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You Played Violent Games - Why Can't Your Kids?
An anonymous reader writes: "On the Wired site, Clive Thompson has up an article that points out a sobering truth: gamers are getting older. Folks who grew up playing videogames like Doom and Quake are now facing parental decisions with their own kids regarding appropriate content. Thompson cites well known gamer dads like Kotaku's Brian Crecente, discussing some of the approaches folks educated in gaming take with their own offspring: '"Everybody knows, as an adult, that the world is not always a nice place," Crecente told me. "But I don't want him to know that yet. I want him to have a childhood." So he disallows games with "realistic" combat, like World War II titles, or Resistance: Fall of Man, but permits highly cartoony shooting, like Starfox on the Nintendo DS -- since he regards it as essentially as abstract as playing cops and robbers with your fingers as guns.' Where do you think gamer parents should draw the line? If you have kids, what approach are you taking to introducing them to gaming? How old is 'old enough' to start fragging?"
I don't know what I'd do, but I do know what my parents did... both non-gamers, but my dad was (and is) quite proficient with computers. Our advantage was that the computer came "late in the game", so I was about 12, my brother 14 and my little sister was 8.
Computers were expensive and we had to share one computer. My dad or mother didn't say "one hour", no, they said it had to be fairly distributed. The system introduced was simple and self-regulating: write down what you were playing and at what hour you started and stopped. Your siblings could come in at any time and say "hey, you already played an hour... it's my turn". That meant, finish level and/or save and let your sibling have a go. Whining brought you nowhere, because mom or dad would invariably take the side of the person that had played least.
No things regulated "playing time" quite fairly and the net result was that we played each about 1 hour to 1.5 hours a day. Pretty much what the article stated.
Now as for violence and/or sex in videogames. My parents never forbade any games. We had the full programme Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, etc... Blood and gore were not a problem. (Heck, later we loved to play a game called "Blood"... Good times!) In the early days we mostly played Sierra games (a dying breed... alas...) and it helped us (okay, perhaps just me) learn English. I sat there for hours with my dutch-english dictionary. Fun times... We also had stuff like Strip poker and our good old Leisure Suit Larry.
The only thing I remember is that my dad forbade Syndicate... Or better said, we had to play it with headphones. He abhorred the sound of the people burning when using the flamethrower.
The main problem is not the nature of the game. Wolfenstein let us kill humans after all. Except, they didn't look much like humans then, did they? A current game with current graphics is way closer to reality than whatever we had.
On the other hand, I think kids tend to be self-regulating in what they want to do. Younger kids simply won't be interested in shooting people/aliens. They will probably go for the more colourful games. I see this when my fathers in laws kids from his second wife are here. They never ask to put stuff like GTA3, even if I let them choose from my PlayStation2 library. It's always stuff like Kya, eyeToy Groove or Sonic Heroes.
Teenagers will probably love stuff like GTA3, Halo, whatever... but there all bets are off. You cannot control them. They already watch violent movies, they play the games you don't want them to play at friends. In the teenage years, parents have to let loose slowly but surely. Something I also learnt from my parents. (Note that when we got a computer, we were pretty much teenagers)
I know you can tell by now that I think my parents did a great job.... I plan to inspire me as much as possible from what I learnt from then.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
FWIW, Crecente seems to have some pretty reasonable rules here.
If you're sooo concerned about video game violence, just buy your kids a Wii then. Or a SNES.
As humans we are not perfect, it's like telling your kids to buckle down in school knowing full well you never did all the time.
The world is a big and scary place. And children need to learn that too, and fast.
There's nothing worse than isolating children from reality, because it will start hitting them in the face one day or another. Let them watch the news, play video games, etc. It can't hurt.
When they go to school they'll need to learn the rules anyway, in order to survive (not literally, of course).
The world is full of sick, twisted, demented elements. Video games, and also the internet are a very safe approach - because you can't be harmed. Chatrooms can help children to spot lies - and this is always a helpful skill out there.
Sheltering kids has never helped them.
Less sobering than the alternative would be.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yeah, sounds ridiculous. My dad doesn't read Slashdot anymore, he says it's for kids, not for parents.
Why can't we continue to play hand-eye coordination improving games? I've played pinball and hung around arcades for over 30 years. When the fight 'em kick 'em punch 'em games came in, the arcade became a ghost town.
I can understand that pinball machines, being electro-mechanical, are expensive to run. These days you might only see one or two in an arcade. But where have the simple but good video games gone? Oh, that's right, they have become violent.
It is not about censoring out violence -- our society has already done that, with kindergarten kids getting expelled if they use the f word twice (our son used it once, so we are flying without a safety net). It is about having some class -- Sin City is not a good movie, and Doom ain't interesting. Sorry to burst your bubble, script kiddies.
P.S. Sierra's 3D Ultra Pinball Thrillride is proof that you can make a superb video pinball game. Sadly it is discontinued. Luckily it is still available via Amazon, etc. for about $10.
I come here for the love
Seriously, I've been taunted by too many 10-year-old's in LAN cafés, I don't want to have one in my friggin' house 24/7.
We didn't have an explicit policy on "no fragging" (aka no human targets) because it never came up. So when my son downloaded Castle Wolfenstein Enemy Territory this past year, I wasn't upset. In fact, I've been playing it at the same time as him on my Windows gaming machine. He got his own Windows gaming machine alongside his Linux box when he stacked 20 cord of wood last summer. We used to hang out on on [RRE], but we've switched to shitstorm because there is a more reliable crowd.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
To quote my Japanese friend on the subject of Anime censorship:
"Why censor children's [media]; kids have violent! Honestly, a child will see more blood spilled than most people in their adult years outside of war and medicine. Children are naturally violent creatures."
Note: not exact quote.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
I will now supply a one-size-fits-all answer to the question, so that parents can do the right thing with a clear conscience.
No, wait! The world is a big and scary place for parents, too. You know (should know) your kids better than anyone else. What's right for them? If you don't know, start with the small stuff, watch them play it, see if it's okay. If it worries them, they're too young. If they enjoy it, they're old enough.
People often forget that kids are a lot tougher than adults in many regards. Compare a violent computer game to a confrontation with a schoolground bully, for example. Many kids have to handle the latter, why should a computer game be a problem?
I suspect it's a matter of degrees of realism. There is a big difference between playing Doom, where you're shooting at bad guys who are fireball-throwing aliens, and playing recent GTA-style games that glamorise killing civilians in a realistic setting.
I don't like censorship as a general principle, but I have no problem with restricting what people are exposed to until they're grown up enough to understand what is real and what is pretend. This is probably where I would draw my line, if I had kids old enough for it to matter.
For what it's worth, I don't think the best games tend to be the photorealistic people-maiming types anyway. They can be entertaining for a while and have pretty pictures, but they tend to lack the depth of things like puzzle games, RTS or RPG titles. The only time they really have long-term value is when played in a co-operative environment with other real humans, and that changes the atmosphere fundamentally anyway.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
> he regards it as essentially as abstract as playing cops
... ;)
> and robbers with your fingers as guns
I don't know. When I was a kid I spent more time with my fingers up my nose
Bark less. Wag more.
You get to be an innocent child ONCE!
Unfortunately too many adults take this opportunity away from their children by exposing them to the violence and stupidities of humanity WAY TOO EARLY. Yes the violence and stupidity of humanity is real, and out there in the world, and it always has been...
What's the damn rush to expose children to it?
(And I'm still pissed off at the idiot parents who brought their toddler to the Planet of the Apes remake at 10:00 pm.)
My 10 year old nephew started kicking my arse in Halo around three years ago when I got my xbox. My seven year old nephew started around two years ago doing the same (but albeit in a lesser amount of frags) on Halo and Halo 2 as well. They love coming over to my place during the vacation, and understandably my sister and my brother in law dont enjoy it as much :)
The 10 year old does kick all of our collective asses on pretty much any game we tend to play. Its no wonder I rarely play online, I am humiliated just enough at home.
On the other hand, another one of my nephews never really caught on to gaming despite having a Gameboy which sits alone, that is till he found a Wii.
Rapid Nirvana
I'm keeping the Manhunt cd images for my kids in case the game's outlawed :)
More seriously, although I'm not planning on having kids in the near future (I need to get laid first!), I don't think there would be any problems with regards to violent games if there's a supply of good non-violent ones. Not necessarily games absolutely devoid of any conflict, but could be either those cartoonish games like Psychonauts, or even realistic sports, racing, or flight games. By the time they actually want to play violent games they'll probably be ready for those. I remember I wasn't really comfortable playing Doom when it first came out, and given the choice I rather played something else.
"How old is 'old enough' to start fragging?"
When they're mature enough to handle it with the realization that it's not real life.
What, you expected a number? Sucker.
Yet you are going to send him to work his ass off in order to get a place in the modern wold of a dog eat dog working life. When he is going to learn ? On college grad day ?
Read radical news here
"Gamers are getting older"? That's not news, time runs forwards. It'd be more surprising if gamers were getting younger, and I'm damned if I want to go through puberty again.... backwards.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I've been a gamer since the days of the original Wolfenstein 3D, and when I had a son, I decided to use the video games in my collection to teach him a few things: like the consequences of your actions, thinking through problems, and *not* killing civilians indiscriminately. I chose games that had a definite right and wrong about them (and yeah, I'm of that generation that believes World War Two was about right and wrong, so a few of those titles were in there), or about thinking (the original Deus Ex, for example).
Unfortunately, my son quickly learned that there were cheat codes out there, so a lot of my hopes at a learning experience went out the window.
There are some games I keep away from him, such as the Carmageddon and Grand Theft series, along with the ever-popular Postal series.
Every step of the way, I know what he's playing, and we talk about it. We don't play against each other because the one time we did he kicked my butt. But otherwise, we're on the same wavelength. We generally play the same games, and talk the same language about them, even though he's 40 years younger than I am.
Games are no more violent than television, and in one way, they're less violent, because when playing a game, the kid is at least in some control. The parent just has to pick the games, and stay involved with the kids. Neither computers nor televisions are baby sitters, and parents who use them as such get the ba****ds they deserve.
But I'm still not gonna let him play Postal -- not until he reaches 65. There have to be *some* limits, you know!
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
...when you're spring-cleaning their rooms, and you find the RPGs under their beds, the Uzis and Glocks in the closet underneath their sweaters, and the C4 explosive and detonators in the back of their socks and underwear drawers.
But, since you as parents are giving them a healthy regular slice of quality time, nurturing their emotional development, encouraging their self-esteem, and especially creating a happy, balanced, loving life for your and your significant other, and healing your issues as they arise, you'll never have to deal with such a worrying scenario, will you. You can set your kids loose on GTA and worse without a worry in the world.
OTOH, if you're sticking to a job you hate, voting in fucktard politicians, missing your kids' school/sport events, sitting on unresolved issues with your SO, putting money above love and [c]overtly taking it all out on your kids, then you'd better not let them near anything that has a CPU in it.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
I'm 18, I just turned 18 in March. I've spent most of my life playing violent video games. First games I've played were Doom and Command and Conquer. I've played Quake, Unreal Tournament and all sorts of games. My Dad used to play most of these games with me, and was quite encouraging. The only game I've ever been told I can't play was Postal, when I was about 9 years old.
And to reference what a previous poster wrote that "Males between 15-25 tend to be aggressive" I don't think it's just men. For example, my entire family play (Or have played) counter-strike! That's me, my three sisters (16-11), my Dad and my Mum.
I don't think violent video games are as big a taboo here in England, we certainly don't have any Jack Thompsons roaming around. I'm pretty sure with my history, if his beliefs were truth, I'd be a psychopathic killer.
AND I SAID SO!
Why? I Don't need a reason why! If you don't like it you can GO TO YOUR ROOM WITHOUT DINNER!
To paraphrase Noam Chomsky, "Europe provides the money, Asia manufactures the goods, the U.S. provides the soldiers. That's globalization." Geez, not letting your kids play FPS is like packing them off to school wearing berets.
The only morality that matters in the U.S. is religious (because it is said that atheists can't have a morality) and the only religion that matters in the mainstream media is evangelical and evangelicals already have their own "swept away" FPS where your victims convert or die. So it isn't _whether_ your kids play FPS, it is _why_ they play FPS.
And wasn't it Bowling for Columbine where they said half the victims were head shots and FPS were where they acquired their considerable skills? Your kid gets drafted into the imperial legion and looks like a fool because he hasn't had the advantage of practice on FPS how are you going to feel?
