Violent Games as

Educational Learning Tools

By: Angel Yamil Ortiz Torres

 Violent Games as Educational Learning Tools

By Angel Yamil Ortiz Torres

A Videogame is a great strategy to reach young people. They are one of the main

entertainments of young people. The videogames just attract these players in front of the

T.V. for over hours getting their full attention and concentration. The most popular games

usually come with violent themes. That makes people argue that the violence in

videogames makes violent people. But videogames don’t offer just that. Violence in

videogames does not necessarily take away the educational benefits from these games.

There is a long list of violent games, yet attractive to people, to consider. Some of

the most popular titles of violent games are the Grand Theft Auto Series and Halo. Grand

Theft Auto is an award-winning videogame series that its gameplay consist on a mixture of

action, adventure, driving, roleplaying, stealth, racing elements and his controversial adult

and violence themes. Halo has been praised as the best first-person shooter on a videogame

console. The two of them were developed on a violent environment and gamers put them

on the top seller games. Usually, we think that those types of games only offer violence

without considering the skills and the fast way that you have to take decisions. Many

people like to see only the bad of things. Many politicians make it appear that the problem

is terrible, and like a gladiator of ancient times, politicians should slay it by banning the

problem, obtaining the glory and the elections from people. The Long Island PTA president

Ronnie Lamm pushed for legislation in the early 1980’s against videogames arguing that

those games caused children to fight, and politicians such as U.S. Senator Joseph

Lieberman conducted hearings during the 1990’s against those “violent video games”.
 We have to consider that the games aren’t that dangerous if we see its little benefits.

When I started to play videogames, I learned English because of the many words in the

dialogue that I had to learn searching for them in the dictionary. Many of the games have a

story like a book. The best thing is that we usually get so concentrated on the game that it is

likes our mind enters inside those fictional worlds. Many of my friends have done it.

Especially with the MMORPG genre that is a very complex virtual world where you can

meet other real players from all over the world. The great attraction for games can be used

as a potential tool to teach people. That could make violent games not so bad.

The videogames aren’t necessarily the source of violent gamers. I have to admit it. I have

played many violent games. One of the most violent of them is Grand Theft Auto: San

Andreas which encourages you to make many crimes in this imaginary game world. I

learned many skills from it: to accelerate my reactions and reflexes and to understand in

some way my own world where criminality is high. But the game didn’t turn me violent or

into a criminal. I know that the influence of violence is a matter of values and will. The

problem doesn’t come from the game but from our own environment. My friends are proof

of that. All of them have played the same violent games and the results are different. Those

of weak values and/or will are more violent. However those of strong values and will are

not violent and play has helped them in learning. Furthermore, I interviewed a gamer

addict. He started to play videogames since he was two and a half years old. He is now a

very talented college student and has many technical skills and knows how to organize his

ideas. He plays almost every type of game. He likes the games of pure skill that can be

competitive. After asking him what he learned from gaming he told me that he learned

English, to make quick decisions, to understand and use tactics, and many other things. He

found all of this in violent games. Why aren’t these benefits talked about?
 The reason can be considered a secret recipe. The game designers need to make

more challenging games because this is part of the attraction of a game. The best form to do

it is by taking educational topics to use it an hide it in the gameplay. Some games, like Age

of Empires, are not titled educational because most people don’t like educational games.

The game Age of Empires is a violent game where you manage a little civilization, and you

have to conquer or defend your land. The curious thing about this title is that the plot is the

history of our world. All the events and things to be made are guided by our history. Many

people have references of history because of that game. Gamers need to explore the

educational benefits by themselves unwittingly. That is what attracts people. We can turn a

game into a potential learning tool. At first the gamers must know that those are just games.

That means that if you use a violent game you won’t be turned into a violent person. It is a

matter of principles and common sense. Another thing to do is to separate skills from

violence. If a person likes to use a bow or a sword, that doesn’t mean that he is violent. It is

just a sport skill. We could use these points to develop better educational strategies.

According to the research Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers, the games

offer the opportunity to learn actively and to master the skills regardless its difficulty. Then,

games produce the “cognitive conflict”, that appears when a discrepancy comes between

the perception of an event and disconfirming evidence. This produces a tension that leads

the gamer to recognize what he does not understand and then be ready to learn it. Making

this difficult task earns self esteem, self efficacy and a new identity. The knowledge and

skills learned on the videogames are practiced in multiple contexts and ways helping to

avoid the mental set or rigidness that naturally arise with a success in a particular method.

