Should Stores Sell Violent Video Games to Minors?
Should stores sell violent video games to minors? This is a very interesting question because there are many sides to it, which I will be covering. There's the legal side, and the ethical side. For the legal side, I will be seeing whether it is legal or not for minors to play violent games. In terms of the ethical side, I will give my opinion on whether I think teens should be able to play violent games, and whether I think it contributes to violence in the real world. I am a minor myself so I may have a bias, however I will be using reputable sources. I will be discussing the meaning of a rating and how valid it is in determining the law. To clarify, for the legal part I will not be discussing whether it is legal for teens to play violent games, but whether stores should sell them. Many teens already play violent games such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, including my 11 year old cousin.
I will be discussing the legality of the question first and then move on to the ethical side. It is not illegal for minors to play or purchase violent video games. The Mature rating given by the ESRB is just that; a rating. It is like a rating on a product or a recommendation. If a cool water bottle has a few bad reviews on Amazon, doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it, although it is recommended not to. In the case of retail of violent video games, it isn't illegal to sell minors video games for the most part. However, in certain places like Illinois, there are laws and fines put in place against retailers selling minors video games. According to the Illinois General Assembly website, it is illegal for retailers to sell minors video games, and if they do they will be charged with a $1,000 fee. This doesn't make it impossible or illegal for minors to play violent video games, as they can get it from a non-minor who bought it or buy it online, however, I am focusing on whether stores should sell them to minors or not. I think that this law is a good idea because it makes sure that minors aren't being sold violent games, however if a minor REALLY wants to defy the recommendation then they could buy it online or through similar means. It prevents minors from experiencing the violence while not making it so illegal for minors to play violent games that they would be charged for playing it.
Now it's time for the ethicality, which is purely based on my opinion alone and a reputable source. I think that if a minor wants to play a violent game and their parents or guardians are fine with it, they probably still shouldn't be able to since ratings are there for a reason, but they can if they want to. In the end the decision falls onto their parents or guardians. Do video games make teens violent though? That's a whole different story. According to the Harvard Health Publishing website, there is a mix of research that suggests that it does and does not. Some say that video games cause aggression in teens while others say that this doesn't mean they will have violent behaviors. I will have to disagree with the researchers that believe video games do make you violent because of the lack of reasoning behind their research. According to the Harvard Health Publishing website, 64-67% of teens 12-17 play video games that "action and adventure games that tend to contain violent content". See the wording they're using? "Action and adventure"? "Tend to"? Makes you think they aren't only talking about Mature rated games and above. If you look up "Mario", a very popular game that's well known to be all ages, every single game that shows up is rated E for everyone and has a Mild Fantasy/Cartoon Violence tag. Whether they included fantasy violence in their research or not is anyone's guess, however I'm inclined to think that they did since their wording was vague. Their research also says that "some children may become more aggressive as a result of watching and playing violent video games, but that most are not affected". Does some children being slightly more aggressive mean they'll commit grand theft auto or join a mafia when they get older? Unlikely, and even if they do, hard to believe it will be because of the games they played in their teens.
To wrap it all up, my research has shown that it's illegal for retailers to sell violent or M+ rated games to teens, even though it is not completely illegal for teens to buy and play these games through other means, such as buying online. In terms of the ethical side, I still think that teens should not be playing M and A rated games that are definitely not their age, however I do not think that these games will have a violent effect on them or significantly change their behavior. The research for the side that does think this to be true is vague and imprecise. I myself do not play M rated games, so I wouldn't completely know of the mental effects that playing extremely violent games may have, however based on my findings it appears that it does not significantly impact anyone.
- Belal Alawini
Reputable Sources:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/violent-video-games-and-young-people.
I agree that, while children really shouldn't be playing violent video games, if they go out of their way to play it through different means, it's beyond anyone's capabilities to stop them. I think that the Harvard article describing the video games as "action and adventure" was just because there's no way to clearly define the genre without leaving something out. They had to be that vague to apply it to their audience in their research. However, I would still believe that it's in a child's best interest not to play extremely violent games.
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