Convince me I'm wrong and those _aren't_ the mainstream memes of 21st century America.
and PC's and the accompanying violent games were never around in their childhood.
Playing cowboys & indians or cops and robbers or any board game (you all do know what those are right?) hardly compares with the video violence of today.
Sure everyone will trot out some psycho anal retort about parenting or that kids get it earlier today but do they? Do they really get to develop as kids? The cartoons i watched were CLEARLY cartoons. The games I played were really games.
The violence i watched was COMEDIC. That wiley coyote never got the road runner was funny because of totally outragousness of the violence.
At the end of the day the "violent" games we played were risk, statego, contigo, hardly awenspiring violence. If you were lucky your friends had and atari or version there of. You ever try watching 8 bit violent games? Oh wait there werent really any and the few that did require you to kill off your foe were hardly life like or realistic.
They were CLEARLY cartoon in nature.
So yeah i restrict what my kid plays and what he does on the PC. We play scrabble and risk and stratego. He loves them. He's mad that I wont let him play warcraft or WoW...so im depriving him. He also doesnt get to play Unreal or Doom even though he can spend a few minutes watching me. Even his PS2 games are pretty tame.
So what. I'm his parent. I'm the decider and I AM the king of world .
With luck I will raise him to get it that playing games isn't about violence but about fun and to remember that when playing ANY game.
I posted three years ago that Dragon's Lair and martial arts games killed the arcade, and got modded as flamebait. I guess the era of the classic video arcade is far removed in time now that it is considered a mythical time to most Slashdot readers.
This article is interesting because it highlights a new scenario: Now there are parents almost solely bred up on video games. Now is their turn to reverse the roles.
Problem is, if you think your parents stink as a kid, how would you like having video-game junkies as parents?
(Note there are always exceptions to any rule or hypothesis, every human is unique and no labels should be applied. Just think of this as an enlightening exercise in how you would really like to live your life.)
I'm a 25 year old gamer (avid since NES). I have a 6yr old gaming son. Here's my take on this subject. I grew up playing the most controversial games ever created - Mortal Kombat, Night Trap, Leisure Suit Lary, Doom - just off the top of my head. But they were'nt my only mainstay as a gamer. Hundreds of other "kid friendly" titles occupied countless hours more of my time. Fast forward to today... My son is playing all of todays "oh my God, this game is too violent!" titles. The difference is? Nothing really... better graphics thats about all. The only limit I put on what game he can play is 1) Over the top "foul" language. Afterall he's 6 and runs around repeating just about everything he hears. 2) If it freaks ME out while playing (to this day he wont touch DOOM3). As a parent if you let your kids play violent video games - go for it - the games havent gotten any MORE violent than they've ever were. They dont exploit women any more than they ever did. They dont cause any more delusional re-enactments than ever (who hasnt gone to school and pretended to be in a game or movie or comic book with your schoolmates?).The only thing thats changed in games is the graphics. At the risk of sounding old - VERY few revolutionary or controversial titles are ever released. I swear I've played the newest, bloodiest, most exploitive game before... except the graphics sucked. The problem isnt and hasnt been the games - its been the parents.
Because I'm a soulless killing machine conditioned to shoot policemen on sight by Grand Theft Auto, with marksmanship trained to a level that would put the navy seals to shame by Halo.
When I was volunteering at a computer shop while in highschool, a guy comes to the shop. He way taller than me (and I'm 6') and has huge muscles, tattoos, leather jacket with no arms, and just generally scary. He holds his computer out and says "Please fix this." After the shock, we do. Later, he talks about video games and how he doesn't want his son playing the violent ones, and asks us for recommendations.
After more shock, I realized that just because it was how he grew up doesn't mean he wants his son to grow up the same way.
I think people that don't want their kids to play the same violent games that they played are responding to a subconscious knowledge of how the games affected their outlook on life. It's totally natural to want to protect your kids from the problems of your own childhood.
I think kids need a certain amount of knowledge of violence and such simply to prepare and protect them when they encounter it, be it a bully in middle school or a fight over a girl in highschool, etc. It helps to know when to stand and when to run, and how to do each properly. Since there are 2 ways to get the knowledge, first-hand and second-hand, I'd prefer they get it second-hand as much as possible.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
HEAD SHOT
I want my children to understand why blowing someones brains out is wrong and I trust them to make up their own minds. Video games may form a part of that epiphany.
<sarcasm>Besides, an exposed mammary gland is far more corrupting to US youth than seeing someone perish in a full-on gore fest. I thought the Christian right had already established that?</sarcasm>
...that just because you abhor violence, sex, etc., in your media that 'Sin City', 'Doom' et al. are not good. It simply means they are uninteresting to you. It has nothing to do with class, and everything to do with age-appropriateness. Sin City and Doom are bad movies/games to be showing a kindergartener. Beyond that, you are just being snobby. (P.S. I'm pretty sure the arcade became a ghost town not because of violence, but because kids all of a sudden had access to games of similar quality right at their house or their friends' houses, with video game consoles and serious video-capable PCs).
There are, and always have been fun, interesting games that had no element of violence in them. Pinball is a good example (interestingly, Centipede is not, unless we don't care so long as it's violence against things not human, in which case you shouldn't care about Doom either). So was Myst (a personal fav). But there is no magical exclusionary rule that says if there are elements of violence, sex, and profanity a game is automatically bad and/or boring. The Longest Journey was a great game, but was full of profanity and had a good bit of the other two. Half-life and its sequel were both groundbreaking and engaging story-wise, but chock full of violence. Sin City was a fantastic movie, if for nothing else the artistic direction that was taken, but also the stories are quite gripping (and also inherently moral in dramatistic ways; you know, the same way Shakespeare's plays were morally tinged even though they were chock full of violence, sex, and profanity...).
Besides, all the good ol' games you seem bent on being nostalgic about are available in Flash or Java on the net somewhere or other. So, it's not like these options are forever lost to a parent trying to entertain a child age-appropriately.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Maybe.
But it could also be your one shot to get onto the roster for an eleet clan.
"Put daddy in the match, or else you're going to time-out. One. TWO...."
I'm an avid Guild Wars player. So is my spouse. My elder daughter (6) has expressed interest in playing. I've let her move one of my toons around and help pick clothing but I have yet to acquiesce to her her desire to have her own account and let her play. She is rather good at computer games but they consist of things like "Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Barbie Explorer" etc. These two are examples of first person explorers as opposed to shooters. I'm leaning towards laying off of letting her join us in our online VR until she has some level of emotional maturity to deal with teenagers and adults that she might bump into (in the case of an MMORPG). The violent imagery is also not something I want her to participate in although she has often stayed and watched us kill monsters and asked questions about it. I must admit that at least in Guild Wars there is no blood and guts imagery that is very evident in some of our Xbox console games. She has also played Shrek II on the Xbox with the the two of us and at that time avoided combat of any type and collected coins and did non-violent types of activity.
I guess it is really best to simply gauge emotional maturity and also ask your child directly what they would like to do. In the case of online games I'd add even more caution due to the risks associated with such a venue.
My two cents...
Cally
--Cally
I wondered why so many people were willing to be surveiled without an evidence trail, be subject to rediculous and ineffective 'security procedures' before flying on an airline, and voluntarilly suppress their freedom of speech.
They are scared because they believe the hype. The scared ones scream for war, even after the war-mongerers have been shown to have lied. They are craven, pathetic dregs of society...nationalists, jingoists, religionists. It wasn't the pacifists who wanted to attack a nation that never hurt the USA...it was the scared-as-shit violent trash!
I blame the media that suppresses sexuality and glorifies violence and horror before I blame the pacifists. We've had the Hippies since the 1960s...I think this anti-violence trend is in reaction to the real violence being perpetrated arround the world in our name.
Blar.
I go over the speed limit quite often when driving, and generally trust my own judgement. Does that mean I'll condone the same behavior when my son learns to drive? Hell, no.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
When I was 5 and saw someone playing Mortal Kombat, I didn't go and try to emulate it.
It gave me Nightmares. I kept thinking Scorpion was going to come to my bedside, pull off the mask, and eat my head.
In my opinion, Non-Gory games are far worse then those with mature content
Mature content will scare young children, Not make them violent.
But I played Zelda when I was 4 and liked to play "fighting with wooden sticks and trash can lids as our swords and shields".
But of course, No great injury came out of that, aside from a few smacked heads.
As for sexual content, I was oblivious as a child, as most children are. My father told me I once watched a porno with him and replied "These people are stupid, I want to watch Power Rangers"
I simply figure that if I am to have kids, I'd let them play whatever they seek out. Keeping an eye on them to make sure they don't break their legs when they re-enact Mario, Of course.
At the same time I would try to keep more mature games....someplace else, so they don't get curious and scare themselves shitless, I don't believe my mother enjoyed sitting in my room and watching me so I could fall asleep each night.
But if they where old enough to seek it out on their own, and know the details of the game, then they would probably be old enough to play it without trying to emulate it.
Back on sexual content, If they aren't oblivious, then it's probably time to let em blossom anyway. Sexual content in games is better then letting them run wild on the internet anyway. At least games are likely to contain only legal stuff. Best to let them bang chicks in GTA7 then let them brose to DonkeyFuckers.com
I particularly liked the "Lego Rule." ... Also, I have "this friend" who's about to turn 50, has never played a video game in his life, and has three young children who are soon to graduate from noggin.com to the real thing. I'm not, I mean he's not, going to be one of those anything-goes guys. Any advice for this type?
0 4
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/136
I've been playing Gear Of War for a while, and have notice how many young gamers are on these days, and I ask myself where are their parents, and why are they playing a mature rated game 17+, when most these kids are from the ages of 7 to 13.
This thing of darkness I Acknowledge mine.
That's not a troll, really. The most obvious and ageless example is sex. We did as much as we could as soon as we could get away with it. Now, as hypocrytical, older parents, we can't stand the concept of our precious little darlings doing the nasty at ... well ... whatever age it was that we first wanted to. (Actual age citation omitted so that I don't draw too much negative response. God knows that the ages of kids getting naked and freaky on their webcams is sufficiently low that it may never be mentioned in polite company; adults just don't want to hear about that stuff.)
It's the same for alcohol. We got drunk on our ass at 16, most of us got away with it, and we think we were *special* and could handle it. Our kids? Those morons couldn't handle a sip of ceremonial wine before they turn 21.
Video games. Driving fast. Ditching school. Going out in the woods with some dynamite and blowing shit up. (OK, that last one was pretty personal, I guess.) No matter the subject, we simply don't think our kids can do the things we did. We're hypocrites. All parents are and always have been.
Adults have no respect for children so we treat them differently than we still think we should have been treated when we were their age.
Hypocrisy and lack of respect from parents towards children? This is news? Is this surprising to anyone?
...except securing American Independance, ending slavery, ending Naziism, getting rid of the totalitarian dictatorship in Japan, quicken the end of the Soviet Regime, etc., etc.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
"On the Wired site, Clive Thompson has up an article
Is this Jack's non-evil brother who derives a healthy, cathartic enjoyment of occasionally playing violent video games?
I keep reading people here saying that "When I was a kid, the gore was pixelated and unrealistic" etc.
Are forgetting how real it seemed? I remember being 9 or 10 playing Doom95 in the dark and being absolutely horrified when I turned a corner to see a new enemy. It is all relative, so don't put too much stock into the idea that the less-realistic games have less of an effect on kids.
(Also, remember Harris and Klebold didn't have Gears of War on HD, they had Doom)
I think that the real idea is that you just can't let your kids become completely engulfed in any one thing (video games, sports, school work, the opposite sex) or eventually their life will reflect that this one thing is all they care about.
-- lol pwned
I think a big part of the problem is that movies and video games aren't realistic enough. They glamorize violence, and make it seem clean and easy.
I would much rather have children watch things that realistically portray violence, and its consequences, than some semi-abstract depiction of it, where the baddies just fall down dead without any blood. That's not reality; the world isn't clean like that. You don't walk around shooting anonymous bad guys in black jumpsuits who appear endlessly out of nowhere and disappear after a few seconds on the floor.
There aren't a whole lot of movies -- and no video games that I can immediately think of -- that deal with violence realistically. I think that the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan gets pretty close. Black Hawk Down is also up there. I would much rather have children watch those at an early age, and have those images burned into their brains, then watch PG-rated (no blood!) action flicks where you can machine-gun people and just have them fall over in a pile. [1] In the real world, when you shoot people, there's blood. There's blood, and urine, and feces (when's the last time you've seen a real perforated abdomen in a video game?) and a whole lot of screaming, because that's the sort of thing that doing violence entails.
