Pixel International Conferences

The use of video games has given rise to a long debate, involving scholars and public opinion. In particular, shooting games are often accused because of their violent contents and there are fears that players can be led to replicate them in the reality.
Based on a close examination of the literature (review of sectorial and statistical studies validated internationally), an accurate and immersive study of/into video games and some experimentations with students in training, the authors of the present research aim to highlight the following points:

action video games, thanks to their complex architecture, can foster experiential learning and the developing of cognitive abilities;

serious games seem less likely to generate learning because of their explicit educational intent;

violent video games should not be labeled as potentially dangerous for the development of ethics and values of young people both because the lack of scientific evidences supporting this analysis and because the relation between this genre of games and the educational context has not been sufficiently investigated.

On the last point we need to focus more attention. Indeed, the presence of ferocious images, of aggressive behaviours or extreme situations are not indicators of harmful education; on the contrary, the chance to experiment death into a “protected” environment or to “live” challenging contexts can be related to the classical tradition of coming-of-age story.
Furthermore, fables have always been characterized by violence; from Little Red Riding Hood to Bluebeard, death is always linked with blood and sadism.
It is unclear, therefore, the reason why through coming-of-age story it is possible to develop a moral sense from the observation of evil as well as good and, instead, this is denied to shooting games.
In the literary field, Atwood, Cline or Tartt’s dystopias are celebrated, whereas in the video games field products like Grand Theft Auto continue to be demonized.
Therefore, the proposal is to reinterpret violent games through an educational perspective since, when properly contextualized, these games can offer a lot more opportunities of ethical reflection compared to games like serious games.

Keywords: learning games; action video games; violent video games; education; bildungsroman;