A Plea To Game Makers To Act Responsibly?

Thanks to AVault for its editorial discussing the responsibility videogame makers have to use their powers for 'good'. The author expresses concern about games' influence on the young: "My love of digital maiming is tempered by the fact that, at this stage of my life, I can tell right from wrong. I have a fully developed set of ethics. I wouldn't say my nine-year-old nephew has quite had the time to develop these tools." The article ends with the exhortation: "Developers and publishers, hear my plea: start injecting a strong sense of right and wrong into your stories. I don't want you to pull back on the gibs, I don't want anything more than a stronger sense of ethics and perhaps a small dose of moral fiber. Take into account the fact that kids are playing, no matter that they shouldn't be."

Comments

I Have A Solution

[BigDork1001]

"I have a fully developed set of ethics. I wouldn't say my nine-year-old nephew has quite had the time to develop these tools."

Gee, maybe your 9 year old shouldn't be playing Grand Theft Auto. It's more the parent/guardian's responsiblity to ensure that their kids aren't playing violent games than it is the game makers.

Re:I Have A Solution

[fireduck]

Parents, no matter how diligent, can not watch over their children every second of the day.

No, but when the kid comes home from playing GTA at the friend's house and says "Parent, I really want to get this game": Parent says "No."

The author of the article presents this situation, with his nephew now wanting to get this game that he played at a friends house. However, rather than take it the final step (i.e., parent saying no), the author goes into "hey game makers, change your games" land. Obviously parents can't be there 100% of the time, but when they are there they have to be a parent. And being a parent means saying no, quite frequently. Why the author doesn't see this, I don't know.

Kids are exposed to all sorts of "bad" things and parents do their best to mitigate any real or supposed damage by setting barriers, guidelines, rules and having discussions with their children.

It this author wants a better target to go after, why not start with soda / junk food vending machines at our schools. Kids spend more time in school than they do anywhere else (including playing video games). And childhood obesity is, without any doubt, a bigger problem than violent video games.

Re:I Have A Solution

[msuzio]

Thinking that monitoring your child every second is the solution to anything is ridiculous in any case. I don't care if we're talking drugs, alcohol, violent video games, or Scientology. You can't always be there, and you shouldn't expect to be. You have to develop a parenting strategy that does not rely on monitoring for compliance and safety.

When I was growing up, my parents never even knew where I was most of the time. I went out to play on a typical summer day, and wandered around the neighborhood hanging out with friends. I wasn't expected back until dinner time.

Somehow, I managed to come out of it OK. Sure, I saw the porno mags Timmy Smith had stolen from his dad's stash. I smoked a couple cigarettes when I was 12. I saw my friend's brother smoke dope (never tried it myself until I was well past the age of majority). But my parents had done their job in educating me pretty well in their sense of what was right and wrong. Even when I did things I knew they wouldn't approve of, I was able to consider those things in the moral structure they thought I should be educated in. I could ask myself "Why is what I'm doing wrong? Should I not be doing this?". I developed the ability to make my own decisions, and I had enough common sense to not get in over my head.

This is, to me, the only way to go. Don't try to control your kids. Don't make other people responsible for that task either. Do the best you can, take advantage of all the times your kids are with you to point out the moral issues of life and provide your perspective. Accept that they will make mistakes; if you think it's appropriate, administer discipline when they go against "the rules", but understand that this is all part of the learning process too.

Please, people. Produce thinkers, not mindless drones who have to be saved from themselves constantly. Insist on personal moral responsibility and accountability. Anything else is a cop-out. Even a very young child is capable of understanding "right" vs. "wrong" and knowing when they are breaking "the rules".

I don't think this is reasonable

[AtariAmarok]

"Take into account the fact that kids are playing, no matter that they shouldn't be."

So, should Quentin Tarantino take into account that kids are watching "Kill Bill", and Playboy similarly tailor itself to be kid-friendly? I don't think so.

Blah, parents, yawn

[Leffe]

The author expresses concern about games' influence on the young

What the hell are the parents doing?!

Article: -1 Redundant/Flamebait

[tprime]

Don't we get at least 2 of this type of article on this site per week? It seems like I am always reading the:

"It is the parents' job to teach their kids wrong and right, not the video games."

All these articles are good for is getting gamers upset. Call it Flamebait or a Troll or whatever, but these articles are getting Redundant.

Arrgh

[American AC in Paris]

All right. I make games for all ages. I dislike violence, and I take pains to make my games no worse than a Road Runner cartoon. Violence in video games doesn't really do anything for me--there are a number of violent games I enjoy, but I enjoy them for gameplay reasons, not because you can disintegrate opponents with a mortar round.

That said, I really don't have a problem with developers and publishers making violent games. Similarly, I don't have a problem with publishers who distribute violent books. I don't shun museums for displaying various garish incarnations of St. Sebastian on their walls. I am one of the vast majority of people--young and old alike--who can distinguish fantasy from reality, and are able to appreciate that the character being crushed by a tank on the game screen is not a real person.

You'll find no lack of people here on Slashdot who played games like Smash TV, N.A.R.C., and Doom as a kid. Staggeringly enough, the vast majority of us are perfectly well aware of the fact that in the Real World, one does not drive a Ferrari at 100 mph on a bridge whilst mowing down junkies, firing rocket launchers, and gathering cash and drugs.

I'm tiring of those who advocate solving the problems of the few by restricting the options of the whole. Let us use our own judgement, for Pete's sake.

Start in the right place.......

[MrIrwin]

......first the politicians should show a capability to use thier powers responsibily.

Then the international corporations.

Then we might start childing games manufacturers.

Sigh! Death of our children, film at 11.

[elp]

Things I remember from growing up:

Superman comics were going to make children tie bed sheets around our necks and jump off the garage roof. The A-Team was going to make children turn violent. Rock music was going to turn us into Satanists. Sweet alcoholic drinks were going to turn the young into alcoholics. The ice-cream man was really a slipping LSD into their ice-cream to turn them into addicts, but only if the punch given to them at Halloween didn't do it instead, and don't forget about all the pedophiles that were just waiting for children in every chat room.

In other words everything that is even remotely popular is somehow going to absolutely destroy the lives of children everywhere.

Articles like this are good for quiet news weeks. In a year or 2 they will be about something new that is also going to end life as we know it. (The evils of golf or something)

I would also hazard a guess that people who came from homes way too poor for them to have ever been exposed to DOOM, GTA etc, commit most of the violent crime.