Today, in a world where school shootings are more and more common, where violence is seen as the norm and opinions are all over the place, many put the blame on violent video games. Critics of violence in video games will argue violence in video games are a direct cause of violence in reality, of school shootings. Problem one is how can video games be confused with reality when its players view it as an escape from it? This is a faulty misconception, due to a lack of understanding of said games. Video games are not immersive to the player that the player cannot distinguish reality from video game world. That is, the idea that players believe their gaming reality is so complete that the player truly believes that he or she is part of an imaginary world, is false.
Battlefield 1, has a scene or a mission where the player shifts from driving a tank, to close quarter combat to flying a pigeon. When flying the bird the music and atmosphere change, almost as if you are removed from the war below you. When the birds lands the music of war returns. Battlefield 1 is called an immersive game, and it is and was for me, but the player is immersed in the game, not as the reality outside of it. Believing that the game is reality would imply that the players identify as WWI-era -soldiers, if that was the case that the shift to a bird's eye view would jar the gamers sense of immersion. Gamers prefer flexibility in their game, and that's what makes it so immersive. In other words, players are aware that they are playing in a fictional world. The fiction can provide experiences and viewpoints not possible in real life. The shift of viewpoint and complete unexpectedness of playing as a bird in the middle of a wargame is a flexibility that makes the pigeon scene extremely effective. These dramatic contrasts boost our emotional response to the game.
"One of the components we look for in immersion is emotional involvement," says Cairns. "Becoming immersed is partly that you really care about the outcome, for whatever reason, so you need some sort of emotional sensitivity to be able to connect to the game and want to have that connection." ( The Gaurdian, 2010)
Another topic to be broached is the display or lack thereof women in video games. In the Witcher 3 there were no female bandits, counter strike as well does not have any female playable characters. Instead what is seen is often the female is to be saved. In Super Mario, your goal is to save peach, women are often portrayed as defenceless and helpless characters needing a strong man to rescue them, "the damsel in distress is a common trope in many video games" (Rautiainen, 14). I feel that rather than violence stemming from video games we get gendered stereotypes. Many gaming discourses considered women a threat to gaming. Females in every single hand to hand combat game I have witnessed are dressed to reveal a lot of skin. "In this context, gaming could mean games that men have traditionally enjoyed, especially games with glaring representation issues that would not necessarily cater to female audiences" (Rautiainen, 43). Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken are just a few examples. It was also prevalent to not consider females as gamers or interested in games that do not have violence in them. In the context of gaming, it is relevant to consider both women as gamers and as video game characters. "Are women dubbed casuals who are mostly interested in games like Candy Crush?" (Rautiainen, 42).
The argument on whether video games increase violence or make us more violent should be put to rest, however the argument about female portrayal reinforcing gender stereotypes is just beginning.