Video Games, Violence, and People.

Author

Lydia Roa Netherton

In all my years of being a gamer, I have never felt the need to go and mimic what I have just played. Take Spyro for example, I can easily dress up as a purple dinosaur (not talking about Barney) and run around jumping with a flame thrower….of course that is not going to happen. Now we jump to issues of people harming others with the fact that they play games erased from the media and this person is known as a terrible person and off with his or her head! But now we take the same case and put in the factor of this person being linked to playing video games. The case changes and now he was influenced and brainwashed into doing something he had been playing. They will mention mental illness and now we have something that we can focus our anger on and try to justify what happened by placing to the blame on something everyone knows. I have played GTA for years as well as hack and slash, FPS, or any killing games. Now I can only speak for myself as a person who deals with anxiety and I use video games to calm me and help relieve some stress. Will I let it influence me to harm others in the real world? *screaming from on top of a mountain* ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Now I do get that people have mental illnesses but shouldn’t we worry more on trying to help them instead of banning certain games or genres? Trump has stated he will ‘do something’ to stop danger of violent video games after the recent school shootings. After reading the article (found here) he continuously mentions what the young kid minds are absorbing and we need to ban this and that. But is this really the right movement for this? It seems as if we are pointing and blaming an object that needs force in-order to get a reaction. Had team Live in the Game in a group chat and asked the them the question and it quickly turned to a debate with valid points being stated.

Dave Brown our VP was first to respond to this with “He will find out real quick that games have nothing to do with school shootings. Only thing he can do is ban it. Which will censor games/art. Which then will cause people to lose their minds.”

By banning something that people use as a form of escape it can lead to more mental illness triggers, banning games/art you take their voices that some find easier to put in the form of pen and paper or just art all together. Of course having a debate you would need more than one voice.

This was followed by “So you're saying that there is no correlation between violent games? To a person that doesn't have any mental disorders, no but to a person that has any form of autism might not be able to distinguish reality from fantasy.

The Florida shooter had a history of mental issues and was diagnosed with autism.” Who was written by Karl Rocco; one of the Director of Operations for the company.

His statement has truth, but wouldn’t it be up to the person to know right from wrong with help of those around him? Again this is all just our opinions. But the last statement that I wish to share came from none other than our other Director of Operations Alex Thompson

“Then it really is up to the people around us, raising us, to make better decisions; though I can understand when certain types of mental disorders might be missed or overlooked. My wife has worked with and met people with all sorts of mental disorders over the last decade or so.

But I also feel it's like two sides of a coin. Aggression and frustration can build up, and sometimes, games can help to relieve that- simply because they allow you to do something aggressive in a virtual environment.”

Video games are meant to bring good times and a way of bonding with family and friends. If the companies are banning their employees from creating, that would cause the people who deal with mental issues and consider this a way to cope with it to fall deeper into it and it will go full circle.

In the end my opinion is a person has a reaction to what is going on around them at the moment, that has triggered all the built up frustrations that he or she has been dealing with. But the cries for help have failed and the next step is to act out big enough to gain attention. Video Games do not make a person violent.


I would love to hear the opinions everyone may have

But for now, keep on playing gamers.