Violence in Video Games
... immediately. Meanwhile the would-be founder of Nintendo was selling custom made playing card decks. He observed how much people enjoyed playing games and it inspired him to develop an electronic gaming machine. In 1985 Nintendo released the 8-Bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The system was an instant success with the Super Mario Bros. game, the first 8-Bit game ever out. Within the next 12 years Sony and Sega released several consoles and the battled for the number one position touting each of their respective machines as capable of delivering the best looking and most realistic games. Up until 1997 the best console on the market was 64-bits, which just wasn’t enough to look “real.” The current generation of home videogame systems gives the term “video games” new meaning. Characters look like real characters, people look like real people, and guns look like real guns. Currently there are three major companies competing to deliver the most realistic gaming experience. In 2001 Microsoft released the Xbox as their first entry into the console market featuring the most powerful hardware ever used. Microsoft designed the Xbox to mimic a high-end computer with the most powerful processing power of any home console. Some well-coded Xbox games look real enough to be mistaken for DVD movies or live news footage. Sony and Nintendo have consoles which are significantly less powerful than Microsoft’s Xbox; though they deliver similar graphics, they lack the touch of realism that the Xbox possesses. Given the realistic look and feel of current generation video games, it would not be surprising for a 6 year old child to perceive the “experience” of blowing a cop’s head off as the controller shakes feverishly in his hand as the real thing. The problem lies in younger kids’ lack of differentiation between the concepts of reality and video games. Many activists believe that violence in video games is too realistic and adversely influence the youth while encouraging socially deleterious behavior. I completely disagree with such opinions. The entire point of video games is to provide a realistic simulation of various things from driving a 2004 Ferrari to making a game winning 3-pointer. Granted, video ...