Video Games do NOT Kill.

When discussing censorship and the considerable anti-video game discourse that exists, I find it continually frustrating where this concept of video games desensitising youths to violence and subsequently causing them to commit acts of serial murder. In previous weeks we have discussed how video games are making more money than films, then a huge number of players would surely be committing acts of terrorism and militia styled attacks as seen on your favourite MMORPG.

Jack Thompson's narrow minded vendetta against video games highlighted his ignorance and obvious assumptions as opposed to proper evidence when he confirmed on national television that the Virginia Tech killer was a video game enthusiast and spent considerable time training himself of this 'murder simulator'.

It seems reasonably clear that in order for video games to have any detrimental effect on a player, for example, equipping them with the know-how to initiate a military style siege on society, there must be pre-existing social conditions that have contributed to this outcome. With the number of players involved in violent video games, and there is no doubt that games have become increasingly graphic and violent, you cannot single out these games as the sole or even major contributing factor into these tragic attacks.

In my opinion, having played a variety of video games both involving violence and otherwise have concluded that Video games amount to nothing more than the latest media scapegoat, preying on the ignorant digital immigrants who lack the understanding, knowledge and personal experience to make the decisions and accusations defining video games as 'murder simulators'.

On a side note I also think the effects of video games are relevant to their context, for example, we don't see any school style shootings in New Zealand, for a myriad of reasons no doubt, however their is the simple fact that firearms are not readily available. Our society is not particularly comfortable with weapons (the police do not carry sidearms), and therefore using them in a diegetic world has a smaller bearing on our real life persona.

Simon A