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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."
Funny part is, it seems like more often than not the adult buying the game for them is their parent.
It constantly amazes me how many parents don't seem to "get" that a game is not harmless just because it's a computer game. Somehow they all seem to be stuck in this 1980s view of all games being targetted at kids, and the graphics being incapable of showing anything that isn't cartoony. (I'd get into the whole, "It must be fine because it's a cartoon" argument, but then I'd REALLY get sidetracked.) Would it kill these people to flip over a box and look?
I have to wonder what Ralph Baer thinks of all this. When he invented the Odyssey back in the late 50's, he was only trying to make televisions more interactive. Would he have done so if he could have seen how video games would eventually be corrupted from home entertainment for the whole family into nothing more than "adult games"? There's some sort of innocence lost in the transition that I find very, very sad.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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.
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.