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New Parental Controls Limit Xbox Time
An anonymous reader writes "As part of a new marketing blitz to promote the Xbox 360 as a "family friendly" video game console, Microsoft on Wednesday rolled out a new feature called Family Timer, which will show up in the Family Settings Screen.
The Timer will let parents limit the number of hours their kids can play the Xbox on a daily or weekly basis. When the time limit is reached, the console will automatically shut off, ostensibly after saving the game."
Sorry, I was going to do a verbose post about all the reasons why I should stay on the computer, but my timer is about to kick...
Ask me about repetitive DNA
... just remove the harddrive and memory card and you will be safe and can play on? ;)
Kid, don't get married. I'd rather negotiate playing time with the xbox than my wife ;)
In my experience, the parents who would be responsible enough to use such a feature don't need it anyways. The problem is the parents who want their kids lifeless in front of the Xbox (or the TV) so they'll be "out of their hair".
In a very clever move by Microsoft, the indicator showing the console is on standby will be a lit red ring on the front of the unit...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Ask your parents for an unlimited, second Xbox to be used exclusively by your friends. Problem solved.
it isn't the machine that sets the limit, it's the parents.
however, i know for a fact that my parents wouldn't be able to set this up, and I'm sure they're not the only ones.
Your parents are.
Then don't set the limit. This is an option you know.
Well, gee, I think the first step towards proving that you can be trusted with the burden of choosing when to stop playing video games would be to not somehow accidentally turn on the parental controls then forget how to turn them off.
The enemies of Democracy are
My mother would love to have something like this on my father's computer. She calls Diablo II 'the divorce game'.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
This will solve nothing if parents aren't responsible enough to realize that their child is simply playing way too many video games. If they have to depend on a timer to shut off the Xbox, what else do they rely on to do parenting for them?
My page.
If you're thirteen, and you aren't doing your schoolwork, then bully on Microsoft for giving parents the tools they need to create fine distinctions about your playtime without having to just wholesale ban games. I'd prefer parents actually, you know, supervising their children, but I know in real life that option is not always readily available. (Mom and Dad have to work to send Junior to the college he will be going to if he manages to graduate, etc.)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
You're right, but it's a straw man argument. The issue is that another person - not the machine - can make decisions for a minor in his/her care.
Parents should monitor and correct, monitor and correct their children's behavior. Nobody said it was easy. Parents should be aware of what their children are doing online and with games or what-have-you, just the same as when children are expected to let their parents know who they're with, what they're doing, where they are, when they'll be back, why they're going, and how they'll get there.
The process ofa parent busting a kid in a lie and then doing something about it is good for the kid, good for the parent, and good for the relationship. More to the point, it's damned good for the *adult* that the kid will someday become. Isn't that the whole point?
Time limited technology is not in and of itself bad. It's neutral--it's technology. But try to deny that the only people for whom this poses an attractive solution are the exact people who need more direct family involvement, not less. This is what conservatives are talking about when we say that all these little influences, each one seemingly innocuous, are corroding the family.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
Aren't your parents the ones telling you what to do and not the machine? The machine is just enforcing their wishes. This solution is much better than having to hide the xbox in a safe. I do not have kids of my own, but I know that kids cannot always see when their addiction is affecting their lives in a bad way. To take away the console completely might be seen as totally unfair. Parents do own their children until they are 18.
I'd put money on it.
Apparently the ps3 is not the primary driver right now.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
and you wont need some third party parental controls to keep an eye on your kids activities. You need to have parental leadership skills, this will make your kid respect you and follow your directions. Having said that kids are kids and they will try to break your authority but if you have tought them properly they'll only take this rebellion up to a certain point and then give up.
You are not that busy to not look after your kids and if you think you are then you're a POS for having kids and making them live your lifestyle.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Must have been 5 years ago now my buddys' stepdad had a TV that did this.
It would just show a message on the screen that said you watch too much TV & no matter what you did you couldn't get it to go away untill the off timer was over.
I just so happened to discover this on the day his stepdad wanted to watch a big football game, & somehow I managed to set it for the time the game was on while playing with it.
Needless to say I didn't go over my buddys house for a few days after that.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
What if, say, I have some friends over and they take turns playing games, while I'm finishing up some homework before leaving to go to a party?
Nobody ever said that the parent can't turn them off. If that is indeed the case, then get your parents to turn off parental controls when you have friends coming over. Problem solved.
Secondly, I have never heard of a minor studying in another room before going to a party while his friends are playing his Xbox.
Getting the video game turned off without your consent is not going to make you go to your room and study -- it will make you very, very angry. Being the stubborn bastard that I was (and still am), I would not do my homework out of principle just to spite "the system". I would find a million-and-one other time wasters to avoid having to do homework.
Also, I used to watch cartoons and play the Super-Nintendo (I know, this dates me) when I got back from school, because my parents weren't there to watch over me. But when my parents got home, they started nagging at me to finish my homework, chores, etc... and I turned out alright.
While I think it's a relatively good idea, it speaks volumes about parental responsibility. Why parent when you can let a machine do it for you? Maybe a better system would be for the XBox to use its internet connection and SMS the parents periodically with usage statistics (for a monthly or yearly fee, of course), which would then prompt the parents to talk to the kids and make them turn off the game or whatever. Also, if the parent knows that all the homework is done or whatever, why not let the kid play? This system could be less intrusive for the kids, and it would put the control and parenting responsibility back onto the parents' shoulders.
Finally, is there some sort of hard reset on the XBox (like on routers) that would allow kids to bypass this feature? I don't have an XBox 360 so I'm not sure... anyone?
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
It takes creativity to incentivize good things - like Nintendo does with so many creative games, encouraging families to play together.
It takes little thought and plenty of self-congratulation and bluster to punish things you dislike - like Microsoft's approach here. What a crappy "feature."
