Attitudes Towards Video Games

Posted: June 1st, 2010 under Opinion.

I stumbled across this paper that I wrote in 2007 while earning my Master’s at Carnegie Mellon University. The society’s perception of video games seems to have become even more polarized. This was written just a few months after Rob Blagojevich’s ‘Safe Games Illinois Act’, which tried to restrict sales of amoral games, was ruled unconstitutional (I’m so glad we had an ethical guy like Rob in office). Enjoy.

It is inherently interesting that the attitudes towards video games reside, at least to the public, in two extreme factions. One party believes that video game addiction is “…most reckless endangerment of children today … this century’s most increasingly worrisome epidemic … All the while, the video game industry continues to market and promote hatred, racism, sexism, and the most disturbing trend: clans and guilds” (MAVAV) and range to “Too many of the video games marketed to our children teach them all of the wrong lessons and all of the wrong values” (Blagojevich). While the pro games camp, often referred to as hardcore, believes that games are just that, games. Often rebutting that to draw such extreme conclusions that what you do in a video game has any affect on your life as a whole is laughable, which is evident in Jack Johnson’s sarcasm:

After playing Tony Hawk: Pro Skater, I went outside and did an ollie, then a kickflip, then a 50/50 nose grind down a twenty-foot steel railing, and then I landed a perfect 900. Videogames have a dark power over you. Did you know that playing Tony Hawk: Underground 2 for just one hour will turn you into a pro skateboarder? It’s true. We have scientific evidence somewhere to prove this. Furthermore, skateboarding is illegal, and this only goes to show you that videogames will turn your child into a heartless criminal. (Johns)

It is also something that I have had to deal with personally; being a graduate student in a program designed for placement in the entertainment software industry, I have witnessed first hand comments from both sides of this debate. Studying these two philosophies towards games is meritorious because it reflects on the audience of games and what effects, actual or believed, video games have on the people who play. I firmly believe that there is some truth in both sides of this argument and desire to give an unbiased insight of the validity of each group’s claims.

Some individuals believe that video game culture and attitudes towards games is merely a generational gap that will change with time. An article in The Economist shares this position:

‘IT IS an evil influence on the youth of our country.’ A politician condemning video gaming? Actually, a clergyman denouncing rock and roll 50 years ago. But the sentiment could just as easily have been voiced by Hillary Clinton in the past few weeks, as she blamed video games for ‘silent epidemic of media desensitization ’and ‘stealing the innocence of our children’(“Breeding evil?”).

In addition, the article continues to allude to other transitions in media particularly Socrates skepticism of Plato’s stance on the value of written text (“Breeding evil?”). As intriguing as their acceptance model is, I know that it is not completely accurate. Anti video game sentiments grow far deeper than generational differences or are merely between gamers and non-gamers.

“You are going to contribute to the downfall of our society” was one response from an undergraduate colleague to my chosen field. While he did not exactly say why games would cause the unraveling of our culture, I know he believed that video games support an asocial lifestyle. I can honestly see why he felt that way; many games are single player experiences that can draw attention away from friends and family. Although appearances can be deceiving, in response to the statement that video games are socially isolating, M.I.T. director of comparative studies, Henry Jenkins states:

Much video game play is social. Almost 60 percent of frequent gamers play with friends. Thirty-three percent play with siblings and 25 percent play with spouses or parents. Even games designed for single players are often played socially, with one person giving advice to another holding a joystick. (Jenkins)

Furthermore, some of the most intriguing and popular games today are games that require players to work together and form communities. Obviously, experiences in a game are not as rich as an interaction with an actual person, but with the establishment of multiplayer online games, you have a chance to meet people beyond geographical, social, and cultural boundaries. You have a way to interact with people with whom you would have never met otherwise (although the quality of that interaction is debatable – yes I am talking about you Xbox Live community). Even the games that are not multiplayer sometimes have sophisticated artificial characters that players can interact with in games. There is fundamental curiosity that people have in exploring social situations and outcomes, games with these qualities usually did not happen by accident. Game designers want games to be a safe place for people to experiment and perhaps even learn from all kinds of situations, even social. All game artisans are aware that we are social beings and successful games incorporate social aspects.

