrocute, and pull out the teeth of the NPC without killing him. Not only does the logic of this specific mission express and encourage certain attitudes towards torture. It may also legitimate the practice by presenting it as a viable means to an end or a “necessary evil”.

One might share our concern about how the internal logic of video games may legitimate certain attitudes and norms, but deny that violent content is a serious problem. Nguyen agrees that games can exert a subtle and malign influence on our values, but claims to be “more worried about games breeding Wall Street profiteers than…about their breeding serial killers” ( 2020 : p. 190). Footnote 19 He gives two reasons for this. First, he finds plausible Young’s suggestion that fictional game events tend not to be exported to players’ real lives. This would presumably include a game’s norms of appropriate violence. Second, he is more concerned that some games—especially those that result from gamifying activities like exercise, academic performance, etc.—will seduce players with a misleading but attractive “value clarity” ( 2020 : Chap. 9). In brief, Nguyen argues that part of the attraction of games is their clear and simple values—complete the quest, get the high score, kill your enemies—but that, unlike fictional game events, this simplicity can infiltrate players’ real world thinking in a problematic way. In particular, it can cause them (a) to view the real world through the lens of simplified values, (b) to be drawn to simplified values over the more complex values that are needed to navigate our messy moral lives, and (c) to “lose facility and readiness with … subtler value concepts” ( 2020 : p. 214). On this view, it’s unlikely that we’ll come to value violence of the sort we experience in games, and more likely that we’ll embrace simplified and gamified versions of our ordinary values, whether moral or non-moral.

However, we think Nguyen, like Patridge, fails to recognize how his reasoning might ground a legitimate worry about video game violence. The ILA suggests that violent content might be problematic precisely in the ways he thinks values might be undermined. Admittedly, lots of video game violence is unlikely to influence our values or norms simply because it is easily set aside when one stops playing. There is little chance that my in-game goal of winning a martial arts tournament while brutalizing and humiliating my opponents will influence my actual behavior or even instrumentalize my attitudes toward martial arts competition. However, the ILA is concerned precisely about in-game norms that appear innocuous and are accepted without reflection. There is no reason to think that violence norms are not subject to the same seductions of clarity as other values. Moreover, even if some violence norms are unlikely to be applied in the real world, an internal logic that expresses or legitimates those norms is still morally objectionable (e.g., Postal 2 or “By the Book” in GTA V ).

Let us address some potential worries about the ILA. First, one might reply that the logic of a VVG need only fit its content. If one is playing a war game and one’s avatar is a soldier, it makes sense that most of the NPCs one encounters are fitting targets of violence. This would undermine the criticisms of games such as Sniper Elite or Wolfenstein . Moreover, protecting oneself from enemy combatants is plausibly a matter of self-defense, which can permit lethal violence. This would render games like Doom or Fallout 4 unobjectionable. Similar points could be made about other genres of VVGs. Thus, it may be that the violence norms of many VVGs are roughly consistent with common sense morality. The ILA can accommodate this intuition, while still allowing that some VVGs are morally objectionable and, in those cases, explaining why.

Second, one might think that, while developers ought to design games whose logics meet some moral criteria, those criteria do not include eliminating or even minimizing violence. Some would claim, for example, that developers aren’t required to create a morally optimific logic that encourages players to, say, maximize the total well-being of other characters. Indeed, many would insist that the logic of a VVG can permissibly be much worse than the actual logic of our society, just as action films implicitly permit much more destruction of public and private property for the sake of catching criminals than is permitted by actual societies (see, e.g., Bad Boys or any movie in the Marvel Comics Universe). Footnote 20 This isn’t obviously right, though, and we would suggest that a game’s logic of appropriate violence should not be excessively cruel or indifferent to human suffering and that, sometimes, it should even improve on the logic of appropriate violence prevalent in our actual society. Footnote 21

One might object that the ILA does not pick out VVGs as distinctively bad or worse than other innocuous or tolerable video games or other media. This, however, is only partially true. It’s true that the ILA does not distinguish between games that have similar logics. As such, it would not necessarily be better to play Chex Quest than Doom , since zorching flemoids and shooting demons is motivated by a concern for one’s own survival in both cases. This also helps explain why games like Postal 2 and GTA are more appropriate targets of criticism than, say, Last of Us II (Goerger, 2017 : p. 101). While Last of Us II is much more graphic and gorier in its violent depictions, that violence is fitting in a way that the violence of Postal 2 is not. Footnote 22 Nor would it be worse to play violent video games than to watch action movies in which innocent bystanders are viewed as acceptable collateral damage. The ILA identifies a property found in some VVGs (and some movies, board games, etc.) and explains why it is inappropriate.

For all of these reasons, we think the ILA provides a plausible framework for critiquing VVGs. What emerges from the above discussion is a substantive and unified account of video game ethics. It explains how violent games can be open to similar criticisms as racist and misogynistic games. At the same time, it acknowledges that one might worry, not just about the violent content of such games, but about how gamers play them—i.e., the attitudes they manifest in doing so. The ILA unifies these concerns into a single critique that captures the kernel of truth running through traditional objections to VVGs, avoids the problems we raised for the Violence Argument, and extends the insights of two other illuminating critiques of video games, namely, those developed by Patridge ( 2011 ) and Nguyen ( 2020 ).

The core of our critique consists of four claims. First, a game’s content can be morally objectionable and violence is one, but not the only, kind of objectionable content. This is the lesson we learned from assessing real and imagined games with racist or misogynistic content and extending the reasoning underlying critiques of such games to a critique of violence. Second, the attitudes that a gamer expresses or enacts in playing a game can be morally objectionable. Sadism is one, but not the only, such attitude. Just as misogyny is not limited to the explicit, endorsed hatred of women as a group (Manne,  2017 ), sadism does not exhaust the objectionable attitudes one can have toward violence and the suffering of others. However, condemning such attitudes toward violence presupposes an objection to the violence itself. Third, while objectionable attitudes can arise on their own, games can express or encourage morally objectionable attitudes and gameplay in the same way that they shape other aspects of play. This does not mean that all players of VVGs will manifest the attitudes and behaviors encouraged by a game’s norms of appropriate violence, but it is a reasonable worry in light of the influence that the logic of a game exerts. Footnote 23 This is the lesson of the ILA. The most obvious examples of this are games in which the plot of the game requires actions that express or encourage objectionable attitudes (e.g. Custer’s Revenge or Battle Raper ). However, other games may encourage or shape players’ attitudes in more subtle ways—e.g. by normalizing violence, exploitation, and racism. Fourth, if these three points are correct, then our critique is not limited to VVGs, or even to video games. Gamers can manifest their sadistic, misogynistic, racist, and other attitudes in non-violent video games (e.g., The Sims or Civilization ), board games (e.g., Puerto Rico or Andean Abyss ) and tabletop RPGs (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons ), or any other kind of game. Moreover, any entertainment medium can, through its internal logic, express or encourage such attitudes. This means that our critique can embrace its generalizability in a way that was unavailable to the Violence Argument. On our account, the source of concern is neither violence per se nor its potential realism, interactivity, or immersiveness, but rather the logic of the game. Non-violent games and games that are minimally realistic, interactive, and immersive can have objectionable internal logics—e.g., by legitimating or glorifying imperialism, exploitation, or indifference toward the suffering of others. Moreover, the ILA explains why a game might warrant moral praise. For example, we might praise a game which logic expresses acceptance of a wrongly vilified group, encourages reflection on the complexity of a moral dilemma, or simply requires that one work through a problem real people might face. Footnote 24

Together these claims constitute a unified but limited critique of VVGs that avoids the implausible implications of some existing objections (e.g., that VVGs are distinctively bad) while explaining, substantiating, and extending the plausible claims of other critics. Our view suggests that how bad a game is depends on the attitudes, behaviors, and norms that its internal logic expresses, encourages, and legitimates. A game developer can be criticized for the internal logic of their game and a gamer can be criticized both for the attitude they bring to a game and for their acceptance, whether implicit or explicit, of a game’s internal logic. This account also plausibly implies that some games are morally worse than others and that their badness does not necessarily correlate with how violent they are or how realistic that violence is.

Before concluding, let us emphasize that its internal logic is one, but not the only, aspect of a game open to evaluation and criticism. Games are also, and perhaps foremost, aesthetic objects that can be beautiful, compelling, funny, disgusting, overwhelming, or just boring. The internal logic is that part of a game that tells the player how to progress and succeed within the game world. Indeed, this is what makes this kind of art object a game rather than a passive aesthetic experience (perhaps the “walking simulator” genre falls somewhere in between these categories). But it does not determine, by itself, a game’s value.

We have argued that common moral objections to VVGs are unsuccessful, but that a plausible critique can be developed that captures the insights of these objections while avoiding their pitfalls. The upshot of our account is that it can be morally wrong to design and play some VVGs, but that violence per se—no matter how realistic or immersive—is less likely to be problematic than the internal logic of a game and the attitudes it expresses and encourages.

In making our argument, we have not said which are the worst offenders, how bad they are, or what kind of response to their moral failings is warranted. These are tasks for another paper, but also for gamers, activists, regulators, and policy makers who want to know which games to play, which to educate the public about, and which to restrict access to. Some philosophers have developed frameworks that may provide guidance in answering these questions (Liberman, 2019 ), but there is much more to be said.

The most zealous campaigns against VVGs have been in the United States. We will not try to explain why that is the case, but we note that the industry’s implementation of a rating system following US Congressional hearings about video game violence 1993 may have forestalled similar controversies elsewhere as similar ratings systems were applied outside the US.

For an overview of the history of VVGs and their alleged relation to acts of violence see Campbell ( 2018 ).

Our arguments also apply to multiplayer games that can be played in single player mode, such as Mortal Kombat or Unreal Tournament .

What level of consensus is sufficient will depend on the magnitude of the risk/harm.

None of the studies critical of VVGs claim that they directly cause real world violence, though commentators sometimes make or imply such claims. Young emphasizes that “any attempt to posit a direct causal link between video game content and violent (real-world) behaviour should be regarded as overly simplistic, largely uncorroborated, and ultimately contentious” ( 2015 : p. 315).

See Anderson et al. ( 2010 ) for a reply to this objection.

There is room for improving the experimental design of VVGs, including eliminating confounds by studying the same games and controlling for variables like difficulty, competitiveness, and level of violence. Moreover, studies that find evidence that VVGs cause increased aggression should measure and compare the magnitude of that effect to other phenomena known to increase aggression—e.g., being insulted.

While some argue that realistic, interactive, and immersive violence are bad in themselves, others claim that it is these features of contemporary VVGs that cause violence or aggression in players. However, the latter is just a version of the Causation Argument, so we focus on those who take violence to be significant independently of its consequences.

Some might consider ‘perspectival fidelity’ to be a form of realism, but we consider this variable more relevant to a game’s immersiveness than to its realism (Ramirez, 2019 ).

Notice that, if video game violence is bad because it is interactive, designers are, at worst, guilty of facilitating violent interactions. The player is the primary wrongdoer. This asymmetry is reversed for those who worry about realism. Designers create realistic violence (e.g. fatalities in Mortal Kombat ), while players simply activate it.

Even this claim ignores the actors who do actually simulate the violence that the audience sees. They have a first-person point of view on the violence in a play or film. Of course, they know that they are not actually hurting their costars, but VVG gamers know this, too.

It is also worth noting that for many, the concern about immersion is a concern about the player’s experience and the effects of having such an experience (Waddington, 2007 : p. 127). However, this is ultimately a causation question and one that can be answered either by asking gamers about their immersive experiences or by measuring the effects of those experiences.

This is why gun control advocates often emphasize that the presence of a gun allows an altercation that might have resulted in a painful fist fight to instead result in a fatal shooting.

As is evident from the following passage: “[S] imulation games do not provide their own narrative, they simply allow the gamer’s context to define the in-game context. So, when a gamer enacts murder or pedophilia in these games, the act is one of virtual murder or virtual pedophilia because the gamer defines it in this way.” (Ali, 2015 : p. 273).

Some criticisms of games like Super Columbine Massacre , The Slaying of Sandy Hook , or Active Shooter/Standoff seem to make precisely this point.

This is not at all to imply that the sets of norms that sustain hateful and prejudicial attitudes and behavior toward members of oppressed groups are not especially important or deserving of particular attention and opposition.

Hence, the logic is in most cases intentional, meaning that certain player behavior is incentivized and rewarded in the game. But it could also be unintentional, such as when players find and exploit bugs that incentivize them to play in a way the developer did not intend nor expect.

Game designers have long recognized this and some have chosen, seemingly for moral reasons as well as aesthetic ones, to make the logic of a game virtuous. Richard Garriott has said this about his design choices for Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar .

Nguyen’s topic is games in general, but his claims are meant to apply as much to video games as other types.

At the same time, some criticisms of the criminal justice ‘logic’ of action films seems both reasonable and overdue. Hollywood’s cavalier depiction of police brutality is receiving more scrutiny as protests against actual police violence received widespread attention and support. Depictions of rape in film have received similar critiques, with critics arguing that these scenes are often gratuitous or voyeuristic (Wilson, 2017 ).

Notice that the ILA does not merely imply that the most gratuitous violence is the most objectionable. The gratuitousness of a violent act may diverge from how strongly the act supports an objectionable norm. For example, a film in which casual physical violence is normalized can seem much more insidious than a gory slasher flick. A parallel point on objectionable comedy will help further elucidate this idea. Comedy should not indulge in facile jokes about sexual violence in prisons any more than it should indulge in facile jokes about rape generally. Many prison rape jokes legitimate the idea—seemingly widely held—that prisoners deserve whatever might happen to them in prison.

Last of Us II also depicts its violence in very ambiguous ways. It is not obviously portrayed as morally justified, just as humanly intelligible.

Jennifer Saul makes a similar point about the attitudes of those who watch pornography ( 2006 : p. 58).

A good example of this is This War of Mine where the player controls a group of civilians that are trapped in a war-torn country. The player is constantly prompted to make choices between the survival of the group and helping other civilians in need, forcing the player to reflect on the effects and ethics of war.

Ali, R. (2015). A new solution to the gamer’s dilemma. Ethics and Information Technology , 17 , 267–274.

Article   Google Scholar  

Ali, R. (2023). The values of the virtual. Journal of Applied Philosophy , 40 (2), 231–245.

Anderson, C. A., et al. (2010). Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in eastern and western cultures: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 136 (2), 151–173.

Bartel, C. (2015). Free will and moral responsibility in video games. Ethics and Information Technology , 17 , 285–293.

Article   MathSciNet   Google Scholar  

Bartholow, B., Sestir, M. A., & Davis, E. B. (2005). Correlates and consequences of exposure to video game violence: Hostile personality, empathy, and aggressive behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 31 (11), 1573–1586.

Bushman, B. J. (2018). Boom, headshot! Violent first-person shooter (FPS) video games that reward headshots train individuals to aim for the head when shooting a realistic firearm. Aggressive Behavior , 45 (1), 33–41.