I'm not even a pacifist; far from it. I believe there's a legitimate place in society for violence, properly contained and used. However, raising children who have some twisted conception of it from the movies and video games doesn't help anyone. In my opinion, if children are going to be exposed to any violence, it should only be the most realistic violence, because at least then they won't have any false opinions about it. Only adults and near-adults who are mature enough to understand the abstract nature of an action movie or game, and the license that it takes to gloss over the necessary unpleasantness that comes with pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger, should be watching or playing them.
[1] There is a great side-by-side comparison of a James Bond movie and Saving Private Ryan in the IFC documentary "This Film is Not Yet Rated." It's on cable occasionally and they have it at Netflix; it's totally worth watching.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Simple answer: They can.
Frankly I just don't buy it. I don't buy a word of it.
I realize that all things influence how kids act, but I think it's marginal at best and I find it impossible to believe that video games are going to make a kid become a psychotic nutcase. That's just bull, and frankly I don't know how any reasonable person can think otherwise. I know they did some dumb studies where they had kids play games and then watched them go play fight and concluded they were being more violent (doh!) but play fighting isn't shooting someone in the face.
My son and I just finished God of War together, he ran out of the room in embarrassment when the shirtless chicks came on screen, but so far he hasn't tried to rip the arms off of any passerby.
Sigs are awesome huh?
I'm just coming out of that age (I'll be 26 in September), and I was never violent. I never picked a fight and I never was picked on. In fact, none of my friends were like that either.
When I have my son, which might be in September, I'm going to teach him that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, and that if inter-personal relations come to blows it represents a personal failure to avoid that conflict.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
It's just amazing to me that we survived without bike helmets, seat belts or child safety seats. We played Defender, Smash TV, Missile Command and a host of other violent video games and managed not to grow up being violent people. At least most of us and those that didn't were probably fucked up anyway. My opinion is children are more intelligent (though inexperienced) and resilient than we give them credit for. It's also my opinion that we coddle and fuss over them to the point of nausea. Kids aren't special, they're just kids. You're not special or privileged because you managed to reproduce. Breeding is the an act common to animals on this planet. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad when people are responsible parents. When they take parenting seriously and care about their kids. Those are good things. But that doesn't make them or you any better than anyone else. That doesn't mean the rest of us should have to reshape our world to accommodate your offspring. When it comes to video games the stark realism that's possible in video games today it's a more thoughtful decision for parents. You should think about it. And maybe it's okay to wait until their thought processes are a little more mature, that there's a clear line between reality and game play before giving them access to the more violent content. Just don't agonize over it. They're not that fragile.
I think this country started going downhill with those stupid Baby On Board things people used to put in the car window.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
No I couldn't. My parents nearly shit a brick when they saw me play Quake 1 team fortress. I was not alowed to play games like that till I was 17.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Even in the midst of the endless lame-o beat-em-ups, there were still some good arcade games coming out. Some of them even came from Atari. The two games that capped off the time I regularly visited arcades were the Hard Drivin' games and T-Mek. Both were from Atari games. In that era I was seeing less beat-em-ups and a handful of games with innovative control schemes and game play. Lack of good games wasn't the only thing that killed the arcades. The arcades participated in their own demise when they brightly lit them, brought in the Skee-Ball and Claw games, and then styled themselves "Family Fun Centers". I used to frequent a mall arcade called the Gold Mine. The facade looked like the entrance to a mine and the interior was almost solely lit by glowing CRTs. The place was PACKED with cabs side by side and the only open space in there was that necessary for walking to a different game or the dollar changer. Later, one of the Mall's TWO Gold Mines was removed and the other was remodeled into a pukingly cheery "Family Fun Center" with twice the floor space and one quarter of the games.
The death of arcades could have only been forestalled not prevented though. The old differential between what arcade and home games could do has mostly disappeared. Arcade games can still differentiate themselves with moving cabinets, elaborate custom controls, and majorly roided out custom hardware. The problem is that such games cost a dollar or more a play and even people who spend that dollar enough to get really good won't last very long on a given play. This isn't just recouping the monstrous cost of the game. Recent arcade games have obviously had some hardcore reward psychology applied to them; they're designed to suck a wallet dry as quickly as possible. This type of "arcade" gaming is exemplified by Dave 'n' Busters. I once got a free 10 dollar card at a Dave 'n' Busters and it lasted all of ten minutes. Ten dollars was once two solid afternoons of arcade gaming. It's pathetic. It's also inescapable. The conditions that once allowed arcades to flourish are gone and like Big Bands, I don't see them coming back in any major way.
I think this thread should be considered an extreme fire hazard; I haven't seen this many straw men since the last presidential election.
...the way he should be treated: like a human with a brain. I let him play whatever he wants to, unless it has major sexual themes or racism. For the most part, his 9 year old brain is addicted to WoW, like I am, but he knows when to turn the game of. He knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that its just a game, regardless of what he's playing. His current game list includes WoW, anything Zelda, anything Metroid, anything Mario Bros & Doom. Does he go out and hit things with hammers, throw turtle shells at dragons, try to cast "Sheep" on foes at school? No. He's a smart kid that does not blur fantasy and reality. And guess what? I have the best time playing these games with him too. This all falls on the ability of the parent to convey to their child that "It's just a game, no matter how realistic or unrealistic the graphics & gameplay are". If you cannot do that, then you failed as a parent.
If you're afraid games can compromise your children's perception of the world, you have failed as a parent. Parents are the first line to make sure children see the world in the proper way, games or television are not. Parents should be fully responsible to protect and rise their children, not people who create games or tv programs, not even government or whatever else organization. If as a parent you need help of third parties you have failed. If your children can not rely on you as a parent and authority you have failed as a parent. Anyone who is trying to shift the responsibility out of parents is making great damage to families. Family is the first and foremost authority for children, then comes anything else. Taking it from parents means breaking families.
/* Wherever you go there you are... */
When I was the age my son is now, video games barely existed in the mainstream. I was 15 in 1980, and there really wasn't anything overtly violent in any of the games around then - one blob of pixels shot another blob of pixels, and that was it. The first unpleasantly and graphically violent game I remember was Splatterhouse in the arcade in 1988, by which time I was 23.
When my son was very young he didn't like Doom, it scared him so much that I had to not play it until he'd gone to bed. He's still not big on FPSs, unless we're playing two-player co-operative. When he saved up recently and bought a second-hand PS2, it came with GTA3 and Vice City double pack. As these are 18s, I was a bit dubious, but as he'd bought them with his own money I wasn't going to take them off him so I just kept an eye on what he was playing. Result - he's played Transformers through twice, scarcely touched the GTAs and mostly concentrates on Jak and Daxter at the moment. So he still finds shooting giant robots more entertaining than shooting people.
I'm only really going to become concerned when he comes home smelling of woodsmoke, because then I'll know he's doing what I did at that age, and that's setting fire to things. Far more dangerous than any video game ever invented.
Because we're messed up, and we want our kids to be less messed up.
Parenting is powerful because we can teach our kids to learn from our mistakes. Even if they're mistakes we liked at the time, which might even cloud our judgement. Like wearing plaid polyester leisure suits.
--
make install -not war
in august of 1990 , a month before i turned 7, i had to witness my father shoot his girlfriend in the neck (she lived) and then my mother in the back (7 times and she died) he then put the gun to the side of his head , pulled the trigger and gave up the ghost. the latest game i was jamming out on was super mario bros 3 for NES at my neighbors house and watching TMNT cartoons on VHS (i also acted out the ninja turtles and leonardo was my favorite. i love martial arts too! ). my consolation prize was my very own NES from a family friend. i've been playing video games all my life, and made various jokes about it being my "counselor". what was really interesting was remembering when batman came out on VHS for the first time, i wasn't allowed to watch it. i guess they didn't want to expose me to that kind of violence for fear it might have some sort of negative side effects or implications on my young fragile mind! go figure =P i then grew up with a distant relative who me and my friends refer to as "satan". although i've long gotten over how she decided to raise me (new age christian... but hardcore and a real bitch)she did have this idea that i needed to be sheltered from violence as well. he reasoning was most likely based on faith and my age. well she seems to forget i've already witnessed some damaging shit and playing mortal kombat in the arcades pales in comparison, but no! she was warned by all the christian groups how realistic and violent this game was. so of course being the smart 10 year old that i was in 1993, convinced my legal guardian that the game was okay since all that blood and violence that was in the game had been taken out. i even showed her! (abacabb - genesis blood unlock code baby!) man i was slick. infact i was so proud of myself for decieving her i did the sub zero head rip fatality while she was reading the bible on the couch and had her watch! GWAHAHHA! the look on her face was PRICELESS! maybe i was violent afterall, as the class president of my elementary school i got into a fight the day of graduation. this bully (octavio. i lived in highland park- los angeles)was picking on my asian friend william. so i kicked his ass. must be all that mortal kombat making me stand up for what i believe is right and fair?? years went by, more, better and more realistic games came out, i grew up and moved the fuck on with my life. college, etc, now i'm going to be training in the navy for nuclear engineering. and never had any problems dealing with violence or videogames. ive never had problems with the law, or people or jobs or society. was it because of my parents great guiding hand? how about how my legal guardians raised me? do you think that children will turn into psycho's if left to learn for themselves? when did your father teach you how to hunt (kill other creatures) and skin (tear organs out, peel hair and tissues)? wasn't when you were "mature" was it? nah, kids learn to butcher nice and young. someone mentioned something about anti-violence hippies. indeed. but what do i know? my experience is so limited compared to a "professional" opinion on these matters right?
That's funny. The people who most vocally call for war are also the people who cry out for bans on "violent" games and TV. It's all to do with religion and their vision of what a Christian theocracy should be like: constant war on anything that doesn't fit perfectly into their interpretation of the Bible, from Muslims to Grand Theft Auto.
Fascists? Yes. Whining pussies? Not by any stretch of the imagination.
Not really a cop-out answer, but I can't wait for my son to learn enough to be able to play Civ with me.
As for FPS, I'd let him play Halo as soon as he can (on a PC though)- I don't want my kids to be console addicts- they'll be able to play ANY game they want so long as they know how to install the game AND it involves a keyboard. It was a pretty proud moment when my 5yr old figured out how to install LEGO Star Wars. Heh- the first words he learned how to read were Load and Save.
As another poster suggested, I also use games to teach the "Good vs Evil" thing- Halo is especially good for that actually. I totally draw the line at GTA though- and honestly would never play the game myself.
Youngest is 9, oldest is 12, both girls. They loved Morrowind a couple of years back, they're Oblivion fanatics and are currently working their way through the Shivering Isles expansion ... faster than me. They spend a lot of time in the construction kit, and are always downloading and installing extra content. The oldest doesn't like the headless zombies so she gets her younger sister to come and eliminate them for her. (They each have their own PC.)
Other games: They really like C&C Renegade multiplayer, but don't like UT or Half Life. When the eldest turned 12 I let her play GTA3 (following 18 months solid nagging), but she gave up after less than a day - didn't like it after all. They're not getting Doom 3 because that thing almost gives ME the creeps (I'm 39), and they laughed aloud at the 'cheesy' graphics in Doom 1, 2 and in Daggerfall.
They express dislike for simple platform games, although they have played and enjoyed Snow Bros and they like the Pokemon games on their GBAs. Spyro was a fave on the PS1, and they enjoyed Eye-toy and Singstar on the PS2.
I don't particularly like them playing Oblivion when there are hanging corpses and all kinds of blood-drenched rooms, torture chambers and so on to be found in the game, and I suspect the reason neither of them have completed the main quest is because the world behind the oblivion gates is much more gory than Tamriel. On the other hand, they might have found the Gates boring and repetitive - I know I struggled to do them all. I do know they adore the free-form nature of the game.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
Come on, guys where's your sense of humor? Look, I'm divorced, I've got 2 kids and six girlfriends who regularly get naked with me (eat your hearts out!) who don't believe I AM a nerd (I don't even wear glasses any more thanks to Dr. Yea), but the running joke is the virgin fat nerd with taped glasses in his mom's basement.
It's a standard slashdot joke, like "in soviet russia games play YOU", or "but does it run (on) Linux", or "imagine a beowolf cluster of fat virginal slashdotters".
And I'm not the GP who I'm defending here, I'm mcgrew (sm62704) @work. Speaking of which I better get back to my beowolf cluster of boredom...
