Steve Russell is credited with the invention of the first video game, a two-player game where each player flies around space and tries to shoot each other, titled “Space Wars.” The game featured two, white “rocket looking” ships on a black screen, which could be moved by the user. The object of the game was to shoot the ammunition out of your rocket and hit the other player. After a kill, the victorious player would wait five seconds before the next round begins. At the end of the rounds, the player with the most kills won. The game’s 1962 release sparked interest from people all over, specifically children, which were amazed by its interactive nature and high level of addiction. The popularity of the game increased as time went on and modifications of the game play occurred throughout the next year. No one, during this time, could imagine what was in store for the, newly created, video game industry in the decades to come (Video Game Culture).

According to a report in Pediatrics, the video game industry has become the second most popular form of media, behind television (1222). Its impact on the modern culture has increased year by year since the birth of �

The presence of violence in video games does not provide a true representation of the violence, and its consequences, experienced in real life situations. Children are being exposed to violent acts today, more than ever, and no sense of wrongdoing is being instilled into their personal values as a result of the video games. The violence in video games negatively impacts our culture by causing desensitization to the real life acts. More steps of prevention must be taken to minimize the amounts of violence seen in video games, otherwise, children will continue to be exposed to the negative acts and one day our society will be more violent than it is today.

Recent results from two different studies have left consumers, especially parents, wondering how accurate the ESRB rating system is. At the Harvard School of Public Health, Professor Kimberly Thompson and student, Kevin Haninger, acquired a list of six hundred seventy two games that ESRB had rated “E” for everyone, meaning ESRB felt it was suitable for ages six and older. They tested fifty-five of these games based on their genre. Of the fifty-five tested games, thirty-five of the games had scenes that demonstrated acts of intentional violence, some games having more scenes than others. The study found the content descriptors given by ESRB to be accurate, but some of the games had no descriptors. Forty-four percent of the games with no content descriptor demonstrated acts of intentional violence. Also, some games were given different ratings based on which system they were played on. For instance, Nuclear Strike 64 was rated differently for Playstation than Nintendo 64 (Myron).

One specific case in which violence in a video game impacted a real life situation was during the Columbine High School shootings in 2000. One of the killers had a sawed-off shotgun, similar to the one in the game “Doom,” and he named it “Arlene,” which is a character in “Doom.” Parents of the victims in the school shooting sued several video game companies, but the case was thrown out after a judge ruled, “games are not subject to product liability laws” (Ward).

Lieutenant Colonel, David Grossman, says, “We are teaching children to associate pleasure with human death and suffering. We are rewarding them for killing people. And we are teaching them to like it.” One of Grossman’s jobs, as an Army ps

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