Is it bad if a game depicts Violence in a realistic way?

Today I am going to ask and try to answer a few questions ''Is it better or worse when Games depict violence in a realistic way, if it is bad why is it bad and should it be stopped.'' I was playing Sniper Eliter V3 the other day and I made a kill shot a kill shot in which the game showed me the bullet quiet literally entering the victims skull and breaking its way through bone and through flesh, now I know there are people who would say that this is to much, that it is basically violence or gun porn and that it is selling sickness to our children. Well I wont get on to the whole kids thing basically because I am not the kind of stupid moron that does not understand that games are not all made for children. Yes some would argue that while adult games exist children could get a hold of them and play them but by this same logic children could also get there hands on 18 certificate horror or action films, pornography, cigarettes and alcohol or even sit reading Lady Chatterley's Lover or at least they could if there parents clearly didn't give a shit about them or simply cared more about having an easy life by any means possible including allowing your kids to watch what they want play what they want and sacrifice the family dog to the dark lord Satan. When parents value a little peace and quiet and no arguing more than they value the stability and development of there children then this is when shit really does begin to hit the fan.

Now lets assume that we live in a world which is far more perfect than our own, one where the young are not allowed to watch or play anything which they are not yet emotionally and mentally ready for (I say this as opposed to legally allowed as I feel age certificates dont tell the whole picture, what one person can see, understand and process at the age of 12 another might not be ready for until they are 15). I think in this situation you could make an argument that it is in fact better to see more realistic effects of sword slashes and weapons fire compared to simply seeing enemies flash, drop down and then disappear. Going back to Sniper Elite when you see someone die it looks painful at times it has made me cringe and make involuntary noises, it really does hammer home the fact that not only would I not want to be shot and die like this in real life I would not want to do what I am doing to the in game enemies to a real person. Yes you can argue that other people might see this and feel differently you could argue that some might see this level of violence and be attracted to it, that they might in fact feel the desire to replicate it but if you say that and you want to try to use that for as an excuse to try and ban or sanitise something then you need to stop and think about the big picture. Violence has existed longer than Video Games, Video games are not the first medium to depict violence, there was violence in films before and there was violence in literature, in fact lots of classic literature including holy books are absolutely dripping in violence and gore or at the very least the suggestion of it. So surly if you were going to argue for outlawing violence in one form of media then you need to do the same thing with all the others music, film , books.

The honest truth is that the realistic gore in some games is just used as a scape goat , no one wants to be held accountable anymore, parents dont want to admit that there kids have ended up as shitty human beings because they were to busy being selfish and ignoring them. People themselves dont want to be held accountable for committing crimes when they can try to use any old excuse to weasel there way out of it. I am not the first one to notice or comment on this in fact one of my favourite examples of this is South Park and in particular the movie. Look at the lines in the song Blame Canada, after spending the whole song saying how they wouldn't blame this that or the other for the fate and actions of there children and that they instead would blame Canada, now look at the last line ''We must blame them and cause a fuss...Before somebody thinks of blaming us!''. Add to this the moment when Cartman decides that instead of taking responsibility for his actions he will say the following '' That movie warped my fragile little mind.''


If everyone would just take responsibility for there own kids and even more importantly for there own actions then there would be no need to keep talking about this and the world would be a much better place.