OK, is this really an issue?

[Occhidiangela]

http://www.mediafamily.org/mediawise/psa.shtml

I note the following commentary.

Games to avoid for your children and teens
1. Doom 3
2. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
3. Half Life 2
4. Halo 2 
5. Resident Evil: Outbreak

OK, sensationalism is one of those things. It just is. I note with a grin that Halo 2 and GTA/SA are lumped together as "top 5 evil" influences on a child. I am far more likely to get HALO 2 than GTA/SA (I own neither as, among other reasons, Mrs Occhi has enough discomfort with WoW as it is.) Gangsta is not a theme I prefer to have in my home. Dwarfs who hit orcs with hammers? Yes. Punks who kill cops and slap hos around? No.

Do the hysterical whingers who run these sites actually PLAY THE GAMES a few times before they come out against them? Or do they make up their minds ahead of time? Or, as their message seems to be, are any games with the all too vague heading of "violence" to be abhored equally, without reference to content and style?

Tastes differ, I suppose.

I also note that the kid in the film clip (if the whole thing is not a setup) is not a child that I, as a parent, would allow to run GTA/SA on any machine in my home. (Even if I bought it, which I aint gonna any time soon.) I might let him play Halo 2. It is an indoor version of the old games I played as a kid, running around the woods with my friends, playing army and "shooting each other" and doing our own silly "death animations."

I let my daughter watch the film "Last of the Mohicans" when she was 13. It was R, a bit high on the ketchup count here and there. She has yet to show me any abberant strains of behaviour. She has since seen Braveheart at a friend's house. She's a sophomore in HS, I was not bothered. The Missus was a bit irritated.

My son, 12, saw "Troy," but Braveheart is not on the "he can watch it" list.

He wants to take fencing lessons. I have taught him the rudimets of marksmanship with a pellet rifle. He has fired a .357 magnum at targets. (Says it hurts his ears. ) Have not seen him exhibit any Columbine attitudes lately. Maybe it takes a while to percolate.

I may sign him up for Kendo after he takes Tae Kwon Do, which he wants to try again, for a few years. We shall see. Fencing he will have to finance on his own when he starts holding down summer jobs and such. The equipment aint cheap.

Occhi

[SetBuilder]

http://www.mediafamily.org/mediawise/psa.shtml

OK, sensationalism is one of those things.  It just is.  I note with a grin that Halo 2 and GTA/SA are lumped together as "top 5 evil" influences on a child.  I am far more likely to get HALO 2 than GTA/SA  (I own neither as, among other reasons,  Mrs Occhi has enough discomfort with WoW as it is.)  Gangsta is not a theme I prefer to have in my home.  Dwarfs who hit orcs with hammers?  Yes.  Punks who kill cops and slap hos around?  No.

Occhi
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Honestly, any game is fair game, by my book. The games aren't the greatest influence in a kids life, their upbringing is. If you teach them to think, then they realize when somebody tells them to jump off a bridge, they shouldn't do it. Same with running around shooting people or any of the other displays of violence you may see in these games.

Of course, I wouldn't be the person to purchase GTA. Doom 3 blows IMHO, and Resident Evil isn't my style of game. Halflife 2 and Halo 2? Fair game. If you can figure out where the exe is hidden (start menu) and figure out how to open it, you're probably smart enough to play it without thinking it's real life.

Furthermore, there are only two computers in my LAN capable of running any of these games worth anything, and only my two accounts (user and administrator) have installation capabilities. So I suppose I wouldn't allow them, as I'd be too lazy to install them?

[JustAGuy]

They probably do lump those games together with the following rationalization: they all have guns in them, you shoot those guns at living things in a realistic setting, so they're all bad.

We both know that rationalization doesn't stand up. Halo 2 and GTA San Andreas are incredibly different. Doom 3 is also completely different from the aforementioned two. It's the equivalent to comparing a Sci-fi movie to a Horror flick. Really, the only common thread between these games is that there are guns and the player controls who gets shot. That's a scary thing for certain parents.

