The Political Implication of Video Games

In the last few years there has been a great deal of argument regarding video games and whether they have any true meaning or not or are they just an outlet for mindless violent entertainment.
Both sides pose many arguments trying to discredit the other sides points and opinions.
Those against computer games argue that video games are mostly concerned with death and bloodshed and that spending hours every day blowing up and murdering everything and everyone in sight is not only meaningless it also encourages aggressive behavior in those that play the games.
With the increase in more powerful machines and more realistic graphics most argue that as the violence becomes more realistic players of these games will become desensitized to violence and will no longer see that gap between game and reality.
The argument against those opposed to video games is that although years ago video games were in fact more meaningless and that you were supposed to destroy everything in sight the concept of video games has moved on and advanced.
Today's video games have far more complex story lines. It is no longer clear between the 'good' side and the 'bad' side and players find themselves in situations where they have to make decisions as to who is good and who isn't.
In this situations the player has to make a number of moral judgments considering the ramifications of any actions taken.
In many of today's video games players have the choice of deciding what gender, race, group or faction they play as. This allows players to see things from more than one angle.
Very often there are religious, political and other social divide which can separate the player from the storyline and by investigating the game more they can untangle the layers around the situation and make calculated decisions as to what they should do.
Unlike many older games there is often no right or wrong answer or a defined correct course of action just alternative actions and results.
By killing one person or saving another the social ramifications could spread far and wide and it might not be till later on in the game that we will notice the true consequences.
This increase in focus on such deep matters makes modern gaming anything but mindless and it can be argued that modern video games can actually have a role to play in helping people to understand the wider story of a real world situation.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Victor_Epand