STS Project: Analyzing Video

Games through the lens of

society.
Introduction:
Video games have evolved to become one the biggest source of entertainment in the
world, with millions of people playing it daily. The main aim of video games is to
provide the players a fun and immersive experience, which allows them to escape
the reality and engage into the virtual world. However, video games have also been
the subject of much debate when it comes to their impact on society. This essay
aims on focusing the impact of video games on the society.
The motivation behind choosing video games as the topic to analyze through the
lens of society is due to their increasing demand in the market, their widespread use
and impact on various aspects of modern life. Also one of the reason of choosing
them is that they are played by people of all age and all of us have played it at least
once in our life. With the rise in technology video games have become more
complex and realistic giving the players a real life virtual experience, which means
giving players a more realistic experience by through virtual world. However, this has
also raised concern regarding the negative effect of games on society, such as
addiction, violent behavior, toxicity, disconnecting players to real life.

To completely understand the impact of games on the society we need to trace back
to their origin and provide background information about their history and evolution.
Video games have been around since the 1950s and have come a long way since
then, with the advancements in the technology leading to the creation of much
realistic games. Today, video games are a multi-billion dollar industry.

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of video games in modern society

because they have had an immense impact on a variety of populations and have
become a big element of popular culture. Video games have been linked to
enhanced socialization, greater cognitive function, and even therapeutic advantages
for those with specific diseases. They have, however, also drawn criticism for any
negative effects they might have, like encouraging addiction and violence.
In this analysis, we will discuss the impact of video games on the society, taking into
account potential biases, controversies and discussing the future implications of the

STS Project: Analyzing Video Games through the lens of society. 1

 technology.

Impact on Society:
It is in fact true that video games are played by a variety of users so the impact of
them on the society can vary as different group of people are impacted differently by
them. Hence, the study of it’s impact is a complex topic. There are many users that
can benefit from playing games while it is also criticized by many for it’s potential
disadvantages or harmful effects.
Now we will discuss how different group of people are affected. Firstly, Children and
teenagers are a group who consumes this technology the most. It has been
observed that it helps in development of certain parts of brain. It improves the
thinking capacity of the individual, problem-solving abilities, hand-eye co-ordination,
reaction time etc. Actually in a game a player needs to engage themselves in the
virtual world, they need to solve different puzzles, and react to the environment
accordingly thus it improves the above mentioned abilities. It can also act as a tool
for many teenagers for becoming more social through online-gaming groups and it
gives them a sense of community as you need to co-ordinate with your teammates,
need to work in a healthy competitive environment to win. For kids with specific
illness, such as autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), video
games have been utilized as a therapy tool.

Regardless of the positive impacts, video games also come with some negative
impacts such as addiction and violent behavior. Playing too much violent games
might make people more prone towards violence. For them it might feel like a normal
thing. Moreover, playing a lot of video games can result in addiction which can
impact one’s physical, social and emotional well-being.

Now we will discuss how adults are affected by video games. It can be a recreational
activity for the adults and give them relief from stress and provide relaxation for
them. It can also be a tool for the adults for interacting with like-minded people and
the one’s sharing same interest. They can also be used as a learning tool and
developing their skills professionally, as nowadays, there are many games which
allows us to do so. For example, There are typing games, CTF’s or Capture the Flag
which can improve one’s cyber security skills, also there are many coding and puzzle
games available which forces you to think and improve your thinking abilities. And

STS Project: Analyzing Video Games through the lens of society. 2

 they can help in the overall developing skills and can also learn new skills through
them.
Video games, also have a negative impacts on adults. When it comes to addiction
and social isolation. Playing too much games can lead to ignoring the responsibilities
as an adult, such as family and work. People can get isolated due to this. Some of
them also uses it as an escape mechanism from the reality, which is also a cause of
depression among adults. So, social isolation and loneliness can occur when adults
spend a lot of their time playing instead of dealing with the real-world scenarios.

