by Angela Williams

Created on: June 20, 2009   Last Updated: June 22, 2009

Being a "Gamer Girl" since the original Nintendo Entertainment System, I am going to have to say no. I have played many violent games in my lifetime and I have never killed anyone or blown anyone up. How can someone blame the violence on the gaming industry anyways? Violence has been around since the beginning of time. Are you going to blame World War I and World War II on video games? That would be difficult since they weren't around then. Video games are an escape from reality.

I like the fact that there are violent games so that when I am angry, I can beat up the bad guys on the game and not beat up the person that I am really angry at. Everyone has to put the blame on something, so why not put it on video games right? Wrong! Video games are rated. I think that it is the parents responsibility to learn the rating system. If a movie is rated R, you aren't going to let your child watch it.

So, if a video game is rated M for mature, or AO, adult only, you shouldn't let your child play it. It's not difficult to find out what the ratings mean. All you have to do is show an interest in your child or do research about the game. You can even ask a person that works in the gaming department if the game would be appropriate for your child's age. That's what they are there for. Parents also fail to realize that just because it is a video game, that doesn't mean that it's for a child. Video games are geared for the older generation. We are the ones who buy the games because we are followers of the original consoles. Parents today buy the consoles for their children so that they don't have to spend time with their children. If they were meant for kids, the prices would be much cheaper. My question is this, why don't we blame violence on people? They are the cause of it all.

Just because a video game has violence in it, doesn't mean the game made everyone that plays it go out and cause world destruction. Do you think Hitler played video games? Is that why he was so violent? Did Joseph Stalin or Saddam Hussein play video games too? No, they didn't because video games weren't around during their reign of terror either. Is it video games fault that King Henry the VIII killed most of his wives? It's so silly to blame violence on video games. If you are going to accuse video games for all the violence in the world today, then what are you going to blame the violence on thousands of years ago before video games were around? How about Rock and Roll? Nope, that won't work because it wasn't around thousands of years ago either. What if we blame cartoons for the Civil War?

That won't work either, because cartoons didn't exist then. How about we put the blame where it needs to go and blame people. People are the cause of violence. Violence is just a part of life. There is nothing that is going to stop it. Video games develop violent games because that is a realistic aspect. Why do you think there are games of war and games made about gangsters? Movies do the same thing. They make thousands of movies about war, mobsters, serial killers, and rapists. The list is never ending. Why not blame books for the violence?

Every book I have read has violence in it. Lord of the Rings, Black Beauty, The Wizard of Oz, The Jungle Book and many many others. Just because video games are so popular people use that as a scapegoat. Are we to believe that one day people will blame computers for violence? We might as well. What it comes down to is that parents just blame the video game industry for what their children do so that the parents don't have to take responsibility for their children's actions.

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