Is your kid old enough to stay up watching a horror movie? By the time they can sit through Dawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later without having nightmares, they're old enough to frag in Quake. "It's just a movie; those are just actors in makeup." is very close to "It's just a video game; those are just sprites."
If you're a computer geek for a living, it becomes a little easier. My kids already understand quite a bit about CGI, from watching dad work on graphics - and indeed, picking up a little of it themselves.
... I just love the /. meme about how "sheltering" kids and disciplining them means automatic rebellion and automatic worse outcomes.
That explains all those girls gone wild and drive by shootings in the 1800s. I was wondering about that.
I've been playing video games probably close to 11 years now. I'm not exactly a parent you might say, but I'm a teenager. I've been playing games since 1995, when I got my first video game system, a Super Nintendo Donkey Kong pack. Ever since then, I've been gaming. Now, I've been pushing the envelopes a bit (Comanche II was rated T for Teen and I was only 10, and my parents were VERRRY WARY about it.) and the fact that when I wanted to play GTA3 for the PC, my parents expressly forbade it. They read biased reviews that amplified the violence to at least 10x of what it was in the game, and didn't want me to play it. Even if I saved up $50 dollars of my own money (A lot of money for a 4th grader mind you) they wouldn't buy it. Eventually, after a lot of pressure they did. And I've played Every GTA game since.
And am I a mass murderer? No. Am I a sociopath? No. Am I a drug dealing hoodlum doing drive-bys on old ladies cause "I wanted it to be like GTA"? No.
But after all of this, I did notice something. I've been going out into the world learning how to drive a car, in order to get my license this June. And as I'm driving down the road, sometimes I notice people walking along the sidewalk. And I get a funny impulse in the back of my head to swerve over and hit them, just like in the video game. Mind you, I never do it. But still, the fact is, look at it honestly. How many people have you shot, stabbed, ran over and burned up in videogames? Probably more than you can count, am I right? These mass murderers they advertise, they do the same things. Except for the outside circumstances, (beaten, raped, bad childhood, druggie, sociopath, etc), they played these games. And they reached a point we all haven't yet: The game blurred the line from the game world to the real world, to the point where they felt that it was ok to run someone down on the road, because they were still in the game.
The point I guess I'm trying to make is, if you are a parent, and you want to watch what your kids play, that's alright. You are the parent, and it's your decision on what to play. If you want Hello kitty till 18, so be it. The point is, try to be a steady hand in their lives. Be sure you are there with your hand on their shoulder saying, "Whatcha doin?" And make sure to draw the line at where the game stops. That way, we can probably cut down on crazy folks saying they "lernd dey killin skill from dem vidjamagames."
If it ain't broke, it will be soon enough. And if it is, duct tape can fix it.
When I have my son, which might be in September, I'm going to teach him that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, and that if inter-personal relations come to blows it represents a personal failure to avoid that conflict.
I'm sure he'll be the first to relate that sentiment the instant he gets his first (of many) ass whoopings on the playground...
I let my 11yo son play GTA III. We had talks about the violence, sex, drugs, what it meant, how it works in the real world, etc. While he followed the story (which required killing sims, etc) he had just as much or more fun just meandering around, driving, etc.
However, he had a friend who would grab a chainsaw first chance he got and would gleefully attack pedestrians and remark how cool it was. Needless to say, I never let him play the game again.
It seems parents come in a couple of flavors: those that try to hide the world from their children and those that try to explain it. I try to be in the latter group. Maybe I'm wrong, but parenting is full of write and wrong decisions. That's life.
Why can't my kids play violent video games? Probably because I'm afraid they will get better than me and kick my ass.
There is an old saying, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it". Computers in general only became available to consumers in the late 1970s, and the chance that children would have access to them was very low. It really took until the early 1990s before violence in computer games was realistic enough for many people to become concerned. As a result, the issue needs to be looked at with that as a reference.
For those who got started with computers early, we saw the development of computer graphics, and in general, for us, it took until we were over the age of 18 before the graphics could be considered even semi-realistic. Many didn't think twice then about playing violent games, so many just never thought about how they might be a bad thing for a younger audience. As a result, many who have children in this age group didn't think there was anything to be concerned about because in those early days, violence was NOT realistic.
Many parents don't know(because they don't pay attention) just how violent and graphic video games have become. If they did, they would have a basic concept that if a movie with that level of violence were to be released, it would be rated R. That's the difference here, it's really ignorance on the part of the parents of today. Many parents never touched a computer or video game when they were younger, so not only don't they know what their children are seeing and playing now, they don't even know from personal experience what is going on.
So, why shouldn't children today be playing violent video games? It's because the games of today are more realistic, more violent, and make it seem that violent behavior is acceptable(because there are no negatives associated with it). The war games are not as bad as the "gang violence" type in that those in the military are generally accepted as not having control over what missions they go on. The war games also don't encourage things like rape, murder, and things generally unacceptable behavior in public.
So, play the games your children will play. If you wouldn't take your kids to see a movie with that subject matter, then you shouldn't let them play games with that subject matter. When it comes to gore and violence, would you take your kids to see "The Hills Have Eyes"?
My girls still play Barbie video games and whatnot so it has not been an issue...however, what I am taken aback by is even comparing the "violent" games I played compared to what is out there now...when I was a kid the violence consisted of hitting somebody with a sword (or whatever) and the opposing player dissolving or disappearing with a weird sound effect. Today they get cut in half, one can dismember them and such things with extremely realistic graphics which in my mind brings it too a whole different level.
Video games were not what my parents worried about...in my day it was Dungeons and Dragons and KISS music that would make me a murdering, theiving, satan worshiping dreg of humanity...instead I did the next best thing...got in to I.T.
dB Masters
so they can play army in the woods with fake guns like we used to do... Run around in real reality and try to shoot each other. I personally can't wait for my son to be big enough to go play paintball with me in the woods.
True, we did not have blood or GTA hookers to kill in the woods when playing army, but the goal was the same, kill your enemy or take over their base.
But you never hear a serial killer say "Combat" on the atari 2600 "made me do it".
Sometimes people are not willing to negotiate and are determined to instigate violence.
Pacifism is a fantastic ideal, but not always realistic in the messed up world we all live in.
As long as your son is aware that violence is a last resort he should not be ashamed to use it if and when it became necessary.
The idea that it would be a personal failure might just make him too ashamed to defend himself against genuinely nasty people.
watashi wa bengoshi dewa arimasen!
When I was a kid I played with a commodore 64. The graphics were quite ugly, but there was a lot of good games.
Some dude in a orange robe once said that violence only creates more violence.
When I was a child, I liked to play shoot-em-up games where you shot "humans". One time, my mother had me pause the NES version of Commando, and showed me what real war looked like; scarred bodies, blood, dead bodies, you name it. I couldn't have been older than nine, considering when Commando came out, I was likely eight.
At that point, I lost all illusions that war was fun, and that everyone just threw their hands up and disappeared when they died. And though I eventually got to having fun with the games again, I never thought about them the same way again.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
The "Video Games are bad" people are fools.
They do horrible studies that prove nothing, then point at them and say "See!!! We are right" All such 'anti-popular-kid-activity' garbage (whether it was comic-books, music,tv, all videogames, or violent video games) is based on a false underlineing belief that human minds are easy to manipulate. You might for example cry at a sad movie, but you NEVER call 911 when you see the bad guys trying to commit a crime. We are not easily tricked.
There ARE ways to make humans violent: Drugs + severe propaganda against specific groups. That method is what is used by warlords in Africa, and no they do not use video games, despite the games being cheaper than the drugs.
Violent crime has dropped in the US. The teen violence has dropped in lock step with total violence, despite the introduction of violent video games.
The studies that claim to show video games cause violence instead show:
1. By the time kids can manipulate a game controller, a few of them have develloped a natural aggressiveness.
2. Aggressive people (both kids and addults) prefer violent games, non-aggressive people do not.
3. Aggressive kids are more likely than non-aggressive kids to grow up to be criminals.
4. Aggressive kids are more likely than non-aggressive kids to grow up to be SUCCESSFULL, particularly in business, but also in law enforcement, military, firefighters, and even art.
5. After playing a violent video game, you tend to have violent thoughts (these are called MEMORIES by professional psycoanalsysts).
6. After playing a violent video game, you tend to be aggressive, not violent.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I let my kids (3 and 5) play games on MAME (they like Contra, Raiden, Rampage and Kung Fu Master). They watch violent TV (Power Rangers, etc.) and when I come home they like to "fight" with me. I don't think it's a problem, but I'll let you know in 10 years.
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
I'm not sure how much of what I wrote above is joke and how much is serious...
And make them go play outside.
Fretting over what kinds of video games kids should play is missing the point: No matter what game it is, they're still staring at the TV for hours on end.
Turn the machine off and send the kids to play in the real (physical) world. Children need fresh air, and sunshine, and bugs, and skinned knees. They need to chase each other in circles like crazy people. They need to climb a tree, swing on a swing, do really ugly macaroni art, read a book, chase the dog, blow dandelions all over the neighbor's lawn, make a sofa-cushion/fridge-box fort, or just about any other thing in the whole world besides sit in one spot and twitch their thumbs all day.
I've been a gamer ever since I was a kid, I still remember playing Karatica on the Apple 2, Wolfenstein 3D (among a slew of other games) on the 386, and continue to play games to this day - most of them featuring violent content; I certainly haven't felt compelled by games to go out and murder some innocent and unsuspecting people (and for my ultra-conservative friends, no, playing Leisure Suit Larry and Strip Poker hasn't made me want to run around sowing my oats either). I attribute this to my parents, who despite both working late were able to instill in me a sense of respect and reverence for the sanctity of human life.
The only qualms I have with video games these days is that the story has taken a back seat to nifty graphics; granted the FPS genre never had much of a story to begin with, but even RPGs seem shallow and uninspired these days.
My kid isn't old enough to play games like Doom 3 or R:FOM until he stops crying when I kick his ass. "C'mon, Son. You wanted to play a grown-up game. Now quit crying, get back to your computer, and quit being a pussy."
I can't wait to teach him chess, but I figure I'll wait 'til he's four.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Easily scared pacifists can set up defenses to protect themselves without having to go on the offensive, but it's not the only technique needed. We need all types of people all over the pacifist-warmongering spectrum. But we also need people to judge risk in a rational way.
The grandparent was trying to blame all this on the pacifists, even though it is the war-mongering people who are cool with giving up their liberty for security. I think we're all to blame, but for different reasons.
I think slashdot recently did an article on how humanity's innate risk assessment is become out-dated in our modern society.
Blar.
I owned a BB gun, my dad and I shot off model rockets every weekend, so I was responsible around things that could be classified as weapons or explosives, I still played outside much more than on my computer, so I didn't get fat; maybe my parents just knew I wasn't a fuck-up. After all, the 'vibe' your own child emits is the easiest for any half-decent parent to read. Maybe more parents should be able to determine those kinds of things, I guess it's hard to say, I'd doubt a parent would hand their 8 year old kid a copy of a bloody shooter, but if the kid is exposed to it and likes it they could have a lot of fun; people think too hard about the simulation of video games, and not the fun. Just as shooting a can with a BB gun can be a fun way to experience physics, a shooter is a fun way to experience the act of shooting and destruction in a safe and legal manner. Would you send your kid to counseling for building and destroying a lego tower because you think he's going to be a terrorist? No.
These days, shooters are more graphically intense, more immersing, and focus more on semi-realistic human against human combat. To imagine a kid playing Battlefield 2142, I'd honestly be more afraid of what they read in the in-game chat than seeing ragdolls fall down from in front of their crosshair. But, to fly around, drive around, shoot a tank, and rampage with a battlewalker; if I happened upon anything like that back when I was playing Doom, I'd feel cheated to have it taken away because my parents didn't trust that I wasn't going to fill up a car with plastique explosives and blow it up into an armoured personnel carrier, or, perhaps more reasonably; stab/shoot someone at school. Above all, I would be insulted, and would my view of my parents would be altered forever; to think they'd even consider me a potential killer!
