Week 4: "Joystick Warriors"

     I found an article titled 14 Mass Murders Linked to Violent Video Games (link: http://www.charismanews.com/culture/52651-14-mass-murders-linked-to-violent-video-games).  It described different instances in which people committed crimes and also played violent video games. It was particularly disturbing to read an online conversation between a soon-to-be shooter and fellow gamers, encouraging him to go through with a shooting and advising him on how to make it a "successful" one.  The author of this article was arguing that violent video games can cause people to be violent, and that it can cause them to have an altered view of reality.  I think that in some cases violent video games can inspire violence, but for the most part I feel that playing violent video games is only one of many factors that causes someone to become violent.  If everyone who played video games was violent, it would not be safe anywhere.  I do agree with the film Joystick Warriors that video games can change one's perspective of violence to make them more desensitized to it.  This effect has its own ramifications, such as being comfortable with seeing violence, or as the film describes, being a less empathetic person.
     The film also discussed the product placement of weapons, mainly guns, in various video games.  I do not think that there is a need for much concern about this.  Just because a product is advertised, blatantly or subliminally, does not mean that you have to buy it, or even become more accepting of it.  Even if some people would like to buy a gun because of the marketing in video games, and assuming these gun owners are responsible, why is this a problem?  Just because someone buys a gun after seeing it in a video game does not mean that they will use it as they would in that game.  Of course, not everyone is a responsible gun owner, and may use their gun to inflict harm.  I just do not think that gun sales would be harmed significantly if they were no longer advertised in video games.  There were some interesting statistics that I found in a Washington Post article about the drop in gun ownership in the last forty years (link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/29/american-gun-ownership-is-now-at-a-30-year-low/?utm_term=.8988ce28ac5c).  Video games have become more violent and presumably advertise guns more often now than forty years ago, yet less people own guns than they did in the late 1970s.  The article did say that people who own guns own a greater number of guns, but this does not necessarily connect to the product placement of guns in video games.  It shows that there are not as many new buyers of guns, which is what the video games' main target audience is; young people that do not own guns yet.  For this reason, I do not think that the marketing of weapons in video games should be a concern; it does not seem to inspire that many young gamers to buy guns.