Bushman, B. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2009). Comfortably numb: Desensitizing effects of violent media on helping others. Psychological Science , 20 (3), 273–277.

Campbell, C. (2018). A brief history of blaming video games for mass murder. Polygon . Retrieved March 10, 2018, from  https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/10/17101232/a-brief-history-of-video-game-violence-blame .

Carnagey, N. L., Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2007). The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence. Journal of Experimental Psychology , 43 (3), 489–496.

Google Scholar  

Chalmers, D. (2017). The virtual and the real. Disputatio , 9 (46), 309–352.

Deselms, J. L., & Altman, J. D. (2003). Immediate and prolonged effects of videogame violence. Journal of Applied Social Psychology , 33 (8), 1553–1563.

Dowsett, A., & Jackson, M. (2019). The effect of violence and competition within video games on aggression. Computers in Human Behavior , 99 , 22–27.

Engelhardt, C. R., et al. (2011). This is your brain on violent video games: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following video game exposure. Journal of Experimental Psychology , 47 (5), 1033–1036.

Farrar, K. M., et al. (2017). Ready, aim, fire! Violent video game play and gun controller use: Effects on behavioral aggression and social norms concerning violence. Communication Studies , 68 (4), 369–384.

Ferguson, C. J. (2007). The good, the bad and the ugly: A meta-analytic review of positive and negative effects of violent video games. Psychiatric Quarterly , 78 (4), 309–316.

Ferguson, C. J., & Kilburn, J. (2009). The public health risks of media violence: A meta-analytic review. The Journal of Pediatrics , 154 (5), 759–763.

Ferguson, C. J., & Kilburn, J. (2010). Much ado about nothing: The misestimation and overinterpretation of violent video game effects in eastern and western nations: Comments on Anderson et al. (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 136 (2), 174–178.

Funk, J. B., et al. (2004). Violence exposure in real-life, video games, television, movies, and the internet: Is there desensitization? Journal of Adolescence , 27 (1), 23–39.

Gentile, D. A., et al. (2009). The effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behaviors: International evidence from correlational, longitudinal, and experimental studies. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 35 (6), 752–763.

Goerger, M. (2017). Value, violence, and the ethics of gaming. Ethics and Information Technology , 19 (2), 95–105.

Grossman, D., & DeGaetano, G. (1999). Stop teaching our kids to kill: A call to action against TV, movie & video game violence . Crown.

Hall, R. C., Day, T., & Hall, R. C. W. (2011). A plea for caution: Violent video games, the supreme court and the role of science. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 86 (4), 315–321.

Hilgard, J., Engelhardt, C. R., & Rouder, J. N. (2017). Overstated evidence for short-term effects of violent games on affect and behavior: A reanalysis of Anderson et al. (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 143 (7), 757–774.

Kepes, S., Bushman, B. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2017). Violent video game effects remain a societal concern: Reply to Hilgard, Engelhardt and Rouder. Psychological Bulletin , 143 (7), 775–782.

Leonard, D. (2007). Unsettling the military entertainment complex: Video games and pedagogy of peace. SIMILE: Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education , 4 (4), 1–8.

Liberman, A. (2019). But I voted for him for other reasons! moral responsibility and the doctrine of double endorsement. Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, 9 , 138.

Limelight (2020). The state of online gaming–2020. Limelight Networks Technical report. https://www.limelight.com/resources/white-paper/state-of-online-gaming-2020/ .

Lin, J. H. (2013). Do video games exert stronger effects on aggression than film? The role of media interactivity and identification on the association of violent content and aggressive outcomes. Computers in Human Behavior , 29 , 535–543.

Madigan, J. (2016). Getting gamers: The psychology of video games and their impact on the people who play them . Rowman & Littlefield.

Manne, K. (2017). Down Girl: The logic of Misogyny . Oxford UP.

Book   Google Scholar  

Narula, H. (2019). A billion new players are set to transform the video game industry. Wired . Retrieved December 29, 2019, from  https://www.wired.co.uk/article/worldwide-gamers-billion-players .

Nguyen, C. T. (2019). Games and the art of agency. Philosophical Review, 128 (4), 423–462.

Nguyen, C. T. (2020). Games: Agency as Art . Oxford UP.

Patridge, S. L. (2011). The incorrigible social meaning of video game imagery. Ethics and Information Technology , 13 (4), 303–312.

Przybylski, A. K., et al. (2014). Competence impeding electronic games and players’ aggressive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 106 (3), 441–457.

Ramirez, E. J. (2019). Ecological and ethical issues in virtual reality research: A call for increased scrutiny. Philosophical Psychology , 32 (2), 211–233.

Saul, J. (2006). On treating things as people: Objectification, pornography, and the history of the vibrator. Hypatia , 21 (2), 45–61.

Schellenberg, S. (2013). Belief and desire in imagination and immersion. Journal of Philosophy , 110 (9), 497–517.

Schmierbach, M. (2010). Killing spree: Exploring the connection between competitive game play and aggressive cognition. Communication Research , 37 (2), 256–274.

Sestir, M. A., & Bartholow, B. D. (2010). Violent and nonviolent video games produce opposing effects on aggressive and prosocial outcomes. Journal of Experimental Psychology , 46 (6), 934–942.

Shao, R., & Wang, Y. (2019). The relation of violent video game to adolescent aggression: An examination of moderated mediation effect. Frontiers in Psychology , 10 , 384.

Sicart, M. (2009). Beyond choices: A typology of ethical computer game designs. International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulation , 1 (3), 1–13.

Singer, P. (2007). Video crime peril vs. virtual pedophilia. Japan Times . Retrieved July 22, 2007, from  https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2007/07/22/commentary/world-commentary/video-crime-peril-vs-virtual-pedophilia/ .

Tillson, J. (2018). Is it distinctively wrong to simulate doing wrong? Ethics and Information Technology , 20 (3), 205–217.

Waddington, D. I. (2007). Locating the wrongness in ultra-violent video games. Ethics and Information Technology , 9 (2), 121–128.

Wilson, L. (2017). The Long, Problematic History of Rape Scenes in Film. The Playlist . Retrieved October 26, 2017, from  https://theplaylist.net/problematic-history-rape-scenes-film-20171026/ .

Wonderly, M. (2008). A Humean approach to assessing the moral significance of ultra-violent video games. Ethics and Information Technology , 10 (1), 1–10.

Young, G. (2015). Violent video games and morality: A meta-ethical approach. Ethics and Information Technology , 17 (4), 311–321.

Download references

Open access funding provided by University of Gothenburg.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Alexander Andersson & Per-Erik Milam

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexander Andersson .

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Andersson, A., Milam, PE. Violent video games: content, attitudes, and norms. Ethics Inf Technol 25 , 52 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-023-09726-6

Download citation

Published : 16 October 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-023-09726-6

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Video games
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Filed under:

The frustrating, enduring debate over video games, violence, and guns

We asked players, parents, developers, and experts to weigh in on how to change the conversation around gaming.

Share this story

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Twitter
• Share this on Reddit
• Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: The frustrating, enduring debate over video games, violence, and guns

In the wake of two mass shootings earlier this month in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, the societal role of video games grabbed a familiar media spotlight. The El Paso shooter briefly referenced Call of Duty , a wildly popular game in which players assume the roles of soldiers during historical and fictional wartime, in his “manifesto.” And just this small mention of the video game seemed to have prompted President Donald Trump to return to a theme he’s emphasized before when looking to assign greater blame for violent incidents.

“We must stop the glorification of violence in our society,” he said in an August 5 press conference. “This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace. It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence.”

Trump’s statement suggesting a link between video games and real-world violence echoed sentiments shared by other lawmakers following the back-to-back mass shootings. It’s a response that major media outlets and retailers have also adopted of late; ESPN recently chose to delay broadcasting an esports tournament because of the shootings — a decision that seems to imply the network believes in a link between gaming and real-world violence. And Walmart made a controversial decision to temporarily remove all video game displays from its stores, even as it continues to openly sell guns.

But many members of the public, as well as researchers and some politicians, have counterargued that blaming video games sidesteps the real issue at the root of America’s mass shooting problem: a need for stronger gun control . The frenzied debate over video games within the larger conversation around gun violence underscores both how intense the fight over gun control has become and how easily games can become mired in political rhetoric.

But this isn’t a new development; blaming video games for real-world violence — any kind of real-world violence — is a longstanding cultural and political habit whose origins date back to the 1970s. It’s also arguably part of a larger recurring wave of concern over any pop culture that’s been perceived as morally deviant, from rock ’n’ roll to the occult , depending on the era. But as mass shootings continue to occur nationwide and attempts to stop them by enacting gun control legislature remain divisive, video games have again become an easy target.

The most recent clamor arose from a clash among several familiar foes. In one corner: politicians like Trump who cite video games as evidence of immoral and violent media’s negative societal impact. In another: people who play video games and resist this reading, while also trying to lodge separate critiques of violence within gaming. In another: scientists at odds over whether there are factual and causal links between video games and real-world violence. And in still another: members of the general public who, upon receiving alarmist messages about games from politicians and the news media, react with yet more alarm.

Subscribe to Today, Explained

Looking for a quick way to keep up with the never-ending news cycle? Host Sean Rameswaram will guide you through the most important stories at the end of each day.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Ove r cast , or wherever you listen to podcasts.

What is new, however, is that recent criticism of the narrative that video games lead to real-world violence seems particularly intensified, and it’s coming not just from gamers but also from scientists , some media outlets , even mass shooting survivors: David Hogg, who became a gun control advocate after surviving the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, unveiled a new March for Our Lives gun control initiative in August, pointedly stating in his announcement on Twitter, “We know video games aren’t to blame.”

And on all sides is a sense that frustration is growing because so little has changed since the last time we had this debate — and since the time before that and the time before that.

There’s no science proving a link between video games and real-world violence. But that hasn’t quelled a debate that’s raged for decades.

Historically, video games have played a verifiable role in a handful of mass shootings, but the science linking video games to gun violence is murky . A vast body of psychology research, most of it conducted before 2015, argues strenuously that video games can contribute to increases in aggression . Yet much of this research has been contested by newer, contradictory findings from both psychologists and scholars in different academic fields. For example, Nickie Phillips , a criminologist whose research deals with violence in popular media, told me that “most criminologists are dismissive of a causal link between media and crime,” and that they’re instead interested in questions of violence as a social construct and how that contributes to political discourse.

That type of research, she stressed, is likely to be less flashy and headline-grabbing than psychology studies, which are more focused on pointing to direct behaviors and their causes. “Social meanings of crime are in transition,” Phillips said. “There’s not a single variable. As a public, we want a single concrete explanation as to why people commit atrocities, when the answers can be very complex.”

The debate over the science is easy to wade into, but it obscures just how preoccupied America is with dangerous media. The oldest moral panic over a video game may be the controversy over a 1976 game called Death Race , which awarded players points for driving over fleeing pedestrians dubbed “gremlins.” The game became mired in controversy, even sparking a segment on 60 Minutes . Interestingly, other games of the era that framed their mechanics through wartime violence, like the 1974 military game Tank , failed to cause as much public concern.

In his 2017 book Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong , psychologist Patrick Markey points out that before concerned citizens fixated on video games, many of them were worried about arcades — not because of the games they contained, but because they were licentious hangouts for teens. (Insert “ Ya Got Trouble ” here.) By the 1980s, “Arcades were being shut down across the nation by activist parents intent on protecting their children from the dangerous influences lurking within these neon-drenched dungeons,” Markey writes.

Then came the franchise that evolved arcade panic into gameplay panic: Midway Games’ Mortal Kombat , infamous for its gory “fatality” moves . With its 1992 arcade debut, Mortal Kombat sparked hysteria among concerned adults that led to a 1993 congressional hearing and the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB . The fighting game franchise still incites debate with every new release.

“Like people were really going to go out and rip people’s spines out,” Cypheroftyr , a gaming critic who typically goes by her internet handle, told me over the phone regarding the mainstream anxiety around Mortal Kombat in the 1990s. Cypheroftyr is an avid player of shooter games and other action games and the founder of the nonprofit I Need Diverse Games .

“I’m old enough to remember the whole Jack Thompson era of trying to say video games are violent and they should be banned,” she said, referencing the infamous disbarred obscenity lawyer known for a strident crusade against games and other media that has spanned decades .

Cypheroftyr pointed out that after the Columbine shooting in April 1999, politicians “were trying to blame both video games and Marilyn Manson. It just feels like this is too easy a scapegoat.”

Politicians have long seized on the idea that recreational fantasy and fictional media have an influence on real-world evil. In 2007, for example, Sen. Mitt Romney (R–UT) blamed “music and movies and TV and video games” for being full of “pornography and violence,” which he argued had influenced the Columbine shooters and, later, the 2007 Virginia Tech shooter.

Video games seem especially prone to garnering political attention in the wake of a tragedy — especially first-person shooters like Call of Duty. A stereotype of a mass shooter, isolated and perpetually consuming graphic violent content, seems to linger in the public’s consciousness. A neighbor of the 2018 Parkland shooter, for instance, told the Miami Herald that the shooter would play video games for up to 12 to 15 hours a day — and although that anecdotal report was unverified, it was still widely circulated.

A 2015 Pew study of 2,000 US adults found that even though 49 percent of adult Americans play video games, 40 percent of Americans also believe in a link between games and violence — specifically, that “people who play violent video games are more likely to be violent themselves.” Additionally, 32 percent of the people who told Pew they play video games also said they believe gaming contributes to an increase in aggression, even though their own experience as, presumably, nonviolent gamers would offer at least some evidence to the contrary.

One person who sees a correlation between violent games and a propensity for real-world violence is Tim Winter . Winter is the president of the Parents Television Council , a nonpartisan advocacy group that lobbies the entertainment industry against marketing graphic violence to children. He spent several years overseeing MGM’s former video game publishing division, MGM Interactive, and moved into advocacy when he became a parent. Growing up, his children played all kinds of video games, except for those he considered too graphic or violent.

In a phone interview, Winter told me his view aligns with the research supporting links between games and aggression.

“Anyone who uses the term ‘moral panic’ in my view is trying to diminish a bona fide conversation that needs to take place,” Winter said. “It’s a simple PR move to refute something that might actually have some value in the broader conversation.”

During our conversation, he compared the connection between violent media and harmful real-world effects to that between cigarettes and lung cancer. If you consume in moderation, he argues, you’ll probably be fine; but, over time, exposure to violent media can have “a cumulative negative effect.” (In fact, studies of infrequent smokers have shown that their risk of coronary disease is roughly equal to that of frequent smokers, and their risk of cancer is still significantly higher than that of nonsmokers.)

“What I believe to be true is that the media we consume has a very powerful impact on shaping our belief structure, our cognitive development, our values, and our opinions,” he said.

He added that it would be foolish to point to any one act of violence and say it was caused by any one video game — that, he argued, “would be like saying lung cancer was caused by that one specific cigarette I smoked.”

