Video Game Violence Effects

Psychological Effects of Video Game Violence On Children Video games will turn 34 years old in 2006. The industry that started with Pong is now a multi-billion dollar worldwide industry. Over the last decade, video games have become an integral part of American culture where violence is a common factor in many of these games. An increasing number of people are becoming concerned with this violence, and its possible effects and influences among gamers. As we enter an age made of computers and filled with virtual realities, knowing the effects of violence in video games is becoming increasingly important. Video games, in all forms, lead to aggressive behavior in young children. When electronic video games were introduced in the late 1970s, they were basic, animated interactive games such as Atari's Pong, a simplistic version of Ping-Pong, which accounted for 0% video game violence. Early popularity of video games was somewhat sporadic until the late 1980s. When the Nintendo system with its
Doom, Counter-Strike, and other games contains violence such as shooting and weapon smashing that causes blood and gore, specifically aimed at humans (Walsh 2). Since that is the most effective way to grasp the players into the game and continue wanting more. In 1994 a seven-year-old child was killed by a police officer because the officer thought the child was pointing a gun at him, but was later found out that the child was reenacting his favorite game, Half-Life, a version of Counter-Strike, in which he was holding a water gun (Game Zero 2). It is apparent that major psychological impacts of such games may lead to the reenactment of the game in our daily lives even without the person realizing it (Loftus 1). Instead of making the world a better place, violence in video games are creating a corrupted society especially starting the players at a young age and introducing them to