In 1994 the debate over
violent video games erupted all the way to the United States Senate.
Games like Doom, Lethal Enforcers, and Mortal Kombat which depicted
scenes of digitized violence, outraged parents, and Senators alike
earning video games a negative reputation. After the tragedy that
took place at Columbine High School in April 1999, the makers of
Doom, id Software, and twenty four other entertainment companies,
were sued by the families of the victims in a lawsuit naming violent
video games as a cause for the massacre. Scholarly research on the
effects of violent video games on gamers has also been inconclusive
with some studies showing a link between violent games and heightened
aggression, other studies calling previous research methods into
question and finding no link between violent games and aggression,
and even other studies that showed reduced aggression. With the
violent game debate being still too young for research to produce
concrete evidence, many parents and senators still look at video
games in a negative light. Despite the negative stigma attached,
Video Games teach moral lessons, promote creativity, inspire gamers
into healthy pursuits in life, and provide money making opportunities
for gamers.
Video
Games have the ability to teach moral life lessons to gamers. While
there are some games, like Sony's God
of War series that
features a protagonists with, what some would call, a repulsive lack
of moral conscience, many other popular game franchises like The
Legend of Zelda avoid
moral relativism by placing players into the shoes of a chivalrous
protagonist on a quest to stop an absolute evil from taking over the
Land of Hyrule. Zelda presents the struggle of good versus evil,
light versus darkness, and leaves no room for gray area in it's
storyline. Final
Fantasy, likewise, in
it's many iterations, also pulls players into a storyline of a whole
party of protagonists who band together to fight an absolute evil in
quests that usually also have a heavy emphases on the value of
friendship, loyalty, standing up to fight injustice, and even
sacrificing oneself to save the lives of others. The advent of
cooperative campaigns in games like Halo
teach the importance of working as a team to achieve common goals.
Players can play split-screen with friends, and some games even have
the option of playing coop campaigns online with other players from
across the world as well. There are even games like the Battlefield
series that require heavy amounts of teamwork in their competitive
modes as well. There are many more lessons to be learned from playing
video games which go against the belief that gaming is of no moral
value to those who play them.
Not
only can gamers learn moral lessons from video games, games also
promote creativity. On June 22, 1996, id Software, the developers of
Doom,
released Quake
on the PC, and included the source code on the disk itself opening up
the door for user modifications. PC gamers who had a knowledge of the
visual C++ programing language could create custom levels, custom
weapons, and even take the 3D and physics engine in Quake
to create what is known as a total conversion mod, creating an
entirely new game from Quake's
graphics engine. Since Quake released, all the major PC game
developers have followed suit, and some developers like Valve have
even bought the rights to popular user created mods like
Counterstrike
which was a Half-Life
total conversion mod, and Team
Fortress which started
as a Quake
Mod, but was later updated as a Half-Life
modification as well. On the home console front, level editors, which
allow gamers to create new single and multiplayer levels out of
developer designed tiles, in games like Timesplitters,
and Little Big Planet
have seen a rise in popularity. While not as open-ended as
modifications, where the gamer can design anything they choose
instead of using preset elements, users are still creatively
challenged to in designing working single and multiplayer levels.
Now, with network enabled console systems, gamers can share their
creations to a community of other level creators, as well as download
other user-created levels. There are many other examples of ways
video games promote creativity as well, such as music creation,
artwork, fan-fiction, and many more that show that gaming promotes
creativity.
Not
only can gamers learn moral lessons from games, and not only can
gamers use their creative and artistic sides in games, but gaming can
also be a positive influence that leads to healthy activities. In the
1999 Activision released Tony
Hawk's Pro Skater,
following Tony's historical landing of a 900 degree mid-air spin in
the Summer X-Games of that year. Tony
Hawk's Pro Skater
brought about the immense popularity of the extreme-sports gaming
genre, and influenced many gamers to learn how to skateboard for the
first time. It also influenced those who knew how to skateboard to
practice even harder. Skateboarding has come to be seen as a
legitimate sport, and, like other sports, provides exercise to those
who partake in it. In 1997, Sony released Parrappa
the Rappa on the
original PlayStation console creating the rhythm and beat/Music game
genre spawning the creation of many games like Dance
Dance Revolution,
Samba De Amigo,
and the modern Guitar
Hero and Rockband
series'. Like the Tony Hawk series, Guitar Hero, and Rockband, both
of which come with guitar and drum controllers to simulate playing
music, have also influenced many gamers to learn how to play musical
instruments, and influenced those who already played to practice even
more. Learning how to play an instrument can spark a lifelong passion
for music. There are also other examples that could be used, like how
Dance Dance Revolution,
and Wii Fit
promote exercise, and how games like Call
of Duty have inspired
many gamers to join the military, however, there is more evidence to
show video games having a positive influence over the belief that
they influence violent behavior.
Recently,
the money making opportunities for gamers with a passion for gaming
has expanded immensely. In 1996, a bunch of Quake fans got together
at a hotel near id Software's offices in Dallas, Texas, to play
together in competitive Quake Matches. The event would soon become
known as QuakeCon, and would evolve into the biggest competitive
gaming tournament, with real cash prizes, and helped create
the “professional gamer,” as in someone who makes their living off of
playing games competitively. QuakeCon was not the first ever held
tournament of it's type, but as online gaming has become a mainstay
in console games as well, there are now entire leagues created for
professional gamers, such as Major League Gaming. For non-competitive
gamers, there are blogs, and startup websites, but the most popular
way to make money off of gaming is to make gaming-based YouTube
videos, and then partner with companies like Machinima, TGN, and
Fullscreen who pay gamers by sharing add revenue from their videos.
Gamers can now spend their time making reviews, commentaries, gaming
rants, and showing off their other talents, like posting cartoon
skits, comedy sketches, and etc. that were inspired by games, and
gaming culture. Some youtubers, like the Angry Video Game Nerd have
become famous, and been made wealthy from posting video game videos
on YouTube, essentially starting their own businesses as a result.
These facts go against the idea that gaming hinders children
from obtaining jobs, and it also doesn't take into account eBay
selling opportunities, and how mod-making has lead to real
development jobs in the industry, and well as indie-game development.
September
will mark twenty one years of the debate about violence in video
games. Even after the formation of the Entertainment Software Ratings
Board (ESRB) to rate the content in video games to inform parents of
the content in games, the debate is still as heated today as when it
first started. Many parents are not aware that gaming can teach
life-lessons, allow their children to express their creativity, and
lead to positive activities. For those parents who are still
concerned, it is suggested for them to read the ESRB ratings on the
games they buy for their children.
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