Video Games in American Society: A Positive Look on how Video Games Affect Society (Featured Article

When I was younger I never had any video games of my own. I would go over to my friends and neighbors houses and play them but when I asked my parents to buy me video games of my own they said no. They had seen a news article that portrayed video games as bad for your children and decided I wasn’t allowed to have any. But in their eyes letting me watch TV all day was a far better alternative. One day I have finally managed to gather enough money to buy a Game Cube and a few games for myself and my parents couldn’t say no to me spending my own money. Unlike what my parents had read in the news article, video games didn’t ruin my life, make me dumb, or cause my grades to fall. All that really changed was I played video games in my spare time that I’d have otherwise spent watching TV. After a while bought an Xbox 360 and was connected to the internet. This meant that instead of sitting by myself watching TV I was connecting and talking to people all across the world online. This really taught me that video games can be a good thing for not only me but society in general.

There are many views on how video games affect society but in this paper I’m going to look at the positive aspects. First I’ll look at some expert opinions of video games and so experiments done on whether they can help or hurt us. Second, I will give my own argument on why I believe video games can and are good for society. Third I will present the counter argument to my claim that video games are good. There are definitely some good reasons to believe that video games are bad and I’ll talk about those. After that I’ll respond to the counterarguments and explain why some of the counterarguments are weak or simply false. The last thing I’m going to talk about is the future of my topic. We know a lot about video games and how they work but there are still studies that can be done to find more ways video games can help society.

The first article I want to talk about is, “The Interactive Theater of Video Games: The Gamer as Playwright, Director, and Actor,” by Danial Homan. Homan goal isn’t to provide a direct reason why video games are good for society but it is to argue against the negative stigma of video games. He says “video games have been experimenting with, twisting, and turning on its head this traditional view of narrative.” (Homan 169). The author believes that video games are another form of storytelling and one that is different and ever changing from out more traditional views of storytelling. In his article, Homan explains that video games are more than something the gamer watches and listen to, they are interactive and the gamer makes choices. One example Homan give is in the game Heavy Rain; the game isn’t about passive observation like in a movie or the mindless violence the media would have us believe video games are all about. Heavy Rain, “Tests your skills not only as a gamer but, in a very real sense, as a person. Early on in the game, in the role of a private investigator, you drop by the apartment of a call girl whose son was one of the first victims of the “origami killer” (so-called since he leaves a paper sculpture at the scene of each crime). Depending on your choice of how to approach her—bribes, tricks, empathy—you can learn information about her son’s death.” (Homan 177).This shows that the game turns the player into a detective and the gamer makes choices and uncovers the case by their own devices. Again, Homan is trying to convince the reader that video games are a very in depth and interactive form of storytelling.

Next is the article, “Interactive Video Game Cycling Leads to Higher Energy Expenditure and Is More Enjoyable than Conventional Exercise in Adults,” which is about an experiment done by Jaiver Mondero. Mondero explains his experiment as, “Participants reported to the laboratory at Dublin City University on 4 different days separated by at least 48 hours. On day 1, participants carried out an incremental maximal test on a cycle ergometer (Velotron; RacerMate, Seattle, WA) to determine peak oxygen uptake (V̇ O2peak) and peak power output. On day 2, participants familiarized themselves with the GameBike and the video game during a 30-min session. On the final two visits participants played the ICVG (interactive cycling video game) or cycled for 30-mins in random order.” (3)The results of this experiment were the group that played the cycling video game had higher levels of energy expended and reported higher levels of enjoyment for their physical exercise. This article proves that video games can be applied to some aspects of our lives and make them better. Video games can make certain activates objectively better and can improve our enjoyment of these activities. Another point brought up by this article is safety. Riding your bicycle outside has the ever looming threat of getting hit by a car and riding at night can be extra dangerous. But, a cycling video game eliminates the threat of getting hit by a car and allows for cycling at any time of the day. Of course, this is no substitute to going outside but an interactive cycling video game has major upsides.

