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Step Away From The Games Legislation
Next Generation has an opinion piece by former Lucasarts VP of global marketing John Geoghegan. In it, he discusses exactly why gaming regulation is such a bad idea, and why he's so unsurprised that people have tried to do it anyway. From the article: "Kids need acceptable outlets to channel their energy and aggression. Critics claim video games promote aggression but an argument! is to be made that they channel aggression and perhaps even siphon it off, just like sports. Crucial to Schechter's thesis is his claim that popular entertainment is much less violent today than in the past. Oh, really? Well, consider the 19th century when whole villages turned out for a public hanging like it was a kid's snow day. Or think about Dante's graphic description of hell in The Inferno."
Common Sense ++
Fantasy != Reality
It's not that hard, people.
Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
They don't sell R-rated movies to a 14 year old. They don't sell "explicit lyrics" records to 14 year old. But they'll sell an M-17 game to the same kid. If retailers would adhere to the voluntary ratings of games the same way they adhere to the voluntary ratings of movies, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
It's precisely the watering down of normal entertainment that makes games look so bad.
In the 80s when I was a kid, it was common to watch action shows during prime time TV where the hero got shot or shot someone nearly every episode.
Those sort of shows mostly only existed as syndication-only shows in the 90s, and are almost nonexistant today.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
"Or think about Dante's graphic description of hell in The Inferno."
Ah yes, I remember my grandad telling me about when he was a young lad, reading Dante's divine comedy...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
It sure qould make things a lot easier if the parent of the child playing a violent video game, would just explain the more serious reality of the game. For example, GTA, it should be explained to the child that his violent actions are considered wrong in real life. If he made the same choices in real life, his game would be over. Something along those lines. A violent game can be used as an education tool.
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
Hey, come on! It wasn't all that bad! At least with The A-Team, people could get blown up, rolled over in a vehicle that did fifty flips, get shot at but never hit even after an entire ammunition factory lost their inventory in one battle -- and no one died! They all got up, brushed off their fatigues, then got pummelled by B.A. and the rest of the gang!
And when did anyone get shot in The Greatest American Hero? Okay, he flew into a building or had a really bad landing in every episode, but that's different.
Sheesh. You make it sound like 80s TV shows were loaded with senseless, bloody, gun violence. Nice broad brush.
**Sitting back, waiting to see who actually takes this post seriously...**
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
While presented in a comedic way, it shows someone convincing a town that they have trouble because the billiard parlor in town has brought in a pool table. While billiards is OK, pool is a horrible game and will cause degradation in the children and cause them to stop doing their chores and become gamblers.
Just goes to show that new things are often looked upon as corruptive or causing some sort of lamentable behavior. I remember when Pac-Man came out and people objected since it was dangerous medically and that playing it was like running up 2-3 flights of stairs. Now it is considered harmless fun.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
See, it's all about grey areas and blaming. Until there is a legislation, the parties will keep blaming each other whenever a death-related-with-gaming incident occurs. But with legislation, the parents can be rightfully blamed. "Oh, you let the kid have this mature-rated game. YOU'RE the one responsible!" (actually it's bad parenting, but at least we'd have an excuse to jail them).
Of course, evil gaming companies know that with legislation, they'll lose a great part of their revenue, and this is why they keep lobbying against these laws.
My 2c.
Of course your grandad didn't read The Divine Comedy when he was a small child. He had one of the original copies of "My First Big Picture Book o' Dante", which should explain quite a lot if you've ever wondered why he had those recurring nightmares that started around age 5...
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
Got any proof of your allegation and assumption? Thought not...
The more I hear about things like this, the more it occurs to me that perhaps the only legislation we really need is a license to have children. Seriously, parents should know what is going on with their kids; they should be aware of how much of which media their children are exposed to and that is what needs the most regulating. There will always be some easily-accessible corrupting or dangerous influence. If, as a parent, you don't have the time or desire to regulate your children's activities, you shouldn't be a parent.
There have been countless studies based on far more opinion that show that young kids behavior is heavily effected negativley by video game and TV media of a violent nature... Kids watching power rangers do nothing but fight with each other and when those fights turn violent they are using the "techniques" used on power rangers to fight. (attempted karate i guess you could call it) Kids who watch Barney (as silly and sad as it is) are much calmer, they share with each other, and generally get along well.
I think certain regulations should be enacted, but i also feel that if parents did a decent job AT their job, we wouldnt have these issues. I, for instance, might not want a future 11 year old son playinga game as violent as F.E.A.R.
