Of the people we asked most of them answered that they were between 18 and 24 with smaller amount commenting that they were 17 and under. this told us the most popular demographic for games appears to be late teens and people in their early 20s. Of this age group we discovered an overwhelming majority of the players were male, telling us that the appeal of video games is one that appears to still register stronger with males than females. We also found that among those who play games the most common amount of time spent playing games was between 10 and 20 hours per week with our research indiacting that the genre of game that most people play and spend long periods of time on are RPGs (Role Playing Games) closely folowed by FPS games (First Person Shooter games) and a small majority of these gamers prefer to play casually as opposed to competitively. This tells us that the most common demographic of gamer is a male in his late teens or early 20s that plays RPGs for between 10 and 20 hours a week most likely in order to relax due to the casual nature of their way of gaming. We also discovered that games often have the ability to frustrate the people playing them with one of the most common ways this happens is when the player achieves a fail state in the game. Our data also indicates that this frustration has often lead to the gamers who took part in our survey showing their momentary frustration in a variety of ways from simply turning off the game they are playing to throwing expensive pieces of hardware at a wall. Though almost all of the people who took the survey said they experienced this momentary increase in frustration and aggression l significant majority of them reported it having no long term effect and the rage they felt very rarely if ever staying with them outside of the heat of the moment, and where most of them reported this short increase in aggression most reported that they felt very little to no other effects from games with the most they felt they might do is slightly desensitise them to more graphic imagery as they may have seen similar scenes in a video game.
Audience Theory:
Hypodermic Needle Model - The Hypodermic Needle Model attempts to report and explain the occurrence when media is able to affect an individual to the point where they go out and recreate the actions or events they have seen in real life on either a large or small scale. Whilst extremely rare, it has happened before but can also be linked to mental health issues in those instances with a famous example of this being an where someone murdered another person after over extensively playing the highly violent game Manhunt, however due to only a single person and not the numerous other players that have also played the game committing similar actions the accusation that the game was responsible was found to be untrue by court in which the accusation was being examined and was dropped.
With the large amount of gamers who report playing mature and 18+ games from young ages like 14 and 11 and most of these said people being largely non violent people it would suggest that the vast majority are not affected by games in this way.
Uses and Gratification Theory - The Uses and Gratification Theory is used to try and explain why someone is drawn to specific media, whether it is caused by the stimulation from accomplishing a goal such as completing a game, the challenge they must face to complete said game, the competitive nature of facing off against other players, a simple way to pass the time, or escapism and allowing one to briefly feel free of reality. Many suggest that violent games will not lead to violent actions such as crimes as committing these violent crimes doesn't offer the same type of stimulation as it does in a game where actions are almost completely consequence free, making the player less likely to feel things like guilt over their actions, the challenge in conquering a difficult goal is also highly detached than the challenge in performing a violent crime like murder, the competitive nature of team shooters where one strives to get the most kills in a match is highly unlikely to be matched due to the incredibly unlikely nature of one such violent individual knowing someone with the same level of malice and violent impulses, and the escapism factor isn't nearly as attainable due to actions such as murder having huge consequences.
Passive or Active Consumption - Passive or Active Consumption occurs when someone listens to a media outlet and takes everything as its presented to them without questioning any of it. This can lead to further issues in cases of a person having been previously unable to develop their own sets of morals or suffering from mental illness, which while highly unlikely are some of the very few plausible ways one might be influenced to enact violence on others due to media such as video games.
Effects Database:
Exposure to Explicit Sexual or Violent Content - On the market today their are a high number of violent and highly sexual games, however there have been many steps taken in order to prevent children from gaining access to such materials. One way this has been achieved is by putting an age restriction rating into video games where children under the age rating of the game are unable to acquire the game and access its contents, the only real way around this is if an adult or older person were to buy the game and hand it to the child however these actions would then leave the blame resting solely on the adult's shoulders.
Effects of Advertising - Effective advertisement is used to make people desire a game and long to play it with a famous example being the viral marketing strategy that was used to sell the game Dead Space 2 in which several mothers were invited to watch gameplay of the game in order to catch their reactions of appal and disgust, which was designed to appeal to the more rebellious side of teenage customers.
Health Concerns - Over the years video games have had many health issues linked to them, some like aggressive or violent actions and behaviour are inconsistent with research at best but other accusations have also been levelled that they encourage a generally more lazy lifestyle which can lead to obesity and the corresponding issues. However other studies show that video games can help improve things like eye sight and the ability to track multiple objects at once.
Censorship Debates - Many organisation have also protested various video games insisting that they need to be either censored or outright banned, this can often be for violent or sexual content as well as having a political message some are opposed to or just being seen by some to be in some way offensive. However movements have also sprung up to counter the censorship and banning of games as many people see it as an attack of free speech and a way of censoring art as well as ideas and beliefs.
Responses:
Negotiated - An instance where the player may be given many ideals and views to choose between and come to their own conclusion whilst leaving the possibility for the player to interject their own views, which can help make a player more invested in a game
Preferred - The Preferred response is where a game tries to elicit a certain response from the gamer, such as agreement with an ideal or disgust at a more disturbing scene. An example is how many games avoid glorifying violent acts so that the player can be aware of their abhorrent nature.
Oppositional - The oppositional response to a game may be disagreeing with a message it or its characters convey to the player. There are no reported incidences of people being moved to violent or criminal actions due to this reaction as most people are often able to deal with other having opposing and conflicting views with their own.
Participatory - The key interactivity of video games makes participation the player needs to take the biggest difference between other forms of media like television, the downside of this is that it has lead video games to be accused of being negatively influential more so than things like movies and music. One example of this is how on 25 June 2003, the teenage Buckner stepbrothers Josh and William Aaron Hamel and Kimberly Bede via gunshot. Soon the game GTA 3 began being blamed wit people insisting that the violent thoughts and actions were put in the boys head by the contents of the game. However these accusations were once again dismissed due to the lack of other players effected in a similar way.
Cultural Competence - This refers to how a game goes about adjusting to different regions and cultures. Obvious examples are when a game changes the language its played in or adjusts names and items to fall in line with the culture of the new target audience more easily.
Fan Culture - Fan culture refers to the communities that form from fan response to games, this can include things such as fan made content based on the games like art, merchandise, mods, forums and often even additional content like games based off the preexisting franchise. This fan made content usually makes a community stronger and makes people outside that community more interested in the game the community is based around. The kind of content created based on the franchise can be more adult, violent, or family friendly depending on what kind of franchise it is based around. Though not all fans and their creation will generate a positive view for the product, such as how the infamous columbine highschool shooters had created their own level based off the popular game doom in which they recreated their school and used it to plan their attack before carrying it out. Whilst not entirely indicative of any original franchise it can bring a huge amount of negative public attention and help give the original franchise and games as a whole a bad reputation.
Conclusion:
To summarise i feel that the evidence pointing to video games causing violence is weak and inconsistent at best and the conflicting evidence that there is no direct causation between violence and video games being far stronger shows that the impact of video games causing one to become violent is entirely dissmisable as the panicked outcrys of many who are simply opposed to the popular form of entertainment with no real scientific backing. Video games have huge markets and are the world's biggest entertainment industry so when someone that happens to play a video game commits a violent crime the immediate reaction shouldn't be to blame a benign form of entertainment like video games and should be evaluate the other factors in the perpetrators life. With as broad a market as games have it should be no wonder some less than savoury characters would end up playing them from time to time. Besides that i feel that video games are a fun and creative hobby that create far more enjoyment and good than harm.
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