Week 4- Response To Content

     I personally do not play a lot of computer games anymore; a few years back however, I really was into the Call of Duty games. I absolutely love playing them and thought that they were the greatest games in the world. I would still play them, but it is worthless trying to get them to run on my current laptop. I cannot really put a finger on why I love these types of games so much, but I really do. I think part of it is because it is something that you can say I grew up around. The Metal of Honor games are based on past wars such as WWI and WWII. Growing up, and still to this day, me and my dad would watch war movies all the time. So it is something that I love and being able to "act" out what I have seen is something I really find enjoyable. Also  have grandfathers in the past wars, so again I guess you have to say it has a place in my heart. More then anything I think its the genre that draws me to the Medal of Honor type games. 

    Growing up, whenever I went to the store I would find a game that looked cool and then directly look at the rating. My mom was one of the mothers that would, under no circumstance, allow me to get a game that was rated M for "Mature". I never really could go against her because I wasn't old enough to buy it my self, so I was always heartbroken because the best games were always rated M. I would also attempt to explain to her that the rating were worthless, and that is nothing more then what happens in the movies. Sadly, my explanations had no affect on my mother's take on the matter. However, to this day I will argue that the rating are more or less senseless. On their website, the Entertainment Software Rating Board claims that the "ratings are designed to provide concise and impartial information about the content in the computer and video games so consumers, especially parents, can make and informed purchased decision." (ESRB, 2011) To an extent I believe that the ratings are an okay tool. For instance, for something like pornographic material I think it is a good thing. However, I do not believe it is a good system for rating violence. I truly feel that it is an individuals mind set, not the game that effects a person when it come to violence. If a person has the mind set that what he or she is doing in the video game is okay to do in real life, then I personally feel like that is a red flag. I just don't feel that a video game has a big enough effect to persuade an individual to condone violence. There are numerous other aspects that have a much bigger impact on that mind set; such as family life and his or her physiological mind set as a whole. With that said, I do feel like there is a level at which it does effect changes in people, but I think that is in really rare cases. For example, I know there is a Mafia game in which the user cuts off people's body parts; something like that I think takes everything to a whole new extreme. I feel something like that should not even be available on the market. Again I feel those are rare circumstances. All in all I strongly feel that the video game violence does not have a great effect on its users.       

    Entertainment Software Rating Board (2011)Game Ratings & Descriptor Guide, [online] Available at: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp [Accessed: 21st August 2011].