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Gamers Trust Multi-Gaming Platforms

Gamers Trust Multi-Gaming Platforms World of Warcraft Gamers Trust Guild Here is the place to sign up to become a review candidate or get ...

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Want to join Gamers Trust Incorporated   A little bit about us first;   Gamers Trust Incorporated is a registered nonprofit organization founded in 2008 that ...

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Gamers Trust Membership Rules   These Gamers Trust Membership Rules were created and decided on by the membership for the membership Gamers Trust Membership Rules ...

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Gamers Trust Multi-Gaming Platforms

Gamers Trust Multi-Gaming Platforms

Posted by Scott Perrin on Jul 3, 2017 1
Want to join Gamers Trust Incorporated

Want to join Gamers Trust

Posted by Scott Perrin on Feb 23, 2016 2
Gamers Trust Membership Rules

Gamers Trust Membership Rules

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Video Game Violence: A Needed Conversation

The following editorial reflects the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily that of Gamers Trust Incorporated.

The United States has been wrought with deeply emotional tragedy lately stemming from increased firearms violence. If any good is to come from these events, it’s that a long needed conversation is being had about violence in our society. Some would argue that, at the core of the debate a citizen’s Second Amendment rights. And yes, that is a major conversation being had. It’s the one that the media has made that hot new thing. The issue I have with most of the attention being placed on gun ownership though is that it seems that it is another case of fixing the immediate problem. Gun violence is the effect. Not the underlying cause. When the epidemic of firearm violence erupted  there was conversation about what the root cause was. Was it the person mentally unstable? Was it because they had access to questionable weapons? Or, was it because they had been influenced by the entertainment industry. Namely video games. True, at town hall forums and news station’s talking heads will eventually bring this back up, it seems we have forgotten the original conversation until it’s too late.

Every few years, the debate about the effect of violent video games has on our society.  This has lead to some very excellent tools to help parents make informed decisions such as the ESRB. But it has also brought with it the very negative stigma of video games being an unsavory form of entertainment. It’s no secret that the amount of violence in video games seems to exponentially be rising each year thanks, in part, to leaps in graphics processing that can deliver more realistic environments. Another contributing factor in, in my opinion, is this nation’s blood lust. We want more of these types of games. We demand them. There’s a reason why Call of Duty is one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. Americans enjoy violence.

I’m certainly no different in this regard. As a matter of fact, this time of year is generally my favorite season for movies as all the cheesiest most violent action films come out. I play Battlefield and Call of Duty. I am exposed to this sort of thing on a daily basis. Yet I have never had a gun violence charge brought up on me. I also enjoy Skyrim, but I certainly wouldn’t ever think to take a sword and rob a convince store. And I’m not alone. When looking at other nations where guns are very much available, as are the same forms of entertainment (with some nations such as Germany being the exception where all blood must be removed from games), there is not nearly the amount of gun violence that we see in our Nation.

Getting back to the video game tie-in: What does it boil down to? I feel the reason that, as I mention, I can be exposed to the same violent entertainment as violent offenders are and not have the inclination to perform such acts is a simple one. How my entertainment was monitored and gated growing up. My parents strived to see that I was exposed to forms of entertainment that they thought I could handle. If I was exposed to something that was out of that realm, we had a conversation about it. Sure, some of you reading might be saying, “How can you even compare those older video games to the ones now?” To which I reply, remember the controversy around DOOM?

The bottom line is this. If we are to ever move away from a society where some individual glamorize all violence and cannot distinguish real from virtual, we need to start having these conversations. They need to happen in a serious manner, and all parties need to be open-minded to the others. Not just at a legislative level, or a corporate level, but at the most important level of all; in the home.

I certainly can’t tell you as a parent what to do when it comes to raising your children. It’s not my place. How I raise my son is may differ from how you raise your children, but neither are wrong so long as we all do what is in the best interest of the child. We’ve been granted excellent tools to help us make informed decisions. I certainly hope that there are some out there that will come to think of this site as one of them. Let’s use the tools, educate and guide our children, and help tapper off the cause. Not the effect.

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Joel Polkinghorne
Joel spends his days sorting through the latest gaming news from around the interwebs. He has been involved in gaming his entire life and professionally involved with web media since 2001. Joel lives in Michigan, USA with his wife and son. Follow him on Twitter @sBj.
Joel Polkinghorne

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Joel Polkinghorne About Joel Polkinghorne

Joel spends his days sorting through the latest gaming news from around the interwebs. He has been involved in gaming his entire life and professionally involved with web media since 2001. Joel lives in Michigan, USA with his wife and son. Follow him on Twitter @sBj.

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