Since the 1980’s, video games have been controversial because of arguments that video games were ‘harmful’. As quoted by psychologist Christopher J Ferguson in his book, “Adolescents, Crime, and the Media: A Critical Analysis”,

A campus shooting. A gang assault. A school bus ambush. With each successive event, fingers are pointed at the usual suspects: violent films, bloody video games, explicit web sites. But to what extent can—or should—the media be implicated in youth crime? And are today’s sophisticated young people really that susceptible to their influence?

Although video games portray much of the violence happening in the real world, occasionally showing even more extreme scenarios, should parents and media automatically point to video games as the root cause of these real world problems?