Emerald Young

Writing 2

Wilson

22 Mar 2017

WARNING!

Youre walking down an eerie alleyway on a dark night, with the moon being your only

source of light. You turn the corner, and what do you see? Dead bodies littered everywhere. Vast

amounts of blood, abnormally big-breasted females, and an unending stream of curse words are

the norm in many mature rated video games. But did you know playing such games could have

adverse effects on you? Of course you didnt. Without anyone warning you, how would you

know? By translating Gabbiadinis research article, Acting like a Tough Guy: Violent-Sexist

Video Games, Identification with Game Characters, Masculine Beliefs, & Empathy for Female

Violence Victims, into a warning label on the packaging of the video game, I would get the

message across to a greater audience of the potential dangers of mature video games. I utilized

my understanding of conventions and their audience along with previous readings in an attempt

to create a warning label with the same purpose as Gabbiadinis article.

So why a warning label? Well for starters, how many people would read a research article

before playing a game? Not many I would assume. Gabbiadini and his team did important

research on the negative effects of violent-sexist video games and wishes to raise awareness of

the effects. However, he cant do so by just writing a research paper. As a gamer myself, I

wouldnt spend hours trying to understand a scientific paper before playing a game. I would want

to jump straight into a game. By translating Gabbiadinis paper to a warning label, it can more

easily bring to light, the unforeseen dangers of playing mature games without having to read
pages of text. Placed directly on the packaging of any game, the warning label is something no

one ignores, forcing gamers to read before playing.

When gamers get their hands on a newly released game, they wouldnt want to waste

more time by reading research papers filled with scientific jargon. Instead, they want to jump

straight into the game. Based on what I know of the gaming community and off of Ann Johns

text, Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice, I inferred that translating the

research into a warning label was the most effective method. [Genres] are representative of the

values, needs, and practices of the community that produces them (Johns). The need of gamers

is time. They dont waste time to get their hands dirty, they jump directly into business. How

long would it take someone to comprehend text like this, a simple slope analyses showed a

significant positive relationship between identification with the game character and masculine

beliefs for males who played with a violent-sexist game (b = .32, SE = .12, t(62) = 2.65, p =

.009) (Gabbiadini). Assuming that gamers can understand it, what do they do with the

information. No one wants to waste time connecting dots, even if their own mental state is at

risk. Therefore, Insecurities and Decreased Empathy, keywords is all you need to get the

message across.

It was very challenging to bring over the message from the research paper onto a short, 4

lined warning label. There are pages upon pages of scientific studies and reports while warning

labels have the most restricting format, four lines of short and simple text. After reading William

Zinssers piece Simplicity, I was inspired. What other approach was there other than to take

the key concepts. As Zinsser says, clear our heads of clutter. Clear thinking becomes clear

writing. (Zinsser). Push away all the useless information and focus on the big picture. Taking

the elaborate research, this reduction in empathy partly occurs because video games such as
GTA increase masculine beliefs, such as beliefs that real men are tough, dominant, and

aggressive, (Gabbiadini), and transforming it into direct phrases, Masculine beliefs and

Female Victimization, makes the information more understandable and concise while keeping

the major points of the research. Conciseness is key to delivering ideas without wasting words.

However, after all the time I spent contemplating of which important information to

include, I concluded that translating a scientific research paper into a warning label may not be

the best idea. Warning labels do get the message across, they warn the audience of potential

dangers, but there is too much information missing. Research papers are packed full of

information, as difficult to understand as they might be. Transferring information from the paper

to a label leaves out too much important information which changes the purpose of the whole

thing. Gabbiadini wanted to report his findings which supported his hypothesis of the negative

effects of violent-sexist video games. Warning labels merely state the dangers and are easily

overlooked. So perhaps you could think of something. Something that warns and includes all the

necessary information needed to keep gamers safe.

 Works Cited

Gabbiadini, Alessandro, et al. "Acting Like a Tough Guy: Violent-Sexist Video Games,

Identification with Game Characters, Masculine Beliefs, & Empathy for Female Violence

Victims." Plos ONE, vol. 11, no. 4, 13 Apr. 2016, pp. 1-14. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0152121.

Johns, Ann M. Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict,

and Diversity. Text, Role, and Context: developing Academic Literacies. Cambridge,

New York: Cambridge UP, 1997. 51-70. Print.

Zinsser, W., 1980. Simplicity. In On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing

Nonfiction. New York: Harper & Row.