Crossbows are increasing in popularity for use in legal game hunting across the United States. This has invigorated a lagging industry by attracting younger, technology-savvy hunters into a traditional sport. But the use of crossbows for hunting is not without controversy.

A new generation is familiar with crossbows in part because video games have depicted the crossbow, with an estimated 274 video games having crossbows as a feature. As far back as 1983, the first arcade game to use fully digitized sound and speech, Crossbow, featured a shooting device that was a real-looking crossbow.

Even the newest videos games feature crossbows. The latest addition to the Assassin's Creed video gaming series — Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag — was released Oct. 29 and received a 9 out of 10 rating by GameSpot. Throughout the series, numerous characters have used crossbows.

Modern hunting and animal herd management cycles may need hunters embracing crossbow technology. A century ago, the hunt for game was critical for survival and was not considered sport but a crucial part of providing food to feed a family.

Over decades, the regulation of hunting to assure adequate survival of herds has evolved, and the revenue from hunting licenses has become an important source of revenue to support game management agencies. Due to the dwindling numbers of skilled hunters in traditional bow hunting and the ever-increasing animosity to guns of any sort, crossbow hunting has been viewed by some as an invigoration of sport game hunting.

One such skilled hunter is Ohio's wildlife management chief, Dave Risley, who is among the 140,000 hunters using a crossbow. The use of crossbows for the four-month archery hunting season has been allowed since 1984.

"Crossbows allow hunters to get out in the woods more often, and allow them to be more successful hunters," Risley said. "For wildlife managers trying to kill as many deer as possible, crossbows have become a necessary tool."

William Hovey Smith discussed crossbow use in the Sportman's Guide, pointing out that ”crossbows are not guns or bows, but a sort of combination with a few advantages and a number of limitations."

Advantages include: less required strength, the ability to shoot from a rest and the ability to more accurately hold fixation of a target enabling a more precise hit at close range. The video gaming world describes a crossbow as a "rifle-like thrower of bolts/arrows," and the similarities to rifles are also why many established bow hunters view the crossbow as having a negative impact for traditional archers.

Crossbows have components drawn from rifle technology, such as telescopic sights and machined triggers. Adding to this are computer-based tracking systems, demonstrating the willingness of crossbow users to embrace technology.

This new technology is finding its place. The crossbow season for some states is within the hunting season for archers, in others it is in the season for rifles. How and where crossbows fit is controversial, as shown by Ed Wentzler, the legislative director for United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania.

"Archery equipment should be defined as implements that are held by hand, drawn by hand and released by the motion of the hand in the presence of game," Wentzler said. "If you are shooting a crossbow, you are not drawing the string in the presence of game. That alone gives crossbow shooters an unfair advantage. It is not bowhunting."

Steve Sukut, an officer with the Montana Bowhunters Association acknowledges that regions have different issues and differing game management goals. He compared the hunt of whitetails and the hunt of elk. Crossbows are only considered legal in Montana during the firearms hunting season, and this takes into consideration success rates with the technology and the balance of season length.

Tradition and technology are often steeped in controversy. Established ways being challenged by new innovations are phenomena older than the crossbow and even older than the arrow.