No, I still don't think game publishers should be blamed because GTA wasn't meant for kids in the first place. The parents are to blame because they're the ones who just buy their kids violent games without even thinking twice. They didn't screen the game before they bought it for him, and - even worse - they didn't teach him that violence was wrong even once they saw how violent it was.
Yes, something sure is out of whack. It's the fact that everyone likes to point the blame at someone else. You're disgustingly fat? It's not your fault, it's McDonalds' fault for selling food that you already knew was fattening. Your coffee burned your lap? It's not your fault, even though coffee is supposed to be hot, you should have known it was hot from the steam, and if you wanted it cold you should have asked for it cold. Your kid shot everybody in the school? It's that video game's fault, even though you don't spend time with your kids and teach them right from wrong, and even though you let them play violent video games for hours unsupervised while you're at work.
No. Violence definitely is NOT needed in games. It's just that it's much easier to make a hit game with killing than it is to make it without. Want proof? Look at the sales of the "Halo" series compared to, say, the DDR series. Sure, dancing is LOTS of fun at a party, but not so much when you're kinda tired - and it's also lots of fun to kill your friends (and "Nade Wars"? Ohhhh man. . . too bad you don't have unlimited nades in Halo 2 - running around with sticky nades throwing them everywhere is a LOT more fun than it sounds. . . and then you throw the unexpected regular nade that they don't expect and can't see very well. ..)
Anyways, there are PLENTY of great games that aren't violent - for example, racing games, a LOT of freeware/open-source games (such as Neverball), and games like Tony Hawk. But the reason that game makers tend to make violent games is that it's pretty much a guaranteed sell - people who don't like skateboarding might not like Pro Skater, people who have poor mouse control skills might not like Neverball, people who don't like NASCAR might not like racing games. . . but have you ever heard of anyone not like shooting things? Maybe not real living things, but come on - who hates laser tag?
Games shouldn't be responsible because it's not their fault. People died in all the Terminator movies, too - no one goes around shooting people because they think they're a terminator machine sent from the future to kill them, do they? And I've played all the DOOMs and some of the Quakes - I don't have the urge to go killing things, though.
We learn right vs wrong, pretend vs real, good vs bad, etc., when we're children. If children are raised right, then they learn to distinguish these things.
Wow. . . you want to kill people for driving faster than you, and HE'S the freak?
Don't come to Detroit - here it's quite common for people to drive faster than the speed limit. And, trust me, you DON'T wanna whip out a gun in Detroit or Pontiac.
Have you ever even played America's Army? The purpose of America's Army is to be a recruiting tool, not to promote violence and senseless killing. You don't kill everyone and everything in America's Army - not obeying orders and killing your teammates gets you locked up in a virtual jail cell (as opposed to most other games where if there's a team killer the most you can do is either hope his teammates vote him off the server or hope admin's on to kick him off).
In America's Army you also have to go through all sorts of "virtual training courses" - where you learn NOT to kill teammates and stuff.
Cookie Monster like cookies!
"C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!":) (Why do they call them "cookies" anyway?)
Seriously, though - I don't delete my cookies THAT much, and I don't get spyware since I'm using Linux, but I don't need those stupid cookies. KDE has something called KDE Wallet which automatically types in my passwords in an encrypted file (called a wallet), so the only one I need to know is the one to my KDE Wallet. It'll remember passwords for ANYTHING - Instant Messenger, e-mail, all my web sites. . . you name it.
"I can see the time coming where TiVo are forced to offer their patents to NDS and Sky+"
Seeing as TiVo already has released some of its code as open-source, I think that if TiVo were about to bite the dust they would open-source ALL of their software - keep it around to haunt the competitors, even after the TiVo brand itself is long gone.
Well, yes, gun manufacturers have been/are being sued - and with less and less reason - but not until very recently. And, yes, you can copy movies and music without file-sharing programs, but, first of all, just making a copy isn't necessarily illegal or considered piracy, and, second of all, even though copying movies and music and giving the copies to your friends is illegal, it's done on such a small scale that people don't get in trouble for it. Lastly, you totally missed my point which was that the main purpose of Grokster is to pirate movies and music on a large scale - which is illegal - but the main purposes of a gun are protection and hunting - both of which are not illegal.