“But if you are likely to smoke packs a day over the course of many years, it has a cumulative negative effect on your health,” he continued. “I believe based on the research on both sides that that’s the prevailing truth.”

The debate endures because gun control isn’t being addressed — and games are an easy target

Like many people I spoke with for this story, Winter believes that the debate about gun violence has remained largely at a standstill since Columbine, while the number of mass shootings nationwide has continued to increase.

“If you look at the broader issue of gun violence in America, you have a number of organizations and constituencies pointing at different causes,” he said. “When you look back at what those arguments are, it’s the same arguments that have been made going back to Columbine. Whether it’s gun control, whether it’s mental illness, whether it’s violence in media culture — whatever the debate is about those three root causes, very little progress has been made on any of them.”

The glorification of violence is so culturally embedded in American media through TV, film, games, books, and practically every other available medium that there seems to be very little impetus to change anything about America’s gun culture. We can define “ gun culture ” here as the addition of an embrace of gun ownership and a nationwide oversupply of guns to what Phillips described as “ a culture of violence ” — one in which violence “becomes our go-to way of solving problems — whether that’s individual violence, police violence, state violence.”

“There’s a commodification of violence,” she said, “and we have to understand what that means.”

Naomi Clark , an independent game developer and co-chair of New York University’s Game Center program, agreed. “I find it more plausible that America’s long-standing culture of gun violence has affected video games, as a form of culture, than the other way around,” she told me in an email. “After all, this nation’s cultural traditions and attachments around guns are far older than video games.”

In light of incidents like Walmart’s removal of video game displays after the recent mass shootings while continuing to advertise guns, the connection between the shootings and America’s continued valorization of guns feels extremely stark. “We could ban video games tomorrow and mass shootings would still happen,” Cypheroftyr told me.

“What’s new about the current debate is that the scapegoat of videogaming has never been more nakedly exposed for what it is,” gaming sociologist Katherine Cross wrote in an email, “with Republicans and conservatives manifestly fearful of blaming systematic white supremacism, Trump’s rhetoric, or our nation’s permissive and freewheeling gun culture for the recent rash of terrorism.”

Because of the sensitivity around the issue of gun control, it’s easy for politicians to score points with constituents by focusing a conversation on games and sidestepping other action. “Politicians often blame video games because they are a safe target,” Moral Combat author Markey told me in an email. “There isn’t a giant video game lobby like other potential causes of mass shootings (like the NRA [National Rifle Association]). So [by targeting games], a politician can make it appear they are doing something without risking losing any votes.”

And the general public is often susceptible to this rhetoric, both because it’s emotional and because it may feed what they think they already know about games — even if that’s not a lot. “The narrative that violence in video games contributes to the gun violence in America is, I think, a good example of a bad idea that seems right to people who don’t look too closely at the facts,” Zak Garriss , a video game writer and designer who’s worked on a wide range of games, told me in an email.

“Video games are a global industry, dwarfing other entertainment industries in revenue in markets comprised of gamers from the UK, Germany, France, Japan, the US, and basically anywhere there’s electricity. Yet the spree shooting phenomenon seems to be seriously and uniquely a US issue right now. It’s also worth noting that the ratings systems across these countries vary, and in the case of Europe, are often more liberal in many regards than the US system,” Garriss said.

He also pointed out that this conversation frequently overshadows the important, innovative work that many games are engaged in. “Games like Stardew Valley , Minecraft , or Journey craft experiences that help people relax, detox after a day, bond with friends,” he said. “Games like Papers, Please , That Dragon Cancer , or Life Is Strange interrogate the harder and the darker elements of the human experience like love, grief, loneliness, and death.”

In other words, a conversation that focuses on games and guns alone dismisses the vital cultural role that video games play as art. “Play video games and you can jump on giant mushrooms, shoot a wizard on the moon, grow a farm, fall in love, experience nearly infinite worlds really,” Garriss told me. “If games have a unifying organizing principle, I’d say it’s to delight. The pursuit of fun.”

He continued: “To me, the tragedy, if there is one, in the current discourse around video games and violence, lies in failing to see the magic happening in the play. As devs, it’s a magic we’re chasing with every game. And as players, I think it’s a magic that has not just the potential but the actual power to bring people together, to aid mental health, to make us think, to help us heal. And to experience delight.”

But for some members of the public, games’ recreational, relaxational, and artistic values might be another thing that make them suspect. “If they don’t play games or ‘aged out of it,’ they might see them as frivolous or a waste of time,” Cypheroftyr says. “It’s easy to go, ‘Oh, you’re still playing video games? Why are you wasting your life?’”

That idea — that video games are a waste of time — is another longstanding element of cultural assumptions around games of all kinds, Clark, the game developer, told me. “Games have been an easy target in every era because there’s something inherently unproductive or even anti-productive about them, and so there’s also a long history of game designers trying to rehabilitate games and make them ‘do work’ or provide instruction.”

All of this makes it incredibly easy to fixate on video games instead of addressing difficult but more relevant targets, like NRA funding and easy access to guns. And that, in turn, makes it a complicated proposition to extricate video games from conversations about gun violence, let alone limit the conversation around violent games to people who might actually be in a position to create change, like the people who make the games in the first place.

Yet what’s striking when you drill down into the community around gaming is how many gamers agree with many of the arguments politicians are making. As a fan of shooter games, Cypheroftyr told me she routinely plays violent games like Call of Duty and the military action role-playing game (RPG) The Division . “I’m not out here trying to murder people,” she stressed. But like the Parents Television Council’s Winter, Cypheroftyr and many of the other people I spoke with agree that the gaming industry needs to do a lot more to examine the at times shocking imagery it perpetuates.

Many members of the gaming community are already discussing game violence

Multiple people I spoke with expressed frustration that the conversation about video games’ role in mass shootings is obscuring another, very important conversation to be had within the gaming community about violent games.

Clark told me that the public’s lack of nuance and an insistence on a binary reading of the issue is part of the problem. “Most people are capable of understanding that causes are complex,” she said, “that you can’t just point to one thing and say, ‘This is mostly or entirely to blame!’”

But she also cautioned that the gaming community’s reactionary defensiveness to this lack of nuance also prevents many video game fans from acknowledging that games do play a role within a violent culture. “That complexity cuts both ways,” she told me. “Even though it’s silly to say that ‘games cause violence,’ it’s also just as silly to say that games have nothing to do with a culture that has a violence problem.”

That culture is endemic to the gaming industry, added Justin Carter, a freelance journalist whose work focuses on video games and culture.

“The industry does have a fetishization of guns and violence,” Carter said. “You look at games like Borderlands or Destiny and one of the selling points is how many guns there are.” The upcoming first-person shooter game Borderlands 3 , he pointed out, boasts “over a billion” different guns from its 12 fictional weapons manufacturers , all of which tout special perks to get players to try their guns. These perks serve as marketing both inside and outside the game; the game’s publisher, 2K Games, invites players to exult in violence using language that speaks for itself :

Deliver devastating critical hits to enemies’ soft-and-sensitives, then joy-puke as your bullets ricochet towards other targets. ... Step 1: Hit your enemies with tracker tags. Step 2: Unleash a hail of Smart Bullets that track towards your targets. Step 3: Loot! Deal guaranteed elemental damage with your finger glued to the trigger ...

“There are very few [action/adventure] games that give you options other than murdering people,” Cypheroftyr said. “Games don’t do enough to show the other side of it. You shoot someone, you die, they die, you reset, you reload, and nothing happens.”

“I know that if I shoot people in a game it’s not real,” she added. “99.9 percent of people don’t need to be told that. I’m not playing out a power fantasy or anything, but I’ve become more aware of how most games [that] use violence [do so] to solve problems.”

An insistence from game developers on blithely ignoring the potential political messages of their games is another frustration for her. “All these game makers are like, there’s no politics in the game. There’s no message. And I’m like ... did you just send me through a war museum and you’re telling me this?!”

The game Cypheroftyr is referencing is The Division 2 , which features a section where players can engage in enemy combat during a walkthrough of a Vietnam War memorial museum. While she loves the game, she told me the fact that players use weapons from the Vietnam War era while in a war museum belies game developers’ frequent arguments that such games are apolitical.

Another game Cypheroftyr has found disturbing in its attempt to background politics without any real self-reflection is the popular adventure game Detroit Become Human , which displays pacifist Martin Luther King Jr. quotes alongside gameplay that allows players to choose extreme violence as an option. “You can take a more pacifistic approach, but you may not get the ending you want,” she explained.

She noted, too, that the military uses video games for training as part of what’s been dubbed the “ military-entertainment complex ,” with tactics involving shooter games that some ex-soldiers have referred to as “more like brainwashing than anything.” The US Army began exploring virtual training in 1999 and began developing its first tactics game a year later. The result, Full Spectrum Command , was a military-only version of 2003’s Full Spectrum Warrior . Since then, the military has used video games to teach soldiers everything from how to deal with combat scenarios to how to interact with Iraqi civilians .

The close connection between games and sanctioned real-world violence, i.e., war, is hard to deny with any plausibility. “When someone insists that these two parts of culture have absolutely nothing to do with each other,” Clark said, “it smacks of denial, and many game developers are asking themselves, ‘Do I want to be part of this landscape?’ even if they have zero belief that video games are causing violence.”

For all the gaming industry’s faults when it comes to frankly addressing gaming’s role in a violent culture, however, many people are quick to point out that critiques of in-game violence can also come from the video games themselves. In Batman: Arkham Asylum , for example, researchers Christina Fawcett and Steven Kohm recently found that the game “directly implicate[s] the player in violence enacted upon the bodies of criminals and patients alike.” Other games shift the focus away from the perpetrators to the victims — for example, This War of Mine is a survival game inspired by the Bosnian War that focuses not on soldiers but on civilians dealing with the costs of wartime violence.

But acknowledging that critiques of violent games are coming from within the gaming community doesn’t play well as part of the gun control debate. “It’s far too easy to scapegoat video games as low-hanging fruit instead of addressing the real issues,” Cypheroftyr said, “like the ease with which we can get weapons in this country, and why we don’t do more to punish the perpetrators [of gun violence].” She also cites the cultural tendency to excuse masculine aggression early on with a “b“boys will be boys” mentality — which can breed the kind of entitlement that leads to more violence later on.

All these factors combine to make the conversation around violent video games inherently political and part of a larger ongoing debate that ultimately centers on which media messages are the most responsible for fueling real-world violence.

The conversation surrounding violent games implicates violent gaming culture itself — which, in turn, implicates politicians who rail against games

Games journalist Carter told me he feels the gaming community needs to, in essence, reject the whole debate entirely because at this point in its life cycle, it’s disingenuous.

“We’ve been through enough shootings that you know the playbook, and it’s annoying that gamers and people in the industry will take this as a position that needs defending,” he told me. “It’s not a conversation worth having anymore solely on post-traumatic terms.”

Discussions about video game violence need to be held mainly within the games community, Carter said, and held “with people who are actually interested in figuring out a solution instead of politicians looking to pass off the blame for their ineptitude and greed.”

But some gamers told me they don’t trust the gaming community to frame the conversation with appropriate nuance. All of them cited Gamergate’ s violent male entitlement and the effect that its subsequent bleed into the larger alt-right movement’s misogyny and white supremacy have had on mainstream culture at large.

“The framing of that rhetoric that began in Gamergate as part of the ‘low’ culture of niche internet forums became part of the mainstream political discourse,” criminologist Phillips pointed out. “The expression of their misogyny and the notion of being pushed out of their white male-dominated space was a microcosm of what was to come. We’re talking about 8chan now, but [the growth of the alt-right] was fueled by gaming culture.” She points to Gamergate as an example of the complicated interplay between gaming culture, online communities full of toxic, violent rhetoric, and the rise of online extremism that’s increasingly moving offline.

Gaming sociologist Cross agreed. “At this moment, there is urgent need to shine a light on video game culture , the fan spaces that have been infiltrated by white supremacists looking to recruit that minority of gamers who rage against ‘political correctness,’” she told me.

“We treat video games as unreal, as unserious play, and that creates a shadow over gaming forums and fan communities that has allowed toxicity to take root. It’s also allowed neo-Nazis to operate mostly unseen. That is what needs to change.”

The resulting shadow over gaming has spread far and wide — and found violent echoes in the rhetoric of Trump himself . “Look at what the person in the very highest office of the US is cultivating,” Cypheroftyr said. “Toxic masculinity, this idea that men, especially white men, have been fed that they’re losing ‘their’ country.”

“While video games do not influence us in a monkey-see-monkey-do manner, they do, like all media, shape how we see the world,” Cross argues. “Republicans, in broaching that possibility, open themselves up to the critique that their leader, who makes frequent use of both old media and social media, might also be influential in a toxic way.”

And this, ultimately, may be why the current debate around video games and violence feels particularly intense: The extremes of toxic gaming culture are fueling the attitudes of toxic alt-right culture , which in turn fuels the rhetoric of President Trump and many other right-wing politicians — the same rhetoric that many white supremacist mass shooters are using to justify their atrocities.

So when Trump rails against violence in video games, as he’s now done multiple times , he’s protesting a fictionalized version of the real-life violence that his own rhetoric seems to tacitly encourage. If we are to accept the argument that media violence as represented by games is capable of bringing about real-world violence, then surely no media influence is more powerful or full of dangerous potential than that wielded by the president of the United States.

In 2018, Vice’s gaming vertical Waypoint devoted a week to “ guns and games ”; in a moving piece outlining the intent of the project, editor Austin Walker observed that unlike real-world violence, “in big-budget action games, and especially games that give the player guns and plentiful ammunition, violence is cheap and endlessly repeatable.”

Yet now, barely a year later, mass shootings and other incidents of real-world violence have also begun to seem endlessly repeatable. Perhaps that is why, at last, the urgency of shifting our cultural focus from fixing violence in games to fixing violence in the real world feels like it is finally outstripping the incessant debate.

Will you help keep Vox free for all?

At Vox, we believe that clarity is power, and that power shouldn’t only be available to those who can afford to pay. That’s why we keep our work free. Millions rely on Vox’s clear, high-quality journalism to understand the forces shaping today’s world. Support our mission and help keep Vox free for all by making a financial contribution to Vox today.

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via

Why March Madness is all about Caitlin Clark

How real is shōgun, oppenheimer won best picture. its new reception in japan was very different., sign up for the newsletter today, explained, thanks for signing up.

Check your inbox for a welcome email.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please enter a valid email and try again.

• Board of Trustees
• Property Rights
• Equality and Opportunity
• Separation of Powers
• Amicus Briefs
• Legislation
• Supreme Court
• Sword&Scales Magazine
• Dissed Podcast
• Student Opportunities
• Submit A Case

Video game bans are unconstitutional, and they won’t prevent violent crimes

In the wake of multiple recent mass shootings, some elected officials and advocates have begun asking the question: should violent video games be banned?

