Lust For Death: In Video Games

Lust For Death Slider

I remember the first time I went to a friend’s house to play his new (at the time) video game Goldeneye.  (This dates me)  I had never played a first person shooter before, and soon I would find out why my parents had so wisely not allowed them in the house.

My friend showed me the single player levels, and to my shock the entire point of the game was shooting other artificial intelligence people and watching them die.  I thought at the time that it might be more like the 007 movies, but it wasn’t.

I asked my friend, “what’s the point in just going around and picking people off?”  He said, “it’s fun!”  Then he offered to play multiplayer with me.  I wasn’t very good but apparently that helped his score so he was happy.

It made me wonder.

Sure, you’re not killing actual people, but isn’t the thought of doing that just as bad? Why are the objectives of so many games to kill opponents?  Why are we fine with killing in video games, but not in real life?  When people are exposed to this often, with violence and death being rewarded, how can we be so surprised when we see this acted out in the news every day?

I’ll stick to my racing games.  I’m better at those anyway.

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