Parents Need To Be Informed

GamerDad writes "Dave Long looks at the recent gaming controversy and lays the blame squarely on the parents. 'If you didn't talk to them about this game before buying it for your child, then you chose to be uninformed and there's nothing myself, the game maker, the retailer or the government can do to help you. The information is out there. In fact, it's right here on GamerDad. Be smarter next time and take a couple minutes to check it out.'"

Comments

Use common sense and TALK to our kids?

[BlackCobra43]

Where's the fantastic lawsuit opportunities in THAT? It'll never fly.

More like "ObviousDad".

[Seumas]

So parents should assume responsibility for the entertainment their kids consume? Duh.

Really, worrying about videogames should be the bottom of your list. Your kids will encounter far worse influences and situations and threats just going to school every day. Kids aren't stupid. I remember being a kid and tits never warped me or turned me into a sadistic sex fiend (something else is to blame for that). Violent games and television didn't turn me into Manson or a highway sniper. Have some common sense and realize that your kids understand media far better than you ever will and your fears are baseless and stupid.

Seriously, what videogame out there has or could turn any normal kid into a sadistic killer or something, unless he's a fucking deranged ass from a totally dysfunctional and useless family in the first place? Getting a divorce or smacking your spouse around does a million times the damage to a kid that every ounce of television and videogame violence and sex combined could ever do.

Re:More like "ObviousDad".

[AvitarX]

I know of a few that hve trouble distinguishing reality to a point.

ex 1: wrestling real vs fake. I had arguments into highschool about that one (in fact I be tthe person still thinks it is real)

ex 2: own strength vs professionals. I have an uncle that in a fund raiser paid $20.00 to fight a boxer for a minute (one of the big namesforget who). He said he was getting beet up but thought he was holding his own and very proud. 5 seconds fromt eh end of the time he hears "bite hard" and the next thing he remembers is gainin conciousness. The uy could of KO's in a matter of seconds if he wanted. As a follow up my little brother thinks that his little legue team could field well enough to play agains pros (as long as they had a pitching machine). This was expressed to me in complete sentances.

ex 3: when young and watching Macuyver I thought a lot of stuff that was going on was possible, possibly into my early teens even. That is a clear bluring of the lines of fantasy and reality.

less specifically: younger people do play these games and do get distorted perceptions of reality. There is definatly a bluring between game vs simulation and people do play these games thinking they could easily do such and such.

The problem isn't that people are goingt o play games/watch movies and think it is real, the problem is that people will see the same movie cliche over and over and think it is practical.

I am sure we all know/knew people growing up that watched some movie with a foul mouthed cool protagonist and they thoguht that was cool and appropriate too.

I would like to add that Hot Coffe is fairly innocuous and that they can take my adult oriented TV/movies out of my cold dead fingers (if the FCC takes control of cable and the Shield ends up like NYPD Blue I will become an activist). But I would not watch the Shield with my younger brother (who would probably find it boring) and I wouldn't buy him GTA to play every day after school. He is capable of seeing them both as fantasy, but they can still influence (if your fantasies don't influance your life at all you are probably a sad individual.

I don't think playing a game once would be a problem for anybody, but becomin immersed in a rich alternate reality certainly can (even for adults).

Re:Right on!

[Pxtl]

Heheh, I actually saw GTA:Vice City sold to a parent once. The clerk quietly explained to her that the game contained violence, picking up prostitutes, shooting cops, etc. She walked over to her 11ish-year-old boy, discussed the matter with him briefly, and bought the game.

Nice, eh?

Also, the ESRB needs to establish a firm guideline on disabled content (which is different from "hidden" content that can be enabled through cheats, etc.) Many games have forgotten or ignored content. For example, there were several clean titles based on the classic Doom and Wolf3d engines (Chex Quest, Noah's Ark) etc. These games were very childish, but the horrible Doom monsters - complete with gory deaths - were still packed into the wadfiles. They just never made an appearance in-game. Likewise, games may have localization data or similar left in that may be controversial in different areas.

The ESRB needs to make a firm policy on the game _data_ as distinct from the game _content_ (content is stuff in the game - data is stuff in the files). Hot Coffee was not physically in the game anywhere - it was physically on the media, but there was no way to access it in-game. The ESRB needs clear guidelines on this.

The future considerations of the medium may make this more complicated. After all, in the future, technological solutions to problems may involve throwing clothes over nude models (a-la Maya cloth). This may go so far as to include nipples for the purpose of providing headlights. Therefore, a trivial hack would be to remove the clothes.