Of all the ones on this list, this is the one that causes the most controversy. The rest can be palmed off as nothing more than outdated views seen through the ideas of filtered media. But insinuating that video games make a person violent is something that harms the community and causes genuine hurt and offence. The early days of rock 'n' roll probably felt equal backlash from conservative thinkers who did not take kindly to Elvis Presley's hip wiggles. Music has always been the subject of much unnecessary antagonism from traditionalists, but it's only in the last couple of decades that gaming has become the latest enemy trend. In the same way that "communism" was replaced by "terrorism", games have become the easy-to-target buzzword for all things that are wrong and immoral. Barely a year comes and goes without tabloid papers getting up in the public's face about how certain games are destroying people's minds and making them violent criminals (you already know which titles they target). I have some very enlightening news for those people: it's not true. Countless studies have concluded that an increase in playing violent video games does not equate to a violence in real world behaviour. Similar questions have been posed for decades, with comic books being at the centre of attention in the 1950's. Video games are so common now that you could attach any crime to its influence without any evidence other than finding a console in the suspect's bedroom. This is literally no different to blaming heavy metal for a brutal murder because the perpetrator owned some Judas Priest albums. Seriously. Is that the level of thinking society stoops to? To paraphrase a famous counter-argument, Super Mario didn't make us all plumbers, FIFA doesn't make us all footballers, and violent games don't make us all violent. What other gaming stereotypes do you hate? Let us know in the comments.
