Violent games, violent tendancies?

A common argument that pops up following a school shooting is that the person who did the shooting and killing played violent videos games, listened to violent music, and so on.

I'm not going to deny that there is some link between violent entertainment and violence. When I was young, my mother made me stop watching the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as she noticed I was getting a little uppity.

However, many in the media and the world at large seem to think that video games turn kids into desensitized murder machines.

A good case of this is the Virginia Tech shooting, perpetrated by Seung-Hui Cho. Shortly after the tragic shooting, many claims were made that he played games like Counter-Strike and other "first person shooters."

Thing is...he didn't play those games.

Sonic the Hedgehog

As people began to try and understand just who Cho was and what were his motives, they were also beginning to find out just what he did for fun. His roommates, when asked, said they never really saw him playing video games at all.

The Virginia Tech Review Panel released their findings in August '07. Chapter IV, the Life And Mental Health History Of Cho, also made note of the games he had played in the past.

"...and played video games like Sonic the Hedgehog. None of the video games were war games or had violent themes."

Cho was a disturbed individual. He was not trained to be a mass-murdering robot.


Gamers

Even with revelations such as that, many still cite violent video games as warping people, turning them into machines of death. Countless studies have been made, some showing that there has been a correlation between the rise of violent video games and school shootings, and others showing exactly the opposite.

The fact that many seem to miss is the fact that, for some of these games, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, play them. Going back to Counter-Strike, Valve, the company behind the game and the game it was modified from, Half-Life, released some data last December.

According to reports, the original Counter-Strike alone sold 4.2 million copies. Add in the units sold of a spinoff, its remake, and the X-Box port, that number reaches 10.7 million copies.

If games like Counter-Strike turn its players into murder machines, then surely we would've seen far more shootings than the ones we have seen.

The reason why some people just snap and shoot others is pretty simple, I think. Some people just become unhinged in some way. Whether its due to some imbalance already present, bullying, or some other factor varies. Many of these shooters would have benefited from some sort of intervention, some sort of counseling. In some cases, such as Cho, they even did get some counseling (though from reports he didn't get much or very good counseling), but still snapped.

Games may be a factor in these individuals, I won't try to deny that. But the same can be said for movies, music, books, too.

Yet people still jump to blame games when something happens. Perhaps with time, as video games become more accepted, that will change. As a gamer tired of being stereotyped as a powder keg ready to blow, that change can't come soon enough.