That kid in the PSA is adorable, though. My favourite line is, "There's a cop there who sees what I did, and he's got body armour on, so I can't shoot him. So, I throw gasoline on him and light it. He screams and runs around and dies." That's comedy gold right there.

Seriously, though, that kid is just describing GTA. It's one thing to describe a video game, it's completely another to believe that what he is describing is possible, acceptable, and tolerable. So long as that child is actually parented properly, the graphic depictions in video games shouldn't affect his well-being, his ability to abide by the law, and to safely and respectfully socially interact with others. The most important thing for the child is that he understand the difference between reality and fantasy. If the child isn't mature enough to make those distinctions, then he shouldn't be playing that game. How do you find out if he is or is not? Well, that's where a parent should excercise their best judgement. If the parent still doesn't know, then that's what the rating system is for.

That kid, though, he's adorable. "There's this prostitue, they're super hard to kill, so I grab my machete and cut her head off." Haha, classic. He actually makes me want to go play GTA San Andreas.

[ShadowHM]

Hi Occhi

My kids get the chance to try a number of games. At this point, the older two can and will bring games home to play that might not be just right for a younger one.

I tend to watch them play for a bit, and make comments. For example, on this past weekend, the eldest was kind (sic) enough to bring Mortal Kombat: Deception to the cottage. Our hero (guided by the 11 year old) was observed running down the street, punching pedestrians/innocent bystanders.

"Why are you doing this, son? Is it part of the quest?"

"No, Mom. But sometimes they have money and they drop it, and I can pick it up for later use."

Uh huh :wacko:

We had a chat about just how that looked, and just how they might feel about that if they were said innocent bystander. We then let them have at the game again. When the behaviour continued, we cut them off.

Then they played Oddworld: Strangers Wrath for a bit (also brought by the eldest son). Interestingly, if you punch innocent bystanders in this game, while they do drop money, they will also get together and shoot you if you persist. :) Also, somehow, when the innocent bystanders don't look human, it is easier for this old fart to believe that they kids won't be taking life lessons from how they behave in the game. I can't say whether that perception is good or bad, but there you go.

So, the short answer is: I take them one game at a time, although the aforementioned eldest was bright enough to self-censor on GTA: SA and left that one at his home. He reported to me separately that he was sure it was inappropriate for the young fellows.

[jahcs]

Parenting is the issue here, not the games. Most game companies use the ESRB rating system. Parents need to educate themselves on what they allow their kids to view/play. The ESRB rating is a tool, prescreening material is even better.

Game companies have produced some things that I feel are very inappropriate and bring no value to society whatsoever and I would encourage them to not go over the top to include violence and other explicit material in games.

It is similar to the gun debate. When a six year old kills another child with a gun, where the hell were the parents and why didn't they properly secure the firearm! The gun manufacturer did not kill the child, the child probably did not understand what they were doing, and the parents were apparently too irresponsible to have children or firearms in the house.

Video games, TV, and movies are not babysitters. Parents need to be involved with their kids and help teach good living and morals.

[Minionman]

I think we need to look at the long term effects of some other game types as one time players grow up and get to make more decisions on their own.

1. Do civilization type games lead to an overall more repressive and warlike population. This is not a silly question, as many of these games have conquering the world/space as a winning condition, wars are often profitable, indiviadual suffering is not shown, and idctatorial and repressive governments are often viable strategies for winning the game. These values could be having negative effects on children.

2. Do the games simcity and simearth lead to cavalier attitudes towards devestating natural disasters, given their ignorance of individual suffering, and the common practice of setting off diasasters because, in the lexicon of children, they are "cool to watch"?

3. Do medevil fantasy games lead to an increase in rick taking and dangerous behavior? games such as Diablo and Lords of magic often feature characters engaging in such behaviors, including, but not limited to, fighting with multiple opponents, entering dangerous terrain formations, and consorting with otherwise dangerous wild animals.

(In other words, I don't agree with the attack on computer games either. I wrote this with bigger words than I would if I actually thought all this, since a lot of "values" people talk that way.)

edit: added "viable stratgegies" to civilization paragraph.

