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Mature Video Games in the Minority
Steve writes "Of the record breaking $7.3 billion in video games sold in 2004, only 18 percent of them were rated "M". This is surprising, considering some media watch groups have great concern over inappropriate video games landing in the hands of children, even claiming that 60-90 percent of video games have violent themes. Filefront uncovers the real trend and includes quotes from ESRB President Patricia Vance."
Well, also consider that, on top of torturing animals, Mario also committed arson, ate magic mushrooms, raided gold coin caches, etc.
He sounds more like a criminal to me...
All Mario games should be offlimits to children everywhere.
Oh god not that argument. Please.
A parent defines what is inappropriate. Every parent has different views of what is appropriate and not. If a parent continually finds their child in possession of "inappropriate" materials then obviously the parent isn't parenting. Don't feel like sitting with your kid while they play X-Box? Then don't buy them an X-Box. Sheesh, it's really not that difficult.
I hate people who want to be lazy parents and force the government to do the parenting for them. Oh, and btw, I have 4 kids (two are teenagers), 2 pc's, an N64 and an X-Box so I know for a fact that these types of arguments are nothing but an excuse for laziness. If people don't want to supervise their kids then thats their problem, not everyone elses.
The article claims that the watchdog groups say 60-90% of ALL games are violent, however what the page actually says is 60-90% of THE MOST POPULAR games are violent. This sounds more believable to me, when you factor in GTA and HALO's marketshare.
This is not to say I'm siding with the watchdog, because it's an even less useful point then the misquote. Video games that are popular are popular because people buy them. If people are buying violent video games more then others, that's not the manufacturer or retailer or anybody's fault but the buyer's. Manufacturers make what people want them to make, or else they'd make no money.
I definately agree with the article's claims that these watchdog groups are incredibly out of touch with what parents want. I worked in retail last christmas, and on one of our busiest days of the season a group of 6 or 7 'violent-game protesters' came into the store. They were all women, probably 60-70 years old, and they kept chanting about how video games make our kids violent. I kept wanting to remind them that it was their generation that participated in world war 2, korea, and vietnam, not mine. And it's their generation right now that's invading Iraq and showing us that, apparently, the only way to solve some problems is through violence. See? I can generalize too.
These 'watchdog' groups piss me off.
Not having an "M" rating doesn't mean it doesn't have a violent theme. Medal of Honor is rated "T" and it looks like it's based on a violent theme. The fact it has no blood doesn't make it any less violent: You're still shooting people and they still scream in pain.
R* games seem to revel in being the violent and edgy game company, whereas lucasarts are reknown for thier familyesque non-violence (non-human death).
Carmagedon the original sprite based version was banned in Germany, but I haven;t heard too many reports of games being banned now.
The huge ammount of FPS and RTS games being developed would make me question those stats - but I am not an advocate of violent games for children.
I realised that NO WAY in hell would I let my 11 year old nephew play GTA:SA. He plays soul blade and other fighting games, but this is different stuff.
Fighter against fighter, a match, a game, like boxing.
GTA:SA allows for free roaming and killing of innocents. I think it is hypocritical for R* to not place child models in the game, if somehow the proportional dimensions of the vertices makes a difference. They are walking a fine line. I do not see the peds in GTA:SA as innocent people, I just see them as utter bastards who would sooner steal my car as be mowed down by my gatling gun (nuttertools - cheat for nice weapons [gta:vc]).
Other adult themes (non-violent) are a little quaint in GTA:SA, and probably put in there as to say, hey, movies are violent, and movies contain sex, if we make our game contain sex, then you cannot complain about the violence.
People worry about the interactivity of violence in games, I did a small study into students attitudes, and those who thought games were too violent showed no more concern for violent games and children than those who didn't think games were too violent.
So, let games contain violent (yet fun) themes. I wouldn't particularly like a game that was violent but not fun, IMHO GTA isn't even violent, it is a depiction of violence on a non-realistic, joking scale. It isn't harmful (the other content is - I would happily let my nephew play a game where you could shoot people or accidentally run them all down!)
If you think about it, it makes sense.
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I don't think TFA, the slashdot editor or the filefront writer knows what the hell to think about all this. ("Mature Video Games in the Minority"?) Who fucking cares? Even if it were true that games inappropriate for kids are in the majority, so what? That's true for movies, music and books.
I mean that's a nice bit of bullshit statistics, that "60-90%" figure, but even if it were even remotely relevant the picture is clear as mud. For example, let's say that 60-90% of games (popular or no) "have violent themes", the first question you have to ask is what percentage of gamers are old enough that it doesn't make a damn difference (maybe 60-90% of gamers are over 18)? Next you have to ask what 60-90% of parents think constitutes "violent themes" - maybe your group's views represent only 10-40% of the population, if that. Next you could ask who buys more games - 20-somethings or (parents of) 8-year-olds (seems to me that I buy a hell of a lot more games for myself then my mom ever bought for me)? And so on, et cetera, ad nauseum.
Reading TFA's I have to ask: what the hell does the "watchdog group" (and their ilk) think should be done (or: what do they recommend in their "holiday warnings")? The games are clearly labelled with a big sticker on the front, and plenty more info on the back. And even if you think the labels are bullshit, the store employees are happy to give you more info if you really want it. Any parent stupid enough to hand their kid $50 and send them into EB without even looking into what they're getting doesn't deserve a voice in this debate - same goes for parents who bought the game themselves without doing proper research. Eliminate those numbnuts and what's the problem? What else would they have done?
That whole mediafamily.org page is just a scattershot of random facts without context, mixed up with a steaming, piled helping of bullshit. Why the hell is it being used for a reference anyway - it's like 3 goddamn years old? As for the filefront article, the spokeslady/president gamely tries to explain away the kooks, but the kooks shouldn't have been given any attention to begin with. The whole thing is just a waste of everyone's time... except for one tiny point:
Very good point, and true almost anywhere I can think of. Maybe video game stores having a children's section should be the norm. But what the hell does sniping at the ESRB do to make that happen?
It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys.