A Challenge

Video games make up a multi-million dollar industry.   From the start of their release in the 70s, parents showed concern about the effects the violence could have on their children.  As the industry grew, so did the competition between manufacturers.  The change in content was quick and dramatic; the details of the violence improved along with the advancement of the technology. Let’s take a look at the violence in these games and the challenge I put forth to the industry.

The most popular video games are not the educational or sports ones, but the ones containing shooting and killing.   The goal of these games has always been to shoot ‘everything and anything that gets in your way’.  Earlier games like Space Invaders and Wonder Boy used cartoon-like characters killing aliens and monsters and lacked the gore used in today’s games.   Now games depict realistic looking people and include sprays of blood that cover walls and floors near a character and explosives bursting people’s bodies into small but recognizable body parts.  Video games have always included violence but now the realism and gore has caught up to the level of violence in the games.

Violent video games are played by people of all ages, not just children.  To point out that there is a rating on the games does not eliminate the problem of the violence contained in them.  Parents can control, to the degree they choose, the games that their own children play.  But those of age can buy and play any game they want and are generally the ones in our society who carry out the most violent crimes.  I believe that continually watching or participating in simulated violent acts is detrimental to the development of a healthy human mind.  It can also give people ideas that can be simulated or acted upon.

I often hear people say that the world today is not the same world it was when they were growing up.  I guess depending on your age that could leave a range of what time period they were talking about.  But let’s ‘just’ go back 50 years, to 1963.  Yes, society certainly had its problems, it always does, but the level of violence that has changed in our society in ‘just’ 50 years is astounding and frightening.  Second amendment rights were still in full force in 1963, but the number of guns on the street and the types of guns were nowhere near where they are today. Fifty years ago, ‘bad people’ could not get new bad ideas to act on from video games, movies, or the Internet.  But I am starting to digress, so let me get back to the point of today’s post.

Surfing the web, one can find many entertaining sites.  I see posts shared from friends from U-tube and other sites that are unique, funny, and entertaining.  Violence is not the only topic that can entertain.  The challenge for the video game industry is to try to come up with a new wave of games that does not include shooting.  I am not saying this will happen overnight since the industry’s beginnings were rooted in shooting.  But what I strongly believe is that there is immense creativity in our society and that creativity goes beyond being boxed into guns, knives, and explosives for entertainment.

There are so many advantages of changing the focus of video games away from shooting and violence.  Most importantly, we would not be putting detailed violent images into the minds of children and older people who play the games.  Secondly, parents would likely support and might even buy more games for their children if they didn’t have the violence, increasing sales for the industry.  Additionally, depending on what the creative minds come up with for new generation of games, they could increase future creativity in those people who play the games.

As a society, we have become obsessed with violence.  This is not only seen in video games, but also in movies, television, the Internet, and what the media covers.  Violence always seems newsworthy, whereas fresh stories with new ideas does not.   We need to start somewhere and for this I set forth my challenge.

As a teacher and the president and founder of a non-profit music and arts organization, I know firsthand how creative our youth are.  They are advancing to great colleges with fresh ideas.  They are entering the workforce with new, innovative ideas.  I challenge them to come up with a way to transition the video game industry into a less violent one.  Make something else the new cool besides blowing up someone’s brain with a machine gun or slicing off someone’s body parts with a machete. 

Who knows, maybe in 50 years people will say it is not the same world today that it was 50 years ago when all that violence dominated our society.  Wouldn’t that be nice?  But I certainly hope we don’t have to wait 50 years.