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Video Games: Raking in Cash and Controversy
Manny Ly
English 205
November 12, 2014
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Author Bio
Manny Ly is a student at Highline College and is currently working towards his
Associates Degree. Ly has grown up in the age of technological boom and an aspect of
the technology was the video game business. Ly has seen the video game business, which
is the biggest media business. He has also seen criticisms of video games and the claims
of video games being negative. Ly has had first hand experience of games and has not
had violence suddenly becoming apart of life from video games. Ly has researched the
fallacies that media outlets write about and the illogic used in the writings. He himself
has also seen the decline of television and other forms of entertainment like YouTube
taking over a part of entertainment.
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Avid gamers are similar to people who smoke a lot of marijuana — in that they
don't get much done. Reading a good book, taking care of bills, writing an article,
inventing something, mowing the lawn, etc... are simply not a priority when it
comes to getting to the next level or finishing a game (Henshaw, n.d.).
The quote above is from a website that is all about family resources; evidently the
site is called Family Resources. The author Jon Henshaw writes on how gamers who play
games all the time are similar and comparable to people whom smoke marijuana. The
writer here is putting two generalizations of two completely different groups of people
that in turn backfire because the two cannot be intertwined when making an argument
against something. Arguments that are made that are along the lines of Jon Henshaw also
state unscientific things like video games cause violence among younger people.
The quote above is an example of many arguments written against video games
without prior research and just writing things that are negative. A lot of people who have
websites or scholars do not recognize video games as anything but a distraction since
video games are so new and the perception of video games is that they are for children or
people who are lazy. The video game business has been on the rise and more and more
people are out to blame video games for laziness or violence among the people who play
the games themselves.
Video Games: A Big
Business
The video game business
is one of the biggest businesses in
the world right now because of
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the rising popularity and advancement of the video games themselves. Games like Call of
Duty an FPS or first person shooter franchise sell millions of copies and make millions
and millions of dollars. The image above is one of the installments to the series, Call of
Duty: Black Ops 2. The game was one of the highest grossing video games in the world
accumulating one billion dollars in the first 15 days of availability (Activision, 2012). In
one day of being available for purchase, 500 million dollars was made. With this amount
of money made solely from a video game, an obviously large demand for video games is
there and shows that video games is one of the largest type of media that is exponentially
growing. Another huge franchise game, Grand Theft Auto 5, which has stirred up a lot of
controversy over the years, made one billion dollars in three days of release (Bleeker,
2013). Video games make a lot of money without a doubt and with titles like Call of Duty
and Grand Theft Auto, there is without a doubt that video games are more than just
another business, they are the biggest form of media in the world and they are violent.
But the amount of money made by the violent games that are stated above increase and
the percentage of violence has gone down and still, there are people who are antagonizing
video games as the reason why violence occurs. A counter is made since the violence is
down but video games are getting bigger.
In 2009, the
Entertainment
Software Rating
Board, a company
categorizes whether
a game is fit for
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children or mature audiences, put out a statistic that shows the video game industry
making 10.5 billion dollars in 2009 alone with 9.9 billion dollars for video games and
500 million dollars in computer games. (ESRB) 48 percent of the 273 million units of
video games sold were games that were rated for everyone. These games are generally
for children but older demographics can also play these games.
Negative Arguments About Video Games
As video games becoming more popular, more arguments are made that video
games are bad and cause violence and laziness among people. School shootings like
Columbine and many others have people writing articles that violent video games caused
the shooters to shoot up schools. Since video games are advancing and they get closer to
looking like real life and there are still games that have a lot of violence in them, violence
has actually gone down in recent years but news outlets like to shine on things like school
shootings when they happen and other things that occur that is not talked about that
people may not know about. NPR or National Public Radio had a broadcast on gun
violence going down. Homicides by firearms in 1993 were 18,253 and in 2011 the death
was 11,101 (NPR, 2013). There is an agenda from news sites that give a biased view on
the topic at hand and the agenda is solely to make money on a certain news story that
grabs viewer’s attentions.
New Form of Media
Video games being one of the biggest
businesses in the world are turning into a new
form of media. Video streaming websites like
YouTube, allows people to post whatever people
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want as long their videos follow the guidelines of the site. Content like graphic violence
or pornographic videos or YouTube will remove images that are posted and anything else
under their guidelines that are not followed will have the same thing happen to them. The
site has a feature where someone can make an account and subscribe to someone’s
channel. The most subscribed user on YouTube is Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg or
PewDiePie as his username (Zoia, 2014). He is one of many people who post video game
commentaries in the form of Let’s Plays which is where someone records and plays a
video game while talking over the game to show their full experience and is the most
subscribed user in the world with over 30 million subscribers as of November 2014.
