The @ecotrain question of the week asks:
Why do you think so many computer games are based on extreme violence? Do you think it is healthy or unhealthy?
Source
In the simplest terms, they are based on violence because that's what's popular. Supply and demand. Whether it's healthy or not is completely down to the individual.
Is there something wrong with people who enjoy violent games? It doesn't seem that way, unless they have other underlying issues already.
We have a competitive nature and all games throughout time involve sort form of competition or challenge, even if it's just challenging yourself to do better each time, beating your best score or time. This competitiveness is likely an evolutionary development which was part of our survival instinct. Fighting has been a competitive sport for as far as we have recorded history and a form of entertainment for the audiences watching.
If we disregard the barbaric entertainments such as the gladiator fights and executions, much of this entertainment fighting is done by people who choose to do it, whether it's jousting competitions or martial arts tournaments. In the last century, people have placed restrictions on these types of sports in order to reduce harm and loss of life, yet underground fighting still happens. There are still those who want the violence and it's not just the audiences.
With the arrival of moving pictures, audiences started to be able to enjoy violence as entertainment without the risk to people, but there would still be those who want to experience the fight for themselves. The advent of video games and their advancement to look more and more realistic has given a wider range of people the chance to experience the fight with no harm to anyone around them, including themselves. So suddenly we have a risk free way to experience violence first hand, without moral implications, without fear of harming ourselves or the guilt of harming anyone else.
Looking at it from this perspective, there is now little surprise to for me as to why violent video games are so popular.
Healthy or unhealthy?
Playing any video game excessively can be unhealthy, whether it's violent or not. Limiting screen time for the sake of your physical and mental health just makes sense however you look at it. Screen time is addictive, whether it's video games or social media.
Whether a violent video game is any more unhealthy is likely down to the mental stability of the person playing it. There is no evidence that playing violent games makes someone more violent. In fact it can be something of a stress reliever. When playing video games, the player disconnects it from real life, so they don't feel the reality of violence as they would if they encountered it in reality. We all know what the reality of war can do to people and how many soldiers have come back with PTSD. There are those few who are revel in that violence; they are generally enlisted into special ops and would probably be considered as mentally unstable in civilian life. So I wonder if those who feel the violence more realistically on screen are the ones who prefer non-violent games, or the ones who are more likely to be influenced by them, because they enjoy that violence in reality as well.
Now when it comes to young children there is a higher likelihood of them acting out violence, because they learn through imitation. So it makes sense that there are age limits on certain games. If you're constantly bombarded with violence at a young age then it is likely that you could start to normalise it, just like a violent household would, and it would certainly not be a healthy environment to raise young children. However, I would hope that most parents wouldn't be exposing young children to this kind of violence and that by the time they are more likely to encounter it they would be emotionally stable and know the consequences of violence.
It's easy to try and blame things like films and video games for violence in real life, but the truth is we have plenty of real world issues that are not going to go away because we've decided video games might be unhealthy. There are many things that we can enjoy in moderation, but become problematic when we overdo them or get addicted. I believe video games are in that same league.