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Final Essay
Video games have fast become an essential part of the average teenager’s daily or weekly
recreational activities. Starting to gain popularity in the 1970’s due to the invention of arcade
gaming machines, the more developed type of video games that are seen today on television,
phone, and computer screens got popularized at the advent of personal computing. Once
companies like Apple and Microsoft made sure that human beings felt that they needed personal
computers in their houses, early video game developers started making games that personalized
the player’s experience and forced the player to indulge in the video game. Today, the video game
stands as a marvel of graphic media and communicative technology. However the shocking
realism of violence and the ease of exploring unethical and immoral actions through video games,
poses a threat to our understanding of ethics: do video games negatively impact our concepts of
ethic and morality, in the process, making us post human? There are some ethical issues that are
specific to a given technology and that cannot be separated from that technology. Such ethical
issues related are to function. Technology thus raises general questions of values, and is generally
value-laden through its inherent function. Every technology has a function, and every function is
view that technology is an irresistible force that forces our hand as we shape our culture, and
Borgmann realizes that the kind of recreational satisfaction that we look for in video games and
television is hollow. Borgmann asserts that we continuously compensate for this hollowness by
using increasingly more technologies and not realizing as technology incurs cultural
displacements, embeds itself in contemporary culture, commodifying and mechanizing our social
psychology.
A device paradigm is the state we have entered due to our reliance on technology. Everything we
need is now available from the comfort of the single click of a button, at will and at any time.
This is an example of technology reduces human activity and struggle. It also represents the basis
Technology disburdens humans from struggles, pain and limits of things that are real and which
Video games have pervaded significantly deeper into our society than what we like to admit.
According to a report, eighty percent of video game players today spend an average amount of
five hours per week playing video games.1 Not only this, the computer and video game industry
1
Royal Van Horn, 1999, “Violence and Video Games” The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 81, No. 2
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20439610
has gradually become a giant in the consumer retail sector, with a market value that now exceeds
both the film and the music industries. “Currently, the market value of the video gaming industry
is more than $25 billion, and estimates predict an increase to $54.6 billion by 2009. Long gone
are the days of home-brewed games developed by two industrious teenagers in a darkened
garage. Gone is the simplicity of Pong and Pac-Man. Development teams on premier video
games may now easily have more than 100 people working on them. Video games have original
scores, detailed artwork, directors, producers, and story lines that rival many movies. As
evidenced by the video game Laura Croft: Tomb Raider, movies are now being based on video
games, just as games have long been based on movies. This indicates a dramatic change in the
Video games pose a potential threat that has not been conclusively researched yet. “It is
necessary to dig deep into research studies to discover the truths they suggest. In particular, the
data must be disaggregated. Most children are probably not harmed at all by their casual and
recreational use of video games. However, it does seem that there are subgroups within the
population of children who may indeed be "at risk" when it comes to playing violent video
games. Heavy gamers are naturally more at risk since they have so much more exposure to the
2
Joel E. Collier, Pearson Liddell, Jr. and Gloria J. Liddell, 2008 “Exposure of Violent Video
Games to Children and Public Policy Implications” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Vol.
research suggests that children with low self-concepts or low mental age are at risk as well.3
Another journal in favor of video gaming, or at least not intent on criminalizing it, writes that
politicians and other moral crusaders frequently create villains, individuals or groups defined as
evil and immoral. The representation of these villains allow us to channel our blame and fear,
offering a clear course of action to remedy what many believe to be a growing problem. Video
games, those who play them, and those who create them have become contemporary villains in
the eyes of researchers and concerned parents because they seem to pose a threat to children. The
journal also mentions that “Since the early days of radio and movies, investigators have searched
for possible effects - typically negative - that different media may have on audiences, especially
children. Such research became more intense following the rise in violent crime in the United
States between the 1960s and early 1990s, focusing primarily on television. Several hundred
studies asked whether exposure to media violence predicts involvement in actual violence.”4
At the same time as the afore mentioned researches, experimental studies have also shown time
and again that violent video games cause people to behave more aggressively, sometime after
they have stopped playing the video game. Over the progress of time, video game players who
expose themselves to delayed periods of virtual violence show signs of aggressive thoughts,
3
Royal Van Horn, 1999, “Violence and Video Games” The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 81, No. 2
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20439610
4
karen sternheimer, 2007, “do video games kill?” Contexts, Vol. 6, No. 1
game. If players ruminate about the violence in a game, the aggression-stimulating effects of the
It is almost as if the media and researched are keen on developing a relationship between
violence and video games. However true or untrue this may be, it is no the onus of this essay to
prove. The connection of video games with that of a device paradigm is hardly that of violence,
Video games function on a model of gratification that is viciously addictive; as the player wins in
a video game, the video game become more and more attractive thus being able to maintain the
addiction and besides video games, it is most commonly associated with substance abuse and
drugs. It is safe to say that video game addiction is, as of yet, an unrecognized mental disorder.
Through personal experience and numerous well known cases, it is easy to notice people with
real life responsibilities waste hours in front of a screen, ignoring everyone and everything
around them. Often video game players set records of completing entire games in single sittings.
There should be no doubt that it can become damaging and have negative emotional, social,
Many people don’t seem to recognize that video games are manufactured to do this. This
phenomenon can perhaps be understood as a false sense of achievement. At the end of the day,
when the game is beaten and the player has completed the challenges, none of those rewards
having something to show to the video game players’ community through the Internet, an play a
big part in diluting our sense of reality and responsibility. There is a certain amount of work and
reward inherent in playing games: one dies and restarts over and over until the challenge is
complete. Once completed, there are usually prizes to make characters stronger or give the player
more options.
Playing out fantasies in games is not a new concept to society. Novels and stories exist to bring
their audience into a new world away from the reality they come from. Video games are just one
of the newest media on the scene to give audiences this experience, only they have an element of
control; players can interact with the virtual world, control it, and manipulate it. They empower
themselves, or build creations born of their imaginations. It can be easy to get lost in these kinds
of scenarios.
However, for some people, the false sense of achievement — the feeling that they have
accomplished something with their time — dominates above all else, and the reward system
keeps players playing. There is a growing trend and appreciation for a condition in which players
of video games quickly become detached from their realities and invest increasingly more into
It can be concluded therefore that gore and false power are not the thrill of a video game. A
common belief held by many gamers and many in the video game industry is that violence is
what makes a game fun. Instead, video game players crave feelings of control and competence.
Games give a ridiculous sense autonomy, the freedom to take lots of different directions and
approaches, allowing the player to enter a self-imposed stupor at the hands of technology. It
could possibly also be proven that violence alone does not affect players' enjoyment of the
games; feelings of competence and autonomy are factors crucial to many different aspects of
happiness, and self-determinism, 5 quite similar in fact, to the sense of achievement that
According to Borgmann, focal things and practices are the human activities that make life
meaningful. Focal things include reading books, playing musical instruments, athletic equipment,
artistic indulgence, and the treasures of nature. They are correlated to focal practices such as
reading, reciting poetry, playing instruments, dining, walking, sporting activities, painting,
sculpting, fishing, gardening, rock collecting, and so on. They can further be characterized as
activities that engage our creativity, ingenuity and sociability, and are re-creative even as they
require investment of self. When magnified in scale, they are also the basis of all communal
celebration.
The problem at hand is that the more intensive focal activities usually require greater investment
of effort than their electronic replacements, that is, video games. It is considered far easier to let
children turn on the television or gaming console, than it is to get them to settle into a book, draw
pictures, play board games or go outside. The large amount of time that can pass in the virtual
world is also noticeable by anyone who has engaged in it, as well as the resulting phenomenon of
5
Laura Sanders, 2009 “Gamers Crave Sense of Control: Feeling Competent Matters More than
usually results from focal practices. There is an investment of effort, however, that needs to be
made in the focal practice, such as the first few steps on a run or the actual composition of pen
on paper that deters the human motivation into choosing technology. What we have forgotten, is
that that added organizational or that extra motivation is much more gratifying, often
proportionate to the pleasure that the performer of a focal activity feels. It is quite simple in
concept, for video games, the satisfaction is at a low threshold hence the lower reward. For a
focal practice like reading, the satisfaction is at a greater threshold, hence the greater reward.
The most arduous part of a focal practice, and also the key characteristic is the burdensome part
of putting in the initial effort. The initial effort is like a threshold that once crossed, the burden
completely dissolves. Once we are playing an outdoor sport, cooking the meal, or even walking
in the outdoors, reading a book or playing the piano, or praying, the burden has lifted and the
deeper sense of satisfaction usually arises. There is a purpose and depth to these activities as
Conclusion:
To conclude, it is the dire need of our time to research technology as we go forth, and understand
that in our pursuit of progress, we must not let the means become the ends. Making means
become ends signifies that technology’s functional value becomes something which is valued.
We must not forget that technology is of instrumental value. We come to use and value
technology because it gives us pleasure or ease. It is also noteworthy that technology tends to
change us, either in a liberating or confining manner. Although not established to be harmful or
on the contrary, it can safely be established that video games are device paradigms that must be
and the battlefield that going on a war means nothing to us. The depicted chivalry of soldiers and the glory of
war in the game has completely erased the horrors of war out of our minds.
The creators of the game have worked on the tiniest details. Every character has a background storyline. The
terrorist team has characters from Middle East, South America, and Soviet Union. All of these nations are
avenging the world’s great powers as they have suffered repression and degradation by them. The ideology
which has compelled these three different nations to wage war against the occidentals is their mutual hatred for
them.
On the other hand, the counter-terrorist team contains soldiers from USA, Germany, France, and the Great
Britain which has successfully established the goodwill and superiority of these nations over others. This
animosity among the nations and their conflicting interests and beliefs have resulted in the violence which has
ultimately led to war as depicted in the game. The violence is the basic tool of war. All the wars in the history
were the product of the escalating violence. The violent behavior of the terrorists in order to attain their
objectives, as shown in the game, and the retaliation done by the counter-terrorists either by obstructing the
former’s objective or killing them has resulted in the war between them. Neither of the teams hesitate to kill