Video Game Reflection

I don't have much of a connection with video games. I don't mean to sound sexist, but I'm a girl; the most violent game I've played is Super Mario Bros. My sister and I used to play that when we were younger, and have a lot of fun with it, but once we reached the last level we gave up. We kept trying to beat it for a week or two, but we weren't motivated to finish it. We weren't very good, so for us it was too hard. I don't know much about video games: I am familiar with the names of the popular ones, but besides that, I'm lost. Last year, despite my lack of experience, I wrote about video game violence for an assigned essay. My position was that the game violence promotes aggression in the people that play excessively, and I read about extensive evidence that proved my theory. On the other hand, I know plenty of people that play those games, and they have perfectly normal personalities. In relation to Ender's Game, there may be cause to think that Ender's violence is brought out by the stress and violence of the battle room and the video games. I don't think that is why Ender overreacts in combat situations, I just think that it spurs the anger on because he already has violence in his blood from Peter. Ender would still be aggressive without the games.

If I could design a video game, I wouldn't want it to be exceedingly violent. I hate how for any game to be socially acceptable, the characters must mutilate or blow each other up. If I designed a game I would want it to be something that people would like, yet they wouldn't come away mentally scarred. In Ender's Game the Giant's Drink is a dark game, but it doesn't seem that bad because it is more about outsmarting what's thrown at you than being the strongest and having the biggest gun. The character dies in many creative ways, but it does not resemble a war or involve the crazy machinery of today. If I designed a game I would want it to share some attributes with the Giant's Drink. I like how the Giant's Drink grows off of itself and creates new situations as you move forward, and I would want to make my game grow to challenge the player to be better than they were before. I like how Ender's abilities in the game are unlimited, and in my game I would want my players to be able to do the unexpected. I can't imagine that a game without war would get very far, but I would find a way to make mine irresistibly interesting.