The Connection Between Virtual Reality in Video Games and The Real World

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN VIRTUAL REALITY IN VIDEO GAMES AND THE REAL WORLD
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The Connection Between Virtual Reality in Video Games and The Real World
On the 5^th of August in 2019, following the El Paso and Dayton gun massacres that leftover 30 victims dead (Griffin, 2019), President Donald Trump claimed that ‘gruesome and grisly’ video games are partly to blame for the act of terror. In 2018, following the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida (Sommerlad, 2018), the president criticized the gaming culture stating that youth have access to violent and bloodshed content through video games. Essentially, the president suggested that the virtual world in video games affects the real world. However, critics of the president’s perceived attack on the video games industry argue the reverse (Denham et al., 2019); the natural world shapes the violence and bloodshed in video games. While the two points of view may appear contradictory, they agree that what gamers see in the virtual world is connected to the real world. Based on this premise, the current paper will compare the differences between the virtual and real-world, establish how they influence each other, and determine the existing link between them that brings about the connection.
Comparisons Between Real and Virtual World
A virtual world is a computer-simulated representation of a world based on specific physical and spatial characteristics (Lavoie et al., 2021). In this world, users interact with each other through avatars, a representation of themselves. The virtual world differs significantly from traditional video games in terms of objectives. In traditional video games, the users live with the reality of an ultimate game goal. Some goals include winning a tournament (where sports are involved) and defeating all the level bosses, or just winning the game. In contrast, playing in the virtual world is an end in itself because users will continue playing for as long as the virtual world exists. Here, the objective is to play continuously, interact with other users, and establish an experience or status within the virtual world.
In contrast, the natural world refers to the reality people face daily. These include social interactions, domestic, work- and education-related activities, including physical and mental structures, infrastructure, nature, machinery, equipment, tools, processes, and systems that simplify the hardships of life. At its core, a virtual world is often a representation of the actual world based on the definition by Lavoie et al. (2021). Therefore, the key differences between the virtual and real world are that the realities in the latter must be addressed as a basic form of human survival. In contrast, realities are just products of computer constructs that depend on creators and users to exist in the former. Based on this distinction, it can be argued that the existence of a virtual world depends on the existence of the real world. The real world is the basis on which a virtual world is constructed and expanded.