The last article I want to mention is “Teaching Historical Theory through Video Games,” by Martin A. Wainwrite. Wainwrite is a history teacher and has offered a class that involves a video game for three semesters. He says the use of a video game have been beneficial to is class saying, “My course not only increases student appreciation of the potential and limitations of historically themed video games, it also enables them to tackle—often enthusiastically—material that is frequently difficult for most students to comprehend in more conventional classroom and seminar settings.” (Wainwrite 579).The video game used in his class was Civilization IV. He explains that the theme of the game that used real historical rulers for the faction you play as helped match leaders to civilizations. Also, Wainwrite says some game mechanics helped his students understand real world situations. For example, when you trade with a new faction in the game there’s a chance your civilization will contract a new disease. This helps explain how the real plague wasn’t simply a result of being in the “dark ages” but was a result of the complex trade routes of the time. Wainwrite explains that he chose Civilization IV for these mechanics because in other games, such as Medieval II: Total War, plagues are the product of a random number generator (RNG) instead of being triggered by an event like in real life. In real life things are extensively random, things happen for a reason and that reason can be traced, understood, and avoided and Civilization IV acknowledges this. Wainwrite’s class has shown that video games can aid in the learning process.

The first argument I want to make is that video games are good to play during leisure time. Our society has accepted that we should fill our spare time with watching TV but I believe that video games are better than TV. First of all video games are more interactive than watching TV. Even the nomenclature makes video games seem better because you watch TV but you lay video games. When you play a video game you make choices and actively control what is going on. With TV you are a bystander and anything that happens is out of your control. With a video game you are the controlling factor and you do a lot more than sit back and watch. It’s this interaction that makes more neurons fire in a person’s brain when they are playing a video game than while watching TV. The additional neurons firing show more intellectual involvement. This is better for a person’s mental health. Also, making choices and experiencing consequences is reflective of how things work in real life. While the exact choices being made won’t apply to much, the act of always making choices and thinking about the outcomes does apply to how we experience the rest of the world. An article by Vikranth R. Bejjanki talks about how we can gain better cognitive skill through the use of video games. It’s the direct interaction and decision making that makes video game good for your mental health.

Another way video games are good for society is the outside applications of game that aren’t for our spare time. It’s so easy to just think that video games are something we waste a spare time one but, there is so much potential for video games outside entertainment. Marcus Schulzke wrote a paper about how video games could help civilians understand the life of military personnel better. We can apply video games to a many more aspects of our lives than entertainment. This field isn’t very well researched but it defiantly has promise.

Video games are also very beneficial to our economy. The video game industry is larger than the movie industry. This industry brings in hundreds of billions of dollars. One way to stimulate an economy is to get the middle class something to spend its money on. Video games are certainly a big money maker and the tax income is good for the government. Also, video games companies don’t have huge profit margins like cable companies or diamond companies do. This means more money is flowing and cash flow on a huge platform like the video game industry is good for the economy and helps it grow.

While my research has showed that video games can be beneficial to society, some people believe that video games cause mass shootings and are bad for their children. There have been many news segments and newspaper articles exclaiming that video games cause young people to steal things and shoot people. Other articles claim that video games are aiding obesity and causing anti social behavior in the younger generation. Still others insist that video games cause violence in young children. While there are some draw backs to video games it’s important to know both the positive and negative sides.

First, an article on the CNN website talks about an eight your old who shot his elderly caretaker over a video game. When asked about the shooting the local sheriff said “Although a motive for the shooting is unknown at this time investigators have learned that the juvenile suspect was playing a video game on the Play Station III 'Grand Theft Auto IV.” The goes on to talk about Adam Lanza, the shooter at Sandy Hook. The article says Adam was “obsessed with violent video games,” which caused him to kill twenty six at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut. Both of these incidences suggest a link between video games and violence behavior.

One surprising opponent of video games is feminism. Not all feminists but defiantly some have been publicly against video games and their portrayal of women. A video made and narrated by Anita Sarkeesian talks about the history of the video game tropes involving women. She argues that women are capture and used as a plot tool for the male protagonist and the female characters never seen much action themselves. She specifically talks about, Super Mario bros and Tomb Raider. Anita also talks about the objectification of women in video games. Specifically in games like Grand Theft Auto or Postal, where the gamer and beat and kill women and hire prostitutes. The objectification of women is a problem in real life and video games shouldn’t be part of the problem.