Maybe they should make some more kid-friendly first person games, I bet that'd be a blast for them, and yes kids grow up too damn quick these days. Innocence is a terrible thing to waste, and a tragedy for anyone who witnesses it being taken away from a child too early. But how much of that could possibly be video games? What about cell phones? Reality TV? Public school? Materialism? The media gets into our kid's heads earlier and earlier, and a global collective of misguided parents follow every lead the same machine throws them for sources of their offspring's troubles. It's as old as the hills, I suppose, and video games are just the latest scapegoat. I'm too young to have kids, but I am guilty of using discretion with my little sister years ago, we'd always play Mario Kart and Waverace because I didn't think she should play Goldeneye. A bit of that is sexism, had I a little brother, I'm sure I would have taught him the way of the gun early on. But, you can call me a success story, a kid who stumbled upon Doom at a young, impressionable age, and only good came of it, fond memories and an early boosted interest in technology. It's not all bad.
I ranted pretty
I wouldn't let my kid play games like WOW or Neverwinter Nights. They'll grow up thinking it's ok to be prejudiced against orcs and that you can just go around robbing dragons.
On a serious note though. I'd say the biggest problem games pose for anyone, kid or adult, isn't losing track of reality vs the game it is losing track of time and wasting huge amounts of time on it. Games are supposed to be a relaxtion and a break from reality, not an escape or substitute.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
"Because I said so."
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
In fact, I think that if you took the story in Sin City and retold without the heavy noir elements or the eye-catching artistic work, it would be easy to see that it is fantastically misogynistic. Women are portrayed as alternately helpless, treacherous, or as objects of violence - which is occasionally sexual in nature. And that's not even getting into the child molestation being portrayed as alright. It's not simple snobbery to dislike the movie; it carried a legitimately stomach-churning message, very sweetly packaged. I think for the unshielded mind - be it 5 or 50 - it's a sick, sick message to be delivered; to think that these things are ok and 'cool'. I'm don't think the movie should be censored, but I do think that it's wrong to consider people who are against it to be 'snobs'.
All that being said, I think games can legitimately have violence in them. Still, one wonders if the violence is needed to carry the game, or merely keep the interest of the player. Most first person shooters are just that; a reticule and targets. Whether those targets are abstract or mutant aliens, the player's goal is simply to put one over the other. Some games manage to do this without the suggestion of violence, while still keeping the idea of desperation; I point to Elebits as an excellent example. On the other hand, you can also have a game where the violence is meaningful to the story; Half Life is an excellent example. It's not the same thing if you change the characters. The game is fundamentally altered. Basically; if a game is telling a story, I am far more behind the use of violence. If it's violence for the sake of being stimulating while you line up target and reticule... not so much.
[Ego]out
We used to also stick our hands in beakers of mercury during chemistry class and use lead in paint and asbestos in all kinds of building products. Just because we did something in the past doesn't mean it was smart or the right thing to do.
You can thank Nanny Politics.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I don't know, maybe it depends on the kid and how mature they are, and what kind of child they are. All of the speculation that violent games make your children desensitized suicidal psycho wacked out individuals is way over hyped.
If your kids like to torture animals, and kill things in real life, it is because you smoked to much crack when you were pregnant or you are just a crappy parent. It's not because of heavy metal, video games, violent movies, etc... It is your fault.
That said, I have three kids, the youngest are now 11, boy and girl twins, and they have been playing games like CS, Unreal Tournament, BF, Half Life, etc. since they were 4. They both do plenty of normal things like skateboard, baseball, swimming, soccer and all that good stuff. My daughter is a complete princess, but she is my "little killing machine" (my wife hates it when I call her that) when it comes to FPS games. Both my young ones take me out all of the time when we play against each other.
The point is, if these games were going to have bad effects on my kids, I would know it by now. They have no problem differentiating real life violence with game violence. I think as long as you are not freaking your kinds out with the games and they are not having nightmares, then there probably is not going to be ill consequences from letting your children play violent games. As long as you are doing your job as a parent, I don't see why there would be problems. I must say, I did hold off on letting them play the GTA series games for awhile though...
Another thought, It might be different if I was turning my kid loose in the back room somewhere by them self playing games all day and night, that would wack anyone out (If this is happening, you are slacking on your parental duties.) I am many times playing with them, so it is more like us playing together, that makes the gaming experience a little different as well IMO. I also regulate their play time. my two cents...
Keeping a child ignorant of bad things is not the same thing as sheltering a child from bad things. Nowhere in nature do we see young being protected from information. Young are exposed to information early and often. Often this information is needed in order for the animal to survive. If you don't allow the child's 'copy' instinct to learn how not to be eaten, how to kill food, and et cetera how is the child supposed to accomplish these things? In a general sense, information is at worst, unhelpful to an animal, not detrimental. So I'm not sure where your claim that such a state of affairs is "natural" comes from.
In humans, there may be some benefit to restricting certain kinds of information. While our intelligence is a huge advantage, it also makes us psychologically fragile. However, our instincts are very similar to those of other animals. Anyone with children and a lick of self awareness can tell this supposed 'instinct' to protect children from information is actually something that has been learned, not an instinct.
I'm not a parent, much less married (yes, I'm a typical nerd), but I know a guy now in his 50's who has 8 children, none of whom turned into bad persons, quite the opposite. When asked how he managed to do that, he always answers that in the beginning he very consciously choose to be an "yes" father. What he means by that is threefold: that he was himself a permanent moral reference for their children, so that his example would speak by itself more than mere words spoken by him; that he made know to his children that whatever new thing they were interested in doing by themselves, they had to ask him first; and that for the vast majority of these questions his default answer would be "yes", even if the thing in question was in some way dangerous. This way, in the very, VERY, VERY rare occasions where he absolutely HAD to say "no", this "no" had weight. How much weight? The weight of the many hundreds of "yes" that came before it, of many they knew would surely follow it, and of the fact they knew his father was being absolutely honest on the necessity of that specific refusal. So they simply accepted it and carried on.
(This of course doesn't include things the children wanted that he couldn't purchase. In those case an "I'm Sorry, but we don't have the spare money for this. But you can save and purchase it yourself in a few months if you still wish it by then." solved the issue.)
On the other hand, I know families, one of which of close relatives, which put lots of restrictions on their children, as if the parents had opted to be of the "no" kind. And I don't see in those families the same level of success the "yes" guy had, even when the "no, no, no" comes coupled to a strong moral example. In these cases, it seems, no "no" distinguishes itself from the other "noes", all being seen as equally limiting, and as a result, disobeying one doesn't seem that much different from disobeying any, for disobeyed most of them will be, no doubt about that.
Now, I know these are all anecdotal examples, but they will nevertheless push myself into the "yes" kind of parenting if and when I'll have kids. Provided the good example is present (in person or in memory) 24 hours a day, the few hours they'll be playing those hyper-realistic violent video-games won't matter that much.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
I was born in the late 50s and grew up in the 60s. There were no computers. TV was black and white. My class was probably the last to be taught to use slide rules in high school.
We played outside. During the peak of the baby boom, there were lots of kids to play with. We'd round up 10 or 12, split up and line up on either side of a creek. We'd throw dirt clods, shoot bottle rockets, throw firecrackers and shoot BB guns (the old, whimpy kind) at each other. One parent gave us shop goggles and several of us carried trash can lids as shields. We escalated to Whamo Wrist Rocket slingshots, homemade catapults, sky rockets and roman candles. We'd play all day. When I'd get home, I was so dirty, my mother made me strip on the screened back porch and make a beeline to the tub. Sometimes people got hurt. I got hurt several times. It never stopped me. What we were doing was basically poor man's paintball.
When we got older, we entertained ourselves with vandalism, model rocketry, homemade explosives and other adventures. Yessir. If a boy does that nowadays, he'll get a cavity search.
I suppose if we'd had Doom and Quake we'd have played those games. But damn if it ain't fun to throw dirt clods.
As for these kids going on shooting rampages, it just didn't happen back then. The reason was no kid ever got that far out of line. If you acted up, you got your ass beat. The punishment was swift and sure. Today I see kids testing and pushing the limits of what they can get by with. Back then, you didn't have to push very far before you got your ass beat. If we'd continued corporal punishment in the schoiols, Columbine and all the other shootings probably wouldn't have happened because we'd have taken care of little problems before they became big problems.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
The best way to raise your children is with common sense. If you don't have common sense I don't know what to tell you as I have no idea what that's like. In my younger years I was raised playing SMB, Zelda, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem, and I'm just fine today.
I allow my 4 1/2 year old to play Zelda Ocarina of Time (classic good vs. evil), Mari Kart (healthy competition, coordination), Yoshi's Story, and a some others on NES. She watches Scooby Doo, TMNT, Goosebumps, Looney Tunes, and a few others. She knows full well that they are not real. She's also learning chess and checkers, which she wants to play everyday simply because I have not forced them on her.
With all that said, I'd rather her see/play the questionable things at home where my wife and I can explain it to her and make sure she can distinguish between reality and fantasy, which she does well.
Currently theta testing the prototype "Event Horizon" server-scaled desktop box with a 50 Gigameg of Ram.
Half the problem is this insane idea that being an adult at 13 is an "early grownup". For a 100,000 years, humans have reached adulthood at ~13. They have raised children, fought wars and ran nations. Somehow over the last 3 or 4 generations, the entire human populations seems to have become retarded. It seems that it now take 50% longer for a human to reach maturity. It looks like we need more studies on just what kind of damage DDT did on our population, because if it takes 18-21 years for current humans to reach adulthood, SOMETHING went seriously wrong.
I don't know about the rest of society, but my genetic code has not degraded to that point. While I have certainly learned many things since I was 13, the only thing that prevented me from living as an adult at 13 was the artificial legal system that criminalized my age. I'm not saying that it wasn't great living for 6 years as an adult who had no responsibilities. I'm just saying that at 13 I was an adult, irrelevant to what the law said.
Maybe your son will turn out like I did.
After being punished every time I got in a fight with someone, even though I was told to not retaliate and tell a teacher when someone was picking on me... i got progressively angrier with the world and could't wait until the day I was old enough to start lifting weights. I modified my school habits, my dress, and my outward demeanor all for the worse, just to try and get people to leave me the hell alone. And one day when someone was messing with me, I had decided that today would be the day that I wasn't going to just take it, and I snapped.
I strangled a guy over a quarter. And it felt _great_. I loved every second of it.
All of the years that people were fucking with me just because they could... because I wasn't allowed to fight back or because I wasn't strong enough to fight back properly... they all came out on this guy that took a quarter from me because he thought he could get away with it. I picked him up out of his chair by his neck, and put him in a wrestling move called "the hang" where you have the guys throat in the small of your elbow, and you hold his knees in your other elbow, and you bend his spine backwards across your own back by pulling your arms forward. The guy was hanging by his throat and his knees and flailing, trying to do anything he could to hit me in the face or escape or whatever. After a few seconds of futility he, gasping for breath, said "you can have your fucking quarter" and threw it down on the ground.
I set him down and thanked him for understanding, and then picked up my quarter and then sat back down at the table in the seat right across from him. The next day things were "normal" again.
It was the best day of my life (up to that point), and a story that scares the shit out of my wife and anyone else I tell it to.
So, if you want your kid to become a mal-adjusted sociopath, put him in public schools, and tell him that anytime he gets in a fight, it's because he's a failure. That's all your kid needs - his dads voice playing in his head, telling him what a failure he is as each fist lands in his face.
It's healthy to tell your kid that fighting is less preferably to diplomacy. But it's also healthy to let them work out differences physically when they're young.. when the body can heal.. and when nobody is packing heat. Kids need to learn how to set boundaries and with boys especially, fighting is part of that.
I say this not to call you out or anything, but I'm not sure you realize.. especially in traditional American schools... its a damn jungle out there, and its a quasi-suppressed version of lord of the flies... playing itself out every day. It's amazing that nobody ever started anything with you because that was certainly not my experience or the experience of my wife, or any of her male friends in highschool.
I hope your son has an easier time than I did. My experience was by no means the worst of the people I've met.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
home row, and the other on a mouse.
Old enough to circle strafe? Old enough to Frag.
-My bloodline will propagate the next generation of super gamers!
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http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/12
One reason why access, imho, should be prohibited is that, according to the psychology I've read, children are born 'beasts' and learn to inhibit their violent urges (rather than born naive and become corrupted). A realistically violent video game does not, inho, provide a positive learning experience and, if anything, amplifies the cult of the gun, knife and diminishes the value of human life. Worse, they do not teach an important aspect of morality, empathy.
Now I'm pretty certain that most parents can and will bring their children up to be upstanding citizens, I also think there's a fair few people in this thread with some excellent thoughts on the matter, on both sides of the argument (there's also a few who clearly have no experience of bringing up children, but who will most likely do well as a parent). The people I worry about are the not particularly intelligent, not that bothered, don't post on /., couldn't care less kind of people. The people who breed because they can't work out how to use prophylactics. There's balance between our freedom to enjoy whatever leisure activity we choose and the possibility that we might be educating a bunch of kids to shoot first think later. Educating kids that it's cool to carry a knife or a gun.
