Are FPS Games Dangerous?

Chainsaw your foe for a personal kill.

On April 20th, 1999, there was a historic, but terrifying moment called Columbine High School massacre. Never did Americans believed a tragedy like this would happen and it eventually caused other events like the Virginia Tech shooting or Sandy Hook shooting. Columbine made us realized schools might not be the place where we can feel entirely safe, but it also allowed us to look for certain influences that can occur to these events. One of these influences were violence in video games.

Before Eric and Dylan pulled off this tragedy, they were avid Doom players. They loved the game. It was violent, rebellious, and edgy. They enjoyed the game so much to a point they started making their own maps as a hobby. There were also rumors around the time that Eric intended to make a map based on their high school as a fantasizing experience.

Eric and Dylan wasn't the only twisted minded psychopaths that enjoyed violent video games.  Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, did too. He was a fan of first person shooters like Call of Duty and Combat Arms. He actually had over 400 hours played on Combat Arms. However, he was a big fan of violent video games in general.

There are many examples I can mention a terrifying event where it is arguable that video games might have somewhat an impact to to these types of events. I find it scary that on November 13th, 2015 there was a terrorist attack in Paris. I find it scarier that in Battlefield 3's campaign, you play as a Russian terrorist and you're attacking on November 13th, 2014.

But no matter what the media tries to convey the video game influences, it is a sense of entertainment. Yes, first person shooters are violent and the fact the word "shooter" is in it; it's obvious there's going to be killing involved. However, it's fun to kill in video games.

Soldier of Fortune allows you to "decorate" your enemies.

The things you do in a video game should all be based on entertainment. I like killing my opponents in online games because it feels good when you're able to outplay your enemy whether you had the better aim or strategy. Obviously, I wouldn't want to do something like that in reality.

It is true video games can give psychopaths an idea of what they want to do before they end their life just like Eric and Dylan, but at the same time, psychopaths are crazy to begin with. How can you stop someone who's has reached their insanity to a point they cannot become sane anymore? Psychopaths are extremely difficult to cope, and I personally believe there might never be a resolution to rectify them.

Even if video games aren't around, I'm sure they'll still go out and do preposterous activities. I can see something like a school shooting or a terrorist attack still happening even if we might not have violent video games or movies in our world. I don't find all forms of entertainment to be vexatious in our society.

They can all be expressed in a dark way, but people might find them entertaining. I like the constant killing in first person shooters because I think killing feels amazing from a video game standpoint. Some people might enjoy listening to rap music with violent lyrical content in the likes of Eminem or DMX. They might find it a therapeutic experience when it comes to relieving anger or personal problems.

Ethnic Cleansing: You shoot those who aren't white!

Yes, there are ways where we can use our form of entertainment to bring people down. I remember listening to some old KKK records. I don't remember why or how I managed to listen to them, but I'm aware sometimes we can take entertainment and push it to a level where we can use it as a weapon. A weapon to target to a certain demographic and make them feel down about it. However, I believe there's a fine line of what is good entertainment value and what is bad.


No, FPS games aren't dangerous. No forms of entertainment are.