PewDiePie makes millions of dollars off of his videos that are monetized, which means
he gets paid by the amount of views that he receives on a video that he posts. (Zoia,
2014)
YouTube gameplay
commentators are a large part of
the YouTube community and they
make money if they are partnered.
PewDiePie has over 30 millions
subscribers to his YouTube
channel as of October 2014. A
demand to watch video game commentaries since PewDiePie has garnered that many
fans. He is not the only person who has made a living off of YouTube by playing video
games, countless of thousands of people have YouTube channels specifically to entertain
an audience that are fans of games while making a living at the same time. Smaller
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channels like theRadBrad, who has over 3.5 million subscribers as of November 2014
also makes a living off of his YouTube channel which is solely based on Let’s Plays and
gameplay walkthroughs. Along with playing the games themselves for people,
theRadBrad, (full name Bradley Lamar Colburn) has “humorous video game
walkthroughs” (Jacobs, 2014). These are two channels that do very well on YouTube and
they are specifically focused on playing video games. These two YouTubers are not lazy
because they have to spend the time to process and edit their videos themselves. To the
viewers who watch their videos, to them the gameplay commentaries are a source of
entertainment and for some; they may even replace television, which is a slowly dying
business. (Edwards, 2013)
South Park is an
American animation
television show created
by Matt Stone and Trey
Parker. The show has
been on television since
1997. The show is
intended for adults to
view and is a satirical
comedy that parodies a
wide range of topics
from events in the world,
celebrities or public
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figures. For example, they have parodied celebrities, religion and governments. On
December 3rd, 2014, South Park aired their ninth episode of their eighteenth season
“#REHASH” (Wikipedia, 2014). The episode has a guest appearance by PewDiePie who
is the parody of the show. The premise of the episode was about how video game
commentaries are the new form of entertainment and playing video games is the old form
of entertainment similar to how television is becoming obsolete compared to watching
YouTube videos. A character in the show, Eric Cartman, sees that people like PewDiePie
makes millions of dollars from talking over video games, so he takes a slight variation of
video game commentaries and talks over people talking about video game commentaries
taking over. Of course this is done in a humorous context but the satire about video game
commentaries being the newest form of media is present. The images above are
PewDiePie and South Park’s parody of PewDiePie.
Decline of Television in Recent Years
Television has been on a huge decline in recent years with people cancelling their
cable and even their online subscriptions (Edwards, 2013). New forms of entertainment
are present in today’s age and YouTube is one of many ways for people to receive
entertainment. Television was argued as a distraction when television was a bigger
business. People have said that television is a distraction to children and adolescents but
now that websites like YouTube has content that people enjoy, people point to blame
video games are causing distractions.
The transition to other forms of media has expanded in the past few years and has
caused people to switch from television to other sites like YouTube, Twitch (which is a
live video streaming service), etc. People also do not use TV’s as often since YouTube
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can be accessed from computers and smartphones. Television companies are losing
money because of the Internet.. The Internet allows people to connect with either their
favorite YouTube commentator or content creator more directly than they would on
Television since a direct
connection cannot be made
unless a viewer goes online
and writes something to
their actor or the creators of
the show. YouTube has a
comment section under every video if the content creator allows comments to be left.
Also advertisements on television strays people away because commercials cut into the
content and breaks up the program that is being watched. If a video on YouTube is
monetized and gets advertisements, the advertisements will play before the video starts
and the occasional banner will pop up on the bottom on the video that can be closed.
Some advertisements also allow viewers to skip the ad after the five seconds.
All the major TV providers lost a collective 113,000 subscribers in Q3 2013
(Edwards, 2013).
Over 100,000 people cancelled their cable services in the third quarter of the year
in 2013. A decline of television viewership is known and the contributions can range but
the YouTube and other video streaming sites are the majority of the television services
declining since YouTube has ads on some of the videos posted but YouTube is
completely free and people can get a form of entertainment. If television companies did
not have exclusive content on television like certain channels, the business would decline
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faster than the business is at right now. YouTube has a variety of content with gaming
being one of the most popular. With YouTube being free with advertisements only in the
beginning, more people are drawn to free content. Comcast XFINITY cost $49.99 every
month for both Internet and Television. Cable companies are becoming the technology of
the past and are able to keep a chunk of users by having exclusive content that only they
offer.
The people who play games on YouTube play the games for fun and for
entertainment value for people to enjoy while at the same time they make a living off of
YouTube. There has not been a widely known article based off of violence about the
YouTubers (users of YouTube) who played the games and became violent because video
games do not cause violence. Based on the person who is creating the content, they may
or may not already be a violent person already so that applies to everyone who plays
violent video games.