Ok - so, above, we've also heard from a bunch of people extolling the virtues of pacman, and other innocuous games. What would we miss out on and what benefits would we see if realistically violent games were outlawed? I think we wouldn't lose anything but might gain something. So personally I would outlaw games which enabled players to use realistic weapons to inflict harm and/or kill realistic enemies. It is the similarity with 'real life' that's the problem, in my mind.
How do you know?
Neville Chamberlain
I don't have a problem with my children playing violent games. I can have a problem with my children playing games where the protagonist is an anti-hero, place the protagonist in morally ambiguous situations, or otherwise reward anti-social behavior. Medal of Honor is fine, but GTA 3 isn't. Games like KOTOR where the of choice of being evil is presented as being without repercussion, depend on the maturity level of the child. In other words, it's the subject matter that is the problem, not the violence.
I make an exception for games where acting out the game can easily lead to tragedy. Pretending to asphyxiate someone with a plastic bag or beat them with a baseball bat is much more likely to send someone to the hospital than shooting them with a toy gun.
I remember playing Contra as a kid and telling my grandma "Look! I just killed those guys!". I was rewarded with a brief lecture on how killing is wrong in real life.
I was ten years old, and even then thought it was stupid. "These are pixels on a screen, not people - can't she tell the difference?". As graphics improve, children's ability to tell graphics from reality also improve (remember how awesome the T-Rex in Jurassic Park looked when you first saw it? Go back and look at it now.) To gamers today, the hookers in GTA3 are no different from the sprites in Contra. They're pixels on a screen.
And we'll need much better systems (including tactile and odor outputs) than what we have now to even begin to break that mental barrier.
Last post!
If your kid has a habit of collecting, killing and then mutilating cute little woodland creatures or the neighbors' pets, I'd consider getting them something other than a violent video game.
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My kids are 10 and 12 and I started played Q3A with them when they were little. I'd apply new models and skins for them to use and we'd set up homer vs Bart games or other such silliness. My kids are not violent. In fact I often get compliments about their caring natures. They both have a lot of empathy for others and for animals. They are very kind people... until you get into an arena with them. Then they turn it on and kick you ass. It didn't take very long for them to figure out they could gang up on me and kick my ass all over the place.
These days they Mostly play Halo2 together though they've mastered pretty much all of the FPS games on PC and Xbox. They're a great team and I feel sorry for any guy my daughter dates if he thinks he'll beat her in a FPS game. She's been playing them since she was 5. It's funny to see a girly girl who likes hello kitty kick the shit out of "young studs" online. Often they think that's someone else is playing and putting her voice on.
That's my girl.
You're right, but I don't think I'm wrong.
My take on this thing is that experience can't be taught. We can't stop kids from doing things we now know were stupid. The best parents can do is instill in their children the ideals and skills necessary to handle those dangers when they arise. Too many parents fall back on "just say no" and "zero tolerance"; those things don't work. If someone is truly worried about the effects of violent games on children, then banning the games from the house is stupid and way too late. The conversations should have started years ago, when you're watching a Bugs Bunny marathon with your very little kids. *That's* the time (and Bugs gives you plenty of opportunities) to discuss the difference between real violence and make believe. That's the time to assure yourself that your kid has their head on straight enough to know the difference.
What bugs me about so much of the child-rearing I see is that people try to prohibit bad things. That only works while the parent is in the room. Parents should anticipate and teach long before the need arises to prohibit. Then they should trust that their kids got the point and won't screw up too bad while gaining their own experience, which just happens to be the only experience they'll ever actually benefit from.
The failure to teach is bad parenting. The failure to trust is disrespectful. And people that can do neither shouldn't have kids.
Pardon me while I book my return ticket from Never-Never Land. I don't quite know how I got here...
I agree with the spirit of this article, and don't want to be contrary, but the comment "the world is not always a nice place" is completely out of step with the topic, and mixing these topics is precisely what leads to trouble. The violence depicted in games is a mere caricature of the real thing, and a dangerous one at that.
With regards to which games are acceptable for children, our family is admittedly out of step with mainstream culture. My 4-year-old son has dabbled in Rome-Total-War. "Lemmings" has some disturbing content by preschool standards, especially the updated 3D-versions. But its on the approved list because the player is challenged with saving the lemmings rather than destroying them. Mario in contrast, is completely off-limits.
We will watch and discuss "Saving Private Ryan" before we introduce Mario. Though I don't distinguish between Mario and Gears-of-War, one could argue that Mario is worse because it sugar-coats aggression, makes it more palettable. Lobbing mushrooms and fireballs teaches aggression every bit as well as mortars.
NOTE: It composing this post, I used the concepts of "aggression" and "violence" somewhat interchangeably. They are of course not the same, but I wanted to limit this post to a few paragraphs. Apologies to those who are offended by this ambiguity.
Videogames are far and away more detailed and realistic than games were back when we were kids. I mean I was playing Doom when I was a kid and my parents had no problems with it. The graphics of Doom are basically cartoony. I don't recall it being particularly scary as a kid, except maybe when all the lights would go out and 10 imps would jump me. Games back then were all fantastical stories like that, aliens invading, an elf battling evil forces, etc. None of this "go down the block, get a ho in your car, and stab a policeman and get away with it." I think it's the violent games that are firmly cemented in the real world that I wouldn't let my children play.
In my experience, if you red shirt your kid (keep him out of school as long as possible so that he's older and bigger than his classmates and has an advantage in sports) then you do more harm than good. He gets his license first, so he's got more chances to be the drunk driver that kills his passengers. He turns 18 long before high school is done, so he has more chances to go to jail for statutory rape for what he does with his sophomore girlfriend.
As counter-intuitive as it seems, I say put 'em in school as early as you can.
>I don't know if better graphics make the games more detrimental to your children's mental health.
/real/ sensory stimuli of graphic murder.
/concept/ of the simulation that is important to consider, but the /fidelity/ of the simulation. The more realistic the simulation, the more concerned we should be about the impact on the impressionable.
I think they do.
Let's face it, all simulation-type games are just that - SIMULATIONS. When the technology was prohibitive, the simulations were necessarily crude. But as technology progresses, the simulations are going to become more and more realistic.
I think it is pretty much established that exposure to sensory stimuli can cause desensitizing to those stimuli.
The more realistic the simulation of the sensory stimuli of, say, graphic murder, becomes, the more risk there will be of reducing sensitivity to
In summary, it is not just the
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I just want to make one comment on what everyone seems to have agreed upon - that video games of yore were less realistic than video games now - thus the 'times have changed' and we should regulate accordingly.
...but honestly, how realistic is GTA? Just because the graphics are better, they're still pretty cartoonish and depict a very skewed version of reality. Yes, times have changed, and what that means is we can see humans in very unrealistic situations and not be emotionally affected. On that note, one of the most disconcerting violent experiences I've had in a LONG time (I'm 23 and I watch a lot of movies) was seeing the stabbing scene in 'Zodiac.' It wasn't that gory, but the way the whole scene was shot it made me feel like I could've easily been that guy.
I disagree with this assertion on this basis - 'extreme' changes over time given the culture, time period, and previous exposure. Playboy magazine was extremely sexual given the time period, but now it's pretty tame. By the same token, I was 8-10 when Doom came out, and it was extremely gory and involved than most other games I'd played at the time. Not only was it really gory (even if it was alien violence) - it had that added level of being personal since it was from a first person perspective. We can look back at it now of course and say 'oh, that's really tame compared to GTA'
More gore, more guns, more violence, more sex doesn't necessarily mean more realistic. Usually, it paradoxically means the opposite. We shouldn't let our failures of intuition influence our decisions.
got to build those fine motor skills early.
Dad: 5 more kills or no dinner!
Kid#2: Do prostytoot count?
Dad: hell yes, get that b****!
And yes I'm going to name my kids "Kid". Thoughtless parents seem to compete on having the most obnoxious kids on the planet. I'm going to cheat and screw them up on purpose.
I am a mother who played video games as a child (moon patrol when i started) and now as well. I think ratings are good to have as a guideline because some parents just aren't that intelligent, but I don't think ratings should be the tool to teach morality in children. I think too many people are trying to say they are teaching morals to their children by restricting what they watch rather than explaining how the world is. If we purposefully hide information from our children, they do not have the appropriate information with which to make decisions. I think it is a parent's responsibility to teach their children morals. I also think if you tell your teenager that he can't play Battlefield because people get shot, he will play it at a friends house and it can become an obsession. I also play with my children because it is a medium in which we can communicate on their level. I feel that it is important to try to see things from their perspective so that I can help guide them in a responsible manner. I don't blame video games or television for criminal activity in children. I think it is a failure of parents to actually perform the parenting part of the child's life.
Seventeen! You're ready.
...so I wouldn't say you can't learn from them. My spelling was strengthened playing those pre-mouse Sierra Online games. I recall learning a good bit from those old Carmen Sandiego games. Heck, I wouldn't know who Spiro Agnew was if it wasn't for the age-verification system in Leisure Suit Larry.
Me and my dad both play violent video games!
;)
In Germany, this is being made 'really illegal' by OLD populist politicians...
It has never been 'legal' for minors to purchase violent games here, and it is getting more and more difficult to do so even as an adult today.
My youth (regarding violent video-games / I am still only 22!):
1. Somehow get the guy at the counter to sell me the game. Try different shops/counters. (Becoming annoyed...)
2. Discover that although I had bought and paid more money for the 18+ version, the game had been censored. (Becoming angry...)
3. Find and download a blood-patch. The sites hosting them generally were pulled off the net relatively quickly. (Becoming frustrated...)
4. Install the blood-patch. (Becoming aware that computers just as humans can be very annoying, aggravating and frustrating. Learning something about both at the same time though...)
5. Have a lot of fun, laugh at that head that just exploded, just as 'the makers' intended it to do. (Becoming calm by getting rid of all that aggression I had built up in steps 1-4...)
Before I was old enough to go to a store to buy my games, my dad got them for me. Wolfenstein3d or Doom where already installed on his computer. We used to play them together, I did the shooting (pressing Strg) he did the walking (using the arrows)
The irony here is, that from the age of about 15/16 I was the one supplying my dad with violent video games, paying for them with my pocket money.
I still do it today! (Not from my pocket money though...)
By the way, Wolfenstein3D was THE first game I ever played, and by 'coincidence' it is also one of the very few titles in Germany that are totally banned, not just for minors. Censorship in the name of protecting the young is wrong, and (in Germany) we know where those laws originated from...
So speaking for all oppressed gamers young or old, I cry out "Die, Fuhrer, Die!" with at least one or two winks...
Videogame violence is NOT as bad as many people make it out to be. But, there should still be some guidelines. I wouldn't want my kids playing Grand Theft Auto until they were like 15-16 years old. I think there are shooting games that arn't that bad for kids though. Starfox is a good example and maybe even a 007 game (no blood splattering).
I have 3 kids, aged 15/12/10. The oldest isn't really into Video games, but the 2 youngest are, I let them play every game that I play (CS, Diablo2, GTA3, Quake3/4, warcraft, etc) and i always have.
Some things I have noticed:
They know the difference between games and real life, the routinely gib people in Quake, headshot people in CS, wipe out creeps in WC3 (when we all play together), but in school they get good grades and their teachers love them (no behavior problems), I know this because my wife works in the same school they attend and is privy to all of the lunch room commentary by their teachers.
When they play these games their mindsets and preferences are mirrored in the game, not the other way around. This is the biggest point I can make.. games are a way for them to express themselves, I don't see any "conditioning" that should be prevalent if you are to believe video game alarmists (E.G. Jack Thompson)
E.G. My second youngest (girl) likes to drive around GTA3 in a firetruck or ambulence doing the side missions helping people.. she doesn't gun people down/kill hookers/ etc.. in fact she berates me for not obeying the speed limit when I play.
When playing CS she likes the surf maps (where you glide around a map in a race type setting) and barely (if at all) tries to shoot anyone or fight in general. Same for Warcraft, she likes the maps where you build towns or can generate unlimited creeps and walk them around the map (no objective). In real life she loves animals, being social, and helping people...
With my son he likes to play games (CS/quake) with other people and make friendships in game, leaves if the competition is too tough and avoids conflict, and tries to help people who don't know how to do X in a game. He is the same way when playing with kids on the play ground at school.
