I have never been one to actually play overly violent video games, especially ones that use guns as the primary weapons. Growing up I did play a little bit of one of the Grand Theft Auto games with my brother, but I grew out of that game fairly quickly.
So while I am not very familiar with these types of video games, the first ones that stand out when trying to think of any examples of gun violence in games that was probably encouraged by an emphasis on masculinity and militarism are games like Call of Duty and any of the Grand Theft Auto games. These two games scream masculinity when I think of them. With GTA, I remember some scenes where they very negatively portrayed women, as well as made fun of the main character in order to get "him" to act in more manly ways.
However, Call of Duty definitely ties into the militarism aspect as well as the masculinity aspect. Even the title for Call Of Duty: Heroes game reeks of masculity. Masculinity is often times associated with the need for men to be "heroic" so having a game like this with the word "Heroes" directly in the title just shows how much of a male dominated segment of the industry this is.
I do believe that the marketing of weapons through video games does indeed warrant concern. Many people play these games and, just as it was said in Joystick Warriors, there is an increasing number of children who play these games now and can EASILY tell you the difference between the different types and calibers of guns. And that right there is just incredibly frightening. This type of information should not be so easily available to children, in my opinion. Especially, when many of them will not ever be educated on the dangers of gun ownership and proper safety training and gun handling.
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