The search for rational explanations in the wake of terrible tragedies is understandable. When people do horrible things, the natural reaction is to ask why. Unfortunately, that same impulse can lead to rushed judgment and misplaced blame.

The argument that video games cause violence is not backed up by research . According to the Society for Media Psychology and Technology , the “research evidence available to date indicates that violent video games have minimal impact on violent activity in society.” Also, according to one study , discovering that a person committing a crime plays violent video games “is no more illustrative than discovering that he or she happened to wear sneakers or used to watch  Sesame Street .” Other studies have suggested that video games help reduce stress and in some instances may even reduce crime . Furthermore, video games are played by a diverse cross-section of the American public.

Given the data, it’s clear censoring video games would not prevent mass shootings.

Censoring video games also raises a Constitutional problem. In 2011, the Supreme Court recognized that video games are protected by the First Amendment ( Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association ). The court emphasized that video games frequently communicate ideas by telling interactive stories and allowing players to interact with a virtual world. Therefore, video games are protected just as any other form of speech and expression.

If anything, the Supreme Court undervalued video games’ artistic importance. In recent decades, video games have developed into a highly nuanced art form with storytelling as powerful and compelling as cinema was in the last century.

For instance, the 2018 indie platforming game Celeste grappled with themes involving depression and self-doubt in a masterful fashion. Games such as the Bioshock series have also engaged with complex political and social issues; these games envision dystopian societies based on objectivism and socialism. They challenge players to think more deeply and imaginatively about the world we live in.

True, many video games are violent. Some use violence to illustrate larger themes; other games allow you to just blow things up. In other words, video games exhibit the same artistic variety that one finds browsing Netflix.

In its 2011 Brown decision, the Supreme Court struck down a California law prohibiting the sale of violent video games to minors. The court found that studies showing a link between violence and video games were methodologically flawed and unpersuasive.  The court explained that the government does not have “a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.”

If that’s true for children, it’s even more so for adults.

While it’s understandable why people would ask the question “should violent video games be banned?” The answer requires more nuance. We don’t assume that R-rated movies, paintball, or UFC are making people more violent. Stereotyping millions of Americans—and violating a Constitutional right—because of the vile actions of a deranged killer is wrong and distracts us from real solutions to a very serious problem.

Related Cases

No Related Cases

Related Articles

A First Amendment win: Supreme Court rules the government can’t control private speech

June 17, 2019 | by daniel ortner.

Scar tattoos are a First Amendment right too

June 03, 2019 | by daniel ortner.

The Hill: The slippery slope of trying to curb ‘extremist’ speech

May 20, 2019 | by daniel ortner.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Wiley-Blackwell Online Open

The contagious impact of playing violent video games on aggression: Longitudinal evidence

Tobias greitemeyer.

1 Department of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck Austria

Meta‐analyses have shown that violent video game play increases aggression in the player. The present research suggests that violent video game play also affects individuals with whom the player is connected. A longitudinal study ( N  = 980) asked participants to report on their amount of violent video game play and level of aggression as well as how they perceive their friends and examined the association between the participant's aggression and their friends’ amount of violent video game play. As hypothesized, friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 was associated with the participant's aggression at Time 2 even when controlling for the impact of the participant's aggression at Time 1. Mediation analyses showed that friends’ aggression at Time 1 accounted for the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2. These findings suggest that increased aggression in video game players has an impact on the player's social network.

1. INTRODUCTION

Given its widespread use, the public and psychologists alike are concerned about the impact of violent video game play. In fact, a great number of studies have addressed the effects of exposure to violent video games (where the main goal is to harm other game characters) on aggression and aggression‐related variables. Meta‐analyses have shown that playing violent video games is associated with increased aggression in the player (Anderson et al., 2010 ; Greitemeyer & Mügge, 2014 ). The present longitudinal study examines the idea that violent video game play also affects the player's social network, suggesting that concern about the harmful effects of playing violent video games on a societal level is even more warranted.

1.1. Theoretical perspective

When explaining the effects of playing violent video games, researchers often refer to the General Aggression Model (GAM) proposed by Anderson & Bushman ( 2002 ). According to this theoretical model, person and situation variables (sometimes interactively) may affect a person's internal state, consisting of cognition, affect, and arousal. This internal state then affects how events are perceived and interpreted. Based on this decision process, the person behaves more or less aggressively in a social encounter. For example, playing violent video games is assumed to increase aggressive cognition and affect, which in turn results in behavioral aggression. An extension of this model further assumes that increased aggression due to previous violent video game play may instigate an aggression escalation cycle in that the victim also behaves aggressively (cf. Anderson & Bushman, 2018 , Figure 5). The present research tested key predictions derived from the GAM and its extension, that (a) violent video game play is associated with increased aggression in the player and that (b) individuals who are connected to the player will also become more aggressive.

1.2. Effects of violent video game play on aggression

The relationship between violent video game play and aggression has been examined in studies employing cross‐sectional, longitudinal, and experimental designs. Cross‐sectional correlational studies typically show a positive relationship between the amount of violent video game play and aggression in real‐world contexts (e.g., Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004 ; Krahé & Möller, 2004 ). Several longitudinal studies have been conducted, showing that habitual violent video game play predicts later aggression even after controlling for initial aggressiveness (e.g., Anderson, Buckley, & Carnagey, 2008 ). That violent video game play has a causal impact on aggression and related information processing has been demonstrated by experimental work (e.g., Anderson & Carnagey, 2009 ; Gabbiadini & Riva, 2018 ). Finally, meta‐analyses corroborated that violent video game play significantly increases aggressive thoughts, hostile affect, and aggressive behavior (Anderson et al., 2010 ; Greitemeyer & Mügge, 2014 ). Some studies failed to find significant effects (e.g., McCarthy, Coley, Wagner, Zengel, & Basham, 2016 ). However, given that the typical effect of violent video games on aggression is not large, it is to be expected that not all studies reveal significant effects.

1.3. The contagious effects of aggression

Abundant evidence has been collected that aggression and violence can be contagious (Dishion, & Tipsord, 2011 ; Huesmann, 2012 ; Jung, Busching, & Krahé, 2019 ). Indeed, the best predictor of (retaliatory) aggression is arguably previous violent victimization (Anderson et al., 2008 ; Goldstein, Davis, & Herman, 1975 ). However, even the observation of violence can lead to increased violence in the future (Widom, 1989 ). Overall, it is a well‐known finding that aggression begets further aggression. Given that violent video game play increases aggression, it thus may well be that this increased aggression then has an impact on people with whom the player is connected.

Correlational research provides initial evidence for the idea that the level of people's aggression is indeed associated with how often their friends play violent video games (Greitemeyer, 2018 ). In particular, participants who did not play violent video games were more aggressive the more their friends played violent video games. However, due to the cross‐sectional design, no conclusions about the direction of the effect are possible. It may be that violent video game players influence their friends (social influence), but it is also conceivable that similar people attract each other (homophily) or that there is some shared environmental factor that influences the behavior of both the players and their friends (confounding). That is, it is unclear whether indeed aggression due to playing violent video games spreads or whether the effect is reversed, such that aggressive people are prone to befriend others who are attracted to violent video game play. Moreover, it is possible that some third variable affected both, participants’ reported aggression and their friends’ amount of violent video game play. There is also the possibility that people are unsure about the extent to which their friends play violent video games. In this case, they may perceive their friends as behaving aggressively and then (wrongly) infer that the friends play violent video games. To disentangle these possibilities and to show that the effect of violent video game play (i.e., increased aggression in the player) indeed has an impact on the player's social network, relationships among variables have to be assessed over time while covarying prior aggression (Bond & Bushman, 2017 ; Christakis & Fowler, 2013 ).

Verheijen, Burk, Stoltz, van den Berg, and Cillessen ( 2018 ) tested the idea that players of violent video games have a long‐term impact on their social network. These authors found that participants’ exposure to violent video games increased their friend's aggressive behavior 1 year later. However, given that the authors did not examine whether the violent video game player's increased aggression accounts for the impact on their friend's aggressive behavior, it is unknown whether violent video game play indeed instigates an aggression cycle. For example, players of violent video games may influence their friends so that these friends will also play violent video games. Any increases in aggression could then be an effect of the friends playing violent video games on their own.

1.4. The present research

The present study examines the longitudinal association between the participant's aggression and their friends’ amount of violent video game play, employing an egocentric networking approach (Stark & Krosnick, 2017 ). In egocentric networking analyses, participants provide self‐reports but also report on how they perceive their friends. In the following, and in line with Greitemeyer ( 2018 ), the friends were treated as the players and the participant was treated as their friends’ social network. Please note that ties between the participant's friends (i.e., whether friends also know each other) were not assessed (Greitemeyer, 2018 ; Mötteli & Dohle, 2019 ), because this information was not needed for testing the hypothesis that participants become more aggressive if their friends play violent video games. It was expected that friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 would predict the participant's aggression at Time 2 even when controlling for the impact of the participant's aggression and amount of violent video game play at Time 1. It was further examined whether friends’ aggression at Time 1 would account for the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2. Such findings would provide suggestive evidence that violent video game play may instigate an aggression cycle. The study received ethical approval from the Internal Review Board for Ethical Questions by the Scientific Ethical Committee of the University of Innsbruck. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/jp8ew/ .

2.1. Participants

Participants were citizens of the U.S. who took part on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Because it was unknown how many of the participants will complete both questionnaires, no power analyses were conducted a priori but a large number of participants was run. At Time 1, there were 2,502 participants (1,376 females, 1,126 males; mean age = 35.7 years, SD =  11.8). Of these, 980 participants (522 females, 458 males; mean age = 38.9 years, SD =  12.5) completed the questionnaire at Time 2. Time 1 and Time 2 were 6 months apart. There were no data exclusions, and all participants were run before any analyses were performed. The questionnaire included some further questions (e.g., participant's perceived deprivation) that are not relevant for the present purpose and are reported elsewhere (Greitemeyer & Sagioglou, 2018 ). 1 Given that the questionnaire was relatively short, no attention checks were employed.

2.2. Procedure and measures

Procedure and measures were very similar to Greitemeyer ( 2018 ), with the main difference that individuals participated at two time points (instead of one). After providing demographics, self‐reported aggressive behavior was assessed. As in previous research (e.g., Krahé & Möller, 2010 ), participants indicated for 10 items how often they had shown the respective behavior in the past 6 months. Sample items are: “I have pushed another person” and “I have spread gossip about people I don't like” (5 items each address physical aggression and relational aggression, respectively). All items were rated on a scale from 1 ( never ) to 5 ( very often ), and scores were averaged. Participants were then asked about their amount of violent video game play, employing one item: “How often do you play violent video games (where the goal is to harm other game characters)?” (1 =  never to 7 =  very often ).

Afterwards, participants learned that they will be asked questions about people they feel closest to. These may be friends, coworkers, neighbors, relatives. They should answer questions for three contacts with whom they talked about important matters in the last few months. For each friend, they reported the level of aggression (αs between = 0.90 and 0.91) and the amount of violent video game play, employing the same questions as for themselves. Responses to the three friends were then averaged. Finally, participants were thanked and asked what they thought this experiment was trying to study, but none noted the hypothesis that their friend's amount of violent video game play would affect their own level of aggression. At Time 2, the same questions were employed. Reliabilities for how participants perceived the level of aggression for each friend were between 0.89 and 0.90.

Descriptive statistics, intercorrelations, and internal consistencies of all measures are shown in Table ​ Table1 1 .

Means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations

Note : For Time 1, N  = 2,502; for Time 2, N  = 980. All correlation coefficients: p  < .001. Where applicable, α reliabilities are presented along the diagonal.

3.1. Time 1 ( N  = 2,502)

The relationship between the amount of violent video game play and reported aggression was significant, both for the participant and the friends. That is, violent video game play was associated with increased aggression in the player and participants perceived their friends who play more violent video games to be more aggressive than their less‐playing friends. Participant's and friends’ amount of violent video game play as well as their level of reported aggression, respectively, were also positively associated, indicating that participants perceived their friends to be similar to them. Most importantly, participant's aggression was significantly associated with friends’ amount of violent video game play. 2

It was then examined whether friends’ amount of violent video game play is still associated with the participant's aggression when controlling for the participant's amount of violent video game play. Participant sex (coded 1 = male, 2 = female) and age were included as covariates. In fact, a bootstrapping analysis showed that the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play remained significant (point estimate = 0.08, SE  = 0.02, t  = 4.72, p  < .001, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.05, 0.11]). Participant's amount of violent video game play (point estimate = 0.03, SE  = 0.01, t  = 2.18, p  = .029, 95% CI = [0.00, 0.05]) and the interaction were also significant (point estimate = −0.01, SE  = 0.00, t  = 2.41, p  = .016, 95% CI = [−0.02, −0.00]). At low levels of the participant's amount of violent video game play (− 1 SD, equals that the participant does not play violent video games in the present data set), friends’ amount of violent video game play was associated with the participant's aggression (point estimate = 0.07, SE  = 0.01, t  = 5.06, p  < .001, 95% CI = [0.04, 0.10]). At high levels of the participant's amount of violent video game play ( + 1 SD), friends’ amount of violent video game play was also associated with the participant's aggression (point estimate = 0.03, SE  = 0.01, t  = 3.14, p  = .002, 95% CI = [0.01, 0.06]), but the effect was less pronounced. Participants were thus most strongly affected by whether their social network plays violent video games when they do not play violent video games themselves (Figure ​ (Figure1). 1 ). Participant sex was not significantly associated with the participant's aggression (point estimate = −0.04, SE  = 0.02, t  = 1.95, p  = .052, 95% CI = [−0.09, 0.00]), whereas age was (point estimate = −0.01, SE  = 0.00, t  = 7.84, p  < .001, 95% CI = [−0.009, −0.005]).

Simple slopes of the interactive effect of friends’ amount of violent video game play and the participant's amount of violent video game play on the participant's aggression, controlling for participant sex and age (Time 1, N  = 2,502)

3.2. Time 1 and Time 2 ( N  = 980)

To examine the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play on the participant's aggression over time, a cross‐lagged regression analysis was performed on the data. Participant's amount of violent video game play, friends’ amount of violent video game play, participant's aggression at Time 1, as well as participant sex and age were used as predictors for participant's aggression at Time 2. The overall regression was significant, F (5,974) = 68.92, R 2  = 0.26, p  < .001. Most importantly, friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 significantly predicted participant's aggression at Time 2, t  = 2.60, β  = .09, 95% CI = (0.02, 0.16), p  = .009. Participant's aggression showed high stability, t  = 16.77, β  = .48, 95% CI = (0.42, 0.53), p  < .001, whereas the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 did not significantly predict the participant's aggression at Time 2, t  = 1.77, β  = −.07, 95% CI = (− 0.14, 0.01), p  = .077 (Figure ​ (Figure2 2 ). 3 , 4 Participant sex also received a significant regression weight, t  = 2.08, β  = −.06, 95% CI = (−0.12, −0.00), p  = .038, whereas age did not, t  = 1.93, β  = −.06, 95% CI = (−0.12, 0.00), p  = .054. The reverse effect that the participant's aggression at Time 1 predicts their friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 2 when controlling for the participant's amount of violent video game play and friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1, as well as participant sex and age, was not significant, t  = 0.67, β  = .02, 95% CI = (−0.03, 0.06), p  = .504.

