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Maxwell Burke
English 11, Period 1A
February 5, 2013
Argument Essay
Do Violent Video Games Make You Violent?
Have you ever wondered if those kids who go around hitting people with swords and fake
guns do that stuff because of rated M video games? Have you ever wondered if some people who
join the military do it because violent video games showed them what it was like? Some people
argue that people are getting more violent each day because of video games. That is not the case.
You can’t blame a video game for making yourself violent because video games do not make
you violent. It isn’t just violent video games either. Some people even think that there is violence
in fairytales too.
People are trying to say that violent video games are one of the main causes of domestic
violence. For example in an article by Timothy Maher it says, “But experts still debate whether
that imagery is a harmless (if slightly depraved) emotional outlet or something that leads to
aggression in the real world.” People are still trying to figure out if the violence in video games
is linked to violence in the real world. You can’t just blame video games for making people
violent. Violence is everywhere around the world in entertainment like TV shows, movies,
cartoons, and even in schools. Another person says, “When it comes down to it, teens are smart
enough to know the difference between real life and fantasy, says Evan Jones, 16. "[I get] an
adrenaline rush during the game, and the need to win, but afterwards it's just fine," the California
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teen told reporters. "I see violent video games as an outlet to aggression and stress.” (Jones).
Kids look at video games as a way to get out their anger without doing any harm. Violent video
games are helping the world by getting people to release stress on the game and not into the real
world.
People have studied about this subject and have never seen any relation to violent video
games and if they affect minors’ by making them violent. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals declared: “The state has not produced substantial evidence that … violent video
games cause psychological or neurological harm to minors.” Video games that are
supposed to be for mature people are rated like movies are rated, making it easy to avoid
buying those games if you don’t want your child to be violent. They even make it so that
only people 17 and up can buy rated M games. Another quote from usnews.com states,
“The industry also has an independent rating system, similar to the movie rating system,
that informs and empowers parents.”
In conclusion violent video games do not do any harm to anyone. You can argue all you
want about how people should stop playing them because they are getting more violent, but
violent video games are a way to get rid of stress that they have on the game and not to other
people. Yeah, there should be an age limit for the very bad games, but they already have a rating
for those games and you have to be seventeen or older to buy them.
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Works Cited
MAHER, TIMOTHY. "The Dubious Perils Of Pac-Man." Technology Review 114.6 (2011): 96.
TOPICsearch. Web. 10 Feb. 2013.
"Firefight." Current Events. 05 Sep 2011: 7+. SIRS Discoverer. Web. 10 Feb 2013.
Gallagher, Michael. "Video Games Don’t Cause Children to be
Violent."http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2010/05/10/video-games-dont-causechildren-to-be-violent. U.S. News, 05 May 2010. Web. 28 Feb 2013.