Prompt: Controversial Idea or Term
Fatality
As a young teenager Mortal Combat was my younger brother and I favorite game. Our age difference did not matter, that was our common ground and one of our favorite things to do together. We would go to the local convenience store and cash in a dollar in pennies. Pocket full of pennies we walked the train tracks that led right behind the town arcade. Exited about what was in store, we put all of our pennies on the the train tracks, then like clock work every hour on the hour a train would go by, the train would would crush our pennies. They were no longer pennies, they were arcade tokens. The train driving over the pennies flattened them out and were the exact same size as an arcade token. As a result we now had 100 game tokens, 50 tokens a piece, that meant we each could play up to 50 games, 50 times trying to kill each other and rip each others spine out of the body and sever the head or limbs. That was the final move on mortal combat, it was when a person has won the fight and is wounded or dizzy the finishing move was applied if you know how to do it,it is called fatality. Thinking nothing about it we would brag about how we killed each other and how many times. We never gave it a second thought. My mother always told us not to play that gory game but we did not listen very well. As a result of kids like me that did not listen to their mothers the video game industry has grown to a billion dollar industry world wide. Consequently this multi billion dollar industry gets a significant amount of publicity. Both positive and negative. Nevertheless it is like a constant battle between good and evil. It is like two siblings always trying to out due each other. The controversy has been going on since video gaming was born. To illustrate this matter, it seems like every time I turn on the t.v. Someone is talking about video games. Here are few negative things that I have heard over the years about video gaming. First is the violence associated with video games, second is the addiction of gaming, third is a few positive things I think about gaming. A few years back I turn on the tv and I see a story about a high school shooting. Columbine High School in Colorado. The media named it the Columbine High massacre. 2 teenagers shot and killed 13 people. The focus was on video games. Some so called experts In addition they said that the 2 teenagers showed keen interest in weapons based combat video games. Such as Wolfstein and Doom. They continued to say that some people perceive violence with real life. Next that the people that play violent video games are more likely to be violent, either with their friends, their family and or everyone else, because of desensitization, the lack of emotional response to a negative stimulus. They stated that video games that on the video games you get rewarded for acts of violence, aggression and vengeance. Which is repeated violent acts on video games cause a learning behavior, the more you do it the more you learn and want to do it. Consequently what was said if you play violent games you are most likely to be violent and do a violent act. In addition that we were teaching the wrong moral values, and confusing the players of whats acceptable and what is not. This team continued to blame video games for other violent acts across the United States. I play video games with my son often, he is four years old and full of energy, but the subject of addiction to the gaming counsole is always in my mind. I play with him sometimes for a few hours at a time, he wants to keep on playing but I try to regulate the time that we spend in front of a tv. I try to teach him that video gaming is not suppose to be an all day thing. Spending to much time in front of the gaming system sometimes can distract you from doing other things that you where suppose to get done that day, for example this paper is due but don't get it done because your lost track of time playing video games. Too much of something is never healthy, addiction is one of the worst things people can do to their mind or body, because they have very little or no control at all, of their body and mind. On the other hand I have always heard many positive things about gaming, that violent games channel violent emotions an a positive way, that if you play violent games you are less likely to show aggressive behavior in real life. Violent games games are helping keep the crime rate down, by keeping the real world killings in our imaginations as harmless fantasies, another thing is that video games are helping keep crime at a all time low. Some things that I noticed that are positive in playing these video games, are quick thinking, hand and eye coordination, accuracy, concentration, for example when a bad guy just comes out form no where and you have to quickly react and shot punch etc. Also mapping and memory skills pattern recognitions, for example when you go into a building in your game, you are going to have to remember how to get out the same way you came from. Few other ones that I think are extremely helpful in life are reasonable judgements, taking risks, how to respond to challenges, rethinking some goals, and problem solving. Etc. There are many more. Violence in video games will always continue to be a controversial subject, therefore it always be a subject of debate. There will always be a fight between right and wrong, good and evil., therefore you have to chose, the debate has been going on since video games were born and there are no signs of stopping yet. Me playing video games with my son frequently, I have to be the judge, I have to chose the right and the wrong, the great thing about our human ability is that we can chose between fiction and reality. Playing video games brought me and my brother together and a lot of great memories with video games. Instead of completely stopping the games just monitor I am just going to monitor what games we play, appropriate age rating of course. Like everything in life you have to study it for yourself and discover the pros and cons about the controversial subject, then maybe you can make the judment for yourself and how it is going to affect you and your family, today, tomorrow or few years down the future. Ultimately you might see a common ground on both sides, never know.