Rebuttal to Opositon

In a study done in 2007, people of slightly varying ages were tested to see the effects of a violent video game on aggression.  The general result was that massively multiplayer role player games (MMRPGs) don’t cause a moderate, or large increase in aggression.  The test was unable to show small increases because the sample size wasn’t large enough (Williams 12).  This study uses the fantasy game Asheron’s Call 2 (AC2) for the test because the game has a large amount of violence and is easy to learn to play.  The test had some people play AC2 for a month and had another group of people who didn’t play any video games for that month.  The control group, the people who didn’t play video games, and the other group, the people that played AC2 for a month, had fairly similar amounts of aggression at the end of the month.

This evidence can be used to say that the content doesn’t affect aggression. But what about the story, like the GTA IV article suggests?  GTA IV is using a corrupt version of the American dream in order to justify the horrible actions performed by Niko Bellic.  In an article I read about the “American dream” in the play Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, the “American dream” is shown as “…a genuine and determined belief that in America, all things are possible to all men, regardless of birth or wealth; if you work hard enough you will achieve anything.” (Zhao 3).  This version of the dream is what GTA IV is getting the player to buy into.  However, this article goes to explain how the play The Death of a Salesman shows how the dream has become misguided or corrupt.  The character of Willy, the main character of the play, works hard his whole life and has nothing to show for it.  He isn’t liked, and he has no money.  As the article states, “What he [Willy] has truly failed is his family life and his married life.  That is the corruption of the true ‘American Dream’.” (Zhao 5).  The reason that this opposes the argument presented in my previous post about GTA IV, is because it shows that the version of the American dream being presented in the game is corrupt to begin with.  Meaning that Niko Bellic is following a misunderstanding of a concept, and not the real thing, taking you out of the action and back into the real world.