Examining the Perception of Violence in Video Games Essay

Introduction

Ten years since the Columbine massacre and the main questions of the reasons behind the horrible incident are still questioned and various factors and influences are still examined. The main argument in finding all the factors is the tendency to find the one to blame. Among the different examined factors there are gun control, school responsibility, the role of parents, etc. One of the frequently mentioned aspects is the influence of violence in video games. To examine the perception of violence in video games and their effects a survey was conducted addressing the current view on video games in general and the visualized violence in particular.

Background

The video games industry has risen recently to an extent where it can compete with the movies business in terms of annual earnings. In that matter, video games are an important influential aspect based on which a large layer of the population can be categorized and examined. In establishing the relationship between violence and video games, many researchers states that there is “a causal link between playing violent video games and aggressive thoughts, interpretations, and/or behaviors” (Smith, Lachlan, & Tamborini, 2003) Another important background information that should be mentioned is the main target area that plays video games, where “In fact, the average age of game players was 29 and the average age of buyers was 36, with men making up 59% of the paying audience.” (Reuters, 2004)

Purpose

The purpose of this survey is to establish a general view of the perception of the video game products that contain violence. Additionally, the survey attempts to observe if there is a difference in this perception among different categories of the population.

Design

In creating the survey, many issues should be managed and considered. First of all, to examine different categories of the participants, part of the survey was conducted for categorical grouping variables such as age, gender, and education. An additional important factor is the division of the answers between people who play video games and the people who do not. In such a way the survey should not be specific in addressing a particular target population, avoiding specific terms, brands, etc.

The second important issue is the definition of violence and distinguishing between a general view and the relation to oneself. In that sense, several control questions were given on violence to see if there would be different answers when it is related to others, rather than personal opinion.

Another important factor is including the concept of violence in movies, to observe the difference between the perceptions of violence in different mediums. This is partly because violence in video games is distinguished from violence in films because of the effect of participation. Method

Internet will be used for administering the survey, where different sites offer the possibility to distribute the survey online. There are several advantages for this method, as the examined population will not be limited to certain groups. The obvious disadvantage is the price, where most of such web sites ask for a fee for conducting the survey and sending the results to your specified mail. Depending on the format of the questions, each question will be rated on five grade scale, where five will be a definite position that states that violence in video games affect behavior, and the grade of one will state that it does not. The collected data will be entered to a data processing program, where the simplest program that could be used is Microsoft Excel with the ability to construct graphs. The highest and the lowest scores will be omitted in order to eliminate bias. Finally the results for different target population will be examined where the most interesting difference should be observed between the population playing the video games most frequently and the population that is rarely or never plays video games. The reliability of the survey will be tested upon the received information on the participants. If there is a big deviation in the results between different population categories, it could be assumed that there is a bias in certain categories.

The Survey

1. Gender
   1. Male
   2. female
2. Age
   1. 12-15
   2. 15-18
   3. 19-25
   4. 25-30
   5. above 30
3. Occupation
   1. Student unemployed
   2. Student part time job
   3. full time job
   4. unemployed
   5. Other
4. Educational degree
   1. Undergraduate
   2. college
   3. bachelor
   4. other
5. Frequency of playing video games
   1. Several times a day
   2. Once a day
   3. Once a week
   4. Rarely
   5. never

Violence

1. Rate the following from 1-5 (1 is being least disturbing, 5 most disturbing)
   1. Horror movie
   2. first person shooter*
   3. A killing scene in a movie
   4. A killing scene in a game
      • *a game that involves shooting from the first person perspective
2. A certain game is deemed violent, what is the possibility of you obtaining this game knowing that fact:
   1. Very unlikely
   2. unlikely
   3. it does not matter
   4. likely
   5. Very Likely
3. You are likely to be aggressive after playing a violent video game:
   1. Strongly disagree
   2. disagree
   3. neither agree nor disagree
   4. agree
   5. Strongly agree
4. You are likely to act aggressively after playing a video game that contains violence
   1. Strongly disagree
   2. disagree
   3. neither agree nor disagree
   4. agree
   5. Strongly agree
5. People are likely to act aggressively after playing a video game that contains violence
   1. Strongly disagree
   2. disagree
   3. neither agree nor disagree
   4. agree
   5. Strongly agree
6. Games with violent content are preferable for me over other genres
   1. Strongly disagree
   2. disagree
   3. neither agree nor disagree
   4. agree
   5. Strongly agree
7. There is at least one benefit for video games with violent contents
   1. Strongly disagree
   2. disagree
   3. neither agree nor disagree
   4. agree
   5. Strongly agree
8. Violence in video games is affecting violence in the society
   1. Strongly disagree
   2. disagree
   3. neither agree nor disagree
   4. agree
   5. Strongly agree
9. If I am to buy a game for someone, I will not buy a game that contains violence
   1. Strongly disagree
   2. disagree
   3. neither agree nor disagree
   4. agree
   5. Strongly agree
10. Violence in games is more dangerous than violence in films
    1. Strongly disagree
    2. disagree
    3. neither agree nor disagree
    4. agree
    5. Strongly agree

References

Reuters (2004). Survey: Video gamers getting older, heading online. Web.

Smith, S. L., Lachlan, K., & Tamborini, R. (2003). Popular Video Games: Quantifying the Presentation of Violence and Its Context. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 47(1).