Final Presentations

Today we watched half the class give final presentations. The one I found the most interesting was Ethics of Violent Video games. I am not as avid a gamer as most college students my age, but I do play my fair share of games. In fact, I was recently at the midnight release of Batman: Arkham Origins.. I have not had time to beat it yet.

I have been aware of video games negatively affecting children because they are easily influenced because they have not learned their own value system yet. It never occurred to me that they could affect adults that way. When I play a violent video game, like Call of Duty, I do not get the urge to go out and shoot people. I choose to play violent video games because they let me be in a place where I would never normally be, I try to avoid fights.. in video games, the fights are the major part.

I recently discovered Saints Row (pictured above). Which is a more laid-back, and less expensive, version of Grand Theft Auto. For me, the fun of the game is to go around and beat people with a giant purple dildo. Why? because it is funny. Would I ever do that in real life? Most definitely not.

In my opinion, given the opportunity to play an ethical game that forces you to think about your decisions would be less popular for those playing violent video games. Sims is a decision based game where you make your sims a life (and in my case, find creative ways to burn down their houses), ethical decisions could be built into a game like this. But you are missing out on what most violent games give, lots of action. Though I do believe ethical games would be successful for the market of gamers who play the reality games like the sims.