However, it is a fact that many studies and cases points that the violence in

videogames can cause people to have more aggressive thoughts, feelings, behaviors and
even a brain damage. An example of those studies is the research Violent Video Games as

Exemplary Teachers by Douglas A. Gentile. There is found that videogames can contribute

with a violent behavior but also that videogames are excellent teachers along several

dimensions. Some of their arguments are that active learning consist on practice, feedback,

and then more practice until reach mastery and after reaching that point of mastery, the

knowledge and skills are practiced further to provide “overlearning”. However, the studies

that points that violent games make violent people are contrasted with those that points the

opposite. An example of that is the two years study of Harvard Medical School researchers

Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson that points that playing video games did not have a

particularly negative effect on the research group of more than 1200 middle-school

children. They made then the book Grand Theft Childhood: the Surprising Truth about

Violent Video Games refuting claims if violent behavior increase caused by violent video

games. In contrast, the study reveals that teens that don’t play games at all are at risk to

have violent behaviors. Anyhow, there’s many violent cases associated with the used of

violent games. An example of them is the Columbine High School Massacre that was

reported as a consequence of two youths addicted to violent games and movies. But we

need to analyze the case. One of them, called Eric David Harris, was rejected to join the

Marines because he was taking the drug Luvox, an SSRI antidepressant, used as anger

management therapy. It’s been theorized that Luvox’s side effects contributed to what

happened because most antidepressants in teens are now cautioning violent and/or suicidal

thoughts. Also, Dylan Bennet Klebold, the other youth involved in the Massacre was

described as shy, quiet and as a young man who lacked confidence in himself and a

follower of Harris who had a strong influence on him. Both of them had psychological

problems such as low self esteem, and lacked to control anger, which are not related to play
videogames. They canalized their frustrations using videogames, but when those were

restricted, they became more anger and out of control, because they couldn’t release their

anger in a way that is non-threatening to anyone. In this case there were many factors such

as depression, low self-esteem, lack of anger control and social intolerance which

concluded in a massacre as a response of their frustrations, but did not occurred as a

consequence of a videogame addiction. Getting away of the violence influences another

study against games is one made by Dr. Chou Yuan-hua, from the Department of

Psychiatry of Taipei Veterans General Hospital. He conducted a test on 30 people, each 25

years old, whose various blood pressure and physical blood distribution levels were

measured before and after playing videogames for 30 minutes. He concluded that “the act

of playing videogames obviously causes a decreased blood flow in the brain and that doing

so on a long term bases could damage the frontal lobe of the brain”. But it is not surprising

that lowered blood pressure would result from relaxing sedentary activity like gaming, and

he also never explains why gaming in particular, and not other examples like reading

newspaper or sleeping causes these sorts of dangerous blood flow drops. Seeing all this, the

refutations against violent videogames (and videogames in general) shows no sufficient

proof towards the link of violent behavior with games and the supposedly brain damages.

In conclusion, the violence in videogames doesn’t take away the educational

benefits from them. Violent videogames like Grand Theft Auto and Halo brings

entertainment, learning opportunities of knowledge and skill and a chance to lead anger in a

way that is non-threatening towards anyone. My own experience and from those that I had

known taught me that games helped us on learning knowledge and skills and that the

violence factor doesn’t come necessarily from the videogames influence. People learn by

exploration and interest. Once you are motivated, you can learn. Videogames are great
attracting up our attention. Since childhood we learn many skills by playing. Some of the

skills are agility, accuracy, judgment and many more. Game designers use violence as a

bait to get attention and drive people to learning concepts and also giving them the interest

to search for what he doesn’t understand. The last sentence in the conclusion of the research

Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers was: “If our educational software is not yet

sufficient to teach and reinforce the knowledge and skills we want our curricula to impart,

then perhaps we need to hire some violent video game makers to develop such software.”

Our own educative system lacks educative strategies to got the interest of the student and

enhance the learning tools. We must use videogames to help students get a better

understanding of the curriculum. When I got the Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo, I started to

read it thinking that I would learn magic by it. I was wrong, it was just a bait. But that

turned me into a writer, a lover of fantasy, and a proud figurative interpreter. The games

can do the same.

 Bibliography

• Gentile, Douglas A. “Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers” Media Family.

April 9 2005
<http://www.mediafamily.org/research/Exemplary_Teachers_SRCD.pdf>.

• Video game controversy- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy>

• Grand Theft Auto (series)- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto>

• Halo (series)- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(series)>

• Columbine High School Massacre- Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre#cite_note-15>

• Dylan Bennet Klebold- a Columbine site

<http://acolumbinesite.com/dylan.html>

• Eric David Harris- a Columbine site

<http://acolumbinesite.com/eric.html>

• Cavalli Ernest “Doctor Claims Gaming Cause Brain Damage” Wired Dec 27, 2007
<http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/12/doctor-claims-g.html>
 Outline

Thesis: Violence in videogames does not take away the educational benefits from these
games.

Introduction
• Hook
• Games are addictive
• Its violence is usually related to the increase violent behavior
• Thesis

Examples of Violent Video Games

• Grand Theft Auto
• Halo
• The Politian Stance

Experiences in gaming
• My own experience
• Analyzing my friends experience towards gaming
• Interviewing a gamer addict

Beneficial educative findings on a research

• Learning actively and mastery the skills regardless its difficulty
• The “Cognitive Conflict”
• The practice of multiple contexts and multiple ways

Refutation
• Violent games contribute to violent behaviors but also are excellent teachers
• The Harvard Medical School Study as a defense
• The Columbine High School Massacre (it’s allegedly provoked by violent games)
• The Dr. Chou Yuan-hua (Games can cause brain damage)

Conclusion
• Restating Thesis and summarizing main points
• People learn by exploration an interest
• Citation from Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers
• A call to use games to enhance educative strategies
• A final anecdote