Video game controversies
Since the early 2000s, advocates of video games have emphasized their use as an expressive medium, arguing for their protection under the laws governing freedom of speech and also as an educational tool.
Academic research has examined the links between video games and addiction, aggression, violence, social development, and a variety of stereotyping and sexual morality issues.
[15] Thompson encouraged the father of the victim to pass a note to the judge that read "the attorneys had better tell the jury about the violent video game that trained this kid [and] showed him how to kill our daughter, JoLynn.
His mother, Jerrilyn Thomas, said, On 7 June 2003, 18-year-old American Devin Moore shot and killed two policemen and a dispatcher after grabbing one of the officers' weapons following an arrest for the possession of a stolen vehicle.
[18] On 25 June 2003, two American step brothers, Joshua and William Buckner, aged 14 and 16, respectively, used a rifle to fire at vehicles on Interstate 40 in Tennessee, killing a 45-year-old man and wounding a 19-year-old woman.
[37] After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on 14 December 2012, initial media reports misidentified the shooter as Ryan Lanza, the brother of the actual perpetrator.
[42] Subsequently, representatives of Southington, a small town near Sandy Hook, organized the collection and potential burning of violent video games in exchange for gift certificates, although they also took music and movies deemed harmful.
[48] In April 2000, a Spanish 16-year-old, José Rabadán Pardo, murdered his father, mother, and his sister with a katana, proclaiming that he was on an "avenging mission" for Squall Leonhart, the main character of the video game Final Fantasy VIII.
[51] In October 2004, a 41-year-old Chinese man named Qiu Chengwei stabbed 26-year-old Zhu Caoyuan to death over a dispute regarding the sale of a virtual weapon the two had jointly won in the game The Legend of Mir 3.
[62] In January 2010, Gary Alcock punched, slapped and pinched his partner's 15-month-old daughter in the three weeks leading up to her death before he delivered a fatal blow to the stomach which tore her internal organs because she interrupted him playing his Xbox.
[67][68] On 22 July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik perpetrated the 2011 Norway attacks, detonating a car bomb in the executive government quarter, and then travelled to a summer camp for teenagers, where he proceeded to stalk and kill a large number of people.
may have contributed to "dragging" his son into a dark place, due to a subplot of the game involving two characters (Sayori and Yuri) suffering from depression who independently commit suicide.
Reported by Bloomberg, metaphorically speaking, Cai Wu, head of China's Ministry of Culture, said "We want to open the window a crack to get some fresh air, but we still need a screen to block the flies and mosquitoes.
The majority of the justices did not consider the studies brought to their attention as convincing evidence of harm, and stated that they could not create a new class of restricted speech that was not applied to other forms of media.
Furthermore, characterizations of women tended to be stereotypical: highly sexualized ("visions of beauty with large breasts and hips"), dependent ("victim or as the proverbial Damsel in Distress"), opponents ("evil or as obstacles to the goal of the game"), and trivial ("females depicted in fairly non-significant roles").
Lara Croft has achieved popularity with both males and females as an action heroine, although depending on what perspective is applied she can either represent 'a positive role model for young girls' or a 'combination of eye and thumb candy for the boys'.
Instances have been reported in which users play compulsively, isolating themselves from family and friends or from other forms of social contact, and focus almost entirely on in-game achievements rather than broader life events.
[150] Outside of mental health, medical researchers are concerned with the issues that can be caused by the lengthened immobilization, poor posture, and the over exertion of the visual system that happens when excessively playing video games.
[155] The Gamergate controversy that started in 2014 drew media attention to the negative portions of the culture of the video game community, highlighting the need to take steps against online harassment.
[162] In December 2020, the three major console manufacturers Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo announced a joint plan to promote safer gaming based on the three principles of prevention, partnership, and responsibility to combat harassing and troubling behavior.
"[175] A connection between video gaming and the alt-right has been suggested, tied to the Gamergate controversy in 2014, which contributed to a culture war at that time that continued with the election of Donald Trump as United States President.
[179] Based on this, some alt- and far-right groups have been discovered to be organizing efforts to reach out to other players in various competitive online games and forums, typically to the younger and male ones, to indoctrinate them into their ways of thinking.
Because of limitations placed on what a user can do with purchases games bundled with DRM, consumers argue it inconveniences legitimate customers and allows big business to stifle innovation and competition.
[233] Action video game players have better hand–eye coordination and visuo-motor skills, such as resistance to distraction, sensitivity to information in the peripheral vision and ability to count briefly presented objects, than non-players.
[233] A common viewpoint is that playing video games is an intellectually lazy activity, but research suggests it may actually strengthen children's spatial navigation, reasoning, memory and perception skills.
The researches concluded that these effects were partially contributed by a combination of the competence and social interaction brought through the games, and suggested that longer play times could improve a player's well-being.
However, the researchers also identified other factors that could influence this benefit, including the player's experiences outside of the game which may actually lead to a negative impact on well-being with longer playtimes.
"When you play ... games you're solving puzzles to move to the next level and that involves using some of the general knowledge and skills in maths, reading and science that you've been taught during the day," said Alberto Posso, an associate professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, after analysing data from the results of standardized testing completed by over 12,000 high school students across Australia.
The Guardian also reported that a Columbia University study indicated that extensive video gaming by students in the 6 to 11 age group provided a greatly increased chance of high intellectual functioning and overall school competence.
[255] In an interview with CNN, Edward Castronova, a professor of Telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington said he was not surprised by the outcome of the Australian study but also discussed the issue of causal connection.
