Legal and Ethical Issues in Video Games
Nicolas Scott Gomez
Park University

Columbine......……………………………………………………………………………………..3
Connections between Games and Violence…………………………….…………………………3
Connecticut……………..…………………………………………………………………………4
Ethical Issues in Video Games……………………………………………………………………4
Brown v. EMA……………………….. …..………………………………………………………5
Legal Issues in Video Games…………...…………………………………………………………5
Are Video Games Too Violent?...………………………………………………………………...6
Conclusion….……………………………………………………………………………………..7
References…...…………………………………………………………………………………….8

Columbine
Since the release of video games, the gaming industry has become more and more advanced and even been the blame for some violence in today’s society. In April 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris walked the halls of Columbine High School where they killed two students and one teacher before turning the guns on themselves. News reports stated both Dylan and Eric continually felt bullied and both loved to play violent video games. Dr. David Moore, who is a licensed psychologist at Argosy University, sates video gaming has the same clinical symptoms as addiction and 8.5% of youthful video gamers show classic signs of addiction. Dr. Dave also says, “The Columbine shooters were immersed in their violence-filled Doom video games,” but does that mean kids will commit acts of violence due to video games?
Connection between Games and Violence
Children’s rights advocate and attorney Paul Mones says video games aren’t the problem in an editorial at the Huffington Post. In the editorial, Mones says the connection between violent crimes committed by teens based on video games, movies, or even music they’re exposed to is “so tenuous as to be irrelevant.” Mones also mentions if the research about media of any type is connected to violent acts were strong enough, it would’ve been used by every attorney in the country as a defense in teen homicide. Mones also mentions a misconception about teenagers and says, “well-adjusted 16- or 18-year-olds can't be relied upon to distinguish between fantasy and reality." Other factors that may be credit to teen violence could be long term mental illness, prolonged physical violence and sexual abuse in the home which could add to playing violent video games.

Connecticut
The America Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also mentioned the Newton, Connecticut shootings could be rushed to blame on video games which resulted in the death of 20 children and six adults. “Rushing to blame violent video games will lead to the worst facts and will make the worst laws if we let them,” said ACLU Legislative Counsel Gabe Rottman. He also goes on to comment that a large majority of Americans play video games and, “Simply pointing out that some people who play video games commit violent acts is like saying that because people in prison like television, television must cause crime." Rottman also states preventing kids from playing video games won’t prevent violence and the decision on what video game a child plays is ultimately left to their parents. "The bottom line is that both the functional problem and the fact that violent video games might actually have some social value suggest strongly that parents are the ones who need to supervise their children's consumption of media," Rottman said.
Ethical Issues in Video Games
Violence in video games has been controversial and there have been scientific studies supposedly proving they can cause harm, but as a long time gamer, that has to be debatable. As mentioned before, parents are ultimately responsible and they are the ones who often buy games for their kids unless the young teens themselves buy the games. As a parent of two boys, the type of games in this household for young kids is forcefully monitored and ultra-violent games are not allowed. Few titles which could possibly cause bad influences on children, Gears of War, Call of Duty and Halo are some of the most popular franchises today