Harp Page 1

Zachary Harp

English Composition

Alex Smith

November 8, 2015

Violent Video Games and How they Influence Behavior

The video game industry is a very hot commodity in the current global market. The

demand for video games is increasing rapidly as time passes and major hardware developers,

such as Sony and Microsoft, which continue updating their consoles so that they are as

technologically advanced as they can be. A major aspect that these developers work on is the

graphic capability and this is because they want video games to feel more real than ever. But

what happens when you play an extremely violent game where you roam around a realistic city

beheading and shooting innocent civilians with no punishment? Violence happens in real life.

Video games cause a lot of the violence in today’s world and this is because violent content in

games makes players more aggressive. This is based on recent crimes and the behavioral effects

that realism, genre, screen size, and controller type have on gamers’ minds.

One of the most astonishing acts of violence based on video games occurred in

Louisiana in 2013. According to an article written by Joe Kemp on nydailynews.com an eight

year old boy carried out an extreme act of violence after he played a mature rated game. In the

article it says that “the boy fatally shot his elderly caregiver, Marie Smothers, after playing

‘Grand Theft Auto’… inside the mobile home at a Slaughter, La trailer park.” (Kemp 1) The
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article also says, “The child initially told investigators that he accidently shot Smothers while

playing with a loaded pistol. But later police determined that the elderly woman was targeted.”

(Kemp 1). The fact that the woman was targeted by the young boy shows that the crime was

not an accident and it heavily implies that the child was influenced by the game that he was

playing. ‘Grand Theft Auto’ is a very violent game that promotes the shooting and killing of

many innocent civilians with no negative repercussions. This game has a “Mature” rating and is

not supposed to be played by any person under the age of seventeen. That being said this boy

should not have been playing the game and the impact that it had on him was shown by his act

of violence. The game made him feel that violence and killing was acceptable so he decided to

try it out for himself, and that led to the murder of an innocent ninety year-old woman. Based

on the crime it is very apparent that violent video games have an impact on the minds and

actions of people.

Another horrid act of violence that was the result of playing the same game was carried

out by a teenager in Fayette, Alabama. This article is written by Rebecca Leung and is posted on

cbsnews.com. It explains the violent actions in which a teenager carried out after being

arrested. The article argues that ‘Grand Theft Auto’ trained 18 year-old Devin Moore in the art

of murder. Moore apparently purchased the game and then “proceeded to spend several

months playing it almost non-stop” (Leung). Then in the early hours of June 7, “Moore was

brought to the police station on suspicion of stealing a vehicle, something ’Grand Theft Auto’

also encourages. After arriving at the police station Moore exploded when, “he lunged at

Officer Strickland, grabbing his .40- caliber Glock automatic he shot Strickland twice, once in the

head.”(Leung) However this was not Moore’s only victim. He went on to kill a 911 dispatcher
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and another police officer before leaving the scene in a police vehicle. This is the exact kind of

violence that violent video games teach to the people that play them. They teach various ways

to ruthlessly kill without even thinking. This causes the players to be more aggressive and carry

out acts of violence, just like Moore did. They also teach that there is no harm in injuring

someone else and that nothing bad will happen to them if they commit a crime.

After looking at these two examples of vicious crimes some people might try to argue

that video games caused these deaths and the issue is only with “Grand Theft Auto” but this is

far from the truth. The crimes were committed by the players not the video games themselves

and in fact there are tons of other video games that are very similar to “Grand Theft Auto” and

some that are even more violent, such as NetherRealm Studios’ “Mortal Kombat”. “Mortal

Kombat” is a fighting game where you dismember and desecrate other characters, which makes

it very controversial. The amount of violent games is too numerous to count and there are

many other games that violent acts are blamed on yet somehow 'Grand Theft Auto’ seems to

be the most popular game to blame for the recurring violence in the real world. The only logical

explanation of this is that this game is more popular than others and that the media is

effectively blaming it on this game alone. This is proved by the two examples of news articles

where the blame was not given on video games as a whole, but on ‘Grand Theft Auto’ alone.

The articles both heavily rely on the violent content of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and the crimes

committed to enforce their argument. This is downright incorrect and any person who has

actually played video games, whether they agree that violence in games cause violent actions

or not, will agree that there are plenty of other games that should be more controversial than

‘Grand Theft Auto’ because they contain more violent content. Based on this statement you can
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ask yourself, why do people blame violence on video games? If you were to look this question

up on the internet there would be no real answer, because so many people have different

opinions, but in fact there is a real answer and it is derived from what causes video games to

impact behavior and actions.