There is also great concern in the world today that people are not active enough, leading increasingly sedentary and indoor lives. Video games share some blame for this problem. If you want the richest audio, visual, and technical experience, you are stuck in front of a desktop computer or home console system. There are exceptions, Nintendo game boys have allowed for mobile gaming for a long time. Cellular phones and laptops are just as capable of playing games these days. Beyond just being to take games with you, there have been a number of recent games creating engaging active experiences, most notably Dance Dance Revolution and the Nintendo Wii console. There are also a number of companies trying to develop memorable experiences for exercise equipment. For instance, cycling machines networked together into a virtual cycling world could motivate individual physical challenges, let you train with your friend across the country, or compete in virtual online races. Video games have just begun to scratch the surface on what could be possible to promote physical well being.

One claim that is indisputable is that video games can be addicting. Some individuals come across a game and they just can not put it down. This problem seems arise uniquely, a game that is addicting to one person may or may not be addicting to another and addiction can reach varying degrees. Wired magazine published an interesting article about game addiction:

Some games are more reviled than others by the loved ones. EverQuest — or EverCrack as some people call it -– tops the list. Yahoo has two clubs devoted to the sword-and-sorcery game where players slip into the bodies of barbarians and erudites and chase each other around the fantasy world of Norrath: Spouses Against EverQuest and EverQuest Widows. (Scheeres)

The article goes on to state that at one point EverQuest Widows reached over one thousand members. Wired pulled some of the more interesting articles off the online forums:

And then there’s the business of EQ marriages. In addition to being snubbed for a piece of software, many EQ widows fear getting snubbed for a virtual lover. EverQuest characters frequently marry online and sometimes the romance carries over into real life.

“It’s really destroyed a lot of marriages,” said Tony, whose wife had an affair with her make-believe husband. He allowed her to return home for the sake of their three children. “I told her that if it happens again, I’m not going to take her back.”

Some former players have gone online to preach the evils of gaming themselves.

Jeffrey Stark, a high-school student from Ontario, Canada, wrote an impassioned essay in a self-help forum in which he charged that EQ had ruined his life.

When his not-too-tech-savvy parents threatened to unplug the machine, he told them that doing so would destroy it (they believed him). He’d go for a week without bathing or eating a proper meal. He finally stopped going to school for a semester because he couldn’t tear himself away.

Stark eventually reached the highest EQ levels and sold three characters on eBay for $4,500, he said. Now he advocates that parents regulate their child’s game playing at all times.(Scheeres)

Clearly, there have been other games besides EverQuest that have been addicting. Wired goes on to state in its article that often compulsive playing is masking several underlying symptoms of anger, depression, low self-esteem, and boredom (Scheeres). There was another article in Time magazine regarding why and how video games can be addicting:

So is this stuff addictive? Psychologists say some players of intense video games show symptoms similar to those induced by drug taking or other pleasurable activities. Participating in the action of a game–pushing buttons to score, shoot, bomb, fight or fly–entails neuromuscular coordination. “So the brain not only is seeing the images and getting stimulated, but it’s also practicing a response,” says Carole Lieberman, a psychiatrist at UCLA. “When the person is exposed to these violent media stimuli and it excites the psychoneurological receptors, it causes the person to feel this excitement, to feel a kind of high–and then to become addicted to whatever was giving him the high.”

This is no secret to game developers. Though none of the game companies TIME contacted was willing to openly discuss violence in e-games, one game developer agreed to talk on the condition that he not be named. “A video game is all about adrenaline, and the easiest way to trigger adrenaline is to make someone think they’re going to die,” he explained. One of the tricks of the trade is to concentrate on the “blink rate.” It’s an old Madison Avenue ad-agency gimmick, he said. “People stop blinking if an ad has their attention. Same here–if you’re into a game, your pupils dilate and your blink rate slows down.” The body and brain become fully involved–so much so that dopamine, a neurotransmitter that some believe is the master molecule of addiction, gets produced while you’re playing.

I’ve played lots of video games, at times obsessively. Invariably, though, the obsession gives way to boredom. Even the best games run their course. As a gamer, I always find it sort of sad when a favorite title just doesn’t evoke that old spark anymore. But as parents, we may find that this is the best thing we have working for us. (Quittner)

Where does video game addiction fit into consideration for being a serious problem? People become addicted to many different things caffeine, nicotine, television, alcohol, gambling, sport teams, texting, sex, beanie babies, pornography, exercise, drugs, collectables, and food are a few examples. While any obsessive behavior is concerning you must agree that video game addiction is slightly less serious than a drug addiction or an eating disorder. Whether addictions are appropriate in society or not seems largely based on society views the individual action and the side effects of that action. Given that the majority of Americans play video games it seems that it is an acceptable addiction. Although it is depressing to look at some of the results of compulsive gaming, video games could serve as a learning tool. By dealing with a ‘less serious addiction’ to video games people could potentially avoid or break ‘more serious additions’, or serve as an identifier of a more serious underlying issue.

