Um...

I often wonder if my video game habits in my youth have squandered a great deal of my creativity and replaced it a new kind of creativity that is, if not purely violence oriented, very much action oriented.
I love stories about midieval wars and such. I like incorporating some epic battle into every story (Even I don't always do it) and my interest in books withoutsimilar reference is faded.

On the other side of the coin, I may just be me.

In any case, video games do affect the minds of children because they're introduced at early ages. They are an influental part of a child's life if the child plays them like I did (Over 2 hours a day. Believe it. And lot's of kids still do that)
I was raised on Final Fantasy. I think that the translations should have never been altered because I learned lots of vocabulary words through it that most young children wouldn't know (impertinent, equip, etc.) I wrote fanfiction about it when I was 10, and I wouldn't doubt for an instant that it played a role in what kind of person I am today (I'm a Light Warrior).

So here's the thing. Video games couldn't have turned me into a killer. When the knight attacks a creep, his sword swings into the wind, some scribbles appear over the creep, and a box of numbers appears to indicate damage done numerically.

In modern games, people are using guns (Which they use today. Modern video games often leave the fantasy world, so there is often a bit of realism) . In modern games, the character played is not always (Not even often) an epic "Light Warrior" on a quest to save the world. Most FPS games (Which have been wildly popular) are games which hone skill and strategy with a gun. You go around and kill people, and the games are pretty plotless.

Now, I can only assume that if I was so influenced by a game like Final Fantasy (Zelda, Battle of Olympus...), then kids will be influenced by whatever they play today. It will affect their creativity, it will affect the way they think, and it will affect their view of the world as we know it.
And so the children will emulate it, just as I emulated video games in the imaginary world in my back yard, and if a child starts emulating the wrong game, then there's a problem.

I'm sure it happens.

But I just wanted to stick this in there since this is a video game forum and there's not likely going to be many people to stick up for anything in the article here.

I don't really think that video games are entirely to blame. Like any killer or criminal, those actions are largely the results of bad parental care and, more importantly, simply a weak mind. As somebody has said, a parent really should be able to regulate their child's video game playing. At least to some extent. And the idea that video games are transforming our kids into bloodthirsty monsters or brainwashed minions of Japan is an issue that still has another decade before we'll be desperate to solve it.
Lack of discipline is an enormous problem in American culture today. That is what we need to worry about, and that is the heading under which the video game influence and tragedies should be.