The argument is often made that the difference is that games offer you the opportunity to engage first hand in acts of violence or sexual situations, and therefore must be treated as a possible trigger for destructive behaviors. But as comedian David Cross once famously asked, “What were the violent video games that Hitler played as a kid?”

The point being made is that complicated issues are rarely explained by oversimplification and scapegoating. Violence, and people’s attitudes towards other people are rarely a reaction to art, but art usually is a reaction to violence and ignorance and therefore a very necessary part of human culture. Humans are by nature violent, and obsessed with sex. It’s in our DNA to be aggressive. Society has bred us to be different from what our instincts tell us, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is what it is.

As cavemen we were driven to procreate as much as possible in order to keep our gene pool alive, giving our tribes a better chance for survival. Likewise, if something threatened our existence we were driven to protect ourselves and those around us from harm. Human nature and instinct are so deeply ingrained in us that you can’t expect a few thousand years of civility to change that.

If anything, video games allow people to live out those instincts without fear of repercussions, and therefore should be viewed as a healthy outlet for the darker side of humanity that cannot be suppressed. But that is just my opinion, and I am willing to say without a problem that which is my opinion (I’m a evolutionist obviously). The problem with the media is that often times opinion is presented as fact, mixed with inaccuracies presented as facts, with perhaps a fact or two mixed in, and packaged into a two-minute format that is heavily influenced by the powers that be.

The current industries of old; television, movies and newsprint, are all aware. They are aware of the movement which video games represent in the new millenium as a vehicle for evolving the mediums they began. $18.85 billion dollars can’t be ignored. Television and movies have held the crown for storytelling since the playhouses took a back seat to the technology that emerged in the 20th century. Music has been a primary source of emotional venting, core to how we relate to the outside world and newspapers have told the story of what was happening in a rapidly changing world. Video games affect the bottom line of all these industries.

Technology is evolving so quickly that the old guard is being put to rest right now. This is a trasformative time, a transition period between what was, and what will be. Video games represent a catalyst for that change in the same way the internet does, and they’re scared to death of that change.

The rise of the internet, people’s access to alternative forms of media distribution, and the ease with which people are getting this stuff scares the hell out of them. Fox doesn’t want you to spend 30 hours playing “Mass Effect” because that’s 15 movies you didn’t watch. Or 30-60 shows you didn’t see. And that’s revenue out of their pockets.

And that’s the bottom line.

[See also: Mass Effect gallery]