[Hammerskjold]

I think some of the hysteria comes from where video games is right now. It's making quite a lot of money supposedly, yet it's still not at the level of mainstream acceptability and accessibility as say, movies and books. (Some of it comes with the territory I guess, you don't need a lot of special equipment to go see the latest movie.)

It's almost like pornographic movies. There's people that thinks it's a horrid thing and it should be abolished. But nowadays you'd be hard pressed to find many people that want to abolish not only porn flicks, but -all- movies, period. They don't lump the medium with the message to (badly) paraphrase some guy named Mcluhan.

Though I do still see some of that with things like cartoons\animations, and comics. In Europe and Asia they don't seem to have a problem with just using the medium to tell a story. In North America there's still some stigma attached to it, cartoons and comics are suitable only for children and maybe immature adults.

I think this is where video games is at currently. I personally think if videogames is to ever 'mature', it will need to reach a point where people can accept a video game can have trash as well as treasure. Just like any other media.

[jahcs]

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Bit of a Devil's Advocate reply, Minionman? ;)

Researchers (and I use that term loosely) will draw any parallel they can to reinforce their viewpoint, especially on matters involving the human psyche where hard data is not possible. To rebut most of this video game/movie/television/comic book tripe how about looking at 3rd world areas where they do not have access to anywhere near the amount of media we do in the "civilized" world and check the crime rates there. I could do some selective reasearch and selective reporting of data, and come up with proof that violent video games actually reduce crime rates. (It would be hogwash but I'm sure I could come up with a nice Powerpoint with a few spiffy looking graphs to back it up.)

[Nystul]

Do the hysterical whingers who run these sites actually PLAY THE GAMES a few times before they come out against them?&nbsp; Or do they make up their minds ahead of time?&nbsp; Or, as their message seems to be, are any games with the all too vague heading of "violence" to be abhored equally, without reference to content and style?

Tastes differ, I suppose.
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The common factor in most of the games you mentioned is some combination of extreme violence and realism. The other factor, obviously, is that they are very high profile games that can't slip under the radar of a group like this. One doesn't really need to play Doom 3 to decide whether it is suitable for kids or not... watching the timedemo will suffice and even viewing a few screenshots will probably do. Actually playing reveals a few things that may be more disturbing, but for the most part is it just raw violence.

I'm not sure if movies are even a valid comparison anymore. Movies used to be more jarringly realistic than video games, but that is hardly the case now. If you wouldn't let your kid watch Freddie and Jason movies on a nightly basis, it would a joke to even consider a game like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2. GTA obviously has additional issues besides just being graphic in nature, as you've mentioned.

I think it's fair for a group like this to do their thing, but you shouldn't expect them to tell you anything you don't know already. As a gamer, you have a pretty good idea what you are getting into, and probably more firsthand experience with games than these groups do. I'm sure, however, that there are parents who don't really have a clue what games are like, don't really pay attention when their kids play, and could probably use a wakeup call.

[whyBish]

So long as that child is actually parented properly

If we are relying on the parenting skills of others for our safety, then we are all doomed <_<

They only reason I don't campaign against violent games here (NZ) is because we have gun control... I haven't seen one in about fourteen years. Anyone here with violent tendencies needs to do more than point-and-click, which is a bit too much exercise for most that spend their days playing violent video games :P

[Minionman]

Bit of a Devil's Advocate reply, Minionman? ;)

Researchers (and I use that term loosely) will draw any parallel they can to reinforce their viewpoint, especially on matters involving the human psyche where hard data is not possible.&nbsp; To rebut most of this video game/movie/television/comic book tripe how about looking at 3rd world areas where they do not have access to anywhere near the amount of media we do in the "civilized" world and check the crime rates there.&nbsp; I could do some selective reasearch and selective reporting of data, and come up with proof that violent video games actually reduce crime rates. (It would be hogwash but I'm sure I could come up with a nice Powerpoint with a few spiffy looking graphs to back it up.)
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Actually, the third world case makes the argument that real world fighting has a larger effect than any video game could. With video games, it isn't real, and people understand that. In real life fighting, it is real