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GTA V Proves a Lot of Parents Still Don't Know or Care About ESRB Ratings
Deathspawner writes "Grand Theft Auto V has shown itself to be potential GOTY material, and has even managed to break a sales record already. But aside from that, the game has also become one of the most adult-oriented games ever released, with torture, drug use and sex prevalent not long after beginning the game. You'd expect this gameplay to deter most parents from picking the game up for their young children — but not so. An anonymous editorial at Kotaku written by a video game store employee says that out of the ~1,000 copies sold in the first week, at least 10% of them went to parents accompanied by a child. Clearly, this could be interpreted as a problem. Techgage adds that this is one of the biggest problems facing gaming today. With one breath, many parents criticize video games for being so violent, and with the next, they're saying 'thanks' at the counter after picking up these very games for their kids. While ESRB ratings and other warnings about violent games for kids have good reason to exist, many parents still ignore them, aren't aware to them, or simply don't care about their warnings."
This was brought up in another conversation I had today...
We have this idea that kids as old as 16 aren't "fully formed" people. But if your kid doesn't understand the difference between fantasy and reality at 10 or 11 or 12 then there is a parenting problem or other general mental illness. They aren't just lumps of clay that get reasoning ability by magic on their 18th birth day. It's amazing how most of the population forgets what being aged 10-18 is like later in life... this is something they should know already.
I think you missed part of my point, which is that what a person can handle is based on that person. There are 30 year olds "kids" out there that can't handle GTA, but I'm sure that there are 8 year olds that can. There is nothing magic about the number, though my personal feeling (not a parent mind you) that a 12 year old kid should have a concept of art, that depiction of something doesn't equal promotion of something, and they can rollplay as a bad person without being a bad person themselves.
Kids aren't commodities. They are people (this is why the "fully formed person" and the hatred of teenagers get on my craw... they aren't non-humans) and each one is different. This article made some pretty sweeping statements about what is right and wrong for ANY person.
What made you think that images of female nipples had to involve porn or sex? I mean maybe you're being a bit tongue in cheek here but let's face it - by classifying a woman's breast as 'dirty' and something that would 'taint innocence', puritanism has indelibly associated women with porn and lewd behaviour. Ironically the same applies to hardcore feminism, albeit from a different angle.