Violent Online Games and Their Effects
Introduction
Online games are being patronized by the majority of people. There are many applications online that can be played. Most of them can be played singularly but most of the players are preferring multiplayer games. In majority, multiplayers are playing Massively-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) that most of the time are violent. Online games are showing shootings and killings in a fashionable way that fascinates more players to play those games. Now, many are concerned about the effects of violent online games to the players. In years, scientists debate the progress of research if the violence of online games really affect the aggressiveness or violence of the player or not. However, there is no concrete evidence that there is. It is only suspicion that violent online games might provide negative effects. Otherwise, some researchers want to prove that violent online games sometimes provide positive effects.
There are negative effects but still they are only in suspicion, thus, not yet proven. Here are some suspected negative effects of playing violent video games: (a) exposure of it may affect long-term attitudes toward violence; (b) repeated exposure might turn to violence, diminished emotional responsiveness and desensitization; (c) exposure in early age might cause symptoms of attention disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); and (d) it might associate with decreased ability exert executive control or self-control that might affect personal goals in the future, this may cause to increase the aggressive behavior of players (Linton, 2010). These findings caused concerns to parents but have been disregarded by the players because of their addiction in the online games that they are playing.
Moreover, experimental studies of playing violent online games showed that it poses causal risk factor for increased aggression and it was supported by evidences of meta-analyses which confirms that it can cause increase in aggressive behavior, aggressive affect, aggressive cognitions, and decreases empathy and pro-social behavior. To further support these findings, there is a research held in United Kingdom to prove the effects of violent online games to the aggression of players. They’ve used General Aggression Model (GAM) to further provide concise results. They’ve used neutral games and violent games, online and offline, like First Person Shooter (FPS) and Call of Duty franchises (Greitemeyer and Hollingdale, 2014).
After the experiments, they’ve found that players who played violent online video games were more aggressive than those who played offline video games. However, the results of increased aggressions were only potential and not concrete. Furthermore, they conclude that concerns of harmful effects appeared no further exacerbation, negative feelings, because of lack of variables like time of exposure in experiment (Greitemeyer and Hollingdale, 2014).
Violent Online Games Cases
Violent online games are more famous than the neutral online games that sometimes caused somebody to learn. Sometimes, addiction to these games might lead to horrible effects. Trash talking is fun in online games if used properly but if this is overused, it might cause to aggression and violence. There are some crimes listed from these online games that caused scary threatening and most are killings.
League of Legends (LOL) is one of the most popular online games today. This kind of game is like hunting other players to death while pursuing to destroy their enemy base. Players are really in to winning the base of their opponent. This causes some players to be toxic in the game, being frustrated if not able to win. Most of the players in this game uses vulgar words on chats. Toxic players sometimes outrages on chat boxes and threatens other players. In 2013, Justin Carter, LOL player, was charged with felony terrorism for Facebook comments. His comment was “Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go to shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts” after getting a comment of insane during a game of LOL. His rage online caused a concerned Canadian to report to police after knowing the address of Carter to be near from an elementary school (Tassi, 2013). Violent online games affect the way of speaking of an individual and in latter, the vulgar and threatening might cause to violence and aggression.
There are also deaths caused by online games, mainly violent online games. In 2004, Zhu Caoyuan was murdered by co-player Qiu Chengwei in Shanghai. Both of them are playing Legend of Mir III. The killing was about Qiu’s cyber-weapon that has been sold by Zhu to another player. Qiu reported it to the police but was dismissed because it is not existing in reality. However, Qiu put the justice on his hands when he stabbed Zhu on the chest, and causing himself to be death-sentenced (Criminal Justice).
MMORPG is being played by millions of people all around the globe at the same time. Some games of this kind of online game shows carnage in fashionable bleeding way. Lineage II is a famous MMORPG of Russia. Guild wars of this game are not only online but in reality because of trash talking and shouts while playing. This caused a man’s life when a bloody encounter happened (Criminal Justice).
Grand Theft Auto series, though offline, gave big effects on the crime that was made by Devin Moore in 2003, and two other teenagers in Tennessee. Moore stole a car, and killed two cops and a 911 dispatcher in a police station while he was under arrest. He also tried to escape using a police car but captured. After he was captured, he said that life is like video games. He might be referring to the gameplay of the video game wherein the main character mercilessly kills all the people he encounters. The same was happened in Tennessee where two teen stepbrothers grab some rifles and fired Aaron Hamel to death. Their inspiration according to them was Grand Auto Theft III (Criminal Justice). This is quite alarming that some people are being affected by violent video games in their behavioral state. They are becoming violent and aggressive but the sad part, some players are enjoying the crime they did make.
Positive Effect
People are mainly discussing the negative effects and despising the positive effects. Some researchers believe that at some point violent video games, online and offline, might provide some positive effects. They believe that the design of violent online games, sometimes, might be used in educational purposes. Violent video games might also effect positively to visuospatial cognition. This is the skill to understand visual representations and their spatial relationships that gives a person to learn and to perform a task (Ferguson, 2007). Some researchers also suggest that there are more findings or experiments to be done to see the other benefits of such video games.
Conclusion
There are many experiments that have been conducted to prove if there are effects of violent video games, online and offline, to aggression and violence but only get some suspected effects. There are minimal evidence that some people are affected in behavioral aspect resulting too many crimes. However, this cannot support the experiments that have been conducted by many researchers because of lack of variables like time, numbers of players, and types of games that are being played. Today, these type of games are still in debate. Many might suffer more violence and aggression before they find how to control the factors of violence in video games, online and offline.
References
Criminal Justice. (No date). 10 Deaths Caused by Video Games. Criminal Justice Degrees Guide. Retrieved from http://www.criminaljusticedegreesguide.com/features/10-deaths-caused-by-video-games.html
Ferguson, C.J. (2007, October). The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: A Meta-analytic Review of Positive and Negative Effects of Violent Video Games. Laredo, TX: A&M International University.
Ferguson, C.J. (2010, September). Video Games and Youth Violence: A Prospective Analysis in Adolescents. Laredo, TX: A&M International University.
Greitemeyer, T and Hollingdale, J. (2014, November). The Effect of Online Games on Levels of Aggression. ProQuest. Shapiro Library.
Linton, G. (2010, January). The Effects of Video Games on Learning: The Negative View. Retrieved from WordPress website https://glinton.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-effects-of-video-games-on-learning-the-negative-view/
Nielsen, M and Tear, M. (2013, July). Failure to Demonstrate that Playing Violent Video Games Diminishes Prosocial Behavior. ProQuest. Shapiro Library.
Poteko, K. (2014). “Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better.”: On Self-destructive Violence in Video Games. Ljubljana, Slovenia: University of Ljubljana.
Tassi, P. (2013, June). Texas Teen Facing Eight Years After Violent League of Legends Threat. Retrieved from Forbes website http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/06/29/texas-teen-facing-eight-years-after-violent-league-of-legends-threat/
