What Little Video Game Violence Does to Prepare Us for the Real Thing

We see a lot of violence in video games. We’ve seen needles thrusted into eyeballs, entrails spilled out of ripped open torsos, and monsters chainsawed into or blown into pieces. When we pull off these gruesome stunts in our favorite games, it’s often accompanied by a nervous chuckle, or maybe a complete about-face from the television. And even in those instances where such violence is sought after, for age appropriate players, there’s a clear understanding about how ludicrous and far from reality these extreme depictions of gratuitousness is. But it’s when we see this level of violence take a realistic form in either film or real life, that it becomes deeply unsettling.