Participant's aggression at Time 2 simultaneously predicted by friends’ amount of violent video game play, participant's aggression, and participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1. Participant sex and age were controlled for, but were not included in the figure (see the main text for the impact of participant sex and age). * p  < .01, ** p  < .001 ( N  = 980)

Finally, it was examined whether the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2 would be mediated by friends’ level of aggression at Time 1 (while controlling for the participant's aggression and amount of violent video game play at Time 1 as well as participant sex and age). A bootstrapping analysis (with 5.000 iterations) showed that the impact of friends’ level of aggression at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2 was significant (point estimate = 0.16, SE  = 0.04, t  = 4.28, p  < .001, 95% CI = [0.09, 0.23]). Participant's aggression at Time 1 was also a significant predictor (point estimate = 0.34, SE  = 0.03, t  = 10.19, p  < .001, 95% CI = [0.27, 0.40]). Friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 (point estimate = 0.03, SE  = 0.01, t  = 1.82, p  = .069, 95% CI = [−0.00, 0.05]) and participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 (point estimate = −0.01, SE  = 0.01, t  = 1.65, p  = .099, 95% CI = [−0.03, 0.00]) were not significant predictors. Participant sex significantly predicted the participant's aggression at Time 2 (point estimate = −0.06, SE  = 0.03, t  = 2.31, p  = .021, 95% CI = [−0.11, −0.01]), whereas age did not (point estimate = −0.00, SE  = 0.00, t  = 1.90, p  = .058, 95% CI = [−0.00, 0.00]). The indirect effect was significantly different from zero (point estimate = 0.01, 95% CI = [.00, 0.02]), suggesting that participants are more aggressive if their friends play violent video games for the reason that these friends are more aggressive. Figure ​ Figure3 3 displays a simplified version of this mediation effect, based on regression coefficients and without controlling for the participant's aggression at Time 1, the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1, participant sex, and age.

Mediation of the impact of friends’ violent video game exposure (VVE) at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2 by friends’ aggression at Time 1. All paths are significant. β * = the coefficient from friends’ VVE at Time 1 to the participant's aggression at Time 2 when controlling for friends’ aggression at Time 1 ( N  = 980)

4. DISCUSSION

Violent video games have an impact on the player's aggression (Anderson et al., 2010 ; Greitemeyer & Mügge, 2014 ), but—as the present study shows—they also increase aggression in the player's social network. In particular, participants who do not play violent video games reported to be more aggressive the more their friends play violent video games. Mediation analyses showed that the increased aggression in the friends accounted for the relationship between friends’ amount of violent video game play and the participant's aggression. Because changes in aggression over time were assessed, the present study provides evidence for the hypothesized effect that violent video game play is associated with increased aggression in the player, which then instigates aggression in their social network. Importantly, the impact of the participant's amount of violent video game play was controlled for, indicating that the relationship between friends’ amount of violent video game play and the participant's aggression is not due to the friends being similar to the participants. Moreover, the reverse effect that aggressive people will become attracted to others who play violent video games was not reliable. The present research thus documents the directional effects that violent video games is associated with increased aggression in the player and that this increased aggression then has an impact on people with whom the player is connected.

Overall, the present study provides comprehensive support for key hypotheses derived from the GAM and its extension (Anderson & Bushman, 2018 ). It shows that violent video game play is associated with increased aggression in the player and it documents that others who are connected to players might be also affected even when controlling for their own amount of violent video game play. To the best of my knowledge, this study is the first that shows that because violent video game players are more aggressive their friends will become aggressive, too. Previous research either employed a cross‐sectional design and thus could not address the direction of the effect (Greitemeyer, 2018 ) or did not examine whether the effect of violent video game play (i.e., increased aggression) indeed spreads (Verheijen et al., 2018 ). As proposed by the GAM and its extension (Anderson & Bushman, 2018 ), increased aggression in violent video game players appears to instigate an aggression escalation cycle (cf. Anderson et al., 2008 ).

It is noteworthy, however, that the longitudinal effect of the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2 was not reliable. Hence, although there were significant correlations between participants’ aggression and their violent video game use at both time points, the present study does not show that repeatedly playing violent video games leads to long‐term changes in aggression. However, a recent meta‐analysis of the long‐term effects of playing violent video games confirmed that violent video game play does increase physical aggression over time (Prescott, Sargent, & Hull, 2018 ), although the effect size was relatively small ( β  = 0.11) and thus single studies that produce nonsignificant results are to be expected. Importantly, in the present study, a single‐item measure of violent video game play was employed. In contrast, previous research on the relationship between violent video game play and the player's aggression has often employed multi‐item measurement scales that are typically more reliable and precise (for an overview, Busching et al., 2015 ). Hence, it may well be that due to the limitations of the single‐item measure of the participant's amount of violent video game play the relationship between participants’ violent game play and their aggressive behavior was artificially reduced.

Even though the longitudinal design allows ruling out a host of alternative explanations for the impact of violent video games on the player's social network, causality can only inferred by using an experimental design. Future research may thus randomly assign participants to play a violent or nonviolent video game (players) and assesses their aggression against new participants (partners). It can be expected that the partners suffer more aggression when the player had played a violent, compared to a nonviolent, video game. Afterwards, it could be tested whether the partner of a violent video game player is more aggressive than a partner of a nonviolent video game player. Given that the partner is not exposed to any video games, firm causal conclusions could be drawn that violent video game play affects aggression in people who are connected to violent video game players. It could be also tested whether the partner of a violent video game player would not only be more likely to retaliate against the player, but also against a third party. In fact, previous research into displaced aggression has shown that people may react aggressively against a target that is innocent of any wrongdoing after they have been provoked by another person (Marcus‐Newhall, Pedersen, Carlson, & Miller, 2000 ). It may thus well be that the effect of playing violent video games spreads in social networks and that even people who are only indirectly linked to violent video game players are affected.

An important limitation of the present egocentric network data is the reliance on the participant's perception of their social network, leaving the possibility that participants did not accurately perceive their friends. It is noteworthy that participants perceived their friends to be highly similar to them. In this regard, it is important to keep in mind that participants always provided self‐ratings first, followed by perceptions of their friends. It is thus conceivable that participants used their self‐ratings as anchors for the perceptions of their friends. Such a tendency, however, would reduce the unique effect of friends’ amount of violent video game play on the participant's aggression when controlling for the participant's amount of violent video game play. The finding that participants in particular who do not play violent video games reported to be more aggressive if their friends play violent video games also suggests that the impact of violent video games on the player's social network is not due to participants providing both self‐reports and how they perceive their friends. Finally, rather than by their friends’ objective qualities, people's behavior should be more likely to be affected by their subjective perceptions of their friends.

As noted in the introduction, participants may not be aware of the extent to which their friends play violent video games and hence used the perception of how aggressive their friends are as an anchor for estimating their friends’ amount of violent video game play. Importantly, however, the participant's aggression at Time 2 was significantly predicted by friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 even when controlling for friends’ level of aggression at Time 1 (see Figure ​ Figure3). 3 ). Moreover, whereas aggression might be used for estimating violent video game exposure of the friends, participants should be well aware of the extent to which they play violent video games so that anchoring effects for participant's self‐reports are unlikely. However, given that it cannot be completely ruled out that the correlation between violent game play of friends at Time 1 and aggressive behavior of participants at Time 2 reflects a pseudocorrelation that is determined by the correlation between aggressive behavior of friends at Time 1 and aggressive behavior of the participant at Time 2, future research that employs sociocentric network analyses where information about the friends is provided by the friends themselves would be informative.

Another limitation is the employment of self‐report measures to assess aggressive behavior. Self‐report measures are quite transparent, so participants may have rated themselves more favorably than is actually warranted. In fact, mean scores of reported aggressive behavior were quite low. This reduced variance, however, typically diminishes associations with other constructs. In any case, observing how actual aggressive behavior is influenced by the social network's violent video game play would be an important endeavor for future work. It also has to be acknowledged that some participants may have reported on different friends at Time 1 and Time 2. Future research would be welcome that ensures that participants consider the same friends at different time points.

Future research may also shed some further light on the psychological processes. In the present study, the violent video game players’ higher levels of aggression accounted for the relationship between their amount of violent video game play and the participants’ reported aggression. It would be interesting to examine why the players’ aggression influences the aggression level of their social network. One possibility is that witnessing increased aggression by others (who play violent video games) leads to greater acceptance of norms condoning aggression, which are known to be an antecedent of aggressive behavior (Huesmann & Guerra, 1997 ). After all, if others behave aggressively, why should one refrain from engaging in the same behavior.

Another limitation of the present work is that it was not assessed how participants and their friends play violent video games. A recent survey (Lenhart, Smith, Anderson, Duggan, & Perrin, 2015 ) showed that many video game users play video games together with their friends, either cooperatively or competitively. This is insofar noteworthy as there might be some overlap between participants’ and their friends’ violent video game play. Moreover, cooperative video games have been shown to increase prosocial tendencies (Greitemeyer, 2013 ; Greitemeyer & Cox, 2013 ; but see Verheijen, Stoltz, van den Berg, & Cillessen, 2019 ) and decrease aggression (Velez, Greitemeyer, Whitaker, Ewoldsen, & Bushman, 2016 ). In contrast, competitive video game play increases aggressive affect and behavior (e.g., Adachi & Willoughby, 2016 ). Hence, future research should examine more closely whether participants play violent video games on their own, competitively, or cooperatively. The latter may show some positive effects of video game play, both on the player and the player's friends, whereas opposing effects should be found for competitive video games.

To obtain high statistical power and thus to increase the probability to detect significant effects, data were collected via an online survey. The current sample was drawn from the MTurk population (for a review of the trend to rely on MTurk samples in social and personality psychology, see Anderson et al., 2019 ). Samples drawn from MTurk are not demographically representative of the U.S. population as a whole. For example, MTurk samples are disproportionally young and female and they are better educated but tend to be unemployed (for a review, Keith, Tay, & Harms, 2017 ). On the other hand, MTurk samples are more representative of the U.S. population than are college student samples (Paolacci & Chandler, 2014 ) and the pool of participants is geographically diverse. Moreover, MTurk participants appear to be more attentive to survey instructions than are undergraduate students (Hauser & Schwarz, 2016 ). Nevertheless, future research on the impact of violent video game play on the player's social network that employs other samples would improve the generalizability of the present findings.

In conclusion, violent video game play is not only associated with increased aggression in the player but also in the player's social network. In fact, increased aggression due to violent video game play appears to instigate further aggression in the player's social network. This study thus provides suggestive evidence that not only players of violent video games are more aggressive, but also individuals become more aggressive who do not play violent video games themselves but are connected to others who do play.

Greitemeyer T. The contagious impact of playing violent video games on aggression: Longitudinal evidence . Aggressive Behavior . 2019; 45 :635–642. 10.1002/ab.21857 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

1 Participant's perceived deprivation was positively related to both violent video game exposure, r (2,502) = 0.08, p  < .001, and reported aggression, r (2,502) = 0.14, p  < .001. However, the relationship between violent video game exposure and reported aggression, r (2,502) = 0.15, p  < .001, was relatively unaffected when controlling for perceived deprivation, r (2,499) = 0.14, p  < .001.

2 Given that the measures of violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior violated the normal distribution, Spearman's ρ coefficients were also calculated. However, the pattern of finding was very similar (e.g., the crucial relationship between the participant's aggression and friends’ amount of violent video game play was 0.18 [Pearson] and 0.17 [Spearman]). All these analyses can be obtained from the author upon request.

3 When dropping friends’ amount of violent video game play from the analysis, the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 still did not predict participant's aggression at Time 2, t  = 0.44, β  = −.01, 95% CI = (− 0.02, 0.01), p  = .657 (when controlling for participant's aggression at Time 1, participant sex, and age).

4 Given that violent video games primarily model physical aggression, violent video games should have a stronger effect on the player's physical aggression than on other types of aggression. In fact, the impact of the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's physical aggression at Time 2, t  = 1.49, β  = .04, 95% CI = (− 0.00, 0.02), p  = .136 (when controlling for the participant's physical aggression at Time 1), was more pronounced than the impact on the participant's relational aggression at Time 2, t  = 0.52, β  = .02, 95% CI = (− 0.01, 0.02), p  = .603 (when controlling for the participant's relational aggression at Time 1), but both effects were not significant.

