The College Fix

Video games are huge these days, and unless you are still challenging your grandfather to games of Pong, you have probably noticed that video games have improved drastically in our lifetime.

Today’s video game graphics have evolved simultaneously with computer-hardware technology, which means that games with realistic and jaw-dropping visuals have become industry standard. While popular culture still treats gaming as niche, the industry pulled almost $20 billion in revenue in 2009, an increase of 250 percent since the beginning of the decade. Sixty-five percent of households in the U.S. own a game console, further proving the growing power that interactive media has over the next generation of Americans.

This new power has caused many people to look at games with harsher scrutiny. Video games that are violent are often subject to heated controversy from angry parents who see their kids glorifying guns, car theft, and gang violence. A game using religious background music was recalled from shelves after outcries from certain religious groups. Take Two, a game developer and publishing company, had to pay $20 million because of a sex scene found in a Grand Theft Auto, a game that was already riddled with sex, violence, and drug use, that was only accessible to those who could hack their copy of the game.

Even further, there have been claims of racism in recent video games. For example, Mafia 2 was deemed a “pile of racist nonsense” by Unico National, an Italian-American service organization. The group argued that the game would cause younger Americans to associate Italian-Americans with violence and organized crime. Another game, Left for Dead 2, was accused of being racist by a blogger from The Houston Chronicle. His argument was that by including African-American zombies that a player has to shoot, you make the game unpublishable and racist.

Read the full column at the Harvard Crimson.

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