Editorial: Blaming video games for violent behaviour

This editorial is more of a gaming industry related editorial but the topic could easily spill into the world of mobile gaming and, chances are, at some point it will. With how advancements in technology for mobile gaming are progressing and at the rate in which it is progressing, games for mobile devices are becoming closer to their console brothers.

With that said, today from the people over at Fox News who were talking about the new Bulletstorm game being the worst ever because of its violence and gore, released this little gem of information to the world that, because of games with sexual content that cases of rape have increased.

The specific quote is as follows:

Awesome. Pure awesome right there. So now we can tack on another thing to blame video games for. However, G4TV had this little gem on hand to refute that statement:

I'm inclined to agree with the latter and the G4TV authors view on Carol Lieberman and her statement. Every time some incident happens where someone, usually under the age of 21, goes and does something stupid, the news has to look at what game they are playing and conclude that it is because of said game that this person acted the way they did. It couldn't be because they snapped, had emotional problems, crappy upbringing or other obvious reason.

This has happened before with music, sort of still happens regarding TV but lately the focus has been a lot more on video games. Just like TV, movies and music, video games have a rating system. These are guidelines to which parents can follow or not but the issue does not lie with games but the parents. Regardless of how graphic a game is, it is up to the parents to raise their kids properly regardless if their kid is playing a bloody game or not.

With mobile gaming making quite the raise in popularity and combining that with all the new technology coming our way, such as Tegra 2 chips and more memory in phones and tablets, mobile gaming will eventually become as detailed as console/PC gaming. It's almost there anyways! Bulletstorm was developed by EPIC while Dungeon Defenders was created using EPIC's Unreal Engine 3.

Does this mean when a kid plays Welcome to Hell or the upcoming game Angry Viking that some kid is going to be playing this on the bus is going to lay waste to everyone on there with an ax? Of course not! Video Games aren't real. Kids know that, parents know that, Fox News hopefully knows this as well. There is a very small margin of people who get wrapped up into a game so bad that the world of reality blurs with that of the game.

While there have been documented benefits to gaming, regardless of whether its PC or mobile or console, which gets some news light but when something bad happens or a game comes out that 'shocks' people (usually just the News people get shocked), we end up hearing about all sorts of good stuff as to how violent games mess kids up or how bad they are for them. It's not better or worse then letting you child watch violent cartoons/TV shows, action movies.

What needs to happen is the media doing reports with false information, such as this Fox News report on Bulletstorm, and start figuring out the real cause when something happens whether it is a psychological issue the person (doesn't need to be a child) has or were they abused when they were a kid, crappy parenting?

Blaming music, movies or video games on violence is nothing more then an excuse. The responsibility lies with parents at least 90% of the time. If you would like to read up on this report, there are a bunch of sites talking about it but you can check out G4TV's coverage to start. We would love to hear what you think about all of this. We know this topic has been discussed numerous times but it keeps happening. Share your thoughts, ideas or anything else you like regarding this.

Good thing we only rant in an editorial once in awhile huh?