Finally, there are also economic impacts of video games. As it a multi-billion industry,
there are many companies focusing primarily on developing new and more
interactive games. So, it has provided employment to many software developers,
graphic designers, audio artists, video artists and many more forces that are working
in the background in creation of a game.
Also nowadays e-sports are also getting very popular, games such as CS-GO,
Valorant, Dota etc. have a very large community and their international competitive
events are held every year which generate a lot of income and contribute to the
overall nation’s GDP.

There are many unintended consequences of video games that can affect our
society. For Example, online gaming community has toxicity among the players,
cyberbullying. Additionally, the addiction can lead to decrease in efficiency and
productivity which will affect the economy and overall work ethics.

Therefore, we need to understand both the positive and negative impacts of video
games on the society and need to make a healthy balance between them.

Biases:
As evident from the above the discussion, Video Games have become an integral part
of our modern society. Not only they act as a source of entertainment and leisure
time spending, but also have become a source of education and mental therapy (for
instance, stress reliever) in some cases. Due to the mentioned variety of uses, it can
be predicted that biases may arise intentionally or unintentionally in the design and
development of the games, especially considering the technological advances made
in the previous decade. In the following section we will discuss some of the potential
biases and their outcomes with respect to game development.

Gender Bias:

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 One of the most prominent bias in the development of video games is that they are
developed by keeping a male audience in mind. They often have male protagonists,
which can make female players feel a certain way, maybe excluded or marginalized.
This bias can affect the results of the technology as they half of the population won’t
find them appealing. It also increases the gender stereotypes. Additionally, female
characters maybe be portrayed in hypersexualized ways, which can promote gender
biases and may lead to a toxic gaming culture. This bias limits the appeal of the
games towards different genders.

Racial Bias:
Another potential bias is the racial bias. Games can feature characters with a wide
diversity can help in fighting the stereotypes and promote inclusiveness, but
unfortunately, many of the games still lack in diversity in their design. For example,
black characters are often displayed as criminals or just side characters, which
imposes negative stereotypes. This bias can also limit the appeal of games to
people of color and perpetuate harmful stereotypes.

Socioeconomic Bias:
Socioeconomic bias is another potential bias in video games. Many of the games are
developed which can only run on specific consoles and system which are very
expensive to afford, hence they are being made for a specific set of audience. This
creates a division between them who can afford and access the latest technology
and those who can not. Additionally, some of the games require in-game purchases
which make the experience better for the players, so someone who can not afford
those purchases are excluded from those experiences. This bias affects the
technology by limiting the accessibility of games to rich people and can create
economic inequalities.

Spread of false information:

Another aspect of bias in video games is the presentation of historical events and
cultures. Many games such as Assassin’s Creed, Age of Empires etc. draw
inspiration from real-life events, and their portrayal of these situations can
sometimes be slanted or oversimplified. This can lead to the perpetuation of
misconceptions and inaccuracies about specific historical periods or groups of
people. For example, a game set in a colonial era may glorify colonialism without
adequately addressing the negative impact on colonized populations.

Ableist Bias:

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 A final potential bias in video games is ableism. Many games are designed without
considering the needs of players with disabilities, such as those who are visually or
hearing impaired. This can exclude these players from enjoying the same
experiences as others and limit their ability to participate in gaming culture.
Additionally, some games feature stereotypes towards disabled people, such as
portraying disabled characters as helpless or pitiable. This bias can affect the
outcomes of the technology by perpetuating negative stereotypes and limiting the
inclusivity of gaming culture.

It is necessary to keep in mind that these biases can be intentional or unintentional.

For example, a game developer might intentionally exclude certain groups of people
from their audience, or he might simply just ignore or not consider the needs of
considering these groups in their design as it might make the development more
complex. Regardless of the intention, these biases can have actual real-world
consequences on how people perceive Video Games as a technology and can also
contribute to system inequalities.

Overall video games can be a tool for entertainment, education and therapy, but they
are not immune to biases. They have Gender, racial, socioeconomic biases.

Controversies:
Just like any other innovation, even video gaming has been put under tight scrutiny
of the society and from time to time many controversies have been made. And as to
why the controversies arise is mainly because the video games are mostly
developed with ‘escapism’ as the motive and not ‘reality’. They are designed to
escape reality and indulge in fantasy. Every individual has their own perspective on
how they perceive reality and fiction, how well are they able to differentiate and draw
a line between reality and pseudo reality. and this is what causes the conflict. As
previously discussed, video games have their own plus and minus points. The way
they are used, played, developed or presented to the public is what causes the
controversies to arise. As much as one would think that it is one's personal business
whether to use a game or not, it is true that these games have affected the world
around in more than one way and attracts the opinions and judgements of others.
Most of the times the controversies are because of violence, sexual content, LGBT
themes, racism etc. And similar to many other innovations these games don't have

STS Project: Analyzing Video Games through the lens of society. 5

 the same impact on all the audience and vary based on region, culture etc. While
some video games get banned completely, some are regionally banned.
Death Race 1976, originally named as “Pedestrian” was the first game to face
controversies. It was inspired from the movie ‘Death Race 2000’ and whatever may
be the reason for developing this, it has faced huge criticism from the media and
public. The violence in this game had enraged the US security council and there
were investigations made into the psychological impact of the video game. While the
US road safety department was busy training and teaching the drivers how to take
evasive maneuver's on road like avoiding pedestrians etc. this game was kind of
encouraging the players to drive recklessly and kill as many pedestrians as possible.
But despite all these controversies and facing allegations from the media and
council, the users for this game have increased rapidly beyond the expectations of
the developers. The controversies running around the game has only fuelled its
popularity among the public and made many gamers aware of the game.
Another popular game which faced heavy controversies from the authorities is GTA-
IV (Grand Theft Auto IV). This game faced controversies for its depiction of
violence and was termed as ‘murder simulator’. Though the previous versions of this
game have also faced controversies this version had few gaming options which were
labelled disturbing and lawsuits were filed against the company. Few of the options
were ‘Drunk driving’, ‘Gun culture’, ‘Robbery’ etc. There were cases recorded where
teenagers playing GTA tried to do the game tasks in real life and the consequences
had been precarious. Most of the cases reported were of teenagers, where they
found attacking a taxi to rob it, trying a handgun, causing damage to public property,
and indulging in sexual assault. When questioned their response was that they
wanted to try whether it feels the same in game and real life, whether it is as easy as
in the game. This led to heavy criticism from Non profit organizations like
MADD(Mothers against drunk driving), Parents television council etc. The incidents
had led the game to be banned in a few countries like ‘Thailand’, ‘Pakistan’,
‘Venezuela’, ‘South Africa’, and ‘Argentina’. The activities and tasks performed within
the game were against the laws of most of the countries and dangerous for the
citizens. From the above it is easy to find that most of the crimes committed were by
teenagers. Though it doesn’t and didn’t affect all the teenagers playing the game and
maybe the matured audience were able to find humor in this game the affected
teenagers were able to grab more than enough attention to take charges against the
game.

The controversies on the above two games is mostly because the tasks performed
are dangerous to public welfare and against the law. But there are few games which

STS Project: Analyzing Video Games through the lens of society. 6

 particularly evoke the political and historical conflicts. One of those games is
‘Wolfenstein 3D’. The game had gore, violence and more importantly the use of
characters similar to Hitler and Nazi symbolism led to an outright ban of the game in
Germany. The Germany under Nazi rule was always a sensitive yet most debatable
topic even till date and this game was just enough to spike everyone's attention back
to the controversial history and politics.