I fully agree - the parents play a crucial role in a child's development. And that they play more of a role than the media, or anyone/thing else.
However, since (I think) most (or, at least, a great deal) of this development happens between the ages of 2 and 6 (past that, most kids can distinguish right from wrong), your list is flawed. It should look more like this:
A. Parents
B. Siblings
C. Other relatives
D. Friends
E. Peers
F. Media
Here's why: the child probably isn't in school yet (if he is, it's just preschool or kindergarten) so he really doesn't have many peers or friends outside of kids from the neighborhood. Seeing as if he's younger than 4 or 5 he might not be allowed outside unsupervised, he might not know anyone even in the neighborhood well enough to know them good and fully trust them - and, to take this a step further, if the parent neglects the child enough to not take him outside at all (or hardly ever) then the child may grow up without friends at all. Then, if the child has no siblings and no nearby relatives, the media becomes the parent.
In conclusion, it's possible for the media to become the main influence in the child's life. It's a rare situation - especially for it to play out perfectly enough for the media to be the child's main influence - but it can and does happen. Of course, the parents are still the ones to blame for it - no doubt that it is their fault for not teaching the child right from wrong. With my earlier statement, I wasn't trying to suggesting that the media has more influence in the child's development than the parent - rather that sometimes the media is given this influence by the parent. Sorry for the confusion. . .
I love how CNet News pointed out that Google uses cookies to monitor what you do on the 'Net, and I went to the CNet News front page and what popped up but a dialog box asking if I was willing to accept a cookie from news.com.com.
Hmm. . . I guess what's seen as a virtue in one group is seen as a vice in another?
That's not quite what I meant - I was talking more about movies and video games that depict killing and violence as the norm, not like in a horror film where, yes, there's lots of killing and violence and what not, but it's meant more to scare you.
In other words, yeah, Jason killed people, but Neo made it look like it was cool to do. "Friday the 13th" sends the message that Jason killed all these people, it was gross, it was a bad thing, everyone hated him for it, and he must've been pretty mental to do it - but "The Matrix" sends the message that Neo killed these people and looked cool doing it, and that he was a fairly normal guy with a normal job.
Of course, anyone older than 13 or so knows that that that's just Hollywood and that normal people don't kill people, but young children are more impressionable and might pick up the idea that it is somewhat normal/cool to do. With "Friday the 13th", on the other hand, the sole message is that Jason's one sick, messed-up dude for doing this.
Kinda - they're also teaching grown ups. Still, though - this is what I call the "drug dealer" approach - give it to them free and get them hooked on it. Teach them to use YOUR products for free, give them YOUR products for free and that's what they'll learn and use. I can assure you that MS won't teach them about Firefox, Linux, or AIM - instead, they'll teach them IE, WinXP, and MSN Messenger..
They're giving it out to better their public reputation - same reason they're suing the spammer. If they truly wanted to stop spam or pay for people to learn computer skills, they wouldn't have needed to win a lawsuit to do it. The comment at the end ("with the rest being flagged to pay Microsoft's legal costs") kinda proves it - like MS can't afford to pay its lawyers. . . yeah, right. . .
What are you talking about? Mental institutions are for people with mental problems. If he's determined to have a mental problem, then that's where he should be. Prison is for correcting behavior, not mental problems.
IOW Charles Manson should be in a correctional facility, NOT in jail, because he's insane and needs mental help, which isn't available in a jail. OJ should be in jail because he knows what he did was wrong, understands why, and did what he did out of anger, not out of insanity.
The reason we have this is companies don't have the balls to countersue. McDonald's should have said, "too bad you're fat but everyone knows we sell fatty food" and countersued - EVERYONE knows McDonald's makes you fat. I'm sure the guy in "Supersize Me" wasn't exactly expecting to be in perfect health afterwards. If people countersued, others would stop suing so much - they'd see that they can't just make a quick buck by suing all the time because they could get sued back.
I don't think that Grokster is to blame for P2P crimes, but I think the reason they got sued is that stealing music and movies is sorta the main purpose of Grokster.
In other words, Grokster got sued and gun makers didn't because you can't pirate movies and music without programs like Grokster and with these programs you can't do much other than pirate copyrighted material - but you can kill people without a gun and guns aren't just used for killing, they're also used for protection and for hunting.