The largest criticism of video games by far is content; sex, drugs, and violence. Just like television broadcasts and movies, video games must comply with a ranking system so that people are aware of mature content. One topic that almost everyone agrees on is that not all games are made for kids, and there are certain games that minors should not play. There is some disagreement between how minors are exposed to adult content games, but it must be either parents buying the games for their minors without checking the label or retailers selling mature content games to kids. While Jack Thompson may rub people the wrong way, and as often as I myself disagree with what and how he phrases some things, I do agree with what he says here in his interview with Play.tm:

All I am trying to do is get the US to the UK (and elsewhere) system that stops the sale of adult games to kids. Very simple. If some idiot parent wants to buy a 9-year-old GTA and give it to him, then that’s okay, but if the kid then goes next door and batters some neighbour’s kid, then I would love the lawsuit against the moron parent who ignored the warning and gave his kid a violence simulator that the American Psychological Association has proven results in those types of events. But any policy to stop the sale of adult games to adults? No way. (Play.tm team)

And in response to whether some games should be completely banned or not:

No, of course not. In a free society, adults can pretty much get what they want and should. You gamers need to get off the “Jack Thompson wants to ban video games” nonsense. (Play.tm team)

If you are eighteen and can be enlisted and go to war, I do not see how you could make a game more violent than that experience. Thompson’s is not the only one looking at games. The Governor of Illinois, Rob Blagojevich, passed legislation to ban the sale or rental of games with excessive violence to persons under the age of 18, in excess of the E.S.R.B. ratings already in place. The E.S.A. (Entertainment Software Association) filed suit and the legislation was appealed with this interesting excerpt included:

An integral part of the court’s analysis was its concern that the statute would criminalize the sale of material “without concern for the game considered in its entirety or for the game’s social value for minors.” As a case in point, the court looked to the game God of War, which tracks the Homeric epic Odyssey in content and theme. Although that game shows exposed breasts, the court held that “there is serious reason to believe that a statute sweeps too broadly when it prohibits a game that is essentially an interactive, digital version of the Odyssey.(Brown)

I still remember when Schindler’s List came out, despite the fact that I was only nine years old, my parents rented it and wanted me to watch it with them. Some important lessons are violent although no video games come to mind that are quite as moving as Schindler’s List was, at least not yet. This brings up another interesting point, why are video games eliciting such response when there are other mediums like television and film that are just as violent if not more. Thompson sums up the opinion well: “… video games are the most dangerous of all violent media, because they are interactive. You actually enter into doing the violence.”(Play.tm team) Jenkins has similar feelings and adds that completely shielding children from violence would leave them unequipped for the real world:

Federal Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner noted: “Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of culture both high and low. It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware.” Posner adds, “To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.” Many early games were little more than shooting galleries where players were encouraged to blast everything that moved. Many current games are designed to be ethical testing grounds. They allow players to navigate an expansive and open-ended world, make their own choices and witness their consequences. The Sims designer Will Wright argues that games are perhaps the only medium that allows us to experience guilt over the actions of fictional characters. In a movie, one can always pull back and condemn the character or the artist when they cross certain social boundaries. But in playing a game, we choose what happens to the characters. In the right circumstances, we can be encouraged to examine our own values by seeing how we behave within virtual space. (Jenkins)

Parents should always watch what their kids are playing, and if it is an online multiplayer game who they are playing with, just like how they should watch with mediums like television, movies, and the internet. Violence can be acceptable for minors if done for the appropriate reasons and some violence may even be necessary to help young people deal with the real world.

