Wills 1

Kristine Wills
Lynn Taylor
English 1010

The Game Made Me Do It! : My position on how violent video games encourage aggression.
We have all heard it. We have seen it on the news, an antisocial gamer committed a
violent crime by emulating the violent game they had been playing. But is this really the case?
Do violent video games really encourage aggressive behavior? I wanted to know the impact
these games really make on the players in their day to day lives. The answer may give us insight
into the cause of many crimes committed day to day. It will also help parents decide whether
they should shield their children from violent video games or just let it be. There have been years
of research proving that witnessing aggression has a negative effect on children. Be it from
watching real violence or media violence the same negative effects always seem to come about.
The first commercial video game Pong came out in 1972 and the industry started to
push the envelope as technology moved farther along. It progressed to a game called Death
Race or Pedestrian in which the goal was to run down pedestrians and turn them into
gravestones. Public reaction to this was not positive but the outcry against the game increased
sales about tenfold. (Anderson and Gentile 2006) Game developers jumped on this free publicity
and continued to push the envelope as much as they could. The economic benefits of the more
violent games became clear when competing gaming systems Nintendo and Sega created their
own versions of Mortal Kombat. Nintendo toned down the blood and gore in their version, and
Segas version outsold Nintendos version three to one. (Anderson and Gentile 2006) As
technology progressed so have the graphics in these games. They are more and more realistic and

Wills 2
violent. They are significantly made up of first person shooter games, where you see the game
from the eyes of the shooter as though it is you yourself.
Many individuals may find themselves on different sides of this issue. You will see the
large group claiming these games are largely to blame for the violent outbursts of gamers. There
is the other extreme end claiming that violent video games have absolutely no bearing on
aggressive behavior. Then there are the ones torn between the two extremes. Some believe that it
is the amount of time spent playing the games that makes a difference, or the difficulty of the
game causing frustration. While others feel it is violent personalities that are drawn to these
games to begin with. After doing a large amount of my own research I feel that violent video
games do encourage aggression by desensitizing the player to violence, rewarding aggression
and violence and removing the player from social situations where they would learn proper
responses and behaviors.
There are a lot of reasons violent video games effect the players behavior, especially as
they play them more and more over time. In a study 1,102 adolescents were surveyed and it was
found that 97% of them had played video games within the past day. Of these 50% of the boys
and 14% of the girls favored games with an M (Mature) or AO (Adult-Only) rating which
contain a higher degree of violence. (Norcia 2014) Research shows an obvious cause and effect
relationship between TV violence and aggression in children. A large number of social scientists
feel violent video games have an even greater impact for many different reasons. The characters
in most video games are completely customizable. This gives the player the ability to make their
character as much like themselves as they want to. Children are more likely to learn from and
copy an individual they identify with, and who do you have more in common with than yourself?
These games also do not give the player the choice to be a spectator and watch from the sidelines

Wills 3
while the violence passes by. It requ9ires active participation in order to excel. When they do
participate in the violence they are rewarded by leveling up or gaining necessary items in the
game. Reward systems are shown to improve learning and every game out there is based on this
sort of reward system. This can very quickly desensitize someone to the violence because it
reassures them that the correct response is a violent one. Repetition also increases learning and
these games are entirely repetition. Andrea Norcia, M>A> of Palo Alto Medical Foundation
states If the games are violent, then the effect is a behavioral rehearsal for violent activity.
Hours spent in front of the television or computer, no matter what you are doing, removes you
from social situations. These situations are crucial for youth to learn the proper responses and
social etiquette. In a study by Gentile, Lynch, Linder and Walsh it was found that teens who
played violent video games for extended periods of time tend to be more aggressive, are more
prone to confrontations with teachers, may engage in fights with peers and have a decline in
school achievements. The longer a child plays a violent video game the longer it is influencing
their perception that violence is a positive solution to most situations.
Violence in video games has been a concern for as long as the games have been around
so there have been some proposals to reduce childrens exposure to them. It has been suggested
to tax the games or put a strict age limit on them. It is a concerning enough issue that in 2013
Obama called for more research to be done on the topic. A study led by Craig Anderson of Iowa
State University with 3,034 children in 3rd, 4th, 7th and 8th grade showed increased aggression as
they played violent video games over the course of two years. They were each given
questionnaires on their gaming habits and questions to measure their aggressive behavior and
attitudes. Overall, the aggression levels dropped as the participants matured, but the ones who
played more games had increased aggressive behavior and violent tendencies. In a brain imaging

