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Lets face it, violence and competetiveness are the backbone of the games industry. The whole point of video games is to present a problem to the player and then challenge the player the overcome the problem. The most involving problem that a game can present is for the player to be in a 'kill or be killed' situation because dearh is omething we all fear above anything else. Because of this, it is only natural that developers choose to follow this format when designing games. Also, the 'shoot em' up' gives the player a chance to weild the power of live or death over the enemies which makes them feel more important.
Despite all this, I don't believe that shoot em' up games ever inspire people to go out and kill for real. In the light of the recent school shootings in America the government has looked for somehting to blame and gaming has become the scapegoat. Because they (bafflingly) refuse to ban guns themselves, they choose to blame the next best thing which unfortunatly happens to be video games.
The annoying thing is that this affects us here in the UK because develpers target games primarily at the US and Japaneese audiences. Even with the backlash against overly violent games I think that these will only serve to increase the number of violent games as, in their frantic search for profits, developers will always try to make their game a bit more violent than the game before in order to grab the headlines.
So it looks like, because of the greed of developers, violent games which are the lifeblood of the games industry are here to stay.
Despite all this, I don't believe that shoot em' up games ever inspire people to go out and kill for real. In the light of the recent school shootings in America the government has looked for somehting to blame and gaming has become the scapegoat. Because they (bafflingly) refuse to ban guns themselves, they choose to blame the next best thing which unfortunatly happens to be video games.
The annoying thing is that this affects us here in the UK because develpers target games primarily at the US and Japaneese audiences. Even with the backlash against overly violent games I think that these will only serve to increase the number of violent games as, in their frantic search for profits, developers will always try to make their game a bit more violent than the game before in order to grab the headlines.
So it looks like, because of the greed of developers, violent games which are the lifeblood of the games industry are here to stay.
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Lets face it, violence and competetiveness are the backbone of the games industry. The whole point of video games is to present a problem to the player and then challenge the player the overcome the problem. The most involving problem that a game can present is for the player to be in a 'kill or be killed' situation because dearh is omething we all fear above anything else. Because of this, it is only natural that developers choose to follow this format when designing games. Also, the 'shoot em' up' gives the player a chance to weild the power of live or death over the enemies which makes them feel more important.
Despite all this, I don't believe that shoot em' up games ever inspire people to go out and kill for real. In the light of the recent school shootings in America the government has looked for somehting to blame and gaming has become the scapegoat. Because they (bafflingly) refuse to ban guns themselves, they choose to blame the next best thing which unfortunatly happens to be video games.
The annoying thing is that this affects us here in the UK because develpers target games primarily at the US and Japaneese audiences. Even with the backlash against overly violent games I think that these will only serve to increase the number of violent games as, in their frantic search for profits, developers will always try to make their game a bit more violent than the game before in order to grab the headlines.
So it looks like, because of the greed of developers, violent games which are the lifeblood of the games industry are here to stay.
Despite all this, I don't believe that shoot em' up games ever inspire people to go out and kill for real. In the light of the recent school shootings in America the government has looked for somehting to blame and gaming has become the scapegoat. Because they (bafflingly) refuse to ban guns themselves, they choose to blame the next best thing which unfortunatly happens to be video games.
The annoying thing is that this affects us here in the UK because develpers target games primarily at the US and Japaneese audiences. Even with the backlash against overly violent games I think that these will only serve to increase the number of violent games as, in their frantic search for profits, developers will always try to make their game a bit more violent than the game before in order to grab the headlines.
So it looks like, because of the greed of developers, violent games which are the lifeblood of the games industry are here to stay.