Maybe you think i'm off base, but kids are NOT adults and they can NOT judge things for themselves. They don't always know what things they learn in "fake world" can be transferred to "real world." It's just a set up for things later down the road IMHO.
A minor official from the Interior Ministry read out the charges against the kneeling prisoner. The executioner--a large black man with a scimitar--approached the kneeling prisoner from behind. After the sentence was read, the executioner jabbed the prisoner in the lower back with the tip of the sword, causing the prisoner to involuntarily jerk up. When he did, the sword flashed down. At that moment the head is sliced off and sent flying across the square. Blood jets from the severed carotid arteries and jugular veins, spraying into the air like a fountain. The frenzied crowd screams in choreographed unison, "Allah Akbar"!
The Saudi "General Presidency for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vices has a page listing some things they prohibit. There are pictures of prohibited items, including some of video games. Most dolls are illegal. Barbie is definitely illegal. Valentine's Day gifts are illegal. Spandex seems to be illegal.
No prohibited weapons, though.
In the US, it's amusing that the anti-video-game people are often the same as the pro-gun people. "For only a little more, you can own the real thing!"
Isn't this just the catharsis argument? One study's opinion:
r sis-theory-and-media-effects-eci-01.html
"Catharsis theory is elegant and highly plausible, but it is false. It justifies and perpetuates the myth that viewing violence is healthy and beneficial, when in fact viewing violence is unhealthy and detrimental. After reviewing the scientific research, Carol Tavris (1988) concluded, 'It is time to put a bullet, once and for all, through the heart of the catharsis hypothesis. The belief that observing violence (or `ventilating it`) gets rid of hostilities has virtually never been supported by research.'"
http://www.bookrags.com/other/communication/catha
Great way to engage in a rational debate. Post a vague challenge and assume the answer in the same post.
Football (American, Austrailian, etc.) ...
Soccer (Yes the game is minimal contact but the fans aren't).
Hockey (goes without saying).
NASCAR (For those in the U.S. Just how often do they replay the crash scenes).
Boxing
Karate
In my experience most of the people clamouring for games legislation a) ignore these things and the very real links between them and aggressive behavior, or b) even promote these very violent endeavors as "healthy excercise". IMHO much of the Game legislation, like calls for tv censorship in the early days and warning labels on CD's has to do with new tech. Whatever the new things kids do (D&D, Dancing, Heavy Metal, Video Games) is always blamed for all social ills because, at a basic level, it is't what we did.
That having been said I do think that some games (GTA) are in a special category by themselves and should be considered carefully. Banning them won't really work we ban kids from having alcohol, cigratettes, and porn in the U.S. but despite all that they still got them even before the internet. Ultimately its all about educating parents so that they realize that a game called Grand Theft Auto isn't exactly Sesame Street.
unless, of course, you happen to be Pac-Man.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
Legislation, without fail, does exactly 2 things:
1. - Make somebody very rich.
2. - Make the rest of us miserable.
Don't you people get it? Bought and paid for garbage (our Congress and other "leadership") mindlessly fumbling about to find a "solution" to a percieved problem they know nothing about for people they care even less about is the LAST thing this country needs. God damnit, we (the public) are going to be hit so fucking hard when the bottom completely falls out we'll wish we were dead.
While I completely agree that violent video games, movies, etc. do promote violence and that kids who engage in these things are probably more likely to be violent as they will find it more acceptable, laws that regulate who can buy what won't help anything, because ultimately, as a parent, the best thing you can do for your kids is to raise them such that they choose not to be violent. because while reasonable control laws might make it a little harder for your kids to obtain the media in question, they will always get it somehow, be it from a friend, or at school, or elsewhere. If a kid is not violent it's because he chooses not to be, and while violent videogames certainly don't help, i think our legislators have plenty more pressing needs on their hands than making sure kids don't play "innapropriate games."
Ze Atomic Device! It iz Ztolen!
If you've read Malcolm Gladwell's best-seller The Tipping Point, you'll recall the discussion of Sesame Street and the controversy about having muppets interacting with human beings on the show. The initial idea was that kids minds are not sophisticated enough to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and that mixing fantastical monster muppets in with actual humans would at best confuse the kids and, at worst, mess with their concept of reality.
In fact, they discovered that kids are perfectly capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality, and separating play-acting from real life. Thus Big Bird walks down the street with Maria; the kids were enthralled with Big Bird precisely because they knew him to be outside of reality.