Wills 4
study it was shown that after a week of daily violent gaming less activity is seen in the regions
connected to emotions, attention, and inhibition of impulses than those who played nonviolent
games. The short term effects of this study are reversible but it is suggested that extended periods
could make more stable changes in the brain. (Park 2014)
All the studies I could find seemed to have the same general result. That when exposed to
violent video games the subjects level of aggression and violent tendencies would increase. But
have we taken the time to look closely at these studies? There are different types of studies that
can be used to gain a scientific conclusion. Three types of studies are discussed by Douglas
Gentile and Craig Anderson of Iowa State University. There are experimental studies, in which
there are two very controlled groups tested differently to observe the different reactions.
Correlation studies do not change the environment or experiences of the subject but may survey
children about the games they already play and the other factors they have in their lives. And
longitudinal studies that document changes over a longer period of time. While each study may
have its shortcomings, combined they can help us to see the causality of aggression. Most studies
conducted seem to be experimental studies that tend to show that the subjects aggression
increased when they played the violent rather than nonviolent game. In the correlation studies
that have been done they monitored the reactions over a slightly longer period of time. It proves
that rather than the monkey see monkey do reaction some people assume is happening, playing
the games would first increase aggressive and hostile thoughts and the in turn increase the odds
of behaving aggressively. In the few longitudinal studies that have been done it was found that
more violent game play in the beginning may lead to more aggression later. But aggression in the
beginning did not lead to more violent game play as some expected. The participants were rated

Wills 5
by peers and teachers and were, as in the other studies, found to have increased aggression and
decreased empathy. (Anderson and Gentile 2006)
I seems that the evidence is piling up against the violent video game enthusiasts,
but do not despair. Research by Michelle Starr shows that it may not be the violence to blame
after all, but the difficulty of the game causing frustration. There was a study done at Oxford
University led by Andrew Przybylsk and Richard Ryan in which they examine not only the
content but the psychological experience. They found that aggression may stem from feelings of
frustration and failure just as one may experience in sports. When people feel they have no
control over the outcome of a game, that leads to aggression. (Ryan) Results were consistent in
both violent and nonviolent games such as Tetris. Each subject held their hand in cold water
for 25 seconds and were told the length of time had been determined by the previous subject,
though it had not. The subject then played an easy or had version of Tetris. When complete they
would then decide how long the next subject should hold their hand in cold water. Subjects who
played the difficult version assigned 10 more seconds on average than those who played the
easier version of the same game. Richard Ryan attests When the experience involves threats to
our ego, it can cause us to be hostile and mean to others. This study brings things into play that
may not have been previously considered. The content may not matter so much as everyone
stresses that it does.
If the violence can play a lesser role in encouraging aggression, then who is to say it
plays any at all? A study by Dr. Christopher Ferguson argues that there is little evidence to link
playing violent video games and aggression. He found that there may actually be more positive
effects than negative. No relationship was found between violent game playing and aggression
but yielded higher scores on measures of visuospatial cognition tests. This means they improved

Wills 6
in tasks like mental rotation, visual memory, visual processing and selection. (TAMIU 2015)
These skills can be applied to a range of careers from engineering, architecture to surgery.
Ferguson stated that results showed that surgeons who played violent games tended to be better
at certain surgical procedures that require good hand eye coordination. He claims that video
games, even the violent ones, can assist in educating children who have social problems. There is
a game called Re-Mission that contains violence in which the player blows away cancer cells
and infection. (Ferguson) Video games are also a simple solution to help educate children who
struggle to learn by more traditional means.
Many holes can be poked in some of these studies individually, it may be said that they are not
long enough to see long term results. Others do not only use violent games so it is hard to put the
blame on them entirely. Length of game play may have a role in the impact of the games as
would the subjects other surroundings. We dont know that the ones playing only nonviolent
games do not witness other forms at home or school that may encourage them to be aggressive.
Or the ones exposed to hours of violent games being taught by their parents that it is not okay to
react like that in real life situations. Individually these studies may not be conclusive as to the
impact of violent video games. But when combined they all help to patch the holes the others
have as they are texted, revised and retested to reach the most concrete results.
Even the doubters and violent game activists can see the evidence that supports violent video
games role in violent reactions in society. No matter how much it is argue or picked apart in
every study that I found aggression was elevated, even in the smallest amounts. So do we just
slap an age limit on the games? Do we limit the amount of violence allowed in the games? Or do
we just let kids do what they want and stay glued to a screen full of blood and gore? After
reading all the research it becomes very clear that these games do have an impact and should not

Wills 7
be put in the hands of every child. Most parents do monitor their childrens video games but that
does not mean it is enough. There are more games now than there used to be that give you moral
choices to make. They let you choose to hide and level up in one category or to fight and
possibly level down in another. More games like this will make the player stop to see the
different consequences and the correct choices to be make. Video games and media as a whole
are merely tools that can be used for either good or bad and how we utilize them is crucial.

Wills 8
Works Cited
AuthorLastName, FirstName. Title of the Book Being Referenced. City Name: Name of
Publisher, Year. Type of Medium (e.g. Print).
LastName, First, Middle. "Article Title." Journal Title (Year): Pages From - To. Print.