Speech on Game Violence

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The debate on whether we should regulate or restrict videogames is still controversial. As some people claim that they are influencing the young generation in a really negative way, others perceive that they are just mere entertainment devices. As the representator of the international game developers association, I am here today to stand against the statement that video games cause violence in teenagers.
To begin, people who disagree with the argument would probably give statistic on the increasing case of crime from teens who play games regularly compare to the ones that don’t. This is absolutely untrue and scientific researches undermines this idea. In contrast to causing violence, the correlation between hotility and video games mentioned was because violent teenagers seek these games, this means games are not responsible for antipathy. According to the FBI, as video games are becoming more and more popular in the recent years, violent behavior from adolescences actually decreases. It doesn’t necessarily means that the widespread of games reduces violence, however it proves that the popularity doesn’t cause violence. Moreover, it was declared: “The state has not produced substantial evidence … violent video games cause psychological or neurological harm to minors.” - Robin Cauthron of the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. He also stated “the presence of increased viewer control and interactivity does not remove these games from the release of the First Amendment protection”. In short, would your child start a fight after a few hours of sitting in front of a screen and controling animated characters?
Furthermore, rather than trying to link resentment, anger or displeasure to video games through myriad experiments conducted, we should have a detail analysis on the ways these experiments are done. There are two major flaws to justify why they should not be trusted. The first reason is that experiments are done on college students and not children. Chris Ferguson, a professor at Texas A&M and one leading researcher in the field of media violence also said: "So a typical experiment is they show you a violent video game and ask you to be aggressive one way or another, and probably a typical college student can draw that link of what they're supposed to do, basically." The other major flaw in these experiment is with the way aggression is measured. The methods studies choose to measure aggression is not effective. With tests like filling in the blanks, studies cant always be the accurate measurement of the level of aggression. At the end of the day, despite rational evidences, people still persist on blaming video games for their child’s bad behavior.
Another favorite of the opposing side would be that games unconsciously affect the susceptible minds of juveniles. However, the gaming industry has a really reliable rating system which restricts the age range as well as the violence level. As a matter of fact, over 87% of parents were satisfied with the ratings according to the 2009 study. It was even proven that the rating system in video games actually exceeds the ones in other entertainment industries in terms of regulating violent games’ advertisement and access to children by displaying clear information on age and rating. The system also allows parent to strictly monitor, even when they’re not at home, the games their children are able to play. The statement that video games are not at fault is once again stated by Lawrence Kutner, PhD, and co-founders of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media - "It’s clear that violent video games make children significantly more violent in the real world; that children engage in the illegal, immoral, sexist and violent acts they see in some of these games - are not supported by the current research, at least in such a simplistic form. After all, millions of children and adults play these games, yet the world has not been reduced to chaos” .
In the end, after a considerate amount of statistic and reasoning, we can clearly derive that video games doesn’t cause violence. Games doesn’t affect your child in a negative way. Games doesn’t deserve the blame. Its time for the controversial debate on whether we should regulate or restrict video games to end. Video games simply entertain children. Thank you.