Video games have been around since the dawn of the 1970s. From "Pac-Man" to "Astro Blasters" to "Mario," it was every kid’s joy to run into an arcade and pop in a couple of quarters to get a little taste of the new wave of gaming. The first video game created was Pong, a game reminiscent of table tennis, and all it consisted of was two lines on each end and one pixel bouncing between them. As time passed by and technology advanced, so did the games. Characters were no longer just little pixels on the screen; they started to actually take the three-dimensional form of people. Along with that came more graphic and violent actions.

I was introduced to gaming when I was about 6 years old. My mom would boot up the PlayStation 1 to play her "Tomb Raider" games, and I’d sit and watch her. I remembered begging my mom to play so I could watch some more, but when she got too busy to play, I took up the controller myself. I played games on the Nintendo 64, Game Boy, PC, and all the generations of the PlayStation. The characters and the stories were so interesting to me. It was like watching a movie except I was actually controlling it, so it was so easy to just fall in love with the experience.

However, growing up, I noticed the pattern of how detailed these games were becoming. Motion capture was a technology which was making it easier to build realistic looking people and capture their movements. Not only were the games looking beautiful, but they were starting to emulate a more realistic approach to movement and actions. There are games that were a given for violence. Games like "Call of Duty" and "Battlefield" were obviously going to feature a bloodbath of sorts. Open world games like "Grand Theft Auto," "Skyrim," and "Far Cry" made it so that we could do whatever we pleased, which could include the slaughtering of innocent civilians. Then there were the games "Manhunt" and "Manhunt 2." These games were basically just murder simulators and were actually banned in many countries. It led to the debate about video games and whether the violence featured in them led to real-world violence.

Jack Thompson is a known anti-video game activist who has always made the argument that video game violence correlated to mass shootings. He has protested the game "Grand Theft Auto" numerous times. I can see why. The game is known for its gray line of morality. Drugs, sex and murder are staples in any of the games in this franchise. As a lawyer on murder trials, he often used the point that some of the defendants played the game and accused them of using it as a “training technique.” Whether or not it was a factor is difficult to determine.

I’m not saying video games can’t inspire people to do heinous things, but from my own personal experience and those of my friends, I can say that we’ve never been coerced into finding killing pleasurable because of video games. I’ve played many of the games listed above. In one of the "Call of Duty" games, I had to shoot down people at an airport. In "Grand Theft Auto V," I’ve had episodes where I’d take a grenade launcher and shoot at cars passing buy or rob massive corporations of their money. In "Skyrim," I went to villages and killed the villagers with my sword, but always saved beforehand so I could reload to when they were alive so I wouldn’t lose any services. I’ve indulged myself in the gruesome nature of some of these games, but it’s never carried itself over to my real life experiences. These games have not taught me the fundamentals on how to shoot a gun or how to steal.

Of course, I don’t think younger kids should be playing games like this. I remember some kids around 8 years old at my cousin's house. They had started the game "Watchdogs" on his game console and played it. It’s not particularly graphic, but it is another open world game where you can shoot things and get away with it. I have to admit, it was quite awkward watching these kids smile and have fun at the thought of running people over with the car they stole, but they shouldn’t have been playing it in the first place. It’s rated M for mature. However, they did get their hands on it, but I don’t believe they would actually be partaking in something of that nature in real life.

We see so many violent things. We see it on the TV shows and movies we watch. We see it on the news. I don’t think video games are any less than that. Why is it different when we control the character? It doesn’t amount to the fact that even if video games were more censored, we’d still be seeing other acts of violence anyway. It’s not the video game that shapes the morals of people. Parents, teachers, friends and life experiences help to teach people what is right and what is wrong. Trying to blame video games won’t do anything to stop violence that’s already happening.