Is virtual violence real violence?

Many years ago I started playing violent video games. That was around the age of ten in my case sometime in the late 90's. I've heard that many of friends started to play games like Quake and Doom well earlier and later on as teenagers played quite regularly GTA IV which most people would condemn outright. Nonetheless that the history I grew up with, playing the first GTA with my friends, fighting my way in Virtua Fighter 2 on Sega Saturn, controlling medieval armies in Shogun: Total War. Still, I can only imagine today's youth who from a very early age grew up with games like Halo and Call of Duty, a totally mind-blowing advance in realism compared to the 2D graphics of early GTA series.

For all that I can gather, many online players of Cod are under aged when it comes to the age rating system of games introduced by Mortal Kombat's finishing moves. However I'm not saying they are responsible but their parents are. When it comes to exposing youngsters to violent images and sounds of gaming - TV is already full of such content to the max - gaming usually takes it one step further with the interactive approach. If parents' feel their children are fit to take a dose of virtual violence every once in a while as if it was no big deal, surely, the problem is greater than one might fathom at first glance.

As for myself, I do not feel particularly violent. I don't seem to have any mental problems (that I know of) that could have a negative affect and add to that I don't take a cocktail of prescription antidepressants that could severely affect my judgment. Still, more are more children feel the anxiety and stress in their lives in a way that many can perceive - yet they are treated or their symptoms are treated with sometimes too extreme measures. Ok, I admit. I'm digressing. I believe the games themselves don't make anybody violent per se, but a fatal combination of negative reinforcement from mixed sources can lead to a violent behaviour. However, I still argue whether violent games give an image of life that we, human species, would like to promote in our future attempt of coexistence and harmony. These games uphold certain values, certain division of man into us and them, friend and foe, even though, once stripped of our differences, we are more alike. But that a whole other issue about global "divide and conquer" policies that the elite enforces through pop culture and media.

We should ask whether virtual violence is real violence. If there is a war between different beliefs, surely we can thus agree that virtual violence would qualify as real as physical violence with the difference of happening in an alternative plain of existence.