With all the violence in the world today, what with Terrorism, the War in Iraq, and many murders right in our own backyard, people have begun to wonder where it comes from. What is it exactly, that allows one person to take the life of another? Lately, the blame has fallen on violent video games such as Bully (in Europe, Canis Canem Edit or Dog Eat Dog in Latin), and the Grand Theft Auto series. Rockstar, a company who has been creating games for Sony and their Playstation games consoles, produces both. Kristin Kalning points out that Rockstar is "
a company that's made a lot of money targeting suburban teenage boys and gotten tons of press by angering soccer moms. And they've done it successfully for nearly 10 years."
Ten years is a long time in the gaming world. When Playstation first came out, its major competition was the Nintendo 64 game console. A study done in 2001 by Dr. Kimberly Thompson and Mr. Kevin Haninger observed and recorded the violence as a percentage of game play time and the number of deaths per minute. Thompson and Haninger also attempted to answer the question, "Are video games becoming too violent?" They explored the trends of the two most popular series of the time, The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Brothers. In the Legend of Zelda series, " each successive game has progressively less violence and fewer deaths per minute. Super Mario Bros. showed a less clear trend." Thompson and Haninger didn't fully explain this, but it would seem to mean that the games had either more violence, didn't change at all, or had a change so slight, the data was only a few points different. Their study also found that there was an average of 4.8 deaths per minute in the Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
In the 1990's everyone was affected by playing Super Mario Bros., but not many people paid attention. Super Mario Bros. was, after all, a fictional game that everyone loved. Now, people are trying to ban Bully because of the... [continues]
Ten years is a long time in the gaming world. When Playstation first came out, its major competition was the Nintendo 64 game console. A study done in 2001 by Dr. Kimberly Thompson and Mr. Kevin Haninger observed and recorded the violence as a percentage of game play time and the number of deaths per minute. Thompson and Haninger also attempted to answer the question, "Are video games becoming too violent?" They explored the trends of the two most popular series of the time, The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Brothers. In the Legend of Zelda series, " each successive game has progressively less violence and fewer deaths per minute. Super Mario Bros. showed a less clear trend." Thompson and Haninger didn't fully explain this, but it would seem to mean that the games had either more violence, didn't change at all, or had a change so slight, the data was only a few points different. Their study also found that there was an average of 4.8 deaths per minute in the Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
In the 1990's everyone was affected by playing Super Mario Bros., but not many people paid attention. Super Mario Bros. was, after all, a fictional game that everyone loved. Now, people are trying to ban Bully because of the... [continues]
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"Video Games and Violence, Is There a Connection?." StudyMode.com. 03, 2008. Accessed 03, 2008. http://www.studymode.com/essays/Video-Games-Violence-There-Connection-134004.html.