Umm... I don't see why people are complaining about this feature. Is Microsoft preventing anyone from doing something in this case? No - if you want to use the feature do. If not, don't. I don't understand why others have to start complaining about the parenting habits of others when a company attempts to add a parenting feature to a product - don't you think they got feature requests first from parents before they got the idea to implement it?
Not to mention, if you're talking about responsible parenting - why even buy the XBOX in the first place?
There are people who would argue that responsible parenting would mean that you don't get them an XBOX (or TV for that matter). Or for that matter, have the child work part-time on their own so they can buy their own XBOX. The thing is, every parent has their own ideas on parenting, and as far as I know there have been no real studies evaluating the efficacy of various parenting techniques (not to mention that there probably are none - it depends on the child). So stop talking as if your ideas on parenting are the only correct ones.
I personally don't have kids, but if I did, I'd probably be happy that this feature existed. Additionally, I'd probably want the same option for the PC & TV.
Actual software quality aside, I'd hope Microsoft is using its experience with OSes to implement this sudden shutdown has a suspend-to-disk type operation (or suspend to RAM if all else fails) - many games aren't designed around constant save points, and if these things are going to throw away hours of hard-earned work, I can see tons more kids going postal in the future :/
Posts like this getting modded insightful scare the shit out of me.
Yes, they can just clear the system cache.
have access to these controls because in many cases they care much more about what their students do than the parents of those students. Johnny, I'm going to set your X-box to just an hour a week as your Theoretical Physics essay has still not been submitted.
Would this word have been added if we were talking about anybody other than Microsoft? Is there any evidence to suggest that this feature won't work as advertised, or are we just making that assumption because Windows sucks?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I didn't read the article but I wouldn't exactly chalk this up to "make kids do homework." It's more of a thing to get kids off the video games and do something else. If you can find a million-and-one other time wasters, it's better than you planting yourself in front of the tv playing some game. You might find yourself watching day to day programming but then it becomes an exercise of limiting another thing... Sooner or later it will hopefully boil down to you not becoming some fatty.
I don't mean to make this out to be a great thing, I still believe parents should be responsible. Unfortunately some parents aren't and those aren't the ones that are going to be setting this extra option. Perhaps it should be set by default. Once again, I'm not sticking up for the decision to remove personal responsibility but it will come at some point where a parent sues some gaming company because their kid is useless. I will use McDonalds as an example. I choose to eat their burgers, I know they aren't healthy but I will sue them when I am 400lbs... same situation.
**disclaimer: I support personal responsibility unfortunately the law doesn't. I don't believe people should be limited to something based on some arbitrary number set by a third party. I also don't believe someone should be able to become rich because they did something that they chose to do even though it was unhealthy.
Shit dude, you must be at least 21. You're over the hill buddy.
Reports show the son became enraged, went through the house looking for the air card, and then punched his mother, prompting the parents to call the Sheriff's Office.
After the boy retreated to his bedroom and locked it, the mother knocked on the door and told him he needed to come out and talk to the deputies, the report stated. But the juvenile allegedly responded with profanity.
Harnage and another deputy entered the room using a key from the parents to arrest the son, according to the report. The son fought the deputies - at one time punching Harnage on the lip - until they handcuffed him. www.sun-sentinel.com
The ironic thing is that any parent that's self-excusing enough to want to use parental controls rather than take responsibility for what Junior can and can't do will be just as likely to consider it Microsoft's fault that they got punched in the face by their own child for activating one of Microsoft's features. Rather than take the blame for raising a brat, why not just sue? It's the American way.
Now you want truly un-American thinking? Release a treadmill or other exercise equipment that can be set to automatically give the little tubs o' lard more game time in exchange for actually exercising.
In my day, we had to run ten miles up hill before we were allowed to call the other kids "teh gey" on Halo. And we were grateful!
Back when I was a kid, I remember a few games that had parental controls in them (Duke Numken 3D is probably the most popular example).
The idea wasn't very popular. Mainly because the parental units didn't know about them.
However, when my parental units got cluey about them. I cleared all the settings and reset the passcode to "R^*OCip_jh" (the equivalent to me hitting the keyboard thrice), so they believed that they forgot the passcode.
Secondly, unless the child is under 12. The parental units are more than happy letting their children plug the machiene into their own TV/monitor and set it up themselves.
This feature is more designed for the pre-teen kids, the ones who get their parents to set up their digital entertainment kits for them. However I never did see the xbox360 is a pre-teen console.
(I still live in la-la land, where pre-teens do not derive entertainment from voilence)
How long 'til some little Einstein writes a crack for this or makes a mod chip on daddy's workbench and Microsoft winds up dragging a five-year-old into court?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I guess it came in the email as Word of the Day. ostensible (-stn's-bl) adj. Represented or appearing as such; ostensive: His ostensible purpose was charity, but his real goal was popularity.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Of course the next version of the XBox 360, the XBox 361, is going to have a Parental Unit shutdown feature.
How about this idea? Parents could actually make sure their kids didn't play too much by -- get this -- being somewhere near their kids when their kids are out of school or at least knowing what they're doing!
;) (J/k! Deal with your kids people!)
And, once the kids are older and away from parents outside of school, parents could pay enough attention to their kids to make sure they are healthy. If the kids are healthy, they aren't playing too many video games -- and they are unlikely to begin playing too many games. And, if the kid isn't healthy, the parents could intervene by making sure he engages in enough healthy behaviors (social, intellectual, and physical) so that his video game playing couldn't possibly reach unhealthy proportions. That will make a lasting difference.
Do you really think that if your kid has a problem with playing games too much, that a simple timer will stop him? Do you think he won't play games on his other two systems (which he already has if he has an XBox), on the computer, at a friends house, or that he won't just watch TV or something else that has the same effect on a child's health? (I.e. socially isolating, intellectually retarding, and emotionally unstimulating[?])