If you were to take a person that has never seen or played a video game before and ask

them to compare a video game created in 1990 and one created in 2015 the first thing that that

person would say is that the game created in 2015 looks more realistic. What does this mean

exactly? It means that current video games look and feel more real than ever. The graphics, or

overall look of the game, are very advanced compared to the graphics of a video game from

one of the first consoles. The graphics of the first consoles were very basic and it is obvious to

tell them apart from current games because the image on the television looked like it was made

of up various amounts of squares, or pixels. Currently it is often difficult to tell the difference

between real life images and images from a video game because the graphics of current video

games are just that realistic. So how does this realism relate to behavior? Well with realistic

images in video games some people who play a game a lot might begin to believe that the

actions that can be done in a game are similar to those that can be done in real life. This is

proved by a study that was referenced on videogames.procon.org. It says, “The study found

that just 20 minutes of playing a violent video game can cause people to become less

physiologically aroused by real violence. People desensitized to violence are more likely to

commit a violent act” (videogames.procon). As an example, a person might play a realistic game

where shooting innocent characters is frequent day after day and then that person might begin

to feel as though shooting people is second nature and that there is no difference between the
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video game and real life. This actually causes some people to think that video games and real

life are the same. That person, if given the opportunity, could potentially act similar to a

character in a video game and commit violent acts. This explains the reason why some people

make the rash decision to act violently: because they played realistic violent games and became

desensitized to violence.

Another aspect of gaming that influences a player’s behavior and actions is genre. The

genre typically determines the content, playstyle and age range of the game. For example a

puzzle game typically is created for gamers of any age while a shooter is usually created for

gamers in their late teens and older and is very violent and gory. Other genres that can have

extreme violent content are action- adventure, horror, and RPGs (Role-Playing Game). While

there are many genres that include violence there are a few that for the most part do not

include any violence at all. Some examples of these include sports, racing, simulation, music,

and party games. Since the genre of a game usually determines the content it is easy to tell

which type of games influence violent behavior. The games that influence violent behavior are

the ones with a mature rating and these games cause more violent actions among those who

play them. This is supported by a study involving violence and video games that is discussed in

the novel Grand Theft Childhood by Dr. Lawrence Kutner. According to a chart located within

the book, which polled boys and inquired about their behaviors and video game preferences,

44.4% of them said that they have been in a physical fight and 51% of those boys play violent

mature rated games on a regular basis while only 28% do not play mature games. Also 53.2% of

those boys said that they have hit or beat up another person and 60% of those boys claimed to

be “mature” gamers (Kutner). There is also a chart that polled females. According to it 20.9%
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have been in a physical fight and 40% of those females were reported as being mature gamers

while 14% percent of those girls who said they have been in a physical fight were reported as

not being mature gamers (Kutner). This data shows that there is a correlation between the

violent genre and violent actions. Whether or not these boys and girls enjoy violence or were

violent before has no effect on the data because the data itself shows that they committed

violent acts while they were actively still playing mature violent games. Since the majority of

those boys and girls polled have partaken in violent actions and play violent games on a regular

basis then that supports that violent games impact behavior.

While realism and genre affect a gamer’s behavior another key factor is the size of the

screen that is being used. “Screen size also had main effects on aggression, with participants

who played the game on the large screen scoring higher on physical aggression, verbal

aggression, and anger” (Sundar 332). This statement comes from a study that was published in

Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and was written by Shyam Sundar. The

purpose of this study was to test to see if screen size had any impact on aggression when

playing a video game. During the study participants were told to play a violent video game for

ten minutes using two very different screen sizes. After the ten minutes they were then asked

to fill out a very detailed questionnaire to assess their emotions. The emotions that were

assessed were different levels of anger and those were physical aggression, verbal aggression,

hostility, and anger. As noted above the questionnaire indicated that participants who played

using the larger screen had higher levels of these four categories. From personal experience I

find this data to be very accurate. The size of the screen does matter and this is because when

you play a video game on a larger screen you feel more immersed in the game. This data proves
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that immersion is what causes players to believe that video games are real life. When a gamer

plays an extremely violent video game on a large screen he or she feels as if the violent content

is natural and that it is suitable to perform in the real world. This is how screen size influences

violent actions in real life.

