For the past 11 years I have been involved in the gaming industry as a consumer, retailer, and researcher. Throughout this time I have witnessed the positive and negative effects that video games have on society. When I worked at EB Games, I experienced the joy that Animal Crossing could bring to both a five year old child and a grandmother – their enthusiasm in learning the inner workings of the game, their gratitude to my tips and tricks, and their happiness when I offered to exchange some in-game items with them when I got off work. I also experienced a grown man crush a Call of Duty video game disc in his palms and throw it at my face when I refused to provide a refund even though the day prior I told him I couldn’t do such a thing. The impact that games have on people varies so widely, and I think society puts a lot more worth on games than we tend to realize.

I do believe that some franchises have given us the opportunity to desensitize ourselves from violence – we spend our working dollars on video games that lay neatly out the ways in which we can enact violence on society. Whether it is Call of Duty where I am instructed to kill the terrorists or Grand Theft Auto where I am given the freedom to rape and murder a prostitute, these games undeniably allow players to be voyeurs in situations that are otherwise highly illegal and frowned upon. When an 8 year old boy comes into my store to buy the newest installment in the GTA series, I turn him away and tell his parents the realities of the game. But it is up to the parents if they buy that game for their child or not. I do my part but after that it is out of my control.

I do, however, have control over the games I choose to play and the games I choose to recommend. Sure, the majority of the games I play steer away from explicit violence, but I also indulge in games like GTA or Guild Wars 2 because at the end of the day they are enjoyable to a degree. I recognize that I am desensitized to the violence – surely I wouldn’t go out of my way to murder women (such as in GTA) or cats (such as in GW2) in real life, but I do these things because the game is written in that way. I think it’s important for consumers to acknowledge how desensitized we become, along with why and what the impacts are on not only ourselves but society as a whole. Opening up space to these types of discussions is where our society needs to start in order to make headway into the video game violence debate.