So far, I have painted a practically ideal picture of games, but I would be lying if I did not admit that there are many ugly games out there that are nothing but pointless gratuitous shooting and fighting. Legally the first amendment protects these games but that really is not what bothers people. Many people believe that violence in these kinds of games, regardless of age, desensitizes people to violence. Many of these sentiments are not new either, there were questions raised about games even in the early 1980’s:

As far back as 1982, when video games consisted of simple fare like Space Invaders—a two-dimensional arcade game—a rabbi warned on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour about their dehumanizing effects: “When children spend hours in front of a screen playing some of these games that are inherently violent, they will tend to look at people as they look at these little blips on the screen that must be zapped—that must be killed before they are killed. And it is my concern that 10, 20 years down the line we’re going to see a group of children who then become adults who don’t view people as human beings, but rather view them as other blips to be destroyed—as things.” (Suellentrop)

There is a large abstraction to go from pixilated space invaders to people, but as games have grown more lifelike do gamers still rationalize the difference between games and reality? Nate Anderson describes a study in an article on video game violence: “Desensitization can be a good thing. It’s the body’s way of filtering out repeated stimuli, and it’s a necessary part of surgical training and warfare”(Anderson). People worry that being exposed to violence and taking part in violence in video games would make you more accepting of real violence, criminal acts, and drugs. This has been such a source of concern that there have been hundreds of tests done with various conclusions; despite the fact that it is nearly impossible to come up with and accurate methodology to test this hypothesis, most tests only judge the short-term effects when really almost all that matters are long-term effects. Virtually all studies conducted do not publish their full findings or statistics which leads you to believe that their findings were unsound and are twisting the results to whichever side of the argument that they were on. One of the more unbiased studies I came across was done by Dr. Sonya Brady a postdoctoral fellow in the Health Psychology Program at the University of California, San Francisco. Her only motives were that she wanted to teach her students research methodology with a controversial and relevant topic. While their results, which the statistics are not available for, “concluded that exposure to videogame violence led to more aggressive thoughts and behavior” (Kuo) she also mentions:

I think it’s important to understand that researchers are not claiming that every person who plays a violent videogame will become more aggressive, have more permissive attitudes towards alcohol or marijuana use, etc. Rather, the studies show that groups of people exposed to more violent forms of media may, on average, behave more aggressively, have more permissive attitudes towards alcohol or marijuana use, etc., in comparison to groups of people exposed to less violent forms of media.(Kuo)

Not everyone that plays a violent video game will become more permissive towards what is displayed in the game. Jenkins states “…no research has found that video games are a primary factor or that violent video game play could turn an otherwise normal person into a killer.” (Jenkins) However, he will not say how something like that can be incredibly difficult to prove. If games actually do condition you to be violent, the release of America’s Army, a video game from the department of defense, is very frightening. An article about the release of the game reads:

Psychology professor Brad Bushman of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research hasn’t played “America’s Army,” but he’s no fan. “As a taxpayer,” he said, “I’m not very happy about it.”
Video games such as “America’s Army” that rely on teamwork “may teach people how to coordinate better, but they also teach people how to behave more violently and aggressively,” he said. Players identify with the violent character they control, Bushman added, and they become desensitized to the on-screen mayhem. “After a medical school student does his first autopsy, it gets easier and easier every time.”

Soldiers were videorecorded in simulated action “because soldiers move differently than actors, giving the game more realism,” Wardynski said, and their motions were transferred into the game using the Unreal 2 game engine. Missions and locations were taken from real life, including action in Iraq and Afghanistan, although terrain and events were altered in some cases. (Gwinn)

The Department of Defense has a long tradition of using video games to help train soldiers, in a variety of different areas including shooting. It would be conceivable that video games are raising a generation of soldiers. At this point, gamers would refute this line of thought with remarks about their personal experiences, about how games did not have any effect on themselves so this could not possibly be true. Gamers become very defensive about this topic. After all, the player is the one controlling the game, to infer that the game could be controlling the player is absurd; or is it? Good games give the player a sense of power, and part of the novelty of video games is that you can play with situations that would be dangerous or impossible in reality. Most good games also practice a technique termed indirect control. Using lighting, scale, and other audiovisual cues that are subtle or subliminal players are lead throughout a world. The goal of this technique is to guide players through the more interesting parts of the game without them realizing that they are being helped. Games can definitely control people inside their worlds, but do they have any bearing on what happens outside of the game? There have been several cases where video games have been involved in violent and deadly incidents. In 2005 a man was stabbed to death because he sold a friend’s virtual sword (BBC News). Researchers are constantly trying to answer the role of violent behavior and playing video games. Among all of this debate, some scientists and psychologist have looked to other simpler models in nature. Humans are not the only animal that plays, almost any nature program will show animal young mock fighting. Even domesticated pets have what seem to be playful wrestling matches. Jenkins describes this phenomenon:

Classic studies of play behavior among primates suggest that apes make basic distinctions between play fighting and actual combat. In some circumstances, they seem to take pleasure wrestling and tousling with each other. In others, they might rip each other apart in mortal combat. Game designer and play theorist Eric Zimmerman describes the ways we understand play as distinctive from reality as entering the “magic circle.” The same action — say, sweeping a floor — may take on different meanings in play (as in playing house) than in reality (housework). Play allows kids to express feelings and impulses that have to be carefully held in check in their real-world interactions. Media reformers argue that playing violent video games can cause a lack of empathy for real-world victims. Yet, a child who responds to a video game the same way he or she responds to a real-world tragedy could be showing symptoms of being severely emotionally disturbed.(Jenkins)

I would like to believe that most children have at least the same amount of reasoning capabilities as a primate. It may very well be that play fighting is so deeply ingrained in our psyche that we cannot resist fulfilling that instinct. The E.S.A. always likes to point out several national trends, since the 1990’s video game usage has gone up and violence, particularly among the young, has gone down. While the relationship between these to events is not known, it seems probable that video games may have a very importance social niche in dissipating violent play needs. The boundaries between play and reality seem to be intrinsic. Play is fun because there are few negative real life consequences; it is fun because of the very fact that it is not reality.

The final controversy worth noting is the idea that even if video games are not bad, they are a waste of time with no personal benefit whatsoever. Admittedly, there are some games that exist without any redeeming qualities, the so-called ugly games. Although games are entertainment and are supposed to be leisure activities, they are not completely without merit. Chris Suellentrop wittily remarks about the history of this debate:

Despite their popularity, video games remain, in the opinion of many (particularly those who don’t play them), brainless or, worse, brain-destroying candy. But for as long as critics have decried video games as the latest permutation in a long line of nefarious, dehumanizing technologies, others have offered a competing, more optimistic vision of their role in shaping American society. Opposite the rabbi on that MacNeil/Lehrer broadcast a quarter-century ago was Paul Trachtman, an editor for Smithsonian magazine, who argued that video games provide a form of mental exercise. Ignore the dubious content, the “surface or the imagery or the story line,” he suggested, and you will see that games teach not merely how best to go about “zapping a ship or a monster.” Underneath the juvenilia is “a test of your facility for understanding the logic design that the programmer wrote into the game.” Games, in short, are teachers. And electronic games are uniquely suited to training individuals how to navigate our modern information society (Suellentrop).

As video games have grown up, so have their capabilities for being good as stated in The Economist:

So are games good, rather than bad, for people? Good ones probably are. Games are widely used as educational tools, not just for pilots, soldiers and surgeons, but also in schools and businesses (see article). Every game has its own interface and controls, so that anyone who has learned to play a handful of games can generally figure out how to operate almost any high-tech device. Games require players to construct hypotheses, solve problems, develop strategies, learn the rules of the in-game world through trial and error. Gamers must also be able to juggle several different tasks, evaluate risks and make quick decisions. One game, set in 1930s Europe, requires the player to prevent the outbreak of the second world war; other games teach everything from algebra to derivatives trading. Playing games is, thus, an ideal form of preparation for the workplace of the 21st century, as some forward-thinking firms are already starting to realise.(“Breeding evil?”)

Video games have been developed to educate and teach peace to Palestinians and Israelis. The development of video games have allowed for construction of complex simulators to train firefighters and police in Hazmat procedures that would have been too expensive to do otherwise. In a world bent on instant gratification, Suellentrop offers this insight about games:

The best video games are brilliantly designed puzzles. The Grand Theft Auto titles can take as long as 60 hours to complete. Finishing them requires discipline, problem solving, decision making, and repeated trial and error.
In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks suggested that delayed gratification is the key to success in school, work, and life, and that it is a learned trait. If that’s true, and if the mental gymnasium of video games teaches delayed gratification, then gamers should be, on average, more successful than nongamers. No researcher has proffered that comprehensive a thesis yet, but the authors of Got Game: How the Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever suggest that gamers do come out ahead in the world of business (Suellentrop).

The other statistic that gamers enjoy referencing is that while video games are gaining popularity the average IQ has been rising. Games have the potential to be incredible educators ‘The important thing to find out about video games isn’t whether they are teachers. ‘The question is,’ as game designer Raph Koster writes in A Theory of Fun for Game Design (2004), ‘what do they teach?’ (Suellentrop).”

Whether the results of all of the tests and studies are correct really does not matter. Time and money would not be spent on these endeavors unless people believed that there was evidence in the first place. Even then, there exist people who no level of convincing will change their mind. Suppose that tests confirmed that video games could make people more violent and desensitized. Would that not also conclude that video games have the power to make people less violent and more caring? Optimism of video games potential is seen on both sides of the controversy. Jack Thompson’s stance is that:

…video games are a neutral technology. You can electrify or incinerate a city with nuclear fission. The fission is not the problem. The problem is what you do with it. Likewise, video games are tremendous teaching tools, because of their powerful nature, but what we do with them is what is problematic (Play.tm team).

Similarly, Dr. Brady’s opinion is:

I have mixed feelings about videogames. I think they have the potential to be positive educational tools and to reinforce skills necessary for success later in life. For example, some children’s games help to reinforce mathematical concepts. More advanced games for adolescents and adults model economics and help to reinforce the idea of spending within one’s means financially and cooperating with other members of one’s community. Games that feature the frequent use of violence model a problem solving strategy that is not very successful in the long run (Kuo).

Consumers also mimic this response with their spending habits. While violent games may be more publicized some of the most popular games of 2006 were sports titles. Game artisans are still discovering how their medium can be used. Based on the development of video games since their inception, I am optimistic that they will continue to show benefits to society. There are instances where games can be misused, but it pales in comparison to how much good can be done.

Thanks for reading, and remember, we are all in this together.

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Works Cited

Anderson, Nate. “Violent video games numb players to real violence.” Ars Technica. 26 July 2006. 1 Feb. 2007 <http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060726-7356.html>.

Blagojevich, Rod. “Governor Blagojevich’s initiative that ban minors from buying violentand sexually explicit video games”. SafeGamesIllinois.org. 1 Feb. 2007 <http://www.safegamesillinois.org/>.

“Breeding evil?” Economist.com. 4 August 2005. 1 Feb. 2007 <http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4247084>.

Brown, Evan. “Seventh Circuit: explicit video game law unconstitutional – Ban of sale to minors and labeling requirements not narrowly tailored to meet compelling state interest.” InternetCases.com. 27 November 2006. 1 Feb. 2007. <http://www.internetcases.com/archives/2006/11/seventh_circuit_1.html>.

“Chinese gamer sentenced to life: A shanghai online gamer has been given a suspended death sentence for killing a fellow gamer.” BBC News. 8 June 2005. 1 Feb. 2007. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4072704.stm>.

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Ferlazzo, Mike. “ISU psychologists produce first study on violence desensitization from video games.” Iowa State University. 24 July 2006. 1 Feb. 2007. <http://www.iastate.edu/~nscentral/news/06/jul/desensitized.shtml>.

Gwinn, Eric. “Army targets you with video game.” Not in our Name. 7 November 2003. Chicago Tribune. 1 Feb. 2007. . (this webpage is no longer available)

Jenkins, Henry. “Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked.” PBS. 1 Feb. 2007. <http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html>.

Johns, Jackson. “Video Games are Evil.” ActionTrip. 1 Feb. 2007. <http://www.actiontrip.com/offbeat/videogamesareevil.phtml>.

Kuo, Li C. “Dr Sonya Brady on Violence in Gaming.” Gamespy. 24 April 2006. 31 Jan. 2007 <http://www.gamespy.com/articles/702/702785p3.html>.

MAVAV Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence. 1 Feb. 2007 <http://www.mavav.org/>.

Play.tm team, The. “Jack Thompson Interview.” Play.tm. 4 January 2007. 1 Feb. 2007. <http://play.tm/story/8809>

Quittner, Joshua. “Are Video Games Really So Bad? They mesmerize children. They frighten parents. But take heart: there are ways to tame the monsters in the box.” TIMEasia.com. 1 Feb. 2007 <http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990510/video3.html>.

“S Korean dies after games session: A South Korean man has died after reportedly playing an online computer game for 50 hours with few breaks.” BBC News. 10 August 2005. 1 Feb. 2007. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4137782.stm>.

Scheeres, Julia. “The Quest to End Game Addiction.” Wired News. 5 December 2001. 1 Feb. 2007 <http://www.wired.com/news/holidays/0,48479-0.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2>.

Sieberg, Daniel. “War games: Military training goes high-tech.” CNN.com. 23 November 2001. 1 Feb. 2007. <http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/11/22/war.games/index.html>.

Suellentrop, Chris. “Are Video Games Evil?” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Summer 2006. 1 Feb. 2007. <http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=193155>.

1 Comment »

  • Comment by fai — April 27, 2011 @ 4:12 am

    1

    cool article!


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