HA10 Task 2 – Effects Debate

Introduction

In this task I will be explain what positive and negative effects the video game Starwars battlefront has on their audience. I have watched the BBC Horizon programme ‘Are Video games really that bad’ and I am going to be using it as my main evidence on how video games are actually affecting the audience.



For several decades video games have been accused of making their audience more violent because it increases their aggressive behaviour and makes them addicted to video games. Because of this video games are often betrayed as a corrupted influence. 

 Video games first started to get a negative reputation when the Carmageddon video game which is a graphically violent 3D video game released in 1997. 
The game involved running over pedestrians for bonus points and due to the graphic content and violence it got banned in several contouries. Because of Carmageddon video games now have a negative reputation and apparently make their audience more aggressive and violent for instance kids who play more violent games are more likely to assume things as a threat and to respond as a threat than children who do not play video games. But I don’t believe this is true.

 Video games have now adapted for instance video gamers was assumed to be a certain demographic such as being only teenagers and young adults as players but now video games are becoming more diverse, older players and younger players are now becoming involved and female players now in fact make up a bigger population of the audience for video games than male players. Video games are not real and the audience should know this, violent games reward players with bonus points, it is not real so it doesn’t exactly mean anything. 

 For example in Starwars battlefront their audience demographic is really divest, the audience involves both young and old players. 
Even though video games have started to include more aggressive scenes and are becoming a lot popular, Starwars battlefront does not include any aggressive scenes or scenes including extreme violence and gore. In fact, Starwars battlefront contents are purposely like this to be more children friendly. Because of the negative reputation for action and first person shooter games, Starwars was developed to basically have minimal violence and gore to help attract the younger players and not get a bad reputation for doing so. 
Although just because Starwars battlefront does not include much violence it does include the players being competitive, this can lead to aggression behaviour. On the BBC Horizon programme ‘are video games really that bad’ they did a test to see if video games make their players more aggressive. To do this they did an experiment where a participant played a game which involved a Competitive competition on which player can click the mouse the fastest, if one of the players lost then a high pitch, horrible noise will be played through their headset. Although the player got to chose how loud the other player’s noise is going to be. 
This tests the player aggression because it shows how confident they are and how aggressive they are to the other player for example if the player decided to put their competitor's volume at high it means they are more aggressive to the player than if they put the noise at a low volume.   

 Action and first person shooter games have previously been accused of making their audience more aggressive but in 2003 the violence rate in America had dropped up to 83% over the two decades. If video games are developing their audience to be more aggressive then shouldn’t the violence rate go up and not down? In reality nobody knows what makes a person violent, it could be because of several factors like a violent family member, mental health problems or even poverty. Nobody can put violence down to one simple factor; in fact video games have a little influence on violence with their audience and are only being blamed because the media only mentions the negative side of video games for instance making their audience addicted or socially depriving them. 


This creates biased opinions on the games industry and new violent video games are now being immediately declined by the society because of the negative reputation and the opinion that video games are a main factor in why people are violent but in reality it could be due to several factors like parenting or schools. Society just wants to blame the violence on something, before video games were developed; comic books were being blamed on why some people are violent. Because action and first person shooter games have this bad reputation, that even some video games like Starwars battlefront which actually does not include blood could have the same reputation of having a bad effect on the audience just simply because of the biased opinions on the game genre.  

 Star wars battlefront does not involve any gore or blood unlike the film franchise Starwars which involves a lot of gore and violence like limbs such as arms being chopped off by lightsaber’s but surprisingly the films is still rated a 12A. 
This is probably because video games are seen more of a negative influence than films. For example People who play video games need to pay attention to the violence and gore and can’t look away like you can do whilst watching the films because they need to survive in the game, if they look away the character could die. If the player needs to be paying attention to the video game then this should surely be helping the violent rate drop because the game is making the players more occupied, they need to stay inside and play the game so there isn’t much opportunity they can be violent because they will be inside playing a video game instead of being outside where they are most likely going to meet violent factors like peer pressure, ‘gangs’, drugs, alcohol and so on which can all lead to aggression and violence.
95% of video games content is normally family friendly, they are made for anyone to play the game just like Starwars battlefront was made to be played by a wide Variety of audience. And even though video games can lead to aggression, other things like football or politics can too, Aggression can happen anywhere and because of anything, video games should not only be blamed. 

 Starwars battlefront can be aggressive because it’s online mode it really competitive so you have to be aggressive towards the other players in order to win although the aggression is normally just temporary. For instance if your character dies in battlefront then you do feel emotions such as aggression but that emotion doesn’t stay, it can easily go. For example when I stop playing the game the aggression feeling goes almost instantly. Just because the game is aggressive it does not make the player necessarily aggressive, it’s only for a temporary amount of time. 

 In the BBC programme they did tests on several participants to see if aggression did have an impact on the player after they finished playing the game. To do this, they made half of the participants play the game Tetris and the other half play a identical game to Tetris although this game works out the worse possible piece for the player 70% of the time so it basically lets the player have hope they are going to win and then suddenly make the player loose. Before beginning this test they had to put their hands in freezing cold water for as long as possible and then they did the same after the participant finished the game. 

