What's wrong with me?
Nothing. Conflict is how we and the rest of the animal kingdom have resolved every major issue since the beginning of life. Single-celled organisms fight each other for survival in perpetuity. If you do not prescribe to evolution, even God has settled issues through violence from time-to-time, such as smashing Sodom and Gomorrah into oblivion. Only since society has come into existence have we as a race been able to mitigate violence through political debate and judicial rulings.
Our entertainment is rooted in conflict. In football, players battle for possession of the ball. Boxing, Fencing, Soccer and numerous other contests based on skill, strength, and aggression make up a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. Movies, books, and our own history are littered with violence and conflict. Half of high school history is memorizing dates of key battles in history, how they were fought, and won or lost.
Of course, courtroom dramas and international politics do not translate well into video games, unless you include Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.
Games that Teach
There are games that have no violent content at all. Simcity, Bejeweled, Harvest Moon, and four-out-of-five Wii Sports minigames all lack violent content. Of course, I had to rack my brain for these exampes as Command & Conquer, Asteroids, Commander Keen, and hundreds of violent games flooded to mind. Even the most innocuous titles, such as Pikmin, Mario Kart, and Gran Turismo have some violent content. Still, games that foster cooperation and teamwork - even when based in violence - have numerous positive benefits (Effects of Video Game Violence on Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviors, Mickey Suhn Lee and Rachel Barr, Ph.D, Georgetown College). Also, games do exist where certain moral decisions affect the game directly, such as Black & White and Wootex's aforementioned Fable. But I'd be pretty bored without some Serious Sam from time to time.
What's the point?
We know that violence is pervasive in society. Violence in books has been around since humans first committing ink to cave wall. Violence in movies has been around as long as celluloid. I'm not violent, but I enjoy violence in my entertainment. Why the big stink about video games?
There have been studies conducted that link violence and video games. Video games have a physiological impact on the player. There is also evidence showing that video game violence desensitizes players to real-world violence. Parents are worried about their kids.
When games with realistic violence are targeted at children too young to discern between right and wrong we do not know what the long-term effects will be on those kids. This is why the ESRB is so important. Violence in gaming is entertainment, but we need to protect those that may not be able to tell the difference or who might learn inappropriate behavior from the games. It may not always be enforced, parents might not do a great job interpreting it, but it's there. Just like the MPAA's ratings, the ESRB's ratings are not perfect, but it is the best system we have to help parent's decide what games are appropriate for their children.
Real vs. Unreal
Even my wife worries, not about games like Unreal where there are men in spacesuits and aliens, or Zelda where the violence is cartoony and enemies vanish in a puff of smoke. She worries about situations based in reality, such as Grand Theft Auto III, where the people look and dress like people on the street, use weapons available today, and commit crimes that would have consequences in the real world. Wootex's example of the Janitor was excellent: a regular person doing a normal job and you, the player, have the option to extinguish their life.
Which is more easily discernable as fantasy, GTA III or Zelda? Personally, I see more people wearing do-rags in Boston than Minish Caps.
Just because you and I know the difference between right and wrong does not mean that the kid down the street "gets" the difference. As long as crazy people shoot up their high schools and colleges, parents and other authorities are going to look for any reason outside themselves to use as a scapegoat. After all, it can't be the parents' fault that they were never around when their son or daughter was growing up, that they fought all the time, drank too much, or beat their child; it must have been those damn video games!
The truth is that gaming is just a factor, a small component of any individual's life. Maybe they are a little more aggressive or even little more angry from gaming. Maybe. But no game is going to push a sane person over the edge to blow up a building or take their own life.
Don't blame the game.
Wootex recently posted his question over whether video games should incorporate the psychological impact of taking life virtually. If it was central to the gameplay and fun, I say sure. The aforementioned was not necessarily a response, but was inspired by his post.
Resources
http://www.apa.org/releases/videogames.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy
http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/familyresources/a/vidgameviolence.htm
http://mentalhealth.about.com/od/cybermentalhealth/a/vidviolence805.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8449 http://news.google.com/news?um=1&tab=wn&hl=en&q=violence+%22video+game%22