Right, the kid must've learned to shoot a gun somewhere, but, first of all, he could've learned it from paintball. Second of all, if he did in fact learn it from the media, he could've learned it from anything, not just video games - he could've learned it from a movie he saw.
I do think that the video game thing does have some truth in it, though, because some kids have been playing video games since they were very young - however, I think this says more about the negative effects of bad parenting more than the effect of the video games. It's not good to let young children see too many violent movies or play too many violent games because that's when children are developing their sense of right and wrong.
I've noticed that many people (usually MS users) see nothing wrong with MS trying to force you into Windows and other products, but as soon as another company does something bad - death to them.
You know what? Maybe you're right. What goes around, comes around. Maybe the guys from Corel should sue MS - until MS started having vendors put Office on their new machines, WordPerfect was king.
I'm rooting for the guys from Mozilla. A lot of them worked on Netscape, too. I hope they show MS what it's like to be pushed around.
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Yes, something sure is out of whack. It's the fact that everyone likes to point the blame at someone else. You're disgustingly fat? It's not your fault, it's McDonalds' fault for selling food that you already knew was fattening. Your coffee burned your lap? It's not your fault, even though coffee is supposed to be hot, you should have known it was hot from the steam, and if you wanted it cold you should have asked for it cold. Your kid shot everybody in the school? It's that video game's fault, even though you don't spend time with your kids and teach them right from wrong, and even though you let them play violent video games for hours unsupervised while you're at work.
Anyways, there are PLENTY of great games that aren't violent - for example, racing games, a LOT of freeware/open-source games (such as Neverball), and games like Tony Hawk. But the reason that game makers tend to make violent games is that it's pretty much a guaranteed sell - people who don't like skateboarding might not like Pro Skater, people who have poor mouse control skills might not like Neverball, people who don't like NASCAR might not like racing games. . . but have you ever heard of anyone not like shooting things? Maybe not real living things, but come on - who hates laser tag?
Yeah, they could add some new life to the "Tomb Raider" series! :)
We learn right vs wrong, pretend vs real, good vs bad, etc., when we're children. If children are raised right, then they learn to distinguish these things.
Wow. . . you want to kill people for driving faster than you, and HE'S the freak? Don't come to Detroit - here it's quite common for people to drive faster than the speed limit. And, trust me, you DON'T wanna whip out a gun in Detroit or Pontiac.
The worst part of all is that San Andreas is no different than Vice City or the other GTA's.
Staring at a ketchup bottle for 10 minutes makes me want to punch John Kerry. :)
I'll shoot 'em with my grav gun - first use it to pick up the neighbor's car, and then I'll hurl it at them. Or maybe I'll throw the Soulcube at them.
Have you ever even played America's Army? The purpose of America's Army is to be a recruiting tool, not to promote violence and senseless killing. You don't kill everyone and everything in America's Army - not obeying orders and killing your teammates gets you locked up in a virtual jail cell (as opposed to most other games where if there's a team killer the most you can do is either hope his teammates vote him off the server or hope admin's on to kick him off).
In America's Army you also have to go through all sorts of "virtual training courses" - where you learn NOT to kill teammates and stuff.
"C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!"
(Why do they call them "cookies" anyway?)
Seriously, though - I don't delete my cookies THAT much, and I don't get spyware since I'm using Linux, but I don't need those stupid cookies. KDE has something called KDE Wallet which automatically types in my passwords in an encrypted file (called a wallet), so the only one I need to know is the one to my KDE Wallet. It'll remember passwords for ANYTHING - Instant Messenger, e-mail, all my web sites. . . you name it.
Seeing as TiVo already has released some of its code as open-source, I think that if TiVo were about to bite the dust they would open-source ALL of their software - keep it around to haunt the competitors, even after the TiVo brand itself is long gone.
Well, yes, gun manufacturers have been/are being sued - and with less and less reason - but not until very recently. And, yes, you can copy movies and music without file-sharing programs, but, first of all, just making a copy isn't necessarily illegal or considered piracy, and, second of all, even though copying movies and music and giving the copies to your friends is illegal, it's done on such a small scale that people don't get in trouble for it. Lastly, you totally missed my point which was that the main purpose of Grokster is to pirate movies and music on a large scale - which is illegal - but the main purposes of a gun are protection and hunting - both of which are not illegal.