A final aspect of gaming that causes violent behavior is the type of controller that is

used. In the same study that tested for aggression in screen size it says, “participants with the

gun replica reported a higher state of physical aggression than those with the mouse” (Sundar

331-332). While performing a study on the effects of screen size Sundar also studied the effects

of using a gun replica controller versus a computer mouse. The setup for this experiment was

the same as that for the screen size except instead of having two different screen sizes

participants had a computer mouse and a controller that was a replica of a gun. Based on the

statement above the results for the experiment were very similar to that of the screen size

experiment with the only difference being that instead of testing high in all four categories

controller type only tested high in one, physical aggression. This means that if a player were to

use a controller that appears to be a gun, or other weapon, then he or she is likely to be more

physically aggressive than a gamer that uses a typical keyboard and mouse. With this source of

information it is apparent that one of the major problems with violence and video games is

caused by the type of controller that is used.

After looking at what aspects of video games affect behavior it is now easy to answer

the question as to why ‘Grand Theft Auto’, ‘Mortal Kombat’ and so many other video games are

considered controversial. The answer is that the gamers that play them use the right

combination of aspects so that they are greatly influenced. Those gamers then might go and
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commit a heinous act that immediately draws the attention of the media. For example let’s say

that a teenager plays ‘Call of Duty’, a very popular violent first person shooter franchise, with a

giant television screen, a controller that is a replica of a gun, and the best graphics. According to

all of my research that teenager has a very high chance of committing a violent act. Now this

doesn’t mean that every person that plays something like this with similar features will go out

and commit a crime. This actually means that they have a higher chance of doing so, as

compared to someone that plays a non-violent game.

While violent video games do cause an increase in aggression the effect of this varies

from individual to individual. Most gamers do not commit serious crimes because they have

control over their actions. They know what is acceptable and what isn’t and they are able to

control their actions and prevent themselves from doing something that they would regret. In

comparison the players that commit these crimes are people that are mentally incapable of

knowing right from wrong. Some of these are children that are simply innocent from lack of

parenting or experience, as shown by the news articles, and others are people that have serious

issues. These issues can be anything that affects the mind and causes people to act, or want to

act, more aggressively. Some examples could be mental disorders or a violent past or anything

of the sort. The main point of this is that even though violent video games cause aggression

some people will act upon it while others will not.

Overall there is a major problem involving violent video games and the correlation to

violence in today’s world. So many crimes, such as the one involving an eight year-old boy,

could have been prevented if there were limits to the amount of violence that there could be in

a video game. But to begin to address this issue everyone involved needs to know how video
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games cause violent behavior. They need to be aware of genre, realism, screen size, and

controller type in order for any change to even begin to happen. Once the change begins it will

only be a matter of time before extreme violence in video games is gone forever.
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Works Cited

"22 Charts & Graphs on Video Games & Youth Violence - Violent Video Games -
ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.

"Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?" N.p., 23 Sept. 2015. Web. 7 Nov.
2015.

Ferguson, Christopher J., Hayley Barr, Grace Figueroa, Kimberly Foley, Alexander
Gallimore, Rachel LaQuea, Alexandra Merritt, Stephanie Miller, Hien Nguyen-Pham, Cameron
Spanogle, Julie Stevens, Benjamin Trigani, and Adolfo Garza. "Digital Poison? Three Studies
Examining the Influence of Violent Video Games on Youth." Computers in Human Behavior 50
(2015): 399-410. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.

Kemp, Joe. "Boy, 8, Played Violent Video Game, Killed Woman, 90, but NOT Be
Charged: Cops." NY Daily News. NY Daily News, 24 Aug. 2013. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.

Kim, Ki Joon, and Shyam S. Sundar. "Can Interface Features Affect Aggression
Resulting from Violent Video Game Play? An Examination of Realistic Controller and Large
Screen Size." Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking 16 (2013): n. pag. Web. 25
Oct. 2015.

Kutner, Lawrence, and Cheryl K. Olson. Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth
about Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Print.
Leung, Rebecca. "Can a Video Game Lead to Murder?" Cbsnews.com. C.B.S. News, n.d.
Web. 25 Oct. 2015.

McGloin, Rory, Kirstie M. Farr, and Joshua Fishlock. "Triple Whammy! Violent Games
and Violent Controllers: Investigating the Use of Realistic Gun Controllers on Perceptions of
Realism, Immersion, and Outcome Aggression." Journal of Communication 65 (2015): 280-99.
Web. 23 Sept. 2015.