ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nature and role of games from several angles. Studies of digital games often draw upon a wider category of human play studies that have long sought to understand the role of gaming in social and personal life. Combat-based digital games are carrying militainment to new levels, while at the same time video games are being used by the military for both recruitment purposes and actual combat training. The most common form of criticism is to point out that a certain mass murderer spent a lot of time playing violent video games. This is an example of what social theorists call mistaking a correlation for a causality. Millions and millions of young men all over the world play violent video games, and do not commit acts of murder. Some statistics can illustrate the core of the gender imbalance. Both females and males are being victimized by game-world representations, though hardly in equal ways.
