Video Game Violence

While doing research on this topic, I came across some interesting details from a few websites. For instance, not only do kids play video games, but it would seem that exclusively kids play video games.
-According to an article on the Huffington Post,  97% of children play video games, which is why violence in video games in such a sore topic.
-During the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre, news reports confirmed that the students played violent video games such as Doom, Wolfenstien 3D, and Counter-Strike.
-Sometime after the events of the Virgina Tech Massacre ,where Counter-Strike faced controversy for its supposed influence in the shooters behavior, Brazil banned any sales of Counter-Strike.
-The video game industry has now grown larger than both the film and music industries.
-Video games now have a huge influence over the sales of songs, albums, an artist popularity. More largely than that of the film industry.


With video games having such a large influence over today's culture, its no wonder why parents have stepped up to defend their children. The problem with addressing mature topic in video games is that they have such a large influence on those that play them. Interactive storytelling is by far the most immersive form of entertainment, so when people view it as wrong to address things such as racism, sexual themes, or extreme violence, it not only causes outrage, but limits the potential of the developers. I suppose the only true way to tell what games a child or pre-teen can or can't play is to be judged by the parent. They simply need to be more involved in the ideal of video games, along with studying their children habits or attitude so they can more easily tell which games they will be affected by, and which they can play without having a large effect on them.