Design Methodology

When going through the research that has been gathered there are many things that stood out for both sides of the argument over the link between video games and violence. The main thing that stood out was that in an article written by Margaret Robertson on the BBC news website she mentioned that any repetitive action eventually becomes second nature and that surly this is the same with video games. This can easily be seen as a double edged sword though, using this people could learn new useful skills but if someone is able to learn useful skills in this way would they not pick up bad habits in the same way, though through violent video games obviously any bad habits picked up may have more long lasting consequences and sometimes damaging consequences. “I know that, if I've spent an entire weekend playing Halo and you stick me behind a crowd of slow-moving tourists, there's a split second when I wish I had my pistol.” (Robertson 2007) the writer here has only thought about this, fortunately thinking about something is 1 thing but actually carrying through with it is a different story but what would happen if someone mentally unstable had these thoughts, would it provoke a violent response? This isn’t an entirely farfetched idea, if someone doesn’t think their actions through and consider the consequences the situation is highly likely to get violent.

If the violent video games are affecting adults through the repetitive actions and “hyper-violent content” (Jenkins 2007) then surly they would affect children in the same way, this is where the debate is most intense, since children, being younger and less experienced, have the same control over their actions as an adult would in a situation where they would be tempted to cause someone physical damage? Many parents say that they would not, 2/3 12-15 year olds admitted to having violent behaviour according to a survey carried out by the Daily Telegraph. There is a problem with this though, according to Henry Jenkins author of The wow climax: tracing the emotional impact of popular culture violent behaviour is merely being a part of a boys childhood so automatically that 2/3 can be cut in half near enough due to the fact that both boys and girls were used and because it can be claimed that they are just acting normally for children their age. “Nineteenth-century “boy culture” was sometimes brutally violent and physically aggressive; children hurt each other or got hurt trying to prove their mastery and daring. Video-game culture displaces this physical violence into a symbolic realm. Rather than beating each other up behind the school, boys combat imaginary characters, finding a potentially safer outlet for their aggressive feelings. We forget how violent previous boy culture was.” (Jenkins 2007) this shows that not only is violent behaviour in boys normal for their age it can be argued that it could be a lot worse. Jenkins also mentions in his book about child warfare and how it was common in the 19^th century, the only difference now is that it occurs in plain sight due to the invention of video games.

The problem with video games is that they are addictive, online gaming addiction is a big problem for a lot of people, it is not unheard of for people to neglect themselves, their families and their friends because of online gaming addiction, the additional problem here is that because of this addiction it can cause people to play more often and the more often they play the more likely they are to pick up violent habits.

This chart is what is known as Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. This basically documents the needs of the human psyche. Part of the reason video games are so addictive is because a lot of them fulfil this chart so in effect a gamer is for filing their own psychological needs by playing the game but with games like Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt could it be that they for fill the requirements of the chart too well and people are getting too into the game. If this occurs it would mean that those addicted to the game are more likely to develop violent tendencies from not being able to detach themselves from the game. In other words their psychological needs are so great or so deprived that they get completely hooked on a game. This also brings up the point that computer games stimulate the reward centres in the brain, because of this it is essentially rewarding certain behaviour, if the behaviour is killing someone then it is rewarding the player’s action. This technique is often used in the training of animals and is known as positive reinforcement (rewarding good behaviour) but this would mean that if someone is playing violent video games at a young enough age they would have been constantly being rewarded for violent behaviour and this would logically lead to a very violent and unstable person.

Again the game manhunt, the player is rewarded for killing people and the aim of the game is to survive, this would full fill the safety portion of the chart and if someone plays a game long enough or dose anything long enough it becomes second nature, the problem here is that if this occurs and it does become second nature there is a danger that the player my want to kill to full fill their own safety needs.

To read more into video game’s full filament of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs here is the link to the video used to write about the above chart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_kr4nOsn3Y

there should be more to add to this but i am stuck here at the moment.