Video Games do not cause real life crimes

Ever since video games became mainstream around the world, those in the upper class, including politics and even the president himself have deemed video games the main source of gun related crimes. No matter what, they are quick to jump the gun and blame video games as a whole, even if there are other reasons that a certain crime might have happened. Despite them saying all of this, many researchers took turns with this and found no link at all between those crimes and video games, especially violent ones. By nature, games would instead release stress and can calm you down depending on how you play said game. This not only affects those who create the games, but those who play said games and if they decide to ban these types of video games, the economy will then begin to suffer, as video games company’s own a number of stocks in the market. The type of games that are mainly at blame are shooters and M-rated games, but politics are vague about it and say ALL games are to blame. A rating system exist to see if a game is fit for all ages or only for certain groups of people above a said age, say over 10 or 16 years old. The company the makes the games have to be within a set of guidelines in order for a game to have a certain rating on it, they are aware of what’s in their game. However, they cannot predict crimes or shooting at all and all the time, the game has nothing to do with it. If politics blame that game for what has happened, it can destroy their reputation and cause them to lose money, even if it had nothing to do with them. This will in turn, also hurt the economy and those who play that specific game. A number of cases have been done by a number of origination’s to see if there is any link between violent video games and violent crimes. 

When news comes out about a huge crime or incident, regarding either murderer or robbery, people and mostly politics quickly blame video games for the cause. In this case, those who play video games all the time are also to blame. If that were the case, then how come these types of crimes aren’t at an all time high? Most of the time, it never has to do with video games. There are a number of factors that more evidence on what caused them to do said crime. According to a website on Forbes.com, a case was done back in February of 2019 where they tested a number of adults and teenagers (about 2,008) and gave them certain games to play and tested to see how they would react. In about everyone that was tested, nobody showed any kind of aggressive behavior when playing a violent game. This case was said more on the Royal Society Publishing website. There was just no link with violent video games and aggression, thus showing there is no link that video games cause gun related or murder related crimes. It just isn’t linked at all. Donald Trump keeps saying that video games causes real life violence. As said on CNBC, back in 2018 after the Florida high school shooting, Trump says that video games are to blame as to what had happened. However, numerous people came out saying that video games should not be the only reason as there are a number of other reasons. Such as mental problems, bullying, abuse, etc. Even with all these case studies, a link can not be found with video games and real life violence. It is always something else.

This is to reach out to those who mainly play video games, whether it be for a living, for work or just for a hobby to do in your spare time. Even then, certain video games have been banned in a number of countries for different reasons. A major one is Manhunt 2, as said on Wikipedia for banned games, for having huge amounts of gore, blood, violence and how revolting it was. It was not banned however for anything related to gun violence, as this was banned way before the rise started. In this case, games are not banned for those reasons, and only for what is shown in the game. From what I see, there are no groups that want to ban certain games, as the government of that country already does that beforehand. However, so many people keep saying that video games are not to blame. Adults, teens and even some news outlets, like The New York Times are saying that video games are not why shootings happen. It should be the politicians job to fix what is going on, not us. Not things that have no link whatsoever and to stop ignoring those who are being bullied, abused and having mental problems all together, thinking it’s just a phase or they are lying. There are no lies there as everything that has happened is caused by someone being ill, and not getting the help for it. Video games are not to blame for everything just because they don’t like it. It was always the case when something new comes out that the newer generation uses. There is so much proof that crime does not come from video games, and if a game is deemed to gory for the public, it either never gets released, it is heavily modified or just flat out banned. Mental health, abuse and bullying are always options and people are getting tired of just 1 thing being ruled in instead of what else could have been the cause. Video games do not cause violence, they never had and even if something like that occurred, it was dealt with in a timely manner as those kind of people never get far.  Video games are not to blame, people who cause these crimes are, they do not flue anything or anyone as it releases stress. Stop blaming video games, they are not at fault.