Violence in Video Games:Good or Bad?

Issues about violence in video games have surfaced for almost a decade ago. We read and saw in the news about a lot of criminal cases that linked to violence video games, whether in Malaysia or international level. For the past decade, video games seems to be synonymous with children and teenagers. Games like WWE Smackdown!, FIFA 08 and Gangs of War have replaced the pasttime of yesteryear children of playing outside, under the hot sun. However, besides good, clean fun video games that are available in the market today, video games publishers such as Naughty Dogs, Konami, Atari and Jakks among others also published video games that indirectly promotes violence such as the Grand Theft Auto series, Dead or Alive series and many more. This indirectly motivated the children and teenagers to mock the protaganists in the video games. Now, the main question still stands. Is violence in video games a good thing or a bad thing? For me, it is a good thing. Violence is used in the video games to tell the gamers that life is hard and unpredictable. It also teaches them to be well prepared to face the cruel world. The violence shown in the video games is much lesser than the violence in the real world. So, the protest against violence in video games should be stopped. These gamers need to experience what is happening to the world today and if everyone is taking that experience away from them is like robbing their freedom. So, I strongly suggest that violence in video games should stay for the betterment of mankind around the world so that they understand and appreciate life better