Release date: August 20, 2024
Photo by Glenn Carstens Peters Which states are most interested in violent video games? Movieguide® Contributor
A new study has revealed which parts of the country have the most interest in violent video games and how that interest may be affecting their residents.
A study by Cloudwards.net tracked how frequently over 90 of the most popular violent video games are searched for on Google per 100,000 people each month. California topped the list with an astounding 52,081 searches, indicating that more than half of Californians are interested in violent video games.
Coming in second was New York with a still relatively high number of searches of 27,211, followed by Maryland with 9,348 monthly searches per 100,000 people. Rounding out the top five were Alabama (6,974) and Ohio (6,236), ranking fourth and fifth, respectively.
Meanwhile, the lowest ranking states are North Dakota (25th), Wyoming (47th), South Dakota (76th), Montana (77th), and Alaska (95th).
The question of whether violent video games lead to violence in the real world has been asked for decades, but researchers have yet to settle on the answer. Until recently, many in the field confidently argued that there was strong evidence that violent video games lead to violence in the real world. But a groundbreaking study published this summer offered a comprehensive look at the issue, suggesting that this is not the case.
The study explains that the violence the researchers observed may not be related to the violent content of the games, but rather to the competitive nature of the games. While this explanation is persuasive, it has yet to be fully proven and debate rages.
This is especially true considering that video games and the violence they depict are becoming increasingly realistic due to continuing advances in technology – the violence that children were exposed to in video games 20 years ago often pales in comparison to the violence that some of the games today offer.
Still, Movieguide® advises everyone to be careful about the content they consume (or allow their children to consume). In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not healthy, your whole body will be dark.”
So even if science cannot definitively prove whether violent video games cause violence, it’s dangerous to always rely on them for entertainment. So this study is beneficial for parents who live in states where people tend to be interested in violent video games, because they can be more careful about what their children play. On the other hand, parents who live in states where people tend to be less interested in these games can probably take a more lenient attitude.
Movieguide® previously reported on video game violence:
As technological advances lead to increasingly better graphics in video games and more realistic visuals, the debate over violence in video games has been reignited.
The video game “Dead Island 2,” released in April, took a new step forward in video game graphics with its FLESH (Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids) system, which inflicts trauma on the player’s model in a realistic manner, rather than applying damage effects to the model in the same way regardless of the attack performed.
The new system will allow players to experience more brutal scenes with greater realism and detail when they are burned or attacked by an animal.
While Dead Island 2 uses the system in its cartoony art style, implementing FLESH in a fully realistic game could cause massive damage to players.
Current industry standard graphics are great, but they still lack realism. Even adults can distinguish between reality and video game fantasy at a glance, which is why some players are able to tolerate violence in games that they would not tolerate in real life.
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