We all know somebody that plays videogames. Whether it be World of Warcraft or the next installment of Call of Duty. We people play these games for ours on end and are perfectly normal people when we are done, right?

According to the California State Senator Leland Yee, “California’s violent video game law properly seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of excessively violent, interactive video games,” said Yee, who is also a child psychologist.

The state of California proposed a law stating that the sale of “Mature” rated video games to minors would be made illegal because of the effects of violent video games on kids. They say that they studies that claim that children become more violent and aggressive after playing violent video games for an extended period of time.

On the other side of the argument is the games industry. They also claim to have studies that say there is no effect on a child’s behavior after playing a violent game. In an interview with BBC, Epic Games’ Cliff Blezinski says, "The majority of what we implement into the game we do for feedback and interactivity, not because we're strange sadistic people who want to see how much blood we can put on the screen when you shoot one of the lizard creatures.”

Blezinski sees the violence in his company’s “Mature” rated games as “cartoon-like” much like Looney Tunes. “But, rather than ACME hammers and anvils, we have machine guns and grenades,” he said. For example, in his upcoming, “Mature” rated,  game, Bulletstorm, players utilize a large arsenal of weapons and a “skillshot” system that rewards them for creating over the top mayhem in the most creative and destructive way possible.

I personally agree with the people in the games industry. I have played hundreds of video games for thousands of hours and I haven’t killed anybody and started a school massacre. But, to law makers that still aren’t yet full to speed on the digital age of entertainment, one kid in a million that lashes out is good enough. Even if the kids that do these crazy things have terrible lives, drugged out parents that don’t care, or ones that abuse them constantly, they blame it on the video games.

Many people don’t play video games for the violence; we play them to get a story or a new form of entertainment for a while. We see them as safe havens were we can just get away from all of ours problems, relax, and have fun with friends. Both Call of Duty and Halo, to some misinformed people, are extremely violent video games. But they pale in comparison to games like Gears of War or Dead Space which are never brought up.

In the end, we can all agree that violent video games do not make people do violent things. One in a million is just another statistic that, in reality, can be compared to anything else that makes people do violent things. Drugs, alcohol, and gangs are hundreds of times as worse than “violent” video games and people need to see that. They’re essentially interactive movies, which are becoming to many the main source of entertainment. It is our future; let us give our point of view and decide what we believe is right.