(Newswire.net — September 10, 2014) — Jonathan Sakura, owner of Gamers Anonymous, recently got a trade-in of more than 200 copies of the game which follows the story of “Night Trap”, the controversial movie released in 1992. Sakura said back then the game created some controversy and discussion because of its violent content, but other than the negative buzz, the game wasn’t that impressive. However, it became a lot more popular when Congress took note.
“It’s somewhat controversial or at least it was at that time,” Sakura said.
At a 1993 hearing on violence in video games, then-Senator Joseph Lieberman called “Night Trap” ultra-violent, sick and disgusting and said the full-length interactive movie was too real.
“There was a graphic depiction of violence against women,” Lieberman said. “I find this segment deeply offensive and believe that it should be taken off the market.”
Lawmakers worried it could lead to real violence among kids. Soon after the Congressional uproar that started with Night Trap, customers would start seeing ratings on video games.
The Sega CD original Night Trap was eventually recalled, censored and a revised version was released.
Violence in video games continues to be a touchstone issue for politicians and social scientists who struggle to explain our violent society. But are video games blamed for more trouble than they really cause? What about claims that video games have significant impact on improving motor and reasoning skills?
For the types of jobs that require hand-eye coordination, gamers are not only better at doing the job, but adults who continue to play the games each week into their adult life actually stay sharper at work. We have known about this research for a while from the military, but a study from Iowa State University shows that even surgeons perform better when they regularly play video games.
Gamers constantly gather information online about the game to be better players. The data collection and synthesis skills are much stronger for someone obsessed with a topic, because they are driven to find more and more specialized information.
A study published on Science Direct says gamers report a higher sense of well-being than non-gamers as they age. A lot of this probably has to do with the fact that gaming is social and gives people a sense of belonging to a community. The long-term benefits of spending a lot of time on video games seem to be similar to the long-term benefits of spending a lot of time at church.
Researchers in the US and Spain collaborated on the study of 111 children ages 3 to 8 and found that of all the forms of inactivity they examined, television-viewing was the worst.
In light of this data, parents may need to consider whether it is better to let their kids melt plastic of joy-stick, or burn their eyes out watching the television. On the other hand, maybe we would all be better off if parents would just pick up a book, and read with their kids!