Video Game Trade-In For Ice Cream: Is California’s Attack On Violence Aiming In The Wrong Direction?

Video game trade-ins for ice cream is California’s latest effort to attempt to curb violence. However, the motion is seriously misguided.

According to some government officials and televangelists, there is a common belief that violent video games make children violent, and sadly over 50 percent of adults agree. It’s a common misconception among those who refuse to do any actual research, because it’s not the games which are causing people to shoot up schools and movie theaters, or abuse their spouses as they get older.

The cause of the violence is ineffective parenting and mental health problems, not electronic entertainment. If your child has shown a regular pattern of a lack of self-control, you should keep the guns and suggestions of violence out of reach. The problem is a lack of parental responsibility, not the video games.

Personally, it was violent video games which allowed me to vent my frustrations in a consequence-free environment and not carry out actions that would get me arrested in the real world.

Obviously the District Attorney of California doesn’t see it that way. Marin County is partnering with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream as an incentive to take part in the video game trade-in, which also includes trading in toy guns. They allegedly believe that if you take away their chance to act out in harmless ways, it eliminates your urge to take it to the sinister next level.

It is unknown how California’s misguided incentive will determine whether the games they receive are rated “M,” for mature content. I imagine the offer will still stand if you give them a copy of a Mary-Kate and Ashley title. It’s still a video game, and those games “made for girls” are more likely to make us angry for wasting our time and money.

Apparently they’re aiming to show video game producers such as 2K Games (BioShock), Deep Silver (Dead Island, Saints Row), and Telltale Games (The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us) that people can be just as happy without their games. The problem is that after the people are done eating their ice cream, they might start missing what they gave up in the video game trade-in. Ice cream will only satisfy you for maybe an hour while the video games California is trying to eliminate can keep you entertained for weeks.

The trade-off just doesn’t appear to be in favor of the ice cream if you really think about it.

District Attorney Ed Berberian, who initiated the incentive, explained his reasons.

“As we know, domestic violence incidents almost always have children present and these children develop over time imprinted images of the family violence. These children then carry those experiences into their adult lives and often repeat the pattern of violence in their own family units.”

What does playing Call of Duty for a few hours, or even owning a Nerf gun, have to do with being a violent person when you have your own family? Apparently Charles Manson played a lot of video games, or Mr. Berberian doesn’t know what he’s talking about. His idea behind the video game trade-in doesn’t make any logical sense.

Do you agree that Marin County’s video game trade-in incentive is simply propaganda by misguided activists?

[image via Fanpop, Call of Duty]