 The participants who were playing a game which triggered aggression were able to hold their hands in the freezing cold water for 7 seconds longer than they originally could. But to also test the aggression FPS games can trigger, they tested some of the participants using a brain machine scanner whilst they were playing the FPS game. Once finished they analysed the responses and there was basically one clear response on what FPS games was doing to the participants. 

 The FPS defiantly had an effect on the audience’s brain but not in a negative way, instead of triggering aggression it taught the player on how to regulate their emotions a lot better. This is probably why the participants were able to handle the cold water better because it changed their emotions which helped them cope with the water a bit longer. In a other test the participants were shown violent video’s, the participants who previously played a violent game before watching the violent videos shown less emotion unlike the participants who played a normal, none violent game.

 Although because some Games like Starwars battlefront reward a player for being violent for instance earning points or being socially awarded online for killing a enemy could lead to negative behaviour and a internet gaming disorder. An internet gaming disorder is basically when the player is addicted to having immediate rewards like you do in video games. For instance players who have the disorder will rather have something right now even if it means waiting a bit longer for something better. They decided to do a MRI scan of a brain with a player who has this disorder the results came back that players who are addicted to games are most likely going to act before they are supposed to. For instance the MRI scan shown a build up of activity in the area of the brain which values your goals and the more impulse you have in this area of the more active you are. However it’s really rare someone actually does get addicted to a video game which is surprising because video games yet again have a negative reputation on developing addiction and violence in their audience. 

 On a different MRI scan where players had to play Mario 64 for 2 months there had brain growth in different areas of their brain for example there were three different areas in the brain that had grown. Their social negation, planning and fine motor area of their brain had grown just simply because the player had to do multitasking such as controlling the player and looking at the map. This means that Starwars battlefront could have a similar effect because the player also has to concentrate on the map as well as the player, in fact students who play fast action games like Starwars battlefront were able to keep track of more objects in the real world for example the average gamer could track 6 different objects which is more than what scientist thought humans were capable to do.

  This proves that video games like Starwars battlefront which does not include any gore or violence could be beneficial to the player and help their brain grow and develop skills. Because of this video games should not have such a negative reputation; they should be used by all age groups to help improve abilities. 
For instance video games are now starting to become more popular with teaching kids in schools for example in primary school I struggled to focus in lessons which resulted in me struggling with maths.  My deputy head teacher came up with a idea to teach students like me with a Nintendo DS with the game ‘brain academy’ which helps you study for maths in a more entertaining way and it praised you when you got your answers right and explained how you can improve in your maths. Because of this game I was able to escape the real world and go onto a game which taught me maths which I was not able to do in lesson.
 I believe this benefited us extremely, all of the students who played brain academy and was struggling with maths did actually pass their Maths Tests. Games like Mine craft are now being played in modern schools to help teach their students on how to be more creative.
 For example even surgeons who had played video games in the past for more than three hours per week made 37 percent fewer errors, were 27 percent faster, and scored 42 percent better on laparoscopic surgery and suturing drills than surgeons who never played video games.
" Dr. Rosser’s study found that surgeons who had played video games in the past for more than three hours per week made 37 percent fewer errors, were 27 percent faster, and scored 42 percent better on laparoscopic surgery and suturing drills than surgeons who never played video games. Recently, Dr. Rosser and his team showed that surgeons who completed “warm-up” sessions with select video games prior to performing laparoscopic suturing were faster and had fewer errors than surgeons who did not perform the “warm-up.” "
" “It makes sense. You are using an interface, such as a joystick or buttons, when you play games,” says Dr. Jones. “With advanced laparoscopy, robotic surgery, or image-guided procedures, the surgeon is also interacting with an interface to treat the patient, and eye-hand coordination can be honed with practice. The data is compelling — playing video games can make surgeons better. That’s not to say that reading and schoolwork are not important too.” 
Link: http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/Health-Notes/SurgicalInnovations/Advances/VideoGames.aspx


 Overall even though Starwars battlefront is an action, FPS which does involve minimal violence it does not include any gore or extreme violence like the Starwars film franchise. I believe it has no negative effect on the audience playing the game apart from making the player a bit more aggressive and competitive whilst playing the game. I believe Video games cannot make players more violent, they might be able to make the player feel a bit more aggressive but most of this emotion is the brain regulating the player’s emotions. 
This means when the player is playing Starwars battlefront and is becoming aggressive online that their brain is learning how to change their situation or emotions. This means they might be less emotional towards violence because their brain is used to regulating their emotions around violent situations, this doesn’t mean the player likes the violent it simply just means they have learnt how to change their emotions due to the violence in the video game. 

 This means that the players do not actually copy the video games but can change the way they think. But this does not make video games bad. Especially games like Starwars battlefront which was originally developed to be suited for younger players, all the content in the game was made to make sure it is not to extreme for the younger players. But because of the genuine bad reputation on first person shooters the game was still rated Teens only, although some parents thought the game was suitable for 8+ and 10+ year olds. Starwars battlefront might have some negative effects on the player but these effects are really minimal and are temporary like feeling aggression although most of the effects on video games can be positive like teaching the player how to multi task.