Kids use stories and play-acting all the time to help themselves understand reality. Whether or not games are dangerous or should be controlled by legislation, it certainly should NOT be because of some notion that kids think that Super Mario is really coming over for dinner tonight.
As long as we're talking about quite young children, I agree completely. My step-brother at age 5 watched Power Rangers all the time and he was a menace, kicking and punching people at random in imitation of the rangers, with no understanding that he was hurting people. After banning the show for a couple months he got better. Fast forward a few years, and he started taking karate classes with absolutely no problems because 1) he was older and better understood real-world consequences and 2) the sensei for the class taught his students about appropriate uses for violence.
Very young children don't understand the difference between reality and fantasy, and they don't understand the idea of consequences. By age eleven this should all be sorted out. The difference between the graphical representation of a punch in a fighting game and punching someone in real life should be absolutely clear. If it isn't, something went wrong, and this distinction will probably never be clear and the kid is going to be screwed up for life and probably dangerous, no matter what video games they play.
I'm not saying you should let your hypothetical 11-year-old play FEAR; there are perfectly good reasons for not allowing that. What I am saying is that if you won't let your 11 year old play FEAR because you are afraid he might carry the behaviors in the game over into reality, then what you are afraid of is that your child is a psychopath.
The enemies of Democracy are
The Music and Movie industries payoff congress to leave them alone and the Video Game industry doesn't. This is what happens when you don't play ball.
Nevermind the fact that federally regulating media in this way is totally unprecedented (porn is an exception, but M and A rated are 2 different things).
This is a prime example of congress bullying industries who don't give them enough money.
Don't think for a minute that you're only censoring to kids. More censorship indirectly means less profitability. Less profitability means less rated M games get made. Less games getting greenlighted means less expression overall.
They don't sell R-rated movies to a 14 year old. They don't sell "explicit lyrics" records to 14 year old. But they'll sell an M-17 game to the same kid.
Says who??? Sorry, but I'm just not buying this argument. The notion seems to be that everybody knows retailers wantonly sell games to children with no regard to ratings, yet these same retailers will hold back movies and music based on ratings? I mean, come on! Let's use some sense! Why on earth would a clerk ignore such a hot-button issue as mature rated games being sold to children when the same clerk is apparently already sensitive to the mature content of an R-rated movie?
The idea of rash cashiers, brazenly ignoring ONLY video game ratings seems to have become something of an urban legend, widely accepted as truth without people demanding any real evidence to back it up. Much like everybody knew the Beatles were communists (pretty damn rich commiunists at that), and everybody knew it was impossible to travel faster than sound, and everybody knew the world was flat.
So where is the evidence? Where are all these odd clerks whose ignorance has such a narrow focus? Where are the studies showing that only game ratings are ignored? I may not have conducted any scientific research, but my personal observations have shown me that not only do store clerks know the ratings system, but they also know just how much they are being scrutinized for this mythical disregard of game content, and therefore are even MORE CAREFUL about what they are selling. I have even seen clerks warning parents about the content of games they were planning to buy for their kids!
So please, just because the general population assumes something to be true, don't try to pass it off as established fact. Not all of us are willing to fall for it, and it just makes you look either stupid or lazy for accepting it without evidence.
Must... think up... something... clever!
Power Rangers and Barney are made for two different age groups of kids. Power Rangers are for lik 9 to 13 year olds, where Barney is made for 1 to about 8 years old. Perhaps a better comparison is loony toons to Barney, as both are made for about the same age range.
Personally, I hate the new G.I. Joe, He-Man, and Transformer cartoons. I think they made them too soft from the original series'. In all three original series' there was always something to learn at the end of each episode, including lessons about death and dieing. Unfortunatly, the new series' are all way too PC to really deal with that sort of thing, IMHO.
On another note, kids need to be taught to think for themselves. How can children ever learn what they need to know if you control their every move? With that in mind, I do believe that throttling the exposure to violence at early ages may keep a child from becoming overly violent or abusive. I also believe that micro-managing a child could also cause psychological damage. Of course, each child is different and milage may vary.
i don't believe the whole "violent videogames are causing kids to be violent" thing a bit. i pretty much grew up playing violent games, watching violent tv shows and movies. i havn't ever even come near doing something violent, never gotten in a fight in my life, i'm a pacifist really, i don't care about fragging someone in a game because IT'S A FUCKING GAME. if kids parents raised them correctly this would be moot, as all the posters above me pointed out.