With a massive projected screen replacing my perspective of the world around me, I dove into the immersive experience of playing one of the most realistic war games on the market: “ Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2”. Inside a fiery world of smoke, smog, and abandoned tall houses, adrenaline coursed through my brain and tensed my body with excitement as I followed a team of nine through a maze of doors and alleyways. I quickly lost track of them and hid at the end of a dead end while I waited for something to move or make a sound. The sounds of action were distant; but this bunker, which seemed like an ideal hideout, caught my attention. As I was about to run towards the bunker, a movement to my right made me jump; and with a terribly aimed shot, I fired most of the round from my machine gun at my target until I finally fired and killed him. The huge words "Headshot" flashed for a second in the center of the screen making me hungry for my next kill. A child who goes through this same immersive experience will become accustomed to destroying all these monsters and will ruthlessly learn to put everyone else aside and focus on conquering himself (MC 10). Children would become selfish when they venture into a virtual world where accumulating grenades and throwing them at groups of people allows for a higher score. “There is no 'right' or 'wrong', only success or failure” (MC 13). Due to the obscene immorality of video games, there should be a new genre of video games with indisputable moral aspects. In Matthew Devereux's essay "The Moral Cost of Video Games", he describes this horrible game called "Manhunt 2" as a game where the player must sneak up on innocent victims and use a garden spade to kill and decompose.... .. middle of paper ......acting positively with other characters to achieve a common goal can teach people values such as teamwork and positive interaction with others. Having a concept in a game where players work together selflessly to achieve a common goal is a much better construct of a game than accumulating kill points. Across the gaming community, a genre should be created that eliminates immorality and replaces it with an integrity that satisfies the player's immersive experience. With the terrible immorality of video games as the cause of the Littleton shooting, children are denied access to media and entertainment. Instead of having mostly unethical games, game developers should create new and engaging games with ethical values. A new generation of games with an undeniable ethos, which includes but does not glorify violence, should overshadow the gaming industry.
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