I have never seen an increase in violent tendencies in their interactions with each other or other kids (like the neighbors, at school etc...) as a result of playing these games.
So there ya go.. btw, I have been playing video games since Doom first came out, so they have been around these games for ALL of their lives, if there was some kind of influence you would expect it to be manifested in some visable way?
I might be biased so I offer this as well, my wife doesn't play any games at all but shes their behavior constantly every day, she doesn't have any problems with them playing these games nor has she seen any changes in their behavior due to their playing them more often.
Remember laser tag? You wear a "vest" and carry a gun to shoot at your friends. I forget where I was going with this, but something about reality and fun.
Causing Chaos Everywhere,
Nik J.
The strange world of a loner, in a populous city, drowning in society
I think the people who wrote this article is a fucking idiot!
Young animals are not sheltered from the real world. They are simply protected from dying. Baby animals fight with their siblings all the time, learning how to fight because they need to in the real world. Their parents do not stop them, and tell them to play nice. Their parents simply try to prevent predators from killing them. Apply this same logic to humans. Parents should prevent their children from being killed. They should not prevent them from learning how to cope with life.
You have it quite backwards, for all of human history, children have coped with the real world. They are not stupid, they are very capable of handling reality and learning to deal with it. Put the strong copy instinct to good use: have them copy you skills at dealing with reality so they learn to do it to. If you pretend there is nothing bad, they never learn how to deal with all the bad out there.
You sound like the guy I beat up for lunch money in school "Physcial violence shows you are dumber then me" WHAM "Your a brute" WHAM "I'm sorry, here is my money"
Dismissing anything you don't like as "having no class" and being "not a good movie" is just trolling. Just because you are a prude, doesn't mean anything with sex or violence is bad.
>And, frankly, I don't care if they get "naked
...
>and freaky on their webcams." Here's what I'm
>worried about:
> 2. my kids getting an STD.
> 5. my kids getting pregnant before they're
> ready to take care of a child.
I'm pretty sure there's some overlap between
those sets
Uhm...
my kid wasn't really that interested in gaming until more recently and he's 14 now.
The reason is that we tossed a frisbee every afternoon at the park and went mountain biking on Saturday morning every week and I got him interested in building and racing R/C cars when he was 10 and playing hockey when he was 8 and by the end of the day, we sit down and catch a movie and he goes to bed (and I wander off to Slashdot).
Wow, profound. It was never an issue. But I never forbade anything either. When he played GTA2 at a friend's house at 8, he told me that he didn't like the game because it didn't feel right to run around running down innocent people in a stolen car. He still played now and then when I assured him that it was OK to play video games, but that he was a good person for having feelings like that and to hold onto those.
He still won't step on ants on the street, even though he watched R rated movies and played GTA at 8 years old.
Big surprise. It's not about the games a kid plays but the lessons he learns from his parents.
Stewed
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
My kids play plenty of "violent" games, &, thus far, don't seem deranged to me. Granted, when "realistic" violent games came out, I was "old enough" to play them, but I really don't see a problem.
I grew up with Looney Toons & Popeye (cartoons, I know, but go with me for a second), & I've never dropped an anvil on anyone or brutally beaten any sailors.
... because our generation ended up fine. Or did it? Why does the OP assume that our generation suffered no ill effects from playing violent videogames in the first place?
If you didn't suffer, that doesn't mean less intelligent, more impressionable or less stable kidds didn't. Even if statistics don't show a conclusive result, that doesn't prove anything (mind you: doesn't prove -anything-; I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying you can't say it isn't).
In the end, you face the same problem your parents did. And just doing the same things your parents did isn't always the best choice, even if you ended up fine as a result of their choices. If you fail to see that though, it doesn't really matter what you're told here, because whatever your kid ends up like is probably going to be chance and genes anyway.
Nothing wrong with Tetris, Chess, or any of those Ambrosia games.
Hey, what about getting the kids to play Turtle Logo? They might even learn something. Or even better, Lego Mindstorms.
Sad and boring I know, but I grew up with Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and such. They were absolutely thrilling! Why the need to have realistic shoot the bad (or even good) guy games? We're forcing (through marketing/fad pressue) these kids to experience violence in a way that desensitises them. Sure they claimed that would be the case for our generation (including D&D), but these realistic ones take it just too far.
There's no imagination in it. We had to imagine Kong holding the woman prisoner, and needing rescue. It wasn't spoon-fed with blood and guts and screaming all over the place.
My 2cents worth.
Of course I won't punish him for defending himself. I simply want to instill in him the sense that violence should be the very last resort after all other options have been exhausted.
My school years were never like you describe. Maybe I got lucky. I never had to defend myself or others, though that may have been because I was 6 feet tall and weighed 200 pounds by the time I was in 7th grade. Fights were very few and far between. I can only really remember three of them, none of which involved any of my close friends.
I didn't go to a typical public school, though. People came to our football games to watch the marching band's halftime show.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I think he's made a wise and informed decision. Too bad not enough parents are intelligent and worldly enough to recognize the importance of limiting gaming content to children. Kudos!
Hear hear. I got my ass beat by bullies a lot, but I was never actually a wimp. Just had a single mother that had no clue how to raise little boys. One day I had literally 3 kids ganging up on me with insults, pushing me, daring me to start shit. The insults and pushing drove me to tears (6th grade) and at one point I walked out of a class over it. Had a long talk with the teacher that followed me. She moved me to a new group, but they kept up.
One kid rode my bus. Even got off at my stop. Alone. I knew where the other two lived, they were pretty far apart. So the one that rode my bus kept talking shit when we were headed home that day. I warned him he was digging his own grave with the shovel he called a mouth. He persisted. When we got to the stop, he got off first, turned to hurl more insults, and was met by me already in mid air off the last step of the bus. I got my hands around his throat and it was all I could do not to try to kill him and instead punch him in the face repeatedly while holding him in a head lock.
Two other kids dragged me off, with me still screaming that I wanted him dead. They warned him to shut up and walk away or they'd let me go. He kept talking, they didn't release me. I screamed that they said they'd let me go, now let me go. I then proceeded to drop two kids my size to their knees with elbows to the gut, went after the kid, and right crossed him in to the street, nearly under an oncoming car. I was disappointed it didn't hit him, so when he got up I clocked him nearly out in to the street again. One more knock down and I instructed him to stay down until he couldn't see me.
Next morning I told him "Have you got your mouth under control now?" He nodded, head down with a black eye. I then instructed him "You tell the other two what happened to you. You tell them how much anger you heard coming from me. You tell them I know where each of them lives, and I'll be bringing a baseball bat to deal with each of them if you don't all shut up immediately."
Never again did I hear a peep from any of them. One even became friends with me later.
Fighting sometimes is a solution when all other avenues fail. The fear it instills serves to keep people to full of malice and stupidity from making your life miserable. I did a few similar things after that to help out other kids. Never once did I simply act in aggression for the sake of violence. Rarely did I have to swing. All it took most times was the guts to stand up and threaten violence to make a bully back down.
Kids should learn that violence has a use in protecting yourself and folks weaker than you from aggression by those who use it in an in discriminant fashion. Even then, it should only be used in an elevating series of actions, ranging from trying to reason things out, to attempting intimidation, to violence only if all other means fail.
All things in nature fight amongst themselves for resources, mates, and territory. Adult humans have contrived laws to substitute for that fighting and pretend we've forgotten that part of our selves because we're "better" than other mammals. And we are, but only to a degree. Kids didn't come up with those laws, and the only way they can understand the need for them is to find out through violence and conflict while they're young enough to heal fast.
Your experience isn't uncommon, nor is it shameful or scary. It's simply a boy learning how to defend himself and forming his own set of morals about when to use violence and when not to. Personally I think more Americans needed to learn how to take and give a beating while they were young. Might make stuff like the fucked up legislation we accept out of fear just a bit less common than it is now if people had more guts to stand up to bullies, because terrorists are just bullies with bombs.
The most violent video games that I was allowed to play as a child included every version of Mortal Kombat at the forefront of my mind, with Street Fighter coming in at a close second and Duck Hunt as the runner up. There is no doubt that games such as Halo and its successors, Rainbow Six, or other military-related games have upped the ante in video game violence. The choice of weaponry alone is pretty amazing, and yet I have no aching urge to purchase a grenade launcher off of the black market. Nor do I hunt duck--I just eat it. I have no children of my own, but I do have 5 younger siblings, 3 of whom play Halo and Halo 2. As a matter of fact, the youngest at 8 years, is better at sniping then my older brother, 23, who has played the game enough for the images to be permanently burned into his corneas. At 8 years old, he has not been in any fights in school or out--unlike me, who had been in over 3 at his age--although he loves playing these rather violent video games. As long as my younger brothers and sisters can distinguish the difference between reality and a video game, I do not object to feeding their video habits. In addition, they maintain B if not A averages, and do not live in fear of venturing outdoors into sunlight--they are not socially retarded, they do not shy away from other children their own age. Then there is the fact that kids are exposed to violent movies and could seek friends for outside sources if it was restricted. Hypothetically, if I did prevent my children from playing video games in my home, the Internet holds a world of outlets. Restrictions are great, yet the knowledge that they can play the games they so desire as long as they are at the proper location could incite them to do as they please.
Point being, you want the ability to make moral judgements in place so they have a framework to put game violence in context as "NOT WHAT YOU DO IN THE SCHOOLYARD".
My parents let me play Oregon Trail all I wanted -- until went out into the woods one day and shot 6 squirrels, 2 deer, 3 buffalo, and a rabbit. The worst part was that they only let me drag 100 lbs. of meat back to the wagon. Bastards.
My parents bought a Nintendo and a few games when I was 8.
After that, they gave me an allowance and told me to pay for my own games. I saved every penny to buy a Game Boy when I was 10.
I plan to take the same approach with my kids. If my 9-year-old can figure out how to afford a PS8 with ultra-realistic gore, he deserves it!
No, I will not work for your startup
I carry a gun openly in front of my kids. They never see it used as a toy.
I play violent video games, where I blast the hell out of humans and aliens alike. I shield the kids from language, so I don't let them watch when I play Prey or Gears of War. But I don't shield them from graphics or violent content, so they see gore and violence in Halo, Lost Planet, and even Call of Duty.
I do explain the difference between pretend and real, and I let them see that distinction in action. It's not just an abstract concept. The games are fun, and there is no consequence to killing. The gun Daddy carries is real, and there are huge consequenses attached to its use. By letting them see me behaving this way, I think they will learn and retain this lesson easily. Responsibility can be taught by example.
--Jaborandy
No FPS for me. I don't don't like killing people one by one. Nothing beats Sid Meyer's Civilization -- where you can blast your enemy's cities with atom bombs, provided you have the engineers to do the clean-up afterwards...
By the age kids can play these games at all, they are already exposed to advertisements, to the internet and to modern television.
Are there any innocent kids left in the western world?
I am not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but I think that kids born in the 90's are not nearly as innocent as those before the 80's, and the whole "childhood" concept has changed considerably.
and skipped to school with peter pan collars flapping and getting mud on my
knickerbockers, I was not allowed to play Doom, Quake, or whatever. Instead I had to
play games such as "fuzzy bunny's math adventure" and "kids on keys". Whenever I tried
to play doom, a locked menu stood in my way.
Why your games were OK: Doom and Quake were backed by a story based in fantasy, with weapons and characters that do not really exist. Even if they were based in reality, they couldn't be presented realistically.
Why your kids' games are not: The games called into question today are interactive simulators of murder and thuggery, featuring the most realistic, immersive action ever made playable by young hands connected to young, malleable minds.
I would never say that video games are completely responsible for any incident of real-world violence. I just ask that certain developers aim a smidge higher.
Hm. I remember when America rolled into Iraq at the outset of the current war effort in the Middle East. I remember people posting as though they all had patriotic erections and typing in thought nuggets which seemed to be framed in Command & Conquer inspired understandings of the event. --A game which, I would hazard to guess, was at the time the prevailing experience of warfare held by most Slashdotters.
With that much programming into the populace of "War = ADDICTIVE FUN!!!", how tough was it really to get the population's approval for such a war? The Rah-Rah support factor among the population was just plain embarrassing before things inevitably turned sour, at which point it was too late.
Also. . , how many troops currently hefting firearms over there were not first weaned on point & shoot games? There's a reason America's Army was created and given away for free. The hugely popular, culture-spanning video games when I was a kid included stuff like Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac Man, Donkey Kong and Defender. Summer Games and Galaga were also big. --A solid portion of these involved no guns, the other half involved shooting rocks or shooting aliens in defense of the planet. Nobody was shooting at other people.
