A small child picks up a copy of his favorite game Unreal Tournament, he immediately begins slaughtering his opponents with a wide variety of weaponry. Blood, guts, and internal organs are scattered as far as the eye can see. Could this child be utterly transformed into a psychopathic serial killer from playing a violent video game such as this? Can battling demons and humanoids on far off planets on a video game system possibly be connected to the horror of real-life homicide? The tragedy which took place at Columbine was blamed, supposedly, on the computer game doom. If that indeed was the case for mass murder, a significantly larger amount of youth violence would be recognized. Although violence is more prevalent than ever in todays society, studies and fact have failed to prove videogames as the prime suspect.
With the introduction of the game Wolfenstein in 1992, computer gamers were, for the first time ever, able to explore a 3D world. The object of the game was to escape from a Nazi occupied castle while taking out as many Nazi's as possible. Gamers were then introduced to an even bloodier game, DOOM. DOOM's gameplay was similar to Wolfenstein in that it consisted of running around and obliterating everything in sight. Hundreds of '1'st person shooters' (as they are commonly called) were derived from these 2 games. Today, they saturate the video game market with animated violence and gore. Each game has an individual rating placed on the package to inform parents as to whether or no their child should purchase the game. These video games are being held responsible as a significant factor leading to the cause of violent behavior in children today. Research and numerous studies have been conducted in order to prove whether or not video games should be held accountable.
Violent video games have been proven to have only minimal effects on a child's behavior(Paravaz 1).