The topic of videogame violence has always been interesting to me. Especially since many use it as a scapegoat for the things they can’t explain. I’ll never forget when approximately a week after the Columbine shootings the principal had found the game Diablo in my friends backpack. Needless to say it didn’t help that it was a Catholic school too. He was forced to go to the office and his parents had to come in and explain why he had such a game.

It was a bit unbelievable when self proclaimed crusader against videogame violence, Jack Thompson was put on the air on the day of the VT shootings. Not only was he put on just a mere 8 hours after the shootings started, but the killer wasn’t even identified yet. Even more crazy was that the trend continued later on throughout the week. One of the interviewers was interviewing one of the roommates and asked out of the blue “Have you ever seen him playing Counter Strike?” The roommate gave a strange look and said he was never seen once playing a videogame. I just sat there disgusted with the media once again trying to shift the blame.

I have never been big on overly violent games personally, but I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy games like GTA, Halo, Counter Strike, etc. when I had played them. There is something satisfying in that “lock on” feature we had talked about earlier in the semester. It’s a means of release, just like any other medium. We read, watch movies, listen to music to escape reality for a while and I think videogames is just this generation’s rock and roll. Most likely as time passes this will no longer be an issue and something else will come up because people fear what they don’t understand.

On a lighter note I plan on picking up the new Pokemon game coming out this weekend. Yes, I'm not ashamed to say that I enjoy these games. I think they are actually quite amazing and surprisingly deep.