Megapopular streamer Ninja disagrees with President Donald Trump's claims that video games are at the heart of the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas, stating that "Violence, it's not video games."
Ninja, who recently took a deal to stream exclusively on Mixer earlier this month, definitely speaks from experience. As one of the most popular streamers in the world, he plays video games daily for a living, including games that feature a lot of guns and violence.
Tyler Blevins told TMZ what he thinks about pushing the blame for the tragedies on video games. "Come on, man. Have you seen Minecraft? What's violent about Minecraft, bro? Nothing, man." Ninja goes on to say that the violence doesn't come from video games, and "It's just how it is, man." As someone that plays video games for hours on end for millions of viewers, Ninja has a lot of anecdotal evidence to back up his claims.
Ninja is not the first person to call out President Trump's statement that violent video games are at the heart of the mass shootings. Take-Two's CEO also took issue with the statement, saying that "the fact is entertainment is consumed world-wide...but gun violence is uniquely American." Gun violence being blamed on violent video games and other media is nothing new, but the debate has recently been revived due to the President's comments that "We must stop the glorification of violence in our society."
The argument that video games cause violence is ripped straight from the 90s. There is enough data regarding violent media to know that this isn't the cause of the mass shootings. It remains to be seen if any legislation will be introduced to attempt to regulate violent media as has been threatened by some politicians in the past.
Source: TMZ