Once again the issue of violence and videogames has surfaced what with the Finnish authorities pulling off the gaming site for ‘Kindergarten Killer’. In this game the players roam around in a school and kill kindergarten students. This decision was taken a week after the shocking shooting incident in the country that had the 22 year-old Matti Saari kill 10 people at a vocational school. Not only this, Saari was far from guilt for his actions as he even posted boastful videos of his before the rampage on YouTube. Another student Pekka-Eric Auvinsen did the same before killing 6 fellow students, the school nurse and the principal. Both the killers shot themselves after the murders and died.
The contradictions may always remain regarding the influence of video games on human behavior, but it is not the first time a controversial game has been pulled back. In 1976, Death Race faced the same fate as it has players controlling cars that ran over ‘gremlins’. Even the ever-so-popular Mortal Kombat has raised many eyebrows. Yet another frequently discussed example is Grand Theft Auto (GTA) in which the player is asked to commit crime one after another. The instructions may vary from carjacking to cold murder to running over pedestrians.
Sex is also a predominant theme. GTA and many Japanese video games explore sexuality, and not in a good taste. The Witcher includes full frontal nudity in the form of cards that you earn after completing sexual assignments. These are just a few examples out of many.
Agreed that smoking does not always cause lung cancer, similarly video games cannot blindly be attributed to behavioral as well as sexual violence. But studies, researches and experts say that there is a correlation between games and the psychology. I am not saying that video games should be banned. But I do maintain that I will be very uncomfortable if my 9-year-old plays GTA. The young mind is meant to conditioned positively and the kind of video games that are being made today are nowhere close to that!
Via thoughts
