John Carmack on Video Game Violence

In the past few years, video games have been getting somewhat of a bad reputation in mainstream (uninformed) media publications. They’ve been blamed many a times for when mentally unstable people go on killing sprees just because said perpetrators happened to play video games. Like the rest of us, id Software’s John Carmack is quite tired of all these accusations and feels games can actually help aggressive individuals calm down by providing a “cathartic” experience where no one’s really harmed.

It's just a game mmmkay

In an interview with IndustyGamers, he speaks his mind on the whole violence and video games debate that went something like this;

"People just play games now and I never took seriously the violence in video games debate. It was basically talking points for people to get on CNN and espouse their stuff on there.

And I really think, if anything, there is more evidence to show that the violent games reduce aggression and violence. There have actually been some studies about that, that it’s cathartic. If you go to QuakeCon and you walk by and you see the people there [and compare that to] a random cross section of a college campus, you’re probably going to find a more peaceful crowd of people at the gaming convention. I think it’s at worst neutral and potentially positive."

I can vouch for this man's train of thought as there have been times when games like Burnout: Revenge and Just Cause 2 have helped calm me down after a stressful day.