Or, at best, if he really only has an XBox and doesn't like TV and you have Cyber Nannies of all sorts on your computer, but he has a problem with playing games too much -- do you think that if the root of the problem isn't addressed (lack of appreciation of the activities which are most essentially human outside of pure "recreation" [that often involves little or no creation])???? He'll just fulfill his full potential for playing video games for inordinate amounts of time when he's cut loose! Or, even if he outgrows the video game obsession by the time he's out from under the control of your XBox timer, what's to say that the root problem that lead to too much game play won't lead to other problems?
Imagine that! Parents being truly involved is the best solution!
But, I bet the XBox will do a better job of keeping kids healthy than parents who actually read a book or two, find some common sense, learn to truly love their kids, and spend some time with them. Sure it will...
Bottom line, parents need to be aware of their child's health as a person, not just a physical being, and need to intervene when necessary. It doesn't mean your child is "diseased" just 'cause he plays too many games, he's just not ideally healthy. And I'm not the thought police here, and I recognize the right of people (including children) to live as they wish, but children need guidance. Not so many timers, just more guidance. It doesn't need to be painful in the least, especially if you start playing an important role in molding your child into a well-rounded human being at an early age!
But, if you haven't taken any action in your kid's life yet and he plays too many games and he's already 13 or so, you might just want to turn on the timer and call it a day while they figure out their way around it instead of doing their homework or taking a walk... For your own health, that is.
It is hard to see how this plays out, but in a house with an XBOX and Wii, I predict the Wii will suddenly become the more popular device. Get annoyed enough times by the XBOX shutting off, and as a learned response you will dislike the device itself. Similarly, play XBOX at one friend's house and get annoyed, play Playstation at another's and not get annoyed - in time, the XBOX house will be less visited.
Microsoft see the parents as liking this feature just by its description, and buying a device for it. Sure, there might be some short-term gain. But in the long run, this seems a very dangerous strategy, one that might tarnish the XBOX's reputation with the people actually playing it, as opposed to those buying it for others. Since most profit from XBOXes comes not from the initial device purchase but later on from games, etc., this doesn't seem very wise.
Speaking as a father and as someone who spends too much time staring at glowing screens, I can say that this feature is a great idea. Obvioulsy, it doesn't substitute for good parenting and spending time with your child/encouraging them to pursue better activities than video game playing. It is simply a tool.
/. are generally at the cutting edge and we often worry about the worst possible cases and get stuck in hyperbole. We are the priviledged few. Parental controls on a new game console enable most people in my generation to help balance the amount of time our children are spending on one form of entertainment.
Some will see this as a way to punish kids (and some will call it ineffective for various reasons - not all parents can operate a game console). Others will see this as a way for lazy parents to avoid parenting (this won't change that). It is partly each of these things. What it is most of all is a tool. It can be used positively, such as like an allowance - it can be increased for good behavior or decreased as a punishment.
Parenting isn't easy, and in the modern world you can't always be with your child 100% of the time. This tool helps set some boundaries. Like every tool, there is abuse potential. Like every piece of software, it will have its fair share of bugs to work out.
Technology is moving very quickly. When I was growing up (I'm nearly 30), computers had Kilobytes of RAM and phones had rotary dials. There were no mobile phones (these too appear to be going away slowly), and no cell phones. My childhood photos are in some shoeboxes on the other side of the country. My son's photos are on our website, from the day he was born. Hundreds of 4MP+ images - several each month as we go to parties or walk in the park, etc. Each picture has embedded date and time and other metadata.
We are more connected than ever before with cellphones/cameras/the net. This month people can spend $400 on 2 laptops - one for a poor child in another country and one for themselves. As time goes on, the OLPC/"$100 Laptop" will go down in price (to some extent) and the technology curve will advance. Eventually, the future generation of people will all have a minimum amount of digital technology. This will enable expression from any point in the globe to every other point regardless of income. It won't happen overnight.
The point is that the technology is coming to the masses. People on
I have spent most of my nearly 30 years of life staring at glowing screens... There's some good, some bad, and some plain old that's just the way it is in that statement.
exactly, the kids will use this to lock out their own parents! what a great tool
Simple, these things rarely work, and people rely on them as if they they are foolproof.
I see some people argue that you could use this to enforce a limited amount of play time with a kid, so that they cannot "cheat". But ask yourselve what this says about your relation with your child. You do not trust your child and broadcast this very clearly.
Ask yourselve if this does not already show that your parenting skills are lacking and you really need to take far more drastic actions then rely on some tool.
A well raised child will at times attempt to bend the rules (essential part of growing up) but at the same try not to actually break them because they simply do no want to hurt their parents. Offcourse because they are too young to know better, they will get this wrong. THAT IS GROWING UP. A kid watching a movie that is way too scary for it, learns the hard way. You can install all the counter measures you like, but isn't watching something too scary also a part of childhood? Same as with breaking something and cuts and bruises. Anybody here who did not risk their neck as a child doing silly stuff like making ever higher jumps with their bike?
Part of growing up is seeing what the laws of society are and this starts with the laws at home. We must at once learn to respect them if we are to function of society, but also learn when and how to break them unless we want to become mindless machines.
This is offcourse a nightmare as a parent, but any child will attempt to push curfew, it doesn't matter what the curfew is, if you tell your teenage daughter she doesn't have to come home from her friday night date before monday morning 9:00, she will be coming in monday 9:30. Bedtime is important, but so is allowing a child to just push it a little, now and then. It is a give and take and the secret is that there are no books you can follow for this. No simple one liners.
You ain't got a clue how to parent and your only hope of success is to stop the kid from finding out. It usually works.
The problems emerge when parents are unable to see themselves as the parents and want to be friends with their kids instead, or simply refuse to take responsibility. YOU raise your kid. Not the state, not the media and not some device. If you cannot do it without help, then hand over custody to those who can.