• Adachi, P. J. C. , & Willoughby, T. (2016). The longitudinal association between competitive video game play and aggression among adolescents and young adults . Child Development , 87 , 1877–1892. 10.1111/cdev.12556 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anderson, C. A. , Allen, J. J. , Plante, C. , Quigley‐McBride, A. , Lovett, A. , & Rokkum, J. N. (2019). The MTurkification of social and personality psychology . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 45 , 842–850. 10.1177%2F0146167218798821 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anderson, C. A. , Buckley, K. E. , & Carnagey, N. L. (2008). Creating your own hostile environment: A laboratory examination of trait aggressiveness and the violence escalation cycle . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 34 , 462–473. 10.1177/0146167207311282 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anderson, C. A. , & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Human aggression . Annual Review of Psychology , 53 , 27–51. 10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135231 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anderson, C. A. , & Bushman, B. J. (2018). Media violence and the General Aggression Model . Journal of Social Issues , 74 , 386–413. 10.1111/josi.12275 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anderson, C. A. , & Carnagey, N. L. (2009). Causal effects of violent sports video games on aggression: Is it competitiveness or violent content? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , 45 , 731–739. 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.04.019 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anderson, C. A. , Sakamoto, A. , Gentile, D. A. , Ihori, N. , Shibuya, A. , Yukawa, S. , … Kobayashi, K. (2008). Longitudinal effects of violent video games on aggression in Japan and the United States . Pediatrics , 122 , e1067–e1072. 10.1542/peds.2008-1425 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anderson, C. A. , Shibuya, A. , Ihori, N. , Swing, E. L. , Bushman, B. J. , Sakamoto, A. , … Saleem, M. (2010). Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries . Psychological Bulletin , 136 , 151–173. 10.1037/a0018251 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bond, R. M. , & Bushman, B. J. (2017). The contagious spread of violence among US adolescents through social networks . American Journal of Public Health , 107 , 288–294. 10.2105/AJPH.2016.303550 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Busching, R. , Gentile, D. A. , Krahé, B. , Möller, I. , Khoo, A. , Walsh, D. A. , & Anderson, C. A. (2015). Testing the reliability and validity of different measures of violent video game use in the United States, Singapore, and Germany . Psychology of Popular Media Culture , 4 , 97–111. [ Google Scholar ]
• Christakis, N. A. , & Fowler, J. H. (2013). Social contagion theory: Examining dynamic social networks and human behavior . Statistics in Medicine , 32 , 556–577. 10.1002/sim.5408 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dishion, T. J. , & Tipsord, J. M. (2011). Peer contagion in child and adolescent social and emotional development . Annual Review of Psychology , 62 , 189–214. 10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100412 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gabbiadini, A. , & Riva, P. (2018). The lone gamer: Social exclusion predicts violent video game preferences and fuels aggressive inclinations in adolescent players . Aggressive Behavior , 44 , 113–124. 10.1002/ab.21735 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gentile, D. A. , Lynch, P. J. , Linder, J. R. , & Walsh, D. A. (2004). The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance . Journal of Adolescence , 27 , 5–22. 10.1016/j.adolescence.2003.10.002 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Goldstein, J. H. , Davis, R. W. , & Herman, D. (1975). Escalation of aggression: Experimental studies . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 31 , 162–170. 10.1037/h0076241 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Greitemeyer, T. (2013). Playing video games cooperatively increases empathic concern . Social Psychology , 44 , 408–413. 10.1027/1864-9335/a000154 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Greitemeyer, T. (2018). The spreading impact of playing violent video games on aggression . Computers in Human Behavior , 80 , 216–219. 10.1016/j.chb.2017.11.022 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Greitemeyer, T. , & Cox, C. (2013). There's no “I” in team: Effects of cooperative video games on cooperative behavior: Video games and cooperation . European Journal of Social Psychology , 43 , 224–228. 10.1002/ejsp.1940 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Greitemeyer, T. , & Mügge, D. O. (2014). Video games do affect social outcomes: A meta‐analytic review of the effects of violent and prosocial video game play . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 40 , 578–589. 10.1177/0146167213520459 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Greitemeyer, T. , & Sagioglou, C. (2018). The impact of personal relative deprivation on aggression over time . The Journal of Social Psychology , 3–7. 10.1080/00224545.2018.1549013 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hauser, D. J. , & Schwarz, N. (2016). Attentive Turkers: MTurk participants perform better on online attention checks than do subject pool participants . Behavior Research Methods , 48 , 400–407. 10.3758/s13428-015-0578-z [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Huesmann, L. R. (2012). The contagion of violence: The extent, the processes, and the outcomes. Social and economic costs of violence: Workshop summary (pp. 63–69). Washington, DC: IOM (Institute of Medicine) and NRC (National, Research Council). [ Google Scholar ]
• Huesmann, L. R. , & Guerra, N. G. (1997). Children's normative beliefs about aggression and aggressive behavior . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 72 , 408–419. 10.1037/0022-3514.72.2.408 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jung, J. , Busching, R. , & Krahé, B. (2019). Catching aggression from one's peers: A longitudinal and multilevel analysis . Social and Personality Psychology Compass , 13 , e12433 10.1111/spc3.12433 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Keith, M. G. , Tay, L. , & Harms, P. D. (2017). Systems perspective of Amazon Mechanical Turk for organizational research: Review and recommendations . Frontiers in Psychology , 8 , 1359 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01359 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Krahé, B. , & Möller, I. (2004). Playing violent electronic games, hostile attributional style, and aggression‐related norms in German adolescents . Journal of Adolescence , 27 , 53–69. 10.1016/j.adolescence.2003.10.006 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Krahé, B. , & Möller, I. (2010). Longitudinal effects of media violence on aggression and empathy among German adolescents . Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology , 31 , 401–409. 10.1016/j.appdev.2010.07.003 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lenhart, A. , Smith, A. , Anderson, M. , Duggan, M. , & Perrin, A. (2015). Teens, technology and friendships Pew Internet and American Life Project. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/06/teens-technology-and-friendships/
• Marcus‐Newhall, A. , Pedersen, W. C. , Carlson, M. , & Miller, N. (2000). Displaced aggression is alive and well: A meta‐analytic review . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 78 , 670–689. 10.1037/0022-3514.78.4.670 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• McCarthy, R. J. , Coley, S. L. , Wagner, M. F. , Zengel, B. , & Basham, A. (2016). Does playing video games with violent content temporarily increase aggressive inclinations? A pre‐registered experimental study . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , 67 , 13–19. 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.10.009 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mötteli, S. , & Dohle, S. (2019). Egocentric social network correlates of physical activity . Journal of Sport and Health Science , 2–8. 10.1016/j.jshs.2017.01.002 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Paolacci, G. , & Chandler, J. (2014). Inside the Turk: Understanding Mechanical Turk as a participant pool . Current Directions in Psychological Science , 23 , 184–188. 10.1177/0963721414531598 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Prescott, A. T. , Sargent, J. D. , & Hull, J. G. (2018). Metaanalysis of the relationship between violent video game play and physical aggression over time . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 115 , 9882–9888. 10.1073/pnas.1611617114 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stark, T. H. , & Krosnick, J. A. (2017). GENSI: A new graphical tool to collect ego‐centered network data . Social Networks , 48 , 36–45. 10.1016/j.socnet.2016.07.007 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Velez, J. A. , Greitemeyer, T. , Whitaker, J. L. , Ewoldsen, D. R. , & Bushman, B. J. (2016). Violent video games and reciprocity: The attenuating effects of cooperative game play on subsequent aggression . Communication Research , 43 , 447–467. 10.1177/0093650214552519 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Verheijen, G. P. , Burk, W. J. , Stoltz, S. E. M. J. , van den Berg, Y. H. M. , & Cillessen, A. H. N. (2018). Friendly fire: Longitudinal effects of exposure to violent video games on aggressive behavior in adolescent friendship dyads . Aggressive Behavior , 44 , 257–267. 10.1002/ab.21748 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Verheijen, G. P. , Stoltz, S. E. M. J. , van den Berg, Y. H. M. , & Cillessen, A. H. N. (2019). The influence of competitive and cooperative video games on behavior during play and friendship quality in adolescence . Computers in Human Behavior , 91 , 297–304. 10.1016/j.chb.2018.10.023 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Widom, C. S. (1989). Does violence beget violence? A critical examination of the literature . Psychological Bulletin , 106 , 3–28. 10.1037/0033-2909.115.2.287 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

• Human Editing
• Free AI Essay Writer
• AI Outline Generator
• AI Paragraph Generator
• Paragraph Expander
• Essay Expander
• Literature Review Generator
• Research Paper Generator
• Thesis Generator
• Paraphrasing tool
• AI Rewording Tool
• AI Sentence Rewriter
• AI Rephraser
• AI Paragraph Rewriter
• Summarizing Tool
• AI Content Shortener
• Plagiarism Checker
• AI Detector
• AI Essay Checker
• Citation Generator
• Reference Finder
• Book Citation Generator
• Legal Citation Generator
• Journal Citation Generator
• Reference Citation Generator
• Scientific Citation Generator
• Source Citation Generator
• Website Citation Generator
• URL Citation Generator
• Proofreading Service
• Editing Service
• AI Writing Guides
• AI Detection Guides
• Citation Guides
• Grammar Guides
• Paraphrasing Guides
• Plagiarism Guides
• Summary Writing Guides
• STEM Guides
• Humanities Guides
• Language Learning Guides
• Coding Guides
• Top Lists and Recommendations
• AI Detectors
• AI Writing Services
• Coding Homework Help
• Citation Generators
• Editing Websites
• Essay Writing Websites
• Language Learning Websites
• Math Solvers
• Paraphrasers
• Plagiarism Checkers
• Reference Finders
• Spell Checkers
• Summarizers
• Tutoring Websites

Most Popular

Ai or not ai a student suspects one of their peer reviewer was a bot, how to summarize a research article, loose vs lose, how to cite a blog, apa paraphrasing, why teens should not be allowed to play violent video games essay sample, example.

Times when children would spend their entire free time playing with peers in the streets have mostly gone. Modern children and teenagers prefer calmer forms of entertainment, such as watching television, or in a large degree, playing video games. Although video games can contribute to a child’s development, many of them, unfortunately, are extremely violent. Moreover, games propagating murder and violence, such as Mortal Kombat, Outlast, Grand Theft Auto, and so on, are popular and are being advertised everywhere, making teenagers willing to play them; the fact that they are marked by the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) does not help much. However, considering the nature of such games, they should not be allowed for teens to play.

For the human brain, there is no big difference between a real-life situation, and an imaginary one; this is why we get upset even if we think about something unpleasant. For children and teens, who usually have a rich imagination, everything is even more intense. Virtual experiences for them may feel as real as daily life; this happens due to advanced technologies, making computer graphics look extremely close to reality, and also because players take a first-person role in the killing process (often with the view “from a character’s eyes”). If they would passively watch a violent game, it would make less harm than acting as a character who makes progress through a plot by murdering people and destroying what is in the character’s path. This situation is negative, as a child’s or teen’s brain forms new connections every day—they actually learn and memorize what is going on in their favorite games ( HuffingtonPost ).

Moreover, violent games directly reward violent behavior; many modern games do not simply make make players kill virtual reality characters of other players online, but also grant them with scores (experience) or points for successful acts of violence. These points are usually spent on making a player’s character even more efficient in killing, unlocking new cruel ways of murdering, and so on. Sometimes, players will be even praised directly, verbally; for example, in many online shooters, after conducting a killing, players hear phrases like “Nice shot!” encouraging further violence. This is much worse than watching TV, as TV programs do not offer a reward directly tied to the viewer’s behavior, and do not praise viewers for doing something anti-social ( ITHP ).

According the American Psychological Association, violent video games increase children’s aggression. Dr. Phil McGraw explains, “The number one negative effect is they tend to inappropriately resolve anxiety by externalizing it. So when kids have anxiety, which they do, instead of soothing themselves, calming themselves, talking about it, expressing it to someone, or even expressing it emotionally by crying, they tend to externalize it. They can attack something, they can kick a wall, they can be mean to a dog or a pet.” Additionally, there’s an increased frequency of violent responses from children who play these kinds of video games ( Roanna Cooper ).

Unfortunately, many modern games incorporate violence. Having youth play these video games are dangerous, as teenagers and children usually take a first person role in the killing process, and even get rewarded or praised for doing so. According to numerous studies, this leads to an increase of aggression in them.

John, Laura St. “8 Ways Violent Games Are Bad for Your Kids.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2015.

“The Effects of Violent Video Games. Do They Affect Our Behavior?” ITHP. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2015.

“Children and Violent Video Games.” Dr. Phil.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2015.

Follow us on Reddit for more insights and updates.

Comments (0)

Welcome to A*Help comments!

We’re all about debate and discussion at A*Help.

We value the diverse opinions of users, so you may find points of view that you don’t agree with. And that’s cool. However, there are certain things we’re not OK with: attempts to manipulate our data in any way, for example, or the posting of discriminative, offensive, hateful, or disparaging material.

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

More from Best Persuasive Essay Examples

May 28 2023

How does outdoor exercises impact our health and well-being? Essay Sample, Example

Should Screen Time Be Limited? Essay Sample, Example

Why Video Games are Good for the Brain. Essay Sample, Example

Remember Me

What is your profession ? Student Teacher Writer Other

Forgotten Password?

Username or Email

Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Video Games — Video Games Should Be Banned

Video Games Should Be Banned

• Categories: Video Games

About this sample

Words: 759 |

Published: Mar 14, 2024

Words: 759 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Heisenberg

Verified writer

• Expert in: Entertainment

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

5 pages / 2086 words

1 pages / 505 words

4 pages / 2022 words

6 pages / 2896 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Video Games

Why videogames are good for you is a question that has sparked debate and curiosity in recent years. Video gaming, once associated solely with entertainment, has emerged as a multifaceted phenomenon that encompasses cognitive, [...]

The notion that video games cause violence has been a topic of debate and concern for many years. However, a wealth of research challenges this belief, suggesting that the relationship between video games and violent behavior is [...]

The debate between video games and outdoor games as forms of recreation has become increasingly prominent in today's technology-driven society. Both types of games offer unique experiences and benefits, but they also present [...]

Can video games make you smarter is a question that has sparked considerable interest and debate in recent years. Video games, once regarded solely as a form of entertainment, have evolved into complex interactive experiences [...]

Mobile gaming is quite popular and it started with the first ever mobile game Tetris, this game was launched on the Hagenuk MT – 2000 phone in 1994. Although this was the first ever game it wasn’t as popular as Snake, this was [...]

With video games becoming increasingly violent throughout the years, the controversy of whether or not they cause children to become more violent has increased as well, however this statement has yet to be proven. Many people [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Sample details

• Social Issues

Video Game Violence

Related Topics

Violence in Video Games

• Youth Violence
• Gun Violence

Violent Video Games Should Be Banned

Almost every child enjoys playing video games as it acts as a source of entertainment. However, as time passed by vicious contents are now being portrayed through gaming that dehumanizes children and encourages in promoting violent behavior. Parents may sometimes struggle in handling severe aggression of their children as it often makes a situation worse. According to some people gaming is a normal fun activity with no harmful impacts but with time this has effected children’s behavior and affected their personalities. Often during teenage period, children are quick to adopt learned behavior as their body and mind are undergoing numerous changes. Violent video games make players internalize anxiety, increase aggressive attitude, imitate their most liked character and cause severe physical impairments.

Video game are extensively played in majority’s childhood and has influenced behavior of children by reconstructing their thoughts, actions, preferences depending on the intensity of video games played by them. Gaming is a high rated obsession of every individual as it is a good source of time pass. Back then, it was played for fun purpose but unfortunately with the passage of time children started to adopt negative behaviors from these and implemented them in normal life. Violent video games are causing many people to develop aggressive attitude against others, losing the feeling of helping others or showing empathy.

ready to help you now

Without paying upfront

Exposure to violent video games negatively affects teenagers; it increases aggressive behavior and related thoughts or feeling. Violent games in which characters are abused, murdered brutally, physically harmed should be prohibited as such games will escalate violent behavior and have a negative impact on their moral development. According to the journal of medical association, games have a strong negative impact on children and adolescent’s developing minds. More brutality and hostility were generated by these gaming activities. When a child in the video games is constantly witnessing violence, blood and murders, it leaves a certain mark on his psyche. Such a child would be more likely to take aggressive action against his family or friends and get involved on arguments without logic that harms their peers.

Teenagers learn to imitate characters and associate violent behaviors with pleasure of achieving rewards by harming others; this may erode moral codes of conduct. Some researches referred to this term as “Game transfer phenomena” where gamers adopt visual imagery contents and associate it with real life, this later results in non responsive behavior of children with family and surroundings. Under simulated conditions, emotions are triggered by violent attitude and encourage teenagers to harm others for their own satisfaction. According to researcher Matthew de grood, a 9 year old boy who frequently played ‘Halo zombies’ game, killed five college students stating that he thought they were zombies. Thus, video games can be habit forming as it gives immediate reward for learning and adopting negative behavior of characters.