However, since (I think) most (or, at least, a great deal) of this development happens between the ages of 2 and 6 (past that, most kids can distinguish right from wrong), your list is flawed. It should look more like this:
A. Parents B. Siblings C. Other relatives D. Friends E. Peers F. Media
Here's why: the child probably isn't in school yet (if he is, it's just preschool or kindergarten) so he really doesn't have many peers or friends outside of kids from the neighborhood. Seeing as if he's younger than 4 or 5 he might not be allowed outside unsupervised, he might not know anyone even in the neighborhood well enough to know them good and fully trust them - and, to take this a step further, if the parent neglects the child enough to not take him outside at all (or hardly ever) then the child may grow up without friends at all. Then, if the child has no siblings and no nearby relatives, the media becomes the parent.
In conclusion, it's possible for the media to become the main influence in the child's life. It's a rare situation - especially for it to play out perfectly enough for the media to be the child's main influence - but it can and does happen. Of course, the parents are still the ones to blame for it - no doubt that it is their fault for not teaching the child right from wrong. With my earlier statement, I wasn't trying to suggesting that the media has more influence in the child's development than the parent - rather that sometimes the media is given this influence by the parent. Sorry for the confusion. . .
Hmm. . . I guess what's seen as a virtue in one group is seen as a vice in another?
In other words, yeah, Jason killed people, but Neo made it look like it was cool to do. "Friday the 13th" sends the message that Jason killed all these people, it was gross, it was a bad thing, everyone hated him for it, and he must've been pretty mental to do it - but "The Matrix" sends the message that Neo killed these people and looked cool doing it, and that he was a fairly normal guy with a normal job.
Of course, anyone older than 13 or so knows that that that's just Hollywood and that normal people don't kill people, but young children are more impressionable and might pick up the idea that it is somewhat normal/cool to do. With "Friday the 13th", on the other hand, the sole message is that Jason's one sick, messed-up dude for doing this.
Kinda - they're also teaching grown ups. Still, though - this is what I call the "drug dealer" approach - give it to them free and get them hooked on it. Teach them to use YOUR products for free, give them YOUR products for free and that's what they'll learn and use. I can assure you that MS won't teach them about Firefox, Linux, or AIM - instead, they'll teach them IE, WinXP, and MSN Messenger..
They're giving it out to better their public reputation - same reason they're suing the spammer. If they truly wanted to stop spam or pay for people to learn computer skills, they wouldn't have needed to win a lawsuit to do it. The comment at the end ("with the rest being flagged to pay Microsoft's legal costs") kinda proves it - like MS can't afford to pay its lawyers. . . yeah, right. . .
IOW Charles Manson should be in a correctional facility, NOT in jail, because he's insane and needs mental help, which isn't available in a jail. OJ should be in jail because he knows what he did was wrong, understands why, and did what he did out of anger, not out of insanity.
The reason we have this is companies don't have the balls to countersue. McDonald's should have said, "too bad you're fat but everyone knows we sell fatty food" and countersued - EVERYONE knows McDonald's makes you fat. I'm sure the guy in "Supersize Me" wasn't exactly expecting to be in perfect health afterwards. If people countersued, others would stop suing so much - they'd see that they can't just make a quick buck by suing all the time because they could get sued back.
(Mario voice:) "I would-a never-a jumped on the turtle's shell-a. . ."
. . . What's Linux got to do with the Bible and the Song of Solomon?
In other words, Grokster got sued and gun makers didn't because you can't pirate movies and music without programs like Grokster and with these programs you can't do much other than pirate copyrighted material - but you can kill people without a gun and guns aren't just used for killing, they're also used for protection and for hunting.
I do think that the video game thing does have some truth in it, though, because some kids have been playing video games since they were very young - however, I think this says more about the negative effects of bad parenting more than the effect of the video games. It's not good to let young children see too many violent movies or play too many violent games because that's when children are developing their sense of right and wrong.
That's not what they made me do to your naked girlfriend. . . :)
You know what? Maybe you're right. What goes around, comes around. Maybe the guys from Corel should sue MS - until MS started having vendors put Office on their new machines, WordPerfect was king.
I'm rooting for the guys from Mozilla. A lot of them worked on Netscape, too. I hope they show MS what it's like to be pushed around.