One problem with the violence argument is the ambiguity. It’s difficult to judge how much a young child understands about actions and consequences so, violent video games might have no effect on a child who shot someone or other violent mediums could have had the same effect. Also, articles like these never bring up the fact that these children or teenager shouldn’t have had access to guns in the first place. The media is so quick to bring up violent video games as a possible cause for the shooting without mentioning the ineptitude of the parents or ineffective laws to control gun so these minors can’t get their hands on them. Also, video games have ratings from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). This means that video games that are excessively violent will have a clear adult rating. When parents blame video games violence for their children’s actions they never account rot he fact that they were the ones who bought them the violent games in the first place, and the games explicitly say they are violent and not for children on the boxes. The ESRB makes parents who buy adult rated games for their children present ID at the store counter and the employee tells the parents that the game they want to but isn’t for children, so ignorance isn’t an excuse.

Another flaw in the video games violence argument is the location of the information. In researching this topic I could not find any scientific or experimental articles arguing in favor of videogames causing violence. The only location of this argument is in the media. This shows that the arguments that video games cause violence is a media scare tactic to boost viewership without doing any research or actually having factual evidence. Also, these articles fail to recognize that there are many video games that have no violence at all. For example, Journey and Gone Home were both every successful games and neither had and no violence. These games, and other like them, were story driven and emphasized the experience of the gamer rather than enjoyment form killing things. Also, a lot of the time violence is only one part of a video game. In the online game World of Warcraft there is violence and killing but there are also non violent aspects such as professions and some quests. A big part of the game is making and collecting things that don’t require the player to kill anyone. This shows that broad claims that ‘all video games are violent and are hurting out children’ is completely false because violence in only one part.

The problem with people like Anita Sarkeesian talking about video game related things in general is that they don’t actually play the video games the talk about. Anita has written a lengthy article criticizing, Tomb Raider and stating how it objectifies women and other violations to feminism but, from evidence from Anita herself proved that Anita lied about playing the game but still wrote a review about it anyway. Video game journalism has always had this problem. Journalists who write huge pieces on video games and their effects often do no research and have never played the games they talk about. This goes beyond judging a book by its cover and is equivalent reviewing and criticizing a book by its cover. Also, people like Anita aren’t any kind of expert on the topic they are talking about. Anita and other journalists have no experience or schooling in the philology field so they have no credibility to make these broad claims about video games.

In the future, we need to do studies about learning through video games. Wainwrite’s article talks about the positives of learning with video games but that’s only one case. None of my college classes have involved video games so more studies in the future could allow this. I believe that expanding on the idea that video games can help in the classroom would increase student interest and make students smarter in general. Also, we need to explore the possibility of adding video games to high school education and possibly lower. Learning under the guise of playing a game makes a lot of sense and we should explore the idea more. Another is to find uses for video games for our general use. The possibilities video games have of making more than just one form of exercise better are vast and we need to do more research and testing to find them.

In conclusion, I believe video games are a net positive to our society. There are experts that agree with me and believe that our view of video games is wrong and video games can be applied to more aspects of our society. Video games are more than just entertainment, they can help us learn and the industry is good for the economy. There are drawbacks to video games but a lot of the bad things we hear about video games are media site trying to get more traffic. So, while my parents were fear mongered into falsely believing that video would be very bad for me, I hope you will understand that video games aren’t bad for society.

Bejjanki, Vikranth, R. “Action Video Game Play Facilitates the Development of Better Perceptual Templates.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111.47 (2014): 16961-16966. Web. 23 Jul 2015.

Homan, Danial, and Sidney Homan. “The Interactive Theater of Video Games: The Gamer as Playwright, Director, and Actor.” Comparative Drama 48.5 (2014): 169-186. Web. 21 Jul 2015.

Merabet, Lofti. “Teaching the Blind to Find Their Way by Playing Video Games.” PLoS ONE 7.9 (2012): 1-6. Web. 23 Jul 2015.

Mondero, Javier, and Elizebeth J. Lyons and Donal J. O’Gorman. “Interactive Video Game Cycling Leads to Higher Energy Expenditure and Is More Enjoyable than Conventional Exercise in Adults.” PLoS ONE 10.3 (2015): 1-12. Web. 21 Jul 2015.

Schulzke, Marcus. “Serving in the Virtual Army: Military Games and the Civil-Military Divide.” Journal of Applied Security Research 8.2 (2013): 246-261. Web. 23 Jul 2015.

Wainwrite, A. Martin. “Teaching Historical Theory through Video Games.” History Teacher 47.4 (2014): 579-612. Web. 23 Jul 2015.