Children becoming highly addicted with video games suffer from physical impairments. This is when they spend excessive amount of time on gaming that delays physical development of body as a result leading to serious and permanent psychological mental effects. The author of “Reset your child’s brain” Dr. Victoria Dunkley reports that when children play games their nervous system is in flight or fight stage, it releases dopamine and adrenaline in your body that can be dangerous as it can increase risk of heart attacks in future. Another therapist reported that there has been an increase in medical prescriptions for unfit or obese children who refuse to participate in outdoor activities. These can deteriorate health and result in chronic adrenal fatigue and auto immune diseases due to lack of performance in health activities, not only does it results in disorders but also depression, stress, diet and sleep imbalance as the gamers hardly have any social or healthy lifestyle because of their addiction towards video gaming.

There have been unwitting claims made by media about video games that are violent and involves abusive language; they consider shooting to have a link with murder and aggression in real life for the love of video gaming. In contrary, according to some researchers playing violent video games is a form stress relief. It also improves your memory, communication skills, built team work and spatial – solving skills. Though it had been a hard time drawing the line between cause and effect but violent video games are not the only reason for negative personality of children, there are many other factors around that influence behavior and also it depends on the level of intensity of video games.

In conclusion, violent games should be banned as it results in concomitant rise in violence and aggression and reduces pro social attitude. Children associate violence with enjoyment and normalize this behavior in the environment. These gaming activities have more negative effects than positive ones. Immense numbers of children playing video games are becoming addicted and spending majority of their time in gaming that not only ruins their social life but also has a bad influence on them and affects their health. Moreover, the parents need to understand that they should supervise their children, adopt a good behavior towards them by teaching them moral values and engaging them more in other alternatives such as travelling, family quality time, movies, reading, arts and sports.

Cite this page

https://graduateway.com/violent-video-games-should-be-banned/

You can get a custom paper by one of our expert writers

Check more samples on your topics

Violent video games contribute to youth violence.

Video Games

Nowadays, video games have become a vital part of most children. They tend to spend more time in front of consoles and computers than reading books, playing or studying. However, when something becomes popular in somehow, there must be someone who disagrees and condemns it. The issue is that violent video games contribute to youth

Effect of Violent Video Games

Positive Effects of Violent Video Games Contrary to popular belief, violent video game actually has a lot of positive effects. According to studies done about the relationship of violent of video games and violent crime, this form of popular media has reduced the amount of violent crime. As stated in the journal written by Benjamin

Playing Violent Video Games: Good or Bad?

The Supreme Court is weighing arguments for and against a California law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. The dispute is over whether it is a violation of free speech to ban them. But the issue is really about public health--the health of those who play and the health of everyone they

Violent Video Games and their Positive Effects

How many times a day do our children ask us for something and we so quickly reply, “No” without second guessing it or even listening to the whole question? A million and one times, right? Most children play video games, and regardless of how we parent there usually will come a time when our child

Violent Video Games Leading to Criminal Behavior

Violent video games and its effect on gamers has been a debatable topic for decades. Although scientists have not came up with an official answer, many people have different opinions on where they stand in the argument. Many people believe violent video games can lead to a person committing a serious crime. There are video

Are Violent Video Games Appropriate Entertainment For Teenagers

Consider this scenario: A teenage boy just returned from his friend’s place after a playdate. When the boy’s parents ask him did they have a good time and what did they do together, the teenager smiles with a mischievous glint in his eyes and replies, “Yeah! Josh and I survived a zombie apocalypse, raided a

Are Violent Video Games Really That Bad for You

A lot of people play video games these days. You can look at people of many and different ages, religions, backgrounds, race, and economic scale. New apps and video games are being created each and every day. This generation meaning millennials and Gen Z are all about new advances and technology. A popular video game

Do Video Games Make You More Violent

“I know, it’s hard to wrap your head around such a fact of after years of listening to ‘don’t sit too close to the TV, you’ll ruin your eyes,’ or ‘stop wasting your time playing video games—go outside!(https://www.idtech.com/blog/video-games-are-good-for-you)’” Everyone that plays video games has heard these sayings sometime during their life. Most parents are hard

Should Violent Media Be Banned

Should violent media be banned? Many teenagers are now being introduced into playing or watching violent media at very young ages and society are wondering if they should be concerned about it; they are wondering whether it can cause aggressive behaviour within the children/teenagers. Violent video games and violent action films normally have age restriction

Hi, my name is Amy 👋

In case you can't find a relevant example, our professional writers are ready to help you write a unique paper. Just talk to our smart assistant Amy and she'll connect you with the best match.

Should Video Games Be Banned?

• Share on Facebook
• Share on LinkedIn

Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the gaming industry’s top leaders? Learn more about GamesBeat Summit sponsorship opportunities here . 

             Over the last 40 years from their inception video games have been very popular among children and young people. More recently the market has vastly grown becoming a major media industry with new releases poised to create as much revenue as the Hollywood blockbuster films. The UK is the fourth largest developer of video games in the world with the industry employing over 22,000 people.  Despite these success stories many people are uncomfortable with video games believing them to be harmful to our societies. Both sides of the   argumenthave valid points which merit consideration.

              Video games are often condemned because many feel they contain excessive amounts of violence and how this can affect the player. This debate is controversial and the most persistent question when discussing video games. Advocates say games such as the 18-rated  Grand Theft Auto  series with its high level of violent game play and graphic portrayal of it are unacceptable and should not be sold as it could be damaging to children’s development if they play it. Others try to remind them that this type of game is highly regulated and purchasing is restricted to those over the age of 18. If children play it, that is their parents decision based on their child’s level of maturity and personality. There is a barrier in place to protect younger gamers; it is a matter of parents following the rules.Those against banning the games also cite how other forms of media such as comic books, films and even books were prejudiced against. It is a rite of passage which all forms of media have to go through in order to be generally accepted in society. In the 1940s and 1950s comic books were looked upon as immoral and as causing terrible damage to children. Eventually these thoughts were quelled and now comic books are widely enjoyed around the world. Rap and R&B music is also criticised with some people claiming it incites black youths to take up arms and join gangs while in fact studies have shown the main purchaser of this type of music is white people.

              Many people believe video games can be extremely artistic and beautiful. An example of these artistic games is  Shadow of the Colossus . The game world is a desolate world in which the player travels battling huge beings known as Colossi to save a young girls life. In many sections of the game the player travels alone. The art helps portray a feeling of loneliness and despair while the orchestral music playing while battling the Colossi depicts a sense of heroism and grandeur. Every component of this game complements each other creating a cohesive experience which is known to bring gamers to tears while playing. This is used as a prime example as a reason why video games shouldn’t be banned and in fact should be embraced by society.

Shadow of the Colossus is seen as a landmark interactive experience

              Excessive use of video games has been covered greatly in the last five years by themedia. Cases of technological addiction are often children not knowing when enough is enough but others such as Lee Seung Seop’s have went to the extremes.  His case shows how some people are affected by certain video games addictive quality to the extent of playing to death. In 2005 Seop visited an internet cafe in Taegu, South Korea and played Starcraft  continuously for fifty hours before suffering cardiac arrest. It was reported that six weeks prior he had broken up with his girlfriend over the issue and had been fired from his job due to “repeated tardiness”. People against video games will say that this case clearly shows the need for them to be banned as they can destroy lives. On the pro-video game side they believe this is an isolated incident involving a severely disturbed individual. Many people believe that people who become addicted to games and become reclusive say those people weren’t very social to begin with video games just filled a gap. People who are social to begin with won’t let games affect their social lives.

Very Addicting

              Video games are commonly used in a medical capacity around the world. A study carried out by the American Physical Therapy Association showed that the Nintendo Wii with its motion sensing capabilities could be beneficial in the treatment of teenagers with cerebral palsy. Games are also used in many children’s wards as something to help children feel more comfortable while in hospital. Many medical professionals now believe games to be key to a quick recovery for children. Charities such as Child’s Play donate video game related equipment to hospitals making a difference in sick children’s lives. Professionals such as Jen Usinger at The Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel in Oregon, USA say video games give the patients in the hospital an escape from all the medicine, allowing them to feel like a normal child. Surgeons also use video games with specialised equipment to improve technique and learn new procedures in non life threatening situations. These simulators are specially built and the vast majority of surgeons believe they allow for better patient care. Personally during my work experience at the Royal Alexandra Hospital I practiced on an endoscopic simulator and within an hour from going with no experience at all I could successfully complete an operation.  If video games were banned advances in this type of technology, while not completely halted, would’ve been considerably hindered.

               RapeLay  is a Japanese developed game which has been heavily criticised since its release in 2006. In this you play as a man who stalks a mother and two daughters with the intent to rape them. The game features an in-depth sex simulator in which later in the game the player can tie the three women up and have forced intercourse. Many people were horrified when this game was released and called for its banning, deeming it immoral and extremely offensive to women. Online stores such as Amazon.com have since banned this game and an independent Japanese rating board have restricted the sale and production of RapeLay  making it impossible to buy. Some people however have defended the game saying rape is a lesser crime than murder so why should  RapeLay  be banned while thousands of other legal adult games feature large amounts of killing. Others have also referred to this kind of content being in books and films and they aren’t banned. The reaction to this is video games are interactive while films are passively used.

              The Byron Report on video games and internet use with children was released in March, 2008 by the British clinical psychologist Tanya Byron. In relation to video games the report shows that parents are often unclear about classification systems such as PEGI (Pan European Game Information) and how to restrict their child’s access to inappropriate digital media. It also talks about the benefits of video games to youths in the form of learning new skills. Research has shown skills such as reaction times, strategic planning and special perception are greatly improved compared to non-gamers. It also helps improve their planning skills and their willingness to try new methods instead of being afraid to try a different hypothesis. This is due to the player having to process new information quickly and react fast. The report also talks about how video games can help relax the player and how gaming has evolved from a solitary activity into a form of entertainment the whole family can enjoy together. This helps social development and creates stronger bonds with parents and siblings than an activity such as watching television would form. The Byron report also affirms doctor’s theories that video games can help with recovery after a painful treatment. Their study showed that those playing video games needed fewer painkillers. It is suggested in the report that video games take up the attention in the brain which would previously have been used focusing on the pain.

Family Friendly Gaming

Overall both sides of the argument have convincing points. Personally I feel video games do a lot more good than bad in modern society. I think it is an overreaction to the problem to ban all games, even those such as  Tiger Wood’s Golf  and  Football Manager  which are non-violent and family friendly There are suitable regulations in place to protect younger generations and to police what kind of content is available. One of the biggest issues is parents not being aware of these systems and not knowing what is suitable for their children although I feel these problems will go away over the next 20 years as those who grew up playing games start to have their own children and can protect them from inappropriate content

Stay in the know! Get the latest news in your inbox daily

By subscribing, you agree to VentureBeat's Terms of Service.

Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here .

An error occured.

Election Updates: Nebraska Republicans renew push for ‘winner take all’ electoral system.

• Share full article

Neil Vigdor

George Conway, a conservative lawyer and leading critic of Donald J. Trump, confirmed that he will headline a fund-raiser for the Biden Victory Fund. Mr. Conway, the ex-husband of the longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, said he gave the maximum $929,600 to the fund. “This election is about whether we will have future elections,” he said. “That’s priceless, and I think what I gave was a bargain.”

Michael Gold

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee said that they raised $65.6 million in March and ended the month with $93.1 million in cash on hand, across a number of committees. Donald J. Trump has been at a fund-raising disadvantage compared to Biden and Democrats for months, but has been courting donors more regularly since winning his party’s nomination.

Nicholas Nehamas

President Biden said on Tuesday that he was “outraged” by the deaths of seven aid workers for World Central Kitchen in an Israeli strike in Gaza, saying it was not a “stand-alone” incident. “Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians,” he said in a statement. Democrats have criticized Biden for his support for Israel during its war in Gaza.

Chris Cameron

A new Wall Street Journal poll finds that former President Donald J. Trump leads President Biden in six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Biden leads in Wisconsin, according to the poll, but only when the test ballot includes third-party and independent candidates. In a head-to-head matchup, Biden and Trump are tied in Wisconsin.

Mitch Smith

Wisconsin voters approve bans on private aid for election offices.

Voters in Wisconsin approved adding language to the State Constitution on Tuesday that will forbid officials from accepting donations of money or staffing to help run elections, The Associated Press said.

The questions were placed on the state’s primary ballot by the Republican-controlled Legislature. They were rooted in complaints raised about the 2020 election, including objections to donations that a group supported by the billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, his wife, made to local election offices, as well as assistance given to election administrators by nonprofit groups. The donations could be used to defray any of a wide variety of costs, like polling-place rental fees, drive-through voting sites or training for poll workers.

Mr. Zuckerberg has said he no longer planned to award grants to election offices.

President Biden narrowly won Wisconsin in 2020, a result that some Republicans tried and failed to overturn afterward. Voters in the state, which Donald J. Trump carried in 2016 , tend to split about evenly between the two major parties, and the state could be decisive in this year’s presidential race. Republicans have argued that funding for running elections should be provided solely by the government and should be allocated equitably to all jurisdictions.

Opponents of the ballot question concerning outside staffing for election offices said Wisconsin law already made clear who could or could not work as an election official, and that passing the amendment could have unintended consequences.

By opting for a statewide vote on the proposed election limits, Wisconsin Republicans were able to maneuver around Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who vetoed a bill in 2021 that would have banned private grants for elections.

“Regardless of the source of additional funding for election administration, election administrators must always run elections according to state and federal law,” Mr. Evers said in his veto message.

Wisconsin is far from alone in seeking to limit private financial support for election administration, which historically has been paid for by governments. The issue grew in prominence after the 2020 campaign, when election offices struggled to cope with the added costs of conducting elections during the Covid-19 pandemic and outside donors stepped in to help.

Twenty-seven states, all with governments under full or partial Republican control, have passed restrictions on the donations since 2020, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures . Many of the new measures were passed through legislatures, but Louisiana residents approved limits last year in a statewide vote.

In Wisconsin, supporters of a ban on donated support have raised concerns about local election offices in left-leaning parts of the state receiving more aid than those in right-leaning areas, possibly affecting election results. Though both liberal- and conservative-leaning Wisconsin jurisdictions received private election grants in 2020, Republicans believe the funding disproportionately helped Democrats.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit group that Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Chan supported, gave more than $1 million each to election offices in Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay in 2020. Green Bay’s county is politically mixed, but Milwaukee and Madison are overwhelmingly Democratic. Smaller cities and towns received smaller grants.

“Our citizens firmly believe that outside money, particularly from liberal states, should not hold the power to determine the fate of elections here in Wisconsin,” State Representative Ty Bodden, a Republican, said last year when lawmakers were debating the issue.