Lets face it, if you need the help of a machine to deal with a child, you are a miserable failure. What next, you can only toilet train a puppy with a cattle prod? I deal with "troubled" kids now and then as part of volunteer work. Problems enforcing the rules? Are you kidding me, these kids are drunk for rules. They WANT someone to tell them what they can and cannot do and be clear about it. Simple rule, no smoking in the computer room, full stop end of argument, this is obeyed, but the rule is enforced for everyone, at all times. This is clear, and gets respected. Do not be wishy washy and allow it after class, or allow adults to smoke. The kids even enforce it themselves on new arrivals.
Frankly the simple truth is that if you need a machine to check up on your kid it is already too late. You are fighting a symtome, not the disease. So even if you succeed and get the kid of the 360, the kid will just disobey in some other way. A friends 360? Gaming on the PC?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
telling you what to do - it'd be whoever put the lock on the console telling you what to do.
Although I have little problem with halo players calling each other "the gey", takes one to know one, I do have a slight suspicion that this family was not exactly a model household before the day of the air-card incident.
Dealing with kids is difficult, you finally somehow managed to become and adult, and now only have to deal with adults, who are in general mature in their relations with you. And bam, you are landed with a tiny critter whose entire goal is to drive you nuts.
It is alright for the first couple of years, they just cry a lot and stink, but then the little blighter discovers the concept of lying and will be very very bad at it. Yet what to do, beat the snot out of the brat for insulting your intelligence? Attempt to reason with someone who eats boogers? Ignore it like you ignore the lies of the guy you voted for?
What do you do when you child goes through the hurting other people phase? Usually kicking them? Hit them back so hard they know for their rest of their lives Pain results in Pain so never cause it to anyone bigger then you? Try to reason with a person kicking you in the shins or ignore it and watch Idol?
The sad fact is that too many parents simply don't want the responsibility, they either just don't want to spend the time (Congrats, you have a kid, say goodbye to your life) or want to be their kids best friend, not their parent.
The problem with this is that the problems won't start to show until years later, when all of a sudden parents find themselves with kids from hell. The proble doesn't get any better when these kids then go on to have kids themselves.
It really isn't anything new, disfunctional families have been around forever. Just that the media loves these kinds of stories so we get to hear about them constantly.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Why do all familiy-friendly politics involve screwing at least half of the family in some way? :D
If only you'd read /. *before* buying the ring... ;P
Nope, I had chest hair when I played it. :) I got my SNES in 1994.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
Will the parents have to get the kids to set the timer for them??? I think I see a hole in Microsoft's plan...
So kids growing up with this will never be able to have those fond memories of playing a cozy rpg through the night like so many of us had with say, the nes/snes/what not consoles? Instead, they'll grow up with leisure time -on a schedule-?
It might just be me, but it sounds repulsive.
That whole thing about kids disregarding their parents limits/rules at a young age, especially regarding playtime/leisure, and the parent(s) trying to mold their kids through words/actions/what not - is something that's (as far as I can tell) a very -needed- and highly natural progression of events.
It's not supposed to be such that the parent's warnings are always 100% true and enforcable (such as, say, threatening to lower the allotted time for playing on the xbox, for the week), that vague/grey area and the trust (or distrust) 'play' between the parent and the child is basically what most if not everyone *considers* their childhood.
A parent being able to set absolute rules, that she/he doesn't need to enforce directly each time in one way or other (but simply setting it once and, voila, it's automatic 'mechanical' enforcement), will create some very strange childhoods.
The trick is whether or not it waits for you to reach a save point or it saves in the middle of the game (not sure if this works with any game). If the timer waits for you to reach a save point and saves this is great. It'll be just like the old days playing all day because you can't save the damn game. Lost entire weekends to Sega Master System and Nintendo. Got my money's worth though.
How about they "pull a Nintendo" and start censoring their games.
sigs are hazardous to your health
I wouldn't make it if my old NES told me "Your Time is UP! go to bed, Scumbag!!"...Now I'm married and can play ANYTIME and ALL THE TIME I want...except when I go to work, and when I'm with my wife, and on sundays and saturdays.
I guess this would be a bad time to mention that Video Games hadn't been invented yet when I was in school. Actually, that's not true. My neighbors had an Atari 2600. But sheesh man, I was already out of college and running my own business by the time the SNES was available.
Now that probably dates me.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
If I was a kid who had the option of getting either an x-box 360 or a PS3 for Christmas right now I'd obviously go for the PS3. This feature is only going to lead to being an annoyance for kids, allot of kids honestly have nothing better to do during the week. I guess this is part of Microsofts crusade against its customers. Also kids aren't stupid, if they have a 360 and a parent who does that they will just find out your password or a way around it. Furthermore most parents try to go for the "2 hours a day" policy that the media throws at them. Any gamer knows that 2 hours is barely enough time to accomplish anything and if the console turns off after 2 hours of gameplay everyday its not a game anymore, its a chore.
Too bad if they code this wrong... Say allow a parent to accidentally set the available time to 60 seconds.... By the time you get in to change the setting to a realistic value... BAM! off goes your XBox...
:)
And you can bet this will be abused by parents anyway, giving poor timmy 1 hour of gametime a week for example. But other than extreme cases, it's a good idea that should have made it in sooner
I remember many years ago, my old man said that I could use our old 8bit micro for set period of time, then it was time to get off. I ignored the rule and carried on. He patiently waited for me to finish, reminded me of the rule and then took the PSU to work for a week, to teach me a lesson. No shouting, no moaning just a simple lesson in revoking privileges when rules are broken. I always stuck to the rule after that. Apparently his grandad had done the same to him, but with his bicycle when when my old man stayed out too late one night, cept hi grandad had locked the bike up right outside my old man's house, so he was reminded every day for week, whenever he went out.
