To begin with, I must first admit that, while once an avid video gamer, for personal reasons I have forsaken the practice, and plan to never again take it up. There was a time and place in my life for gaming, but that has long since passed.
That having been said, one cannot deny that gaming has engendered a growing controversy over the years. With video games becoming ever more realistic, and with titles such as "Ethnic Cleansing" and "School Shooter" being released, there have been growing calls for their regulation.
There are two general competing psychological theories about the nature of video games. The first is what I've come to call the "Gateway" theory: that violent games become a gateway to violent behavior in the real world. This theory depicts them as a corrosive influence on humanity that must one day be stamped out.
The second theory is what I've come to call the "Steam" theory: that video games allow a person to vent and let off steam by releasing their pent-up aggression in a virtual world instead of in the real world. This theory sees even violent video games as the solution to many of humanity's woes, and advocates their continued use.
The two theories are at odds with one another, and cannot both be completely true, as that would be a contradiction. Still though, whether either may be true or not is, to me at least, beside the point. The law of our land has three basic pillars: protecting an innocent person's right to life, their right to liberty, and their right to the pursuit of happiness. Indulging in violent video games directly threatens no one's life, nor their liberty, and as a recreational activity that brings joy to the gamer, falls under the jurisdiction of a protected right under the third pillar. As such, no legal case can be made for their abolition. I would personally argue that they can have profoundly damaging side effects on a person's psyche, but such testimony would likely get laughed out of an American courthouse.
So then, their legality having been established, what point is there in debating their morality? Whether they are a positive or negative influence on humanity, there will always be those who indulge in them, as well as those who, like me, have forsaken them. And since there is nothing anyone in modern America can do to impose their own beliefs upon others regarding this subject, are not humanity's efforts better spent on the many other corrosive influences that actually are both illegal and rampant, and which threaten to inflict much more damage upon our society than do violent video games? Drug use, gambling, violent crime, and other pervasive injustices, all dwarf this issue, and all constitute more than enough of a challenge to our society without criminalizing non-violent leisurely activities.
That, at least, is my defense of a past-time which I may find distasteful, but which I will support my fellow citizens' collective right to engage in, even to the bitter end.
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