Dr.K's Take On Violence in Video Games

Carly Kocurek, one of the beloved professors ar our very own IIT, analyzes the effects of violence in video games have on the way society percieves the idea of violence and how society judges video games based on the violence found in them.

She argues that making a big deal about certain video games portraying violence will not, in fact, stop people from buying or playing the video game, but, will instead, be a source of promotion for the video game. The sale of video games that incur society’s wrath and are considered controversial fly through the roof as skeptics and curious gamers buy the game to see what all the fuss is about. Dr. Kocurek also argues that “Death Race” helped establish a connection between violence and video games, thereby spurring the number of video games that do include some form of violence.

Death Race was the first of its kind, but there have been many video games after that have faced a societal dilemma where morality would be threatened by violence in video games. These newer video games, like Death Race, also had a spike in sales after societal uproar. The more controversy a video game has, it seems, the more famous it will be.

Written on November 7, 2016 by Saja Hamayel