Prominent conservative groups in the state, including the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty , urged voters to approve both changes to the Constitution. “Private funding creates an unfair situation when some municipalities realize the benefits of additional election administration funding while others do not,” the institute said.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin , other left-leaning groups and civil rights groups opposed the ballot measures, arguing that elections were underfunded by the state and that the amendments were vaguely written.

“Grants banned by this proposal have provided a lifeline to help clerks pay for equipment, polling place rental, poll workers and supplies to protect your right to vote and make elections run smoothly and securely,” said the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin , which encouraged voters to reject the measures.

Wisconsin has long been one of the country’s most bitterly divided states, with each party routinely accusing the other of undermining democracy and the rule of law. It has also been slow to move on from the last presidential campaign, even as a November rematch between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden looms.

When Mr. Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, three conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justices dissented when four of their colleagues rejected his claims . Since then, Republican lawmakers have tried to remove the head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. All the while, a fresh set of district maps , recently ordered by the State Supreme Court’s new liberal majority, threatens Republicans’ longtime gerrymandered hold on the legislative branch.

Jonathan Weisman

Nebraska Republicans renew push for ‘winner take all’ electoral system.

A renewed push by Nebraska Republicans to move to a “winner-take-all” system in presidential elections has raised the prospect that the 2024 contest could end in an electoral college tie — with the House of Representatives deciding the winner.

Nebraska and Maine are the only states that divide their electoral votes according to the presidential winners of congressional districts. In 2020, Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the eastern district around Omaha and its one vote. On Tuesday, Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska, a Republican, threw his support behind a G.O.P.-led bill languishing in the state’s unicameral legislature that would end the practice.

“It would bring Nebraska in line with 48 of our fellow states, better reflect the founders’ intent, and ensure our state speaks with one unified voice in presidential elections,” Mr. Pillen wrote in a statement.

The resurrection of the state bill was sparked this week by Charlie Kirk, the chief executive of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump conservative advocacy group, who pressed the state legislature to move forward on social media .

Former President Donald J. Trump quickly endorsed the governor’s “very smart letter” on his social media site.

And for good reason. If Mr. Biden were to hold Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but lose Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and the one Nebraska vote he took in 2020, the electoral college would be deadlocked at 269 votes each. The House would then decide the victor, not by total votes but by the votes of each state delegation. That would almost certainly give the election to Mr. Trump.

But that Sun-Belt-sweep-plus-one scenario still might be out of reach. Democrats in the legislature expressed confidence on Tuesday that they could filibuster the measure, and the state legislative session is set to end on April 18.

Conversely, Maine, where Democrats hold the governor’s office and a majority in the legislature, could change its system to take back the electoral vote that Mr. Trump won in 2020. Mr. Biden won Maine by nine percentage points, but Mr. Trump took a vote in the electoral college by winning the state’s rural second district.

Lauren Boebert has blood clot removed after hospitalization for leg swelling.

Representative Lauren Boebert, a far-right ally of former President Donald J. Trump from Colorado who is part of the razor-thin Republican majority in the House, had surgery on Tuesday to remove an acute blood clot in her leg, her campaign said .

Ms. Boebert, 37, who is running for re-election this year, was admitted to UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland, Colo., on Monday after experiencing severe swelling in her upper left leg, according to her campaign. It said that she was expected to make a full recovery.

The campaign disclosed that doctors diagnosed Ms. Boebert with May-Thurner syndrome, which the Cleveland Clinic describes as a condition in which a major artery in the leg compresses a major vein, disrupting blood flow.

A stent was inserted during the surgery, the campaign said.

Ms. Boebert, who is part of a group of right-wing provocateurs in the House that includes Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, announced in December that she would run in a more conservative district than the one she now represents.

During the midterm elections in 2022, she narrowly staved off a challenge from Adam Frisch , a Democratic businessman and former Aspen city councilman, who is running again in her current district.

A series of departures from the House Republican caucus later this month will mean G.O.P. lawmakers can afford just a single defection from party-line votes when all members are present.

Election Takeaways: Trump and Biden win primaries, but voters express their discontent.

Hundreds of thousands of voters turned out in New York for the Democratic and Republican primaries on Tuesday, where President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump won overwhelming victories.

But the impact of an organized protest vote in the state, encouraged as a way for voters to register their disapproval with Mr. Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza, remains unclear and may not be known for days.

While Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump scored yawning leads in New York — as well as in primaries in Wisconsin, Rhode Island and Connecticut — small but significant protest votes in both parties have persisted.

New York does not have an “uncommitted” option, so organizers of an anti-Biden protest vote in the state instead urged voters in the Democratic primary to leave their ballots blank.

Blank ballots have not been reported in the initial, unofficial results of the primary , which showed Mr. Biden with more than 90 percent of tallied votes. A spokeswoman for New York’s Board of Elections said the tally of blank ballots would be public within two weeks.

In the Republican primary, Mr. Trump had above 80 percent of the vote, while Ms. Haley had 13 percent and Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey, scored 4 percent of the vote. He dropped out of the race in January.

Mr. Trump took at least 75 percent of the vote in every state as of 8 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. But Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race early last month, still took at least 10 percent of the vote in all four states, a sign of lingering discontent in the Republican Party with Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Connecticut was Mr. Trump’s weakest performance, taking under 78 percent of the vote, while Ms. Haley took about 14 percent.

Mr. Biden also won at least 80 percent of the vote in every primary as of 8 a.m. The “uncommitted” option took between 8 and 15 percent of the vote in the states where that was an option. In Rhode Island, 14.9 percent of voters chose the “uncommitted” ballot option, or about 3,750 votes, with turnout on the Democratic side roughly a quarter of that in 2020 .

Here’s what else to know:

Voters in Wisconsin approved two constitutional amendments that will forbid officials from accepting donations of money or staffing to help run elections . The questions were placed on the state’s primary ballot by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

A new Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday finds that Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden in six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden leads in Wisconsin, according to the poll, but only when the test ballot includes third-party and independent candidates. In a head-to-head matchup, they are tied in Wisconsin. Several of the leads are within the margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

Gov. Jim Pillen, Republican of Nebraska, and Mr. Trump threw their support behind a measure to change the district-based system for presidential elections in the state to a “winner takes all” system that would award all electoral votes to the statewide winner. Mr. Biden was able to win one electoral vote in Nebraska in 2020 under the current rules, the first time a Democrat had done so since 2008.

Reporting from Washington

With abortion on the ballot in Florida, Trump says he will address the issue ‘next week.’

Donald J. Trump, appearing in two crucial swing states on Tuesday, avoided discussing abortion but teased that he would address the issue “next week,” once again demurring on taking a clear position on the issue after two Florida Supreme Court rulings shook up the 2024 campaign in the former president’s home state.

The conservative top court in Florida on Monday allowed a strict six-week abortion ban to take effect in May while also allowing a proposed constitutional amendment to be placed on the ballot that would guarantee access to abortion “before viability,” or at about 24 weeks.

The rulings present a potential new vulnerability for Mr. Trump in the presidential race. Florida has become steadily more conservative in recent years, placing most statewide elections well out of reach for the Democratic Party. But the two decisions will elevate abortion — an issue that has carried many races for Democrats in recent years — to a position of prominence both on the campaign trail and on the ballot.

The former president indicated last month that he was likely to back a 15-week federal ban on abortion, while adding that he thought abortion should be a state issue — and that anti-abortion activists who wanted a ban earlier in pregnancy should understand that “you have to win elections.”

Mr. Trump did not otherwise address abortion in his campaign appearances on Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Green Bay, Wis. Mr. Trump said that “we’ll make a statement next week on abortion” after being asked by a reporter in Grand Rapids if he supported the six-week ban in Florida. The pro-Trump crowd tried to drown out the question with boos and began chanting “four more years” and “U.S.A.” as Mr. Trump walked away.

Representatives of the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to questions about the abortion announcement and where that would fit into Mr. Trump’s campaign schedule. The former president has often promised policy plans — for example on infrastructure or health care — that are either delayed or never delivered.

President Biden and his campaign pounced on Mr. Trump’s promise of a coming abortion announcement. “You already made your statement, Donald,” Mr. Biden wrote on social media, along with a statement from Mr. Trump last year bragging that he “was able to kill Roe v. Wade” and that “without me there would be no six weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks, or whatever is finally agreed to.”

Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign, said in a statement that “Trump is ‘proud’ he overturned Roe v. Wade, and he is responsible for every extreme abortion ban, every attack on contraception and every cruel, dangerous restriction placed on women because of it.”

Mr. Trump has spoken often of the electoral advantage for Democrats on the issue. He has repeatedly complained that Republicans don’t know how to talk about abortion and has said that if conservative politicians “don’t speak about it correctly, they’re not going to win.” He has also previously singled out the six-week ban in Florida, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, his former rival for the nomination, as “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

Mr. Trump’s campaign had put out a statement addressing the court decisions in Florida before Mr. Trump took the stage on Tuesday. Brian Hughes, a senior adviser for the campaign, said Mr. Trump “supports preserving life but has also made clear that he supports states’ rights because he supports the voters’ right to make decisions for themselves.”

Michael Gold contributed reporting from Green Bay, Wis., and Anjali Huynh from Grand Rapids, Mich.

Michael Gold and Anjali Huynh

Michael Gold reported from Green Bay, Wis., and Anjali Huynh from Grand Rapids, Mich.

Trump again invokes ‘blood bath’ and dehumanizes migrants in border remarks in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Former President Donald J. Trump again cast President Biden’s immigration record in violent and ominous terms on Tuesday, accusing him in two speeches in battleground states of creating a “border blood bath” and once more using dehumanizing language to describe some migrants entering the country illegally.

In a speech in Grand Rapids, Mich., Mr. Trump, flanked by law enforcement officers, reiterated his baseless claim that other countries were sending “prisoners, murderers, drug dealers, mental patients and terrorists, the worst they have” to the United States. Immigration officials have said that most of the people crossing the border are members of vulnerable families escaping poverty and violence.

Mr. Trump also used his speech, which lasted roughly 45 minutes, to defend his use of dehumanizing language to refer to immigrants accused of crimes. After referring to the man who the authorities say killed a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia in February, Mr. Trump said: “Democrats said please don’t call them ‘animals.’ I said, no, they’re not humans, they’re animals.”

Mr. Trump drew attention last month when, while discussing the U.S. auto industry, he predicted a “blood bath for the country” should he lose in November. After critics accused him of stoking violence, Mr. Trump and his allies pointed back to Mr. Biden, insisting he was responsible for a “blood bath” because of his immigration policies.

The former president has repeatedly criticized Mr. Biden, accusing him of maintaining lax border security that he blames for violent crime, though available data does not support the idea that migrants are contributing to increases in crime.

Mr. Trump’s campaign appears to be trying to turn “blood bath” into a catchphrase, essentially trolling his critics and shifting the focus to Mr. Biden. On Tuesday, the Republican National Committee, which the Trump campaign now effectively controls, introduced a website, BidenBloodbath.com, that mirrors Mr. Trump’s argument that Mr. Biden is responsible for an “invasion” at the United States’ border with Mexico. The site highlights a number of violent crimes in which undocumented immigrants have been accused.

But his remarks in Michigan and at a rally later in Green Bay, Wis., also demonstrated how the former president has tried to stoke fears around immigration and border security in the 2024 election, a tactic he used effectively in 2016. Republicans have been eager to keep the issue at the top of voters’ minds in a bid to chip away at Mr. Biden’s support.

“This is country-changing, it’s country-threatening, and it’s country-wrecking,” Mr. Trump said in Michigan of migrants crossing the southern border. “They have wrecked our country.”

Democrats have pushed back against that framing. Ahead of Mr. Trump’s visit, the Democratic National Committee put up billboards near Grand Rapids referring to a bipartisan border bill that fell apart in the Senate after Mr. Trump pressed Republicans to block it. The billboards claimed that “Donald Trump broke the border” and that the former president wanted only “chaos, not solutions.”

Mr. Trump’s speeches in both states were his first campaign events after a weekslong break from the trail, during which he raised money, contended with legal issues and blasted his political and legal opponents on social media.

Mr. Trump has seized on high-profile crimes involving immigrants to try to make inroads in key battleground states, including Michigan and Wisconsin, connecting the influx of migrants at the southern border to states hundreds of miles away.

On Tuesday, he said that “once peaceful suburban Michigan” was coming “under an invasion” and spoke of the recent killing of Ruby Garcia, who was found dead on the side of a highway in Grand Rapids last month. The authorities have said that Ms. Garcia was dating the man accused of killing her, who entered the country illegally as a child and was deported to Mexico in 2020.

Michigan Democrats blasted Mr. Trump’s references to Ms. Garcia in remarks before his appearance. Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, said Mr. Trump was “exploiting” Ms. Garcia’s death and called his response “shameful.” And while Mr. Trump said in Michigan that he had spoken with some of Ms. Garcia’s family, her sister told a local television station that Mr. Trump “did not speak with us.”

Ahead of Mr. Trump’s speech in Michigan, his campaign handed out packets to reporters that highlighted other people who the campaign said had been affected by crimes involving undocumented immigrants. They included Laken Riley, the Georgia nursing student whose death has become a flashpoint among Republicans. The authorities say Ms. Riley was killed by a Venezuelan migrant who had entered the country illegally.

Pete Hoekstra, the chair of the Michigan Republican Party, said that “it’s clear immigration and the economy are going to dominate the debate here in Michigan.” He added that he believed voters in the state “look at what’s happening on the border, and it’s hard for them to believe exactly what they’re seeing, that there’s no rule of law.”

Both Michigan and Wisconsin were part of the so-called blue wall that Democrats had counted on for two decades before the 2016 race, when Mr. Trump won over working-class white voters who are key parts of the electorate in both states.

Mr. Biden won both states in 2020, although Mr. Trump falsely claimed during his rally in Wisconsin, which held its presidential primaries on Tuesday , that he had won there “by a lot” and insisted that the election had been stolen from him.

Democrats also won governors’ races in both states in 2018 and defended their seats in 2022, in part by making protecting abortion access central to their races.

The party continued its efforts on Tuesday to make abortion rights a key campaign issue. Though Mr. Biden did not hold public campaign events, his campaign seized on a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court on Monday that allowed the state’s six-week abortion ban but also put abortion access on the ballot there this fall.

There is little indication that Mr. Biden will devote significant time and resources to competing in Florida. But his campaign released a television ad that it plans to run in battleground states — including Michigan and Wisconsin — that attacked Mr. Trump for statements claiming credit for the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.

A senior adviser to the Trump campaign, Brian Hughes, addressed the ruling in Florida, saying in a statement that Mr. Trump supports states’ rights and thinks “voters should have the last word.”

Mr. Trump did not mention abortion, or his role in appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe, at either event. But after his remarks in Michigan, he responded to a reporter’s question about the Florida ruling by saying that his campaign would “be making a statement next week” on abortion.

A spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, Aida Ross, said in a statement: “We don’t need to wait until next week to know where Donald Trump stands on abortion — he has been peddling the same anti-choice extremism for years.”

Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting from Washington.

Advertisement