Fallacies About Video Games in The Media
This is an article about the effect of video games on children and adolescents
brains by Gwen Dewar who explains a study done by two groups of two people of whom
the author cites in her writing.
A recent experimental study helps address this ambiguity. Robert Weis and
Brittany Cerankosky selected a group of boys who didn’t own video games (Weis
and Cerankosky 2010). Then each boy was randomly assigned to one of two
conditions: The “video games now” group got their systems immediately
The “video games later” group didn’t receive their systems until months later—
after the end of the study. Researchers tracked the boys’ academic performance at
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school. The kids who got their game systems immediately spent less time on
homework. And, four months later, they got lower reading and writing scores.
Their teachers were also more likely to report academic problems (Dewar, 2013).
The author writes about a study done by two people on a minor scale and how
video games have an impact on the studies of children. The study that was done did not
explain how many people were in each group that was studied. The correlation does not
mean that video games have no impact but the research details must be broader so readers
can understand the extent of the research. There is not enough information for people to
draw a conclusion on the topic. The author takes the argument into consideration but adds
some positive aspects to video games by saying “But it's also likely that playing action
video games can boost visual spatial skills and perhaps even help dyslexic children
improve their reading ability” (Dewar, 2013). The author presents a study done by other
people and recognizes that video games are not a distraction to everyone but the
researchers who did the studies did not do their studies on a large scale, which is
important because a very small-scale search does not do much for an argument since
there are not much people in the study. Also there needs to be background on whom
exactly they are doing their studies on. The study done by the researchers displayed a
slippery slope fallacy because of the conclusion that was made with such a small study.
This quote is the complete quote of the one in the beginning of this paper and
explains the five things that are bad with video games but says as a disclaimer that video
games do not make people violent which leads a reader to think that video games are not
bad as some people may perceive them to be but begins to state things that are not true.
This is a .com website so there is money to be made within the website.
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“Avid gamers are similar to people who smoke a lot of marijuana — in that they
don't get much done. Reading a good book, taking care of bills, writing an article,
inventing something, mowing the lawn, etc... are simply not a priority when it
comes to getting to the next level or finishing a game. Many gamers have things
they would like to do in life, but they never get around to it, because they spend
so much of their time playing games. Then, when they do have time to work on
one of their projects, they're too tired to do it, because they stayed up till 3am
playing a game” (Henshaw, n.d.)
The writing presents no fact and is more of a viewpoint of the person who wrote
the article. Also in another part of the writing, the author says that video games are
expensive and is costly to play games and costs “thousands of dollars a year to maintain a
typical gamer's habits” (Henshaw, n.d.). The author subliminally labels video gamers as
addicts and spending their own money to support their habit is like a drug addiction. Is
comparing two completely different things very logical when they do not even tie into
each other in the slightest? Biases are not always necessarily bad, but when something
that is written down and presents no factual evidence, that shows that the author or
website shows no credibility to their writings. The writing also comes from a person who
has not shown any sort of gaming background or any implications that the author is a
gamer, which is important because a person cannot speak on something definitively, and
not have first-hand experience with video games to draw a conclusion. This is a slippery
slope fallacy because the author draws a conclusion without evidence.
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Conclusion
The video game industry is one of the biggest industries in the world and that is
backed up by the fact that games like Grand Theft Auto 5 rake in millions and sometimes
even a billion dollars. Also the access to view other people’s videos playing the games
themselves is another reason why gaming has gotten so popular. Television is starting to
become obsolete because of this new type of media. People like PewDiePie have been
able to make a living off of making video game commentaries on YouTube which in turn
is sort of advertisement of a company’s game since not everyone may know the game
franchise and by watching videos online, may sway them to buy the games for
themselves. Video gameplays are also entertainment to people, which sometimes is a
replacement for television, which is a slowly dying business. (Edwards, 2013) The
arguments made by people that say video games cause violence are the same people who
have not touched a video game and base their arguments with no evidence based data. If
they do not argue that some of the things on television cause violence, what about video
games? Why is there a double standard for video games? People make a living off of
video games whether they developed the games or they play the games on sites like
YouTube for an audience. A range of forms of media can be argued that entertainment
causes violence but they would be illogical and video games are no exception. The video
game business is a giant of an industry and is similar to any other type of hobby or
entertainment, if a person were to have an addictive personality or a part of their brain
that is different then they are more inclined to be either distracted or susceptible to
distractions. Video games have gotten bigger as an industry and the Internet is a factor
because creative content creators have either advertised games without any intent of
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doing so. YouTube has become a bigger platform than traditional cable because of the
wide range of content and at the same time being a free service with occasional
advertisements from videos that can make money.
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