Stop Blaming Everything on Video Games Already

I grabbed the above from Drudge Report, yes I read it everyday, I visit his site several times a day as I like to catch up on world news and it’s convenient to have everything in one place like he has it.  This morning he has that front and center and it disappointed me that he drank the kool-aid like everyone else out there.

I’m so sick of everyone blaming or in one or another connecting something violent that happens in the world to a video game. It’s not true, there is no correlation between violence and video games, if anything it’s been proven that video games don’t have an affect on increased violence.

Call of Duty is hugely popular game, the whole series is, there’s no doubt about it.

If you go over to VGChartz and their page for Call of Duty Black Ops you’ll see that it has sold over 14 million units. If you say that it’s responsible for violence then shouldn’t we have millions of people out there right now killing people? We have what now? One or two that are being blamed on violent games and Call of Duty specifically. Let’s say it’s two out of 14+ million, the percentage is so small there that it’s not even worth trying to figure it out really. How can you blame video games and try and be serious about it with a ratio like that? If violent video games were the problem then we should be seeing these things happening multiple times per day all over the world, but we don’t do we?

Yes the Navy Yard shooting was horrible, and I feel bad for the families, but if you read more into the story of Aaron Alexis you’ll see that he had some other problems besides playing video games. The problems he had are what made him do what he did, not video games. Just because someone plays games doesn’t mean they’re bad or they’re going to go bad. Sorry, but make the real connections please.

Video games are so popular that pretty much everyone plays them in one for or another. I’m sure you could find a connection for everything violent that every happens with a video game.

It’s bad journalism is what it is, making connections where there really aren’t any and overlooking the real problems with the people that do these horrible things.

I’m just so sick of all this slanted reporting and trying to blame video games for all the problems. So what if someone plays video games. If you go to a nursing home, many of them have the Wii for the residents to use, they play video games so why aren’t they out there doing these horrific crimes?

The headline screen capture above links to The Telegraph and these so called journalists have a lot to learn about fair reporting and they need to stop sensationalizing things like this. So the guy played video games, I bet the writers of that story play video games, so does that mean they’re going to go out and kill someone? Maybe huh? We better watch them. Nick Allen is the reporter who reported this exclusive story and from his picture he looks young and I can bet he’s played some violent video games in his lifetime.

Reporting like this is irresponsible journalism plain and simple. It needs to stop. It’s biased and slanted and sensationalized just to get traffic to their sites.  It’s not just this story here, many sites and reporters are saying the same thing, they’re all jumping on the bandwagon because it’s the thing to do.

I would love to see the real story reported, but I bet that wouldn’t get front page billing because it’s not sensational enough….

Honest reporting doesn’t sell papers as it were, slanted and biased reporting does and it’s a shame really. These people call themselves reporters but I don’t think they are honestly, they’re followers, they report what they think people want to read and not the actual truth of the matter.

Sadly the truth doesn’t sell, journalism is all about the money anymore, people don’t want the truth that want controversy and something to blame besides what’s really going on.

It’s easy to blame video games.

At one time if I recall it was rock and roll that was to blame for the ills of society, and the list can go on and on, video games are just the latest and popular thing to blame.

I like my games and not all are violent. Sure I like first person shooters, I’ve played Call of Duty, but I also play Angry Birds, Civilization and many other games tossed in there.

Reporters have a duty to report the truth, or at least I thought they did. Journalism used to be about getting to the truth, reporting the truth used to be what a reporter’s job was, but it’s not anymore is it? It’s all about the page views and selling ads and it’s got nothing to do with the truth anymore…

It makes me sad that we live in a world like this where people don’t want to read the truth…

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