Violence and video games
Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist, wrote Seduction of the Innocent in 1954, which outlined his studies asserting that violent comics were a negative form of literature and led to juvenile delinquency.
Atari's Gotcha in 1973, a maze game, initially shipped with two joystick units that were covered in pink domes as to represent women's breasts, but which were removed in later makes.
[21] Walker's concerns spread through other media organizations, including the National Safety Council, who accused the game of glorifying the act of running people over when at the time they were trying to educate drivers about safe driving practices.
In 1982, Koop stated as a personal observation that "more and more people are beginning to understand" the connection between video games and mental and physical health effects on youth, though that at that time, there was not sufficient evidence to make any conclusion.
Jack Thompson became involved in trying to sue Rockstar, its publisher Take-Two Interactive, and Sony on behalf of the victims for large amounts of damages, asserting that the violence in these games led directly to the crimes.
The level ends when the terrorist group's leader kills the player-character in order to frame the attack as the work of the United States, leading to a world war.
The existence of the level leaked before the game's release, forcing publisher Activision and developer Infinity Ward to respond to journalists and activists that were critical of the concept of the mission.
[51][52] The most significant case came out of a challenge to a California law passed in 2005 that banned the sale of mature games to minors as well as requiring an enhanced content rating system beyond the ESRB's.
[53] Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, considered that violence in many video games was no different from that presented in other children's media, such as Grimm's Fairy Tales.
As a result, the German Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière, claimed that the "intolerable extent of video games on the internet" has a harmful effect on the development of young people.
[65] A month later, President Donald Trump called for several industry representatives and advocates to meet in Washington, D.C. to discuss the impact of violent video games with him and his advisors.
[68] Two mass shootings occurring within a day of each other, one in El Paso, Texas and another in Dayton, Ohio, in August 2019 provoked political claims that video games were partially to blame for the incidents.
Erik Salazar Flores of the College of Psychology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) stated that blaming video games for violence is an "easy way out" for authorities who wish to ignore the complexity of the problem.
[75] Dalila Valenzuela, a sociologist from Autonomous University of Baja California said that while video games can influence children's behavior, their parents are most directly responsible.
[84] Similarly, a 2023 study published in eLife found that playing violent video games, specifically "Grand Theft Auto V," does not decrease empathy in players.
The research used fMRI and behavioral tests to measure empathy and found no significant evidence of reduced empathetic responses or emotional reactions to violence in players.
[95] Two other research methods that have been used are experimental (in a laboratory), where the different environmental factors can be controlled, and non-experimental, where those who participate in studies simply log their video gaming hours.
[108] The study concerned children between ages 5 and 12 that were assessed for the typical amount of time they played video games per week and pre-existing empathy and attitudes towards violence.
[110] The American Psychological Association (APA) released an official statement in 2005, which said that exposure to violent media increases feelings of hostility, thoughts about aggression, suspicions about the motives of others, and demonstrates violence as a method to deal with potential conflict situations, that comprehensive analysis of violent interactive video game research suggests such exposure increases aggressive behavior, thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal, and decreases helpful behavior, and that studies suggest that sexualized violence in the media has been linked to increases in violence towards women, rape myth acceptance and anti-women attitudes.
It also states that the APA advocates reduction of all violence in videogames and interactive media marketed to children and youth, that research should be made regarding the role of social learning, sexism, negative depiction of minorities, and gender on the effects of violence in video games and interactive media on children, adolescents, and young adults, and that it engages those responsible for developing violent video games and interactive media in addressing the issue that playing violent video games may increase aggressive thoughts and aggressive behaviors in children, youth, and young adults, and that these effects may be greater than the well documented effects of exposure to violent television and movies.
[111][112] In 2013 a group of over 230 media scholars wrote an open letter to the APA asking them to revisit and greatly amend their policy statement on video game violence, due to considering the evidence to be mixed.
Signatories to the 2013 letter included psychologists Jeffrey Arnett, Randy Borum, David Buss, David Canter, Lorenza Colzato, M. Brent Donnellan, Dorothy Espelage, Frank Farley, Christopher Ferguson, Peter Gray, Mark D. Griffiths, Jessica Hammer, Mizuko Ito, James C. Kaufman, Dana Klisanin, Catherine McBride-Chang, Jean Mercer, Hal Pashler, Steven Pinker, Richard M. Ryan, Todd K. Shackelford, Daniel Simons, Ian Spence, and Dean Simonton, criminologists Kevin Beaver, James Alan Fox, Roger J.R. Levesque, and Mike A.
Males, game design researchers Bob De Schutter and Kurt Squire, communications scholar Thorsten Quandt, and science writer Richard Rhodes.
[129] In 2014, Ferguson and Olson found no correlation between video game violence and bullying or delinquency in children with preexisting attention deficit disorder or depressive symptoms.
These results appeared to contradict concerns following the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, that individuals with ASD or other mental conditions might be particularly susceptible to violent video game effects.
[161] In a recent BBC interview, Dr. Simone Kuhn explained that the brain effects seen in prior fMRI studies likely indicated that players were simply able to distinguish between reality and fiction and modulate their emotional reaction accordingly, not becoming desensitized.
In the early 1980s, Ronnie Lamm, the president of the Long Island PTA sought legislation to govern the proximity of video game arcades to schools.
[189][190] Henry Jenkins, an academic in media studies, said, In 2013, Corey Mead, a professor of English at Baruch College, wrote about how the U.S. military financed the original development of video games, and has long used them for both training, recruitment purposes, and treatment of post traumatic stress disorder.
[198][199] In February 2018, following the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida, President Donald Trump, among others, said "the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts".
The meeting was not designed to come to a solution but only for the invited parties to present their stance on video games and their relationship to violent activity as to try to determine appropriate steps in the future.
