Edit - Lotta video game apologists in this thread. Look past your capitalist dependency on causing violence to other people/animals, and recognize what you’re doing. Stop Video Games.
Video Games are a media (superstructure) that reflect the economic base we live in. It is part of the cultural hegemony we live under, that the state uses to justify itself and capitalism.
Violence is an inherent part of this ideological propaganda apparatus (along with patriarchy, racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, anti-communism, capitalist normalization etc.)
All media influences the people that receive it. It is “pure liberalism” to believe it does not. If you’re a Marxist, you must stand against video games under capitalism.
To be honest I think a big part of the reason violence is the default mode of video games is because it was and is the easiest thing to effectively simulate. It is much simpler to instruct a little digital goblin to dodge bullets and hurl fireballs than it is to simulate a matrix of personality and beliefs for the player to contest in the free marketplace of ideals. Yes, we still have dialogue driven games, but character behaviors can’t be simulated in any sensible manner. It’s difficult to the point of madness or goofiness to have them respond dynamically to the player rather than only recognizing a set of given dialogue options (see Facade), which means a severely limited scope.
F.E.A.R. is a good example of this. The AIs use a relatively simple set of rules-based commands that result in complex emergent behavior. They’ll do all kinds of cool tactical shit that looks like planning and intelligence to the player, but under the hood it’s governed by a couple of rules like “seek cover” “shoot at the player” “circle around the player”.
