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BC Scraps Mandatory Video Game Ratings
antarctican writes: "In their first intelligent move, the new government of British Columbia has scrapped
the mandatory video game rating system which was brought into effect last year. At last some sanity in this attempt to rid youth of these e-v-i-l influences.... *smirk* We can only hope others in positions of authority come to their senses too." But we must protect the children!
Yet they should be fair. You mean to tell me you cannot come up with a game that would be considered innapropriate for young children?
Climb into my wayback machine.
The atari 2600 had a game named porky's. It wasn't based on porky pig it was based on a teen comedy movie that played heavily on sexualy deviant behavior. Apologies if I start sounding like the lesbo girls coach from the movie.
Anyways scene's included nudity, someone sticking their penis in a hole in the wall (only to be nearly ripped off by the female lesbo coach on the other side) and prostitution. Some of these elements were integrated into the 2600 game of the same name. It didn't look like anything XXX because the atari only did like 160x120 in 4 colors.
Take the wayback machine to present day.
The level of graphics today are coming closer and closer to reality. Now imagine a remake of porky's based on today's hardware. I wouldn't want my 6 year old nephew to play a game like that on his PS2. C'mon be real here, some material is really innapropriate for kids to see, imagine a game with japanese rape tenticle scene's in it (which I have seen DVD's of conviently placed next to the GAMES section) Video games can be just as addictive as nicotine, more so if there is japanese rape tenticle scenes and boobs involved. Sorry, don't mean to focus so much on those japanese rape tenticle scenes (sorta thing that sticks in your head once you have seen it) but I hope I made a good point.
I have a (now) 9 year old son. I used to believe that it didn't matter what was in the games he played, he would be who he was, he knew right from wrong, and reality from fantasy.
In the third grade (8yo), he was given several very violent games which he quickly mastered and played as much as he could. He also started getting in trouble at school with fighting and writing violent compositions. As a test, we took the violent games away. Within a few weeks, the violent behaviour ceased, too.
Some months later I convinced my wife to try again, to see if he went back to acting violently if we gave him his games back. It only took a week and he was in trouble at school again. We took the games away and guess what? The violent behaviour went away.
I'm not sure at what age a persons personality is fixed, but it certainly isn't for youngsters. I back the ratings systems. We rely on them. I think BC is making a mistake.
I really think it's time that we all need to make a real effort to protect the children...
Protect them from growing up in a world of censorship and enforced lowest-common-denominator morality.