I have been playing video games since at least 1978, growing up in the 80's and especially the 90's I heard it said over and over again that video games are the reason for the excessive violence in this country. In fact they tried to blame the Columbine incident upon DOOM as the two students involved in the shooting were members of doomworld. In fact it make talking in the forums a very touchy subject over the next few years; say the slightly wrong thing and you'd get banned...
...not unlike how it is nearly EVERYWHERE on-line today.
The thing is though that I never associated video games with violence growing up. Then again most of my video game experience during that time was from the 80's and early 90's where there wasn't a huge trend in video games to make them violent and crude for the sake of being violent and crude. Rather the focus of many of the games I played were to have good mechanics, addictive replay, the drive to keep playing, exorcise the mind, reflexes, problem solving, involving story, original story, unique presentation, etc. So I grew up thinking of video games (not all), as inspirational rather than destructive. I mean I know for sure that playing games taught me a lot about managing money, it improved my gun skills through improved ability to aim, I became proficient at solving new types of puzzles and riddles, some have helped me with my timing in musick, reading skills, ethics, manners, concept diversity, how to hold a courteous as opposed to rude conversation, etc. They have also influenced me to create my own video game, and certainly inspired some of my writing. And that's the thing, some video games are like books, most especially RPG's. Reading a book, interacting with characters on screen, etc. all require a lot more attention and personal in put than passively watching a movie or a tv show. In fact many studies have proven that movie and television watching does manipulate the mind in not so healthy ways. Granted, going outside and experiencing life is FAR more helpful than playing video games, but at least video games are not a passive venture.
All that said, video games can be used as a negative and destructive influence, though I don't see that threat coming so much from the gore and violence, but rather by the context and character of the players and stories on the screen. Just as some games can introduce healthy, soul full concepts and ideas, so to can they influence us to adopt negative and destructive ones. Now that censorship is almost non-existent, there are plenty of juvenile game designers out there who never quite matured as an adult in their thinking, and still think that sex, violence, tattoos, and the like are life and need more representation in the main stream. I guess this is why i never play bad guy when I have the choice, and why I never really got into games like No More Heroes, GTA, and the like. Though I do appreciate GTA's tongue in cheek slams on the very culture they are capitalizing off of in their radio bits.
Anyhow, all that said, video games only influence dumb and bad people to be dumb and bad. The dumber and bader a culture we produce, the higher their ability to influence. That said, up to this point in history I would say the main stream media, be it sit coms, movies, TV "news", the radio, and magazines have been much of the real cause of violence in this world, as they are EVERYWHERE and are certainly up to their own share of marketing/deceit/propaganda, which takes its toll on the culture and the individual. And once it has become culture, the individual will be pressured to conform, be it a true thing or not. I mean this is why today we can not understand basic biology or the fact that having a sex change is technically IMPOSSIBLE, but there is the pressure there to speak as if this were not so.
Or take the virus as an example, it is mutating and therefore the old vaccines are ineffective towards it, but we are encouraged to take the vaccines anyhow. Or these masks that everyone is supposed to wear, only one model of mask is said to have any effect according to the CDC, yet we are still encouraged to wear a mask, any mask, even a cloth, regardless if it is TOTALLY useless.
Ok, then on top of that you have the media playing devil's advocate, starting up conversations, bringing topics, and providing the opinions for us to argue, fight and bicker over when 99% of those subjects, opinions, views, and solutions are not the ones that are going to help us in the long term. Not unlike cutting a tree by it's branches rather than its root. And so when 2+2 no longer equals 4 and the wise and discerned individual feels lost in a world of madness, when people begin to realize they are being lied to but don't know who to blame or where to focus their anger, when people feel voiceless, when people allow them selves to be programmed to stereotype one another and turn against one another, when people have lost faith in the breath of life that flows through them, and faith in mystery, and think that the crappy culture our media spews out is all there is...
...people then become influenced towards violence, towards them selves or others, and maybe not with guns and fists, but also suicide, or shunning others, being un-loving, inpatient, misunderstanding. By ignoring real pain while being distracted by superficial non-sense. Willful ignorance, etc. These are the true ingredients to brain rot.
OK rant over.