That's just it. I see parents constantly threatening kids with things in the supermarket and never doing it. They mess about, mum says no sweets. Next thing, you see kid out side shop with sweets! Me and my wife, we remind our kids if they mess about and don't what they are told, they will lose something special. After a few times losing ice-cream privs, console/PC game time or no toy-shop visit that weekend, they soon stick to the rule on whatever it is. Nothing nasty, but a simple life lession, rules are rules, if you break the rules you suffer a punishment. You steal from a shop, you end up speaking to Mr Plod down the cop-shop or in court speaking to the beak. It's quite a simple premise, which works on kids from about the age of 18 months onward, do wrong, lose something you want.
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
I still don't understand the "oh no, you should just parent responsibly!" argument. It makes no sense at all to me. It's a tool. Parents still make the rules.
How many people use oven timers? Oh sure, you could just look at the clock and decide when to check on whatever's baking in the oven. Or you could just guess. But it sure is awfully convenient to have a timer to measure!
you where playing a MMORPG (or whatever its called, doing a team activity) and the think just shuts down. Next time it resumes, the game will have moved on, so your save position is basically invalid.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
Is this why they are doing it? South Park XBox (video)
Bob
when i first read the headlines. first thign that came to my mind was that some body was going to post something exactly like this. "its my right, i should do what i want with it!"
and i say this:
1. u dint buy it, even if u did buy it
2. parents know best
3. now go to your room!
_ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
Worse: it's completely accurate. make your pick: sex or computer games.
I'm 21yrs also. Used to play NES, SNES, and N64 (Latest console I own).
Parent limits little s#!tbag's use of XBox.
Little s#!tbag gets angry, phones ChildLine and says parent touched him inappropriately.
Parent is treated as guilty even despite being proved innocent in a court of law, placed on sexual offenders' register for life, has extreme difficulty getting a job and eventually becomes a target for hate-filled, News of the World-reading mob.
And that's assuming the kid phones ChildLine, as opposed to taking matters into his own hands. There's a long, long queue of low-life criminal scum only too eager to beat up or kill a suspected nonce on the basis that (1) child-abusers are the only lower form of low-life and (2) being seen to be doing harm to a child-abuser removes suspicion that you yourself may be a child-abuser.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
No hard reset that I know of, but it does have a "melt down due to lack of cooling" option.
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
You just have to reconstruct it from this core dump! Mwahahahaha!
tell my wife
Sounds like a great idea until you realize the kids are the ones that are already asked to set the VCR clock by the parents. I think we'll see children cutting off their parents as much as the other way around. There's no technological solution to poor parenting. I mean, we don't have ResponsibilityImplants(TM)...yet.
Question everything
No your kids don't turn to animals when they hit their teens. YOU screwed up long before.
Blame everyone else all you want, but that child was handed to you in a pristine state and you raised it. Problem kids ain't just teenagers, you get totally out of control kids of toddler age because the parents can't do it.
These exact same "parents" would also suck at raising a pet. What next, you are blaiming badly trained dogs on society as well rather then their owner? Puppies hang out at the fire-hydrant and pick up their habits there?
Things are different then when we grew up? oh yeah, because kids rebelling is something new. Ask your parents about it, or your grand-parents. They can do with a laugh.
If kids today got a feeling that everything is their god given right it is because YOU failed to raise them.
The proof? The fast majority of kids who do NOT grow into hell spawn. This is often forgotten, the countless kids who do NOT special attention, who just do what kids have done, grow up, become adults, have kids, live their lives.
I take your excuse ONLY if no parents are succeeding anymore in raising reasonably well-adjusted kids, but that ain't the case is it. Explain those "super" parents to me. Have they locked their kids away till 18? Why ain't there kids corrupted by these bad people out there.
Although I do admit that society ain't making it easier, with the increased importance of getting a nice diploma lots of kids are forced into schooling that don't suit them because their parents and society thinks that a physical job is beneath them.
I see that myself, kids forced into computing classes who should just be put in construction where they would be good and can get rid of their energy and see real direct results for their work. But no, being a bricklayer is beneath most parents ambition for their kids.
But that is another rant. But stop blaming society for your failure.
You claim you have a well adjusted to your teenage kids, and call them animals at the same time? Oh yeah, I think I may have spotted your problem.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
...on my work computer?
Parents should stay involved in the life of their kids, but this doesn't mean that they should watch every minute of their kids video games. That kind of "supervision" only prepares the for a live in a fascist society.
A kid need both rules and freedom to develop. Not "constant monitoring an correction".
The piece of technology in question seems perfect for this, you can agree on a rule, set the box, and avoid having it become an area of further conflict.
"Now that probably dates me."
Maybe, but a "GET OFF MY LAWN" would make it a little clearer
(I owned a 2600 as a kid, so GET OFF MY LAWN as well)
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
It came out of the box with it "enabled". It runs for X amount and freezes when it get hot. No save game needed.
I used to be with IT..now IT seems strange and scary to me.
Aw dang it, my time is about to expire. I guess it's time to change the system clock to tomorrow :)
"Blame everyone else all you want, but that child was handed to you in a pristine state and you raised it."
Hereditary mental illness. Makes your post wrong. Abuse by caregivers outside the home. Makes your post wrong.
I could go on, but ultimately we both know you're running off at the mouth, with no real idea at all what you're talking about.
I would strongly suggest you keep your opinions about parenting to yourself, when you share them you sound profoundly ignorant.
"by Anonymous Coward... hacked in less than a month...I'd put money on it."
Way to step out on a limb there.
Some parents may use this to prevent their kids from playing into the Wee hours of the night, and negatively affecting their schooling. Hell, I'm 30 single and have no kids but STILL might use the feature so I don't "accidentally" play Oblivion until 5 am anymore.
The irony is (and I might be accused of trolling) is that I wouldn't want it to save the game for my kids.
