jared.taylor360@gmail.

com

Outline: Video Games Are Beneficial

Jared Taylor

Susan Martin

Public Speaking

11/28/2017

Attention Getter: Nolan Bushnell, the founder of the video game company Atari once said

“Video games foster the mindset that allows creativity to grow” (Bushnell)

Introduction: Growing up I bonded with my Dad and my brother by playing video games. It

started with my dad playing a Winnie the Pooh game with me as toddler. And from there my

brother joined along and our video game playing has continued. Whether it was my Dad, my

brother and I playing Command and Conquer, Neverwinter Nights, Starcraft 2, Borderlands,

League of Legends, whatever it was, it was apart of our family bonding. And as far as I know

that hasn’t had a negative impact on my life. If anything it has benefited the bond I have with my

Dad and Brother, and according to various studies it has benefited others and I cognitively.

Therefore I believe…….

Thesis: Video games are a beneficial thing for people to participate in

Significance: This is an important thing to shed light on because there are a lot of individuals

who think video games can be a really big detriment to people

Credibility: during my research I have considered many psychological studies on the effects of

playing video games, I’ve examined various commentaries on the subject, I’ve watched
newscasts on the subject, I have analyzed studies that help define what are the public’s concerns

are with gamers, I have looked at statistics to measure the revenue the industry produces, I

haved I have looked at historical moments for video games, and I have looked into how video

games benefit us cognitively.

Preview of main points: Today I will show some important media outlets trying to demonize

video games. I will show how violence and video games have no correlation. I will present

studies that show how there are benefits to participating in video games. I will show what is

going on currently to prevent further damage to the perception of this community and I will show

how we can make an impact on how video games are perceived going forward.

Transition: To begin I’d like to talk about the media

I.

Media’s coverage of video games, more often than not, say it’s a problem, presuming people
who play video games are lazy, anti-social, and overly aggressive (Brunborg)

A. Media portrays people who play video games are lazy and anti-social

1. For instance, a journalist from the Statesman Journal says “Congratulations to the

corporate CEOs for exploiting lazy Americans by keeping them restrained to their

living rooms” (Baum) this shows how some media displays their affection for video

games.

2. The official date in which these concerns started aren’t clear. You could say that the

anti-social and laziness portion of these concerns started when pong came out as the

first major video game in 1972 (Modany).

B. Whereas the concerns of increased violence can be attributed to the coverage of recent

mass shootings such as the

 1. Sandy Hook shooting where it was reported that Adam Lanza, the shooter

“had more than 83,000 'kills' on his beloved video games including 22,000

'head shots' “(Bates).

2. The Aroura Colorado theater shooting done by James Holmes is another

example of media coverage attributing video games to the violence. Lyndee

Fletcher a writer for Charisma News pointed out how “he was a frequent

player of violent video games including World of Warcraft, an infamously

addictive role-playing game” (Fletcher).

Transition: So, while playing video games has a negative stigma. Are there legitimate reasons to

be worried?

II

Violence in video games throughout my research has been a major reason people give to not play

video games. And it has some validity to it. There has been a lot of research that could suggest a

correlation between the two.

A. There are many studies that show that video games can increase violent tendencies.

1. For instance, a study from the American Psychological Association ran by Teena

Willoughby a professor at Brock University followed students from 9th to 12th grade to

see if video games contributed to an increase in violent behavior. The study concluded

that “video game play was significantly related to steeper increases in adolescents’

trajectory of aggressive behavior over time.”(Willougby).

 2. And In another study done by the American Academy of Pediatrics they analyzed three

independent groups in two different nations to see if cultural differences might make an

impact. The first group consisted of 181 Japanese middle school students ages 12 to 15,

the second group was composed of 1050 Japanese students ranging from 13 to 18 years,

and the third consisted of 364 students in the United States ranging from age 9 to 12.

After following these students for 6 months they found no matter the culture video games

increased violent tendencies. (Anderson).

B. Now you may be thinking all this shows me is that there is no doubt video games cause

aggressiveness, but this may not be true.

a. A review article “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: A Meta-analytic Review of Positive and

Negative Effects of Violent Video Games” published by Psychiatric Quarterly written by John

Ferguson a psychologist and professor at Stetson University would prove otherwise.

1. In this article Ferguson analyzed the validity of the studies that discussed the

effects of video games on aggressiveness and visuospatial ability.

2. he discovered that there was major publication bias and once he corrected for this

bias there was no legitimate data to support the hypotheses on video game

violence causing aggressiveness. (Ferguson)

3. But the results for video games causing higher visuospatial cognition remained

the same. (Ferguson).

b. Or more simply put by the co-Representative Director of Nintendo. “Video games are bad for

you? That’s what they said about rock-n-roll” - Shiguru Miyamoto

Transition: So, as seen some individuals feel as if there are great risks in participating in playing

video games. But they don’t realize the potential benefits.

III.
The benefits of video games have to do with cognitive ability if we’re only looking at it from a

scientific standpoint and there are studies that agree it does indeed benefit people cognitively

A.
a. For instance, In Psychology Today’s article “7 Reasons to Play Computer Games” Ryan

Anderson a psychologist thought they had benefits. (Anderson)

1. he concluded that video games can increase problem solving abilities,

make you better at visual tasks, they can cause you to have better a better

memory, and can improve your ability to multitask. (Anderson)

b. In an Study done by the Cognitive Science and Engineering Department at Arizona State

University Christopher Sanchez tested sixty college students to see if playing video games over

the course of a semester would affect their visuospatial ability as well as their working memory

abilities (Sanchez)

1. They did ten different trials over that time and they had found that those

who played more throughout the 10 trials saw benefits in their visuospatial

ability and working memory. (Sanchez)

c. Additionally, A study conducted by Dan Chiappe attempted to discover if video games

had the potential to increase people's ability to do multiple tasks by expanding their attentional

capacity.

1. In this study one group served as a control group, and a second group played

action video games at a minimum of 5 hours a week for 10 weeks. (Chiappe)

 2. After the experiment ended they came in for examination they concluded that

playing video games did enhance performance on tasks that are secondary to what

your primary task may be without being detrimental to the primary task.

(Chiappe)

3. Like doing math homework would be a primary task while making toast would be

secondary to that and it wouldn’t be detrimental to that task. So, action video

games can increase your attentional capacity.

B.

So, while there may be people saying that video games cause violent tendencies there are

a lot of people who are unknowingly benefiting from these games. And there are

numerous psychological studies to prove that. We shouldn’t be fearful of something that

can benefit society.

Transition: So now that we know video games can be beneficial to society how do we fix all the

negative stigma?

IV

Money and popularity, If the video game industry continues to grow in popularity and thereby

increases their revenue every year it will be a sign to the critics that clearly it doesn’t affect

people who plays them. While there may be a handful of people who do crazy things like mass

shootings, if the majority of people in the U.S. participate in some sort of video game anyways it

would even further show that video games don’t change the probability of them doing anything

more violent than anyone else. Dean Takashi, a tech journalist for 28 years and the lead writer

for Game Beat has projected that 1.2 billion people play video games (Takashi). And based off
this projection alone I would refute the idea that everyone who participates in playing video

games has the characteristics of being anti-social, lazy, and overly aggressive.

A.

And we’re already in an era where Video Games produce mass revenue and will only continue to

grow

A. In the article “Video games will become a $99.6B industry this year as mobile

overtakes consoles and PCs” Mike Minotti comments on how the video game

industry pulls in a lot of revenue

1. More specifically he states “Market research firm Newzoo revealed today

that it expects the global gaming market to be worth $99.6 billion in 2016.

That’s up 8.4 percent when compared to last year. It also expects 2016 to

be the first year that mobile overtakes PC and console, with Newzoo

expecting that market to make $36.9 billion in 2016, up 21.3 percent from

2015.” (Minotti)

2. The U.S. contributes the 2nd highest amount to that total behind China at

25.5 billion dollars. (Minotti)

B. Esport popularity will force some large media outlets as well to stop giving games

negative coverage

A. According to the article “2017 Video Game Trends and Statistics – Who’s Playing What

and Why?” written by Krista Lofgren a writer for the Big Fish games she gives statistics

showing the popularity of Esports.

1. “50% of most frequent gamers are familiar with eSports” (Lofgren)

 2. “Viewership of eSports has exploded from 204 million to 292 million between

2014 and 2016.” (Lofgren) which was a 43% increase in two years. (Lofgren)

3. The global revenue produced by Esports “rose from $194 million to $463 million

between 2014 and 2016”. (Lofgren) which was a 239% increase in two years.

(Lofgren)

B.

1. Additionally major media outlets already have started covering such as ESPN

2. http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=21287366&t=00m52s

C.

a. And if you want to help you can…..

b. Participate in them and not look at anyone who plays them regularly as if they had a

problem…. I mean would you tell a someone who uses all their free time to play basketball that

they need to do something else?

Transition: So through the power of Money and Popularity and your approval the masses will

have to come to the conclusion that videogames do not have a negative effect on peoples life’s.

Unlike other sports that have real problems *cough NFL *cough concussions.

Conclusion:

All in all, there is controversy as to whether or not video games are a beneficial to

participate in. Some people seem to demonize the idea of playing them because they fear people

becoming overly aggressive. Others have exposed studies that claim that video games increase

violence to not be factual. There are individuals who have seen evidence of video games

benefiting people who play them through multiple studies. And with 1.2 billion people playing

video games (Takashi) and so little having potential issues deriving from them, it is clear to me
that they’re not detrimental they’re beneficial... And if you want to see these benefits but not sit

in a room for hours alone, you could get some family together and play Mario Party.

Bibliography

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