Video games have undergone a very interesting shift, and I don't remember exactly when it happened. It was subtle and creepy, and it has lulled the populace into an entirely different head-space. Think: if GTA3 were released in the Pac Man days, there would have been protest bonfires in the streets. Don't kid yourself. It would not have been allowed or accepted. It takes careful planning and long-term work to re-program an entire populace into something sufficiently dark and psychopathic enough to sustain an evil empire, illegal wars and torture camps. If the Bush regime had tried to pull their crap twenty years ago, there is a much greater chance that they would have been put in prison.
When you train up your population to think of death-dealing as a fun and painless form of entertainment, it's quite a lot easier to start and maintain those highly profitable wars.
Point 2. . .
Physical play is how kids train their brains and bodies to function in the real world. If you take all those thousands of hours of childhood and instead plug them into a virtual reality where they can satisfy that part of their developing brain which is driving them to learn through play, you by-pass all the physical training and thereby create a race of single hit-point slug people.
Me and the friends I grew up with had the advantage of being on the bleeding edge of computers, which meant that video games and home computers were novelties, not the norm. Any self-respecting person of my age knows how to climb a tree and jump a dirt-bike better than most of today's crop of children.
-FL
I was not allowed to have a toy gun as a kid, now that toy guns are illegal in Australia I have become obsessive about their acquisition. I feel I would not have this dangerous hobby if my parents (like the parents of my friends) allowed me to have a toy gun as a kid. let the kids play, play lets them learn the most valuable lessons at a stage where the consequences are minimal. play is the key word here, you play games.
I wish I had got onto this one earlier. The topic is probably dead. Oh well.
I have a little girl (19 months) and I am amazed every day by the power images have on her. This evening we were watching a TV show and there was a close-up shot of one of the characters crying. My girl copied the gesture, the sound and the emotion exactly, then shot me a big grin afterwards. Everything she sees, teaches her something.
She learned how to distinguish eyes, ears, nose and mouth by watching a Baby Einstein video over and over. The powerful images taught her how, and quickly -- after only two or three viewings she had it figured out.
This weekend I was playing Halo. I was on a roll, massacring wave after wave of Covenant. There was blue blood everywhere. I looked down and my daughter was staring up at the screen, totally enthralled by what she was seeing. I can only imagine what she learned from that. I hope it was how to circle-strafe and that the needler is a piece of crap. But it got me thinking about what effect the images were having on me.
Images have a powerful influence on kids. They have a powerful influence on anyone. Certain images creep me out and give me nightmares, others inspire me and lift my spirits. I've seen a lot of movies and played a lot of violent video games and I'm still affected by powerful images, even if I know they're fake. To think that kids are immune to the imagery in video games is naive. I grew up playing the most violent games available (believe it or not, we were able to find plenty of violence in Oregon Trail) but these days violence bothers me in a way it never did -- probably because games are getting closer to photorealism each month. I still haven't played FEAR because of the bloody box art. Ravenholm in Half-Life 2 was fun, but disturbing, and I was glad to get out of it. I couldn't play a whole game like that.
I'm disturbed by some of the posters who are so numb they think that our kids are going to play violent video games, drink, screw, do drugs and do whatever they want, whenever they want, and there's nothing we can do about it except mitigate the effects. I think that's absolute nonsense and an attempt to dodge responsibility.
There is something we can do about it -- as some posters have suggested, we can teach our kids the difference between reality and fantasy. We can teach our kids the difference between right and wrong. We can teach them that some things are more beneficial than others, and guide them to make good choices. We can make home a loving, caring environment with rules. Good rules are not pointless confinements -- they allow kids to know their boundaries, and to be free within those boundaries. Free to be kids, not adults-in-training.
I'm sure some might argue that standards are arbitrary and that we should let kids find their own way. I would say that argument is again an attempt to avoid responsibility. The world is a scary place, it is unacceptable for a parent to turn their kids loose too early, and without a road map and some idea of what's ahead. Letting kids figure things out on their own is letting them destroy themselves.
So what about violent video games? I'm seeing them more through the eyes of a child -- my child -- and realizing I don't want to make compromises, or make complicated rules about what is and isn't acceptable in my house and when some games should be played just to protect my hobby. I'd rather give up playing some games altogether. I guess you could call that love.
I would let my (hypothetical) kids play violent video games as long as they can distinguish between games and reality. Sure, they might become more desensitized to violence, but I don't see anything wrong with that. It'll make them stronger in case they ever encounter real violence in their lives.
I have to agree. Game playing like that didn't have a negative effect on me either, neither did listening to "Heavy Metal" music. Those kids who shoot up schools have deeper problems that I I don't believe have anything to do with violent game play.
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
.... the average age people would expect to live was ~30.
But we do not live in such societies any more, thus we have to make the necessary adjustment to the current circumstances.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You allow your children to play with their fingers as if they were guns? What kind of a sick, violence- and gun- obsessed culture do you come from? It's weird enough to think of police routinely carrying guns in itself, and we know that they're trained psychopaths. But to allow children (or even adults) to think that that's "right" or even "normal"
Oh, hang on, it's America, where the Army effectively censors the entertainment industry from showing people the real effects of violence, and where the entertainment industry collaborates with the censorship by making a "realistic" shooting mean "like you see in the movies" instead of making the movies realistic. How does that anthem go? "California über alles"
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Violent games trivialize, descontextualize and even glamourize the scary part of the world out there.
If you want to teach children about the scary world out there, talk to them about living in Iraq and the very real posibility of being bombed out of existence. This is all on the news (no longer frontpage material mind you, but parents should be able to digest the relevant from the suprflous for their children education.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I did allow one exception for the cartoony "Destroy All Humans" game, where invading aliens zap laser beams from their UFO's at crowds of fleeing people, making them disappear in a puff of smoke. But we have successfully held out against the 007 types of games as well as Grand Theft Auto and other obviously anti-social or gory titles.
I don't buy them any realistic toy guns either. We have real guns stored under lock and key, and the children are well versed in how to handle and shoot them safely. We don't want the two confused. They have some neon colored water soakers for the pool and that's about it.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Did you know that the deadliest mass murder at a school in the US occurred at a school in Michigan where the perpetrator set off bomb planted in the school, then killed himself and many others with a car bomb after rescuers responded to the scene? 45 people died that day, and this was in 1927.
I looked it up: the Bath School disaster. Wow.
Yes, I played videogames - both violent and non-violent. I liked Civilization, SimCity, SimTower and the likes. I also (somewhat frequently) ditched certain classes in high school to go frag the guys in a Doom deathmatch. I like to play FPS and RPG. Sending out 50 troops to get slaughtered in C&C Generals gives me no qualms - I know it isn't real. I have always known that.
I got my C64 when I was 6 and there were no limits to how much I could play games (violent or not). Nowadays I'm 29, got a part time job, is writing my Master's thesis in Computer Science and I've never beat up someone else (or gotten beat up). So, what's the harm of computer games?
When I get p!ssed off I put on a little 80's Heavy Metal and go frag some people on-line - It's a way of letting off some steam. If you take it out on a digital character, you probably won't go beat up someone else.
(write-line *coolsig*)
Today, I agree with you. I think I'd play any of my games with my child.
But would you play them with your child if they were indistinguishable from a video recording of the event depicted? If you could bash someone's head in with a crowbar, or shoot them in the stomach at close range with a shotgun with lifelike realism would you still play the game with your child, explaining all the while that it's just a "puppet"?
That's the point. The OP was suggesting that graphics don't really matter, and I contend that they do, or at least, they will very soon. As the technology advances that permits extremely realistic graphic portrayals of violence, I think we are going to all have to re-think which games we will allow our children to play.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>I don't think video realism is really up to par yet with little kids aiming guns at other little kids.
/had/ smeared each other with ketchup, your playing "cops and robbers" or whatever with your toy guns /still/ would have been a far cry from a lifelike audio-video recording of someone getting shot for real, which is where video games are heading.
No, it isn't. Yet.
And even if you
Think of it this way - do you let your children watch rated R hack-n-slash horror films? Would you let them play a computer game that was equally realistic?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
100% BULLSHIT - Violet Video Games are make-believe play. Anyone who seriously thinks violent video games have anything to do with how kids react in their real lives are idiots. This kind of stupid thinking is for people who think aliens abduct people, that people spontaneously explode or that the toothfairy gives you money in exchange for teeth.
GROW THE FUCK UP, then maybe YOU won't cause irrepairable harm to your children.
If you kids are violent or stupid, IT IS YOUR FAULT, YOU FUCKING MORON, STOP BREEDING!
STOP FUCKING UP MY GAMES, MY TV, MY MOVIES! I'll quote Full Metal Jacket, "I will rip off your head and shit down your neck!" I love that movie, I love killing NAZIs in WWII, love killing monsters from outerspace, and I have never hurt anyone who didn't throw the first punch.
I believe parents should keep an eye on what their kids play until they get to a certain age where they know what they can play or play games without them worrying about whether or not they will emulate it. The more violent games tend to be more complicated compared to the cartoony games that younger kids play. There really isn't a right or wrong way to introduce gaming to kids as long as they know the difference between right and wrong. It's like with movies, there are certain movies that they can watch and certain that they can't. However, there are times when they watch a rated R movie but with adult supervision. The power of adult supervision seems to be more underestimated than it use to be years ago.
The most obvious answer to why our children can't play violent video games is because their graphics are getting very real. Yes our video games were violent, but much of it was 2-D animation that we know could not really re-enact in our backyards--OK most of us. Games like "Doom" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" proposed fantastical themes of fighting monsters and combatant turtles. Now that video games are tapping into 3-D, and maybe 4-D animation, the reality of the video games (like "Godfather") can be arguably closely connected to the violence that occurs in real life.
This probably won't get read or responded to now, but anywayz...
Want to know why I seriously first started playing San Andreas? Anthropological curiousity.
As someone living in Australia, I knew nothing about African-American gang culture whatsoever. My girlfriend's teenaged daughter, when she lived with us, listened to a lot of rap music. I heard some of it, but never really understood the context behind the lyrics at all. Hearing about San Andreas got me interested in learning about it in the same way that I ended up reading about the Amish after hearing the song Amish Paradise, or reading about the Ojibwa after watching Commander Chakotay on Star Trek: Voyager. (I'd read some Voyager fanfic where Chakotay was depicted as an Ojibwa shaman, or fairly close in terms of their spiritual beliefs) I like learning about different cultures.
From what I read, the depiction of the hood in San Andreas was very thoroughly researched by Rockstar as well; they apparently got a lot of rap musicians and other people who were/had been part of that culture. I think one the main reasons why it's interesting is because it actually makes you think a lot about different systems of morality; what some other people might think of as degraded or antisocial (in terms of prostitution, hard drug use, violence etc) would presumably have been seen by people living within that environment perhaps as simply being elements of their everyday lives.
So if you look at it from that point of view, (or in terms of another example, where you're playing a game set a few thousand years ago) the violence is only excessive by our own contemporary cultural standards. By the standards of the culture the game is intending to simulate/represent, the violence is actually one of the main parts; if you took that out, in many cases what the culture itself was based on would be lost, or at least fundamentally altered...it wouldn't be authentic.
Hence, violence in games doesn't have to encourage violence in real life...it can allow us to look at other cultures or time periods, and remind us that in those other scenarios, violence often led to extremely negative consequences...and so rather than encourage it now, it can actually help us to see why reducing it is a better idea. CJ taught me quite a lot.
The thing that annoys me about all this is that 10,000 years ago, a kid the age of the ones we are trying to protect from "blood on the screen" would be bashing a deer's head in with a rock, ripping its flesh off the bone and eating it. Yeah, it would be awful for a kid to be subjected to realistic depictions of violence. I don't know how a species would survive like that.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Drawing the line on kids playing violent video games? here's my suggestion.
Don't have kids.
But if you do have kids, if you know your kid is not impressionable, then by all means it should be ok to let him play games like Call of Duty, Resistance, Resident Evil, etc. Now if your kid is a retarted dumbass who tries to recreate Jackass every chance he gets. Then that's where the restriction comes in.
Isn't it funny how no where else in the world does this kind of thing happen? Kids in Japan are exposed to far more stuff that we wouldn't even imagine. Kids eventually have to experience these things and they can still have a great childhood while knowing what's really going on in the world.