My parents had pretty strict rules about computer time when I was growing up, and part of that was "time is up NOW" Believe it or not, it helped me learn to manage my time instead of just relying on them, and that "wrapping up" is what you do 5 minutes before time is up. Otherwise the power comes down and your hour of Wizardry is poof-gone. It was a little painful, but I am now never late to bed from games, or an appointment.
Now according to my office mate, "God of War" can have more than an hour between save points. Not sure how the hell you'd manage that.
"Parent" is not a verb. Stupid Americans.
"Parent" comes, via the French language, from the Latin "parens". Itself coming from the verb "parere".
I am not enough of an Latin etymologist to tell if it comes from
*parere/pareo : to be obedient to, obey
*parere/paro : prepare, raise, furnish/supply/provide or
*parere/pario : bear, give birth to, beget
But clearly, it comes from the verb "parere", which would be something like "to pare" if it had propagated to Modern English.
Putting a -ens generally is a way to make up a substantive from a verb which will specifically refer to the performer of the action.
Examples:
ferere (to bear) --> ferens (bearer). Ex. Christopher = Christos Ferens = the one who bears Christ
exponere --> exponens
Anyway, it is plain ridiculous to take a verb, make a substantive out of it, and make another verb out of it that means the same thing as the original verb. Someone who fishes fishes is called a fisherman or a fisher, yet his job is not called "fishermanning" nor "fishering". Someone who farms is a farmer yet you don't call his job farmering. Someone who insures people is an insurer, yet he is not in the "insurering" business.
The only way "to parent" would be an acceptable verb is if it was not about raising children (performing the action) but about making one a parent (making the object a performer of the action).
Fuck you, language rapists. What's next ? are should we call people, who perform the action of "parenting", "parenters" ?
And for some anecdotal evidence. I been dating a girl for about a month now.. I went from playing WoW about 5 nights a week for 2-3 hours an evening to playing 1 or 2 nights a week. My brother actually plays my account more than I do now.
;).
So as sexy time goes up, wow time goes down!.. but I will admit I've tried to get her to install the game and use a 10 day trial account
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Sex. No question.
my sig could kick your sig's arse...
The word is spelt "YOU". It's only an extra two letters. Don't be so lazy, this is not a text message.
This will be as useful (or rather, as useless) as the V-chip. Does anyone know anybody that uses the V-chip? I sure don't.
While you cannot reset the settings of the machine by simply unplugging it, you can reset the date to default (I've seen this when I moved last).
This could either give you an extra week of play, or it could lock you out from playing if it stores and remembers you played that week already. For Xbox's without hard drives, I am not sure what kind of data could be stored. Without knowing how this lock works exactly, this method does seem like it could be used to exploit the system.
Just how many parents actually know how to set the parental controls to block titles?
All that will happen is that Junior will either go online or read a manual to figure out how to reset or disable the time cap. Still, I think this is a good thing for Microsoft. It will provide a selling point for Microsoft to parents for a feature that will almost never be used and will be easily circumvented.
END COMMUNICATION
The funny thing is, I grew up in a foreign country, so I never knew of Nintendo. As a small kid though (we're talking
But at least I can say that when I was born, video games were invented. :) I'm sorry sir, I will promptly get off your lawn.
Still, I think you are starting to get old when you can talk about the past in terms of decades, and still be referring to your adult (maybe young adult) years.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
Only now, it's the Red Ring of Denial.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The process ofa parent busting a kid in a lie and then doing something about it is good for the kid, good for the parent, and good for the relationship. More to the point, it's damned good for the *adult* that the kid will someday become. Isn't that the whole point?
No, it's not. It does nothing positive for the adult the child will become. The only thing you teach your child when that happens is that they're being punished for getting caught. It does nothing to improve their judgment and harms their self-confidence. You want your kids to grow up to be adults who understand the true consequences of their actions, not the consequences imposed upon them by a parent who won't always be able to do so.
Ask yourself this question: You catch your child playing a video game when they shouldn't be and bust them up for it. Now the next time you have to leave the child unsupervised for a few hours when they are not supposed to be playing video games, do you think it's any more likely that the child won't than before? The answer is no. The child will play when he thinks he can do it without getting caught because you haven't taught them that it's not something they should be doing - just that it's something they should not get caught doing.
The real problem is that the kid is most likely too young to understand why it is not something they should do. It's your responsibility as a parent to prevent them from doing it, not punish them for doing so. And this is a great tool to do just that. Your child sees nothing wrong with playing video games longer than he should. Leaving such a child unsupervised with a video game is only setting them up to fail. If they do what they see nothing wrong with doing, they get in trouble. If they suspend their own judgment and blindly follow what their parents tell them, they get rewarded for it.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Worse: it's completely accurate. make your pick: sex or computer games.
You just have to pick better. I've been with my girlfriend for a bit more than a year now. Before, I used to play WoW 5 hours a day if I didn't have homework or if friends didn't kidnap me mid-raid.
Now, she plays my account more than I do.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Parenting intervention would still be required. I generally keep the controllers away from the kids till they have done their homework and chores. But any timer would be helpful to help me regulate their gametime. The automatic shutoff can make imposing the the limit less stressful to the parent and backs up the parent's claim that the child has been on the game long enough. "It hasn't been an hour yet! I just started!" "Xbox 360 says differently. Sorry, one hour a day at most is the rule and the Xbox is just helping you comply." I've found that by placing more automatic controls, the kids are less emotional about being kicked off by a looming parental presence. I already implemented my own controls to deactivate computer accounts automatically on a daily basis and shut off internet access (for the kids' computers) at midnight. And the kids can always bargain for more time, while parents have the right to award more time as a reward for good behavior or to withhold that time as a consequence for bad behavior.
I read TFA but have not used the feature so I am basing this scenario there being only 1 timer per xbox:
-Billy is 7 and his sister Katie is 12. Their parents set the xbox to 10 hours of play per week.