Future Implications:
The first video game was developed in October 1958. Compared to many other
technologies and developments one can say that this is a fairly new development in
the software field. Though the first game was presented in 1958, and it did catch the
eye of the public and researchers, it was not enough to bloom in the public. Firstly
though it was the time where computers and software technology was making a
rapid development it was not in everyone’s usual interest and the gaming platforms
were also not quite affordable for everyone. It was only in the 1970's to 1980’s that
video games gained recognition and mainstream popularity. Since then arcade
games, home computer games etc. have been introduced to the public. Most of
these have been designed in such a way that people find something different from
their normal life, something which they won’t be doing in real life hence gaining
popularity in the masses. With the constant innovations in the field the explorations
in video gaming didn’t stop at consoles but bloomed to what we call Virtual reality or
VR. Today we have VR in entertainment(video games), education(medical or military
training), and business(Virtual meetings).

Video gaming is most trending among teenagers and young adults. Today the
gaming space is 3x what it was in 2012. Though video games had created their own
hype in the past two decades, the pandemic had greatly benefited the gaming
industry. Staying at home many have chosen to spend their time on video games
and this was proved when there was an increase of 45%in the time spent among the
US players in the first week of the pandemic.

The current gaming industry is mainly ruled by China followed by the US, Japan and
South Korea. Since this industry is yet to reach the peaks not many countries are
involved in this. But this will surely change in future because of technology migration
and the emerging talents. And also unlike before many companies are launching
their products on affordable platforms like mobile phones and PC’s which make them
available for many users since the mobile usage is extremely high. Currently the
global online revenue totals twenty three billion dollars and is predicted to exceed
thirty three billion dollars.

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 Though the VR products are costly and not many prefer to use them right because of
the complexity and sensitivity, their market is expected to grow rapidly in few years
and one of the reason of industries and public looking forward for them is situations
like pandemic where not must physical contact is allowed and they are restricted
form the outdoor activities. In the year 2017 it has been reported that the VR gaming
industry has generated an annual global revenue of 0.4 billion dollars and it grew to
0.8 billion dollars in 2019. This is a significant development for a new software and is
expected to grow at a CAGR of 31.4% between 2021 and 2028. It is expected to
make 53.44 billion dollars by 2028. Currently in countries like India the gaming
production is not yet firmly established but the consumer quantity is high. A report
from Boston consulting company says that India’s present mobile video game users
are approximately 300 million and the gaming industry as a whole has grown at a
compound rate of 38 percent in 2019-2020 which was the start of the pandemic
period. These statistics show that the gaming industry indeed has a bright future in
the upcoming years and is going to grab significant attention in the public.

Conclusion:
In this paper we have mainly looked at the impact of video games on society and the
impact of society on the development of video games. These impacts and their
outcomes are what raises the controversies. But not all controversies are addressed
and the ones addressed are because of the severe impacts they created on the
society or which have meddled with culture or history. The actions taken are also not
same in all the cases and depend on the region and the community. Because of
these there have been censorship laws which have to be followed in order to not
present anything improper to the public. Besides video games have been a great
source of entertainment mostly for the youth. They aid as a stress reliever and this
aspect has been also used in the medical field in the psychology department. Apart
from playing and its impact the development and production is also important. As the
statistics discussed in the previous section we know that video game production is
not yet set in many countries and the products here are all bought from the games
produced in foreign countries. This is also one of the reasons why we find many
biases in the games we play. Because they are not designed here. And also people
wouldn’t spend their time on video games if the content in the games is the same as
the daily life. It will bore them out. Hence the content in games is always something
one couldn’t act in their daily life. This gives them a way to escape reality. The
controversies in the games and gaming industry have been many but despite those
controversies people still choose to play those games because it shows the player
something different, beautiful and exciting compared to the real world. There are

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 other factors which can affect the video games and gaming industry and recently the
COVID-19 pandemic has played an important role, because many have been locked
up in their homes and this caused a significant rise in the users. This also boosted
the popularity of Virtual Reality games and though this development is very recent
and many doesn’t or can’t afford this expensive technology they have yet to bloom in
the gaming industry but the future of video gaming is indeed bright looking at users
crave for new versions, features and environments including the developers and new
talents emerging in the field to design, implement and develop better products than
the previous ones.

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