Last week my hometown of Bakersfield, CA was besieged with news crews reporting on the Taft Union High School shooting. While I may live halfway across the country it was still painful hearing from friends over Facebook what happened that day, and how it must have been violent video games (a token statement always heard during school shootings. I remember it was Doom during Columbine). It also solidified my feelings that violent video games CAN be an answer to the violence in our culture today.

That might seem paradoxical if we simply consider the violence itself and not the messages they send. No one ought to play games that are created specifically for torturing or murder. However, that doesn't mean you can't use that same violence in a different situation and come out with a completely different answer.

Consider this: a zombie game where a person must survive the waves of undead, shooting them in droves and being on the lookout for any new weapons or items that could help you continue your survival. What game comes to mind? Killing Floor? Black Ops 2? One of those iPhone knockoff zombie games? Are you imagining the violence inherent in such a game? Where killing what was once human is a necessity for survivial?

Well let me change the picture with five words: The Walking Dead: The Game.

All of a sudden each one of those blood-splattering kills you are making isn't for the visceral feeling of violence, but instead out of desperation to keep loved ones alive. You aren't searching for power-ups any more: you're searching for the things that will allow you to keep pushing a little longer, to save the ones around you. Whereas I cheered as I blew the brains out the back of a head in Call of Duty Zombies, my wife and I winced as we did the exact same thing in The Walking Dead. Surprising how much context can change how violence looks.

Not doing it for you? Alright, another example. You are in an AC-130 shooting multiple terrorists on the ground. They pour out of buildings and you blast each one, the silence louder than any of their screams could be. They burn, and you enjoy it. Terrible, isn't it, and yet every iteration of Call of Duty has some variation of it.

And then you drop that last shot and hear your commander cursing, and you realize you just dropped the bomb on a group of civilians. They may have all looked different up there, but down on the ground you see charred bodies of women and children. That happened in a game this year (won't spoil which one). It offered commentary as to whether the gamer really should be enjoying the violence at stake, because that's the sort of violence that can happen in today's world in such a scenario.

I will not provide commentary on whether violence in video games should be fun, but I do believe everything in this world has a hint of good and a heaping of evil. A person can grow that good into something much greater than evil, but it is going to be hard. I would never say all violent video games are a bane in today's society, because so many of those violent video games have taught me enumerable life lessons. DayZ taught me about trust and communication to strangers I don't even know. Far Cry 3 forced me to look at the kind of person one would become if subjected to so much killing. Fallout is a commentary on the futility of war. Total War taught me mathematical odds and strategy. Even Final Fantasy taught me the pain of death at an early age!

Before we start condemning violent video games, let us remember how we as a human race learn best through experience. Video games are one of the most experiential of all art forms, so wouldn't it make sense to utilitize it to the benefit of mankind? Simulation might be the key to unlocking how our future generations perceive violence.