-Billy likes to get home early and get up early to play xbox. By Friday Billy has used up all 10 hours of xbox time.
-On Saturday Katie wakes up and calls her friend over to play xbox.
Question: How much time elapses before Katie beats on her younger brother?
CC
i called it!
2 years ago, and got modded funny at the time...
(hm, it's not yet off the list of my recent posts.. i guess i haven't been chatty lately)
I don't see why not. Simply set it to 3 minutes and warm up that bottle of milk. Don't forget to shake and test first, because the milk may get hot enough to burn.
~CYD
//Nothing to see here, please move along.
When I was a video-game obsessed kid, the addiction of choice on the family Atari was Asteroids, Frogger or Pac-Man. My parents had simple ways of controlling our time spent on the Atari. First was a verbal request to shut the game off and put the controllers away. If we ignored either one of our parents, the next step was one of them reaching over to turn off the TV set, and then, if it was mom, out came a wooden spoon, and if it was dad, off came his belt. Cheap, effective. Very low-tech.
What a stupid question. Sex with computer games is the obvious answer. Oh, hello cake, I think I'll eat you AND have you, too!
Not necessarily. Marry a gamer girl and choose both. :-)
Video Games or Sex with someone you can stomach looking at, pick one.
...for Team Fortress 2. Man, I keep telling myself to get to bed early and sure enough it is past midnight when I finally log off from sniping people on 2fort.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
It just reports the amount of time that it was used. If you're going to build a trust relationship with your child, you have to give them the room to screw up and learn from their mistakes.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Ugly women are too insecure to play video games considering they're such a "guy" thing to do... Also, have you ever heard of a country called Japan? Lots of women there that are into video games, anime, etc.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I hope that my wife doesn't see this!!!
Make love, not reality television.
...
It's called a straw man. See, the small percentage children this responsible would respect their parents and the necessity of their homework to the point where the parental controls would not be required. In all likelihood they would not be enabled in the first place which forms the man of straw you see above.
I've got a Bic lighter at my desk if you don't have any matches handy.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
Yeah, that's very interesting. Sounds like you are a good parent. I did say I liked the idea, perhaps not one that is so invasive, or maybe even a layered approach (step 1: monitor, step 2: warnings, step 3: shut off). My concern was not with parents like you but parents that will use the system as a means of watching kids, versus using it as a facilitating tool in parenting.
Of course, this is pure speculation on my part because I'm not a parent yet. I'll be joining that club in about 2 years. Maybe I can get some good hints about parenting from you then :)
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
Us: Special annoy-the-kids timer
The competition: Not
So which console are the kids going to be asking for this Xmas...?
No sig today...
Mod me down for being somewhat off topic if you'd like, but it's as good a time as ever to bring this up. What is it with /. and the consensus that conservative parenting is the way to go? I played video games all the time, violent ones, at that, yet I came out OK. I always did my homework, always did good in school, and now I'm in college. Hell, I don't even drink or do drugs, which is somewhat of a rarity in college these days. Being a child is hard, and if I didn't have an escape, such as video games, who knows if I would have done as well in school, or if I would have been bored and bitter throughout my classes. I'm sure some of you can relate.
... that we've never seemed to need nanny technology like this, or the V-chip, until only after they had been invented?
Sure, right now, it's the "in" thing to go around villifying TV, movies, music and games for somehow "corrupting" our children. Yet, children have had access to most of these things since the mid-1970s. So why is it that this generation is so much worse than previous generations despite all these wonderful assisted-parenting devices?
Perhaps what's really going on here isn't so much that children are becoming more easily influenced by the explicit or graphic nature of the content available, but instead are being driven toward acting out unfavorably toward their parents due to an overwhelming lack of trust. Parents today are EXPECTING the very worst of their children right from the start and are overzealously placing restrictions on everything their child might use, by any means necessary. This includes going to the level of covertly gathering data on their children or using deceptive measures to maintain control. Yet, they themselves probably have the nerve to complain when their government does the same to them "for their own protection."
The fact of the matter here, is that children need to feel trusted by their parents until they do something to jeopardize that trust. If they do not have any leeway to make decisions for themselves (good or bad), then they'll see it only as any decision not already made for them ahead of time as being "bad". It only creates a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario... eventually causing them to lash out at any figure of authority purely from frustration.
Children are actually a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for. If given some amount of trusted freedom, they'll learn quickly that trust is something one must earn and not take for granted. If they value being a trusted member of the family, they'll avoid violating that trust. But unless the parents allow their child some level of trust in good faith, that child will never know the positive aspects of good behavior outside of simply avoiding punishment.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Damnit... I knew my fiancee was a figment of my imagination... she was too good to be true ;)
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
The posted article's author used "ostensibly" meaning "apparently" when a better choice is "hopefully". This is a Microsoft product -- no feature works as a sane person would expect. Another article explains:
"A helpful notification will appear to warn the gamer when the session is nearing the end, and once the set time is over, the console will automatically turn-off."
I could not discover the duration between warning and shutdown. Is the duration configurable? Configured by game? Configurable until next save? Or save opportunity for games with limited opportunities for saving?
Does the timer distinguish school nights? A five-hour session desirable on Saturday morning (so parents can sleep) is not feasible on a school night.
The need for this feature was obvious soon after consoles became popular (early 1980s?). Realization was delayed because console manufacturers have little desire to reduce addiction to their products. Poor implementation and poor usability will reduce the long-term impact (losing the next generation of addicts) of providing such a good-for-marketing ("We care about children") feature.
This feature cannot relieve parents from monitoring children. This timer only affects gaming time. Timers for the games, television, and computers are not integrated so no total "screen" time limits can be electronically enforced.
A ten-year-old girl I know will switch between television and computer games. Limiting the computer game time increases her television time, and vice versa. If both options are removed, she will play or read in her room. None of her preferred activities include exercise.
This feature may be more useful for adults with "one more turn" addictions than a parental control.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
2 years? What, are you married to an elephant? ;)
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Master Chief is an illiterate version of Mr. T?!!@#! Oh man, I think we're in trouble...
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
That would be very awkward for me.
(Waiting to finish school first :)
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
Hereditary mental illness and abusive caregivers outside the home are both very uncommon things. And if you don't know who your child has contact with and verify that they're safe to be around, then you did fuck up as a parent. This victim mentality is what's causing people to not take responsibility for themselves. Not to mention that everyone has shit to deal with, in all kinds of different forms... it doesn't mean you deserve something because of it.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I already have the best parental control device: ME. I'm a parent and I control how much time my kids spend playing video games. Is there really anything to this "story" other than yet another indictment of the parenting skills of today?
No creator of a product is going to want to limit so-called "addiction" (the word "habit" used to work fine, by the way, and it didn't impose a disease metaphor on habitual behaviors that didn't interfere with function) to his product, you've got that right.
Talking about "losing the next generation of addicts" to games is, first of all, disgustingly defeatist and secondly misleading.
People can play video games and take opiates habitually, for example, without interfering with leading a functional life. They cannot however, take crack habitually and do the same. So, why use the word "addict" to refer to all those groups of people?
Why throw around the word addiction when it confuses the matter? Are you one of those who defines addiction as a disease? If so, then it requires interference with living a normal life, which is something video games do in only a very small minority of people who "play a bit too much", including kids. Those kids whose parents wish for them to play less are not "addicted" if you're using the strong (i.e. disease) definition of addiction, or rather are very unlikely to be "addicted" (i.e. suffering a "disease"[other than human-ness] which is compelling them to play to an extent that it negatively impacts their life). And, if you're not using that definition, then why use the word addiction when you could simply use habit and be clear?
Ever see the South Park episode where Stan's Dad becomes an alcoholic, an "addict" with a "disease"? "Let me through, I've got a terrible disease -- I'm an addict."
"Let me through, I've got a terrible disease, it's called addiction. The only thing that can save me is a timer."
So, I guess you think that video game addicts can have a little taste now and then, as long as they don't go over the limits they can't go over even if they wanted?
Addicts, pushaw... 'Tis a dirty word, owned by the prohibitionists and the moronic and biased field of "addiction medicine", a word which does little to communicate any objective reality and instead serves to impose its own ideological framework for understanding human choice.
I don't believe we have real free will, but that goes for everyone, not just "addicts".
So, ditch that word. Dr. Drew took a sh*t on it years ago, along with a whole mess of other idiots, and now it's too tainted to be useful to anyone. Don't sully yourself by using it.
Addiction: the only disease that can exist in the absence of any functional deficit, and which is diagnosed merely owing to a bias against certain substances. (And, apparently, now video games.)
Dig:
(1) I take vitamin C daily and live a healthy life.
(2) I take Prozac daily and live a healthy life.
(3) I take morphine daily and live a healthy life.
Why is it that doing #1 and #2 do not constitute a disease, but #3 does according to some?
How is it that all other diseases require a deficit in functionality, actual dys-function or dis-ease, yet addiction is applied by some to those who are completely functional (i.e. healthy)? It's absurd. The reason #3 is called a disease by some, and not #1 and #2 is because #3 is a drug which makes people feel happy sometimes and we've inherited a variety of puritanical traditions.
(Now, taking alcohol everyday in decent amounts would reduce function, therefore it would qualify as a disease. But not all who take opiates or Prozac have problems because of taking them. Especially not all who take opiates (Prozac is pretty nasty).)
Luckily, many professionals do recognize that if "addiction" is to be considered a disease, reduced function, rather than merely taking drugs which society has arbitrarily made illegal and demonized, is required to consider someone addicted. More don't, however.
And most regular people, with a daily habit or two of their own which doesn't impair their functioning or actually enhances it, do not realize this.
Therefore, you'd do best to leave the word "addiction" out of any discussion you have
Yeah, but the games they play are "Goo-goo DressUp Dolls MX ReSpin".
On behalf of your kids:
"Phblatttt!!! You never let us have any fun!!!!!!!"
"You're ruining my life!!!!!!"
How would you propose to keep the meaning of my post without using the word "addiction"? I reread your post looking for positive contributions and failed. My post used the concept correctly, and no other word fit my meaning. You might try learning from sources other than South Park -- a cartoon with the poor language.
A habit is a regularly repeated pattern.
An addiction is a habit with psychological or physiological causes and negative effects.
A disease is a system of the body functioning incorrectly.
Only recently were young people taught that addictions should be considered diseases. Attempting to equate the two definitions caused your confusion. Addictions may be caused by diseases, learned behavior, bad parenting, predispositions, or stupidity.
American English does not have words to distinguish between heroin, caffeine, and game-playing addictions. Cravings are the physical portion of the desire. A dependency is the psychological portion of the desire. Obsessions are purely psychological and have no physical portion. None of these words reflect all the characteristics of an addiction.
I have stopped practicing several physical addictions. The last was cigarettes. A fingernail-biting habit was gained during the withdrawal process. This habit should disappear soon, and its only negative effect is annoying a girlfriend.
I still have a "one more turn" addiction to computer games. The addiction has a physical component so cannot be classified as just an obsession. No matter how important my alertness is necessary for tomorrow, I am incapable of exiting a game to leave time for sleep.
Your post does not mention your experience with computer games or addictions. Please delay your response until you have played a computer game for a minimum of 24 sequential hours AND stopped one major physical addiction of more than one year -- cigarettes, crack, or heroin would be good choices. Then offer alternatives rather than attempt to eliminate a concept from the language using techniques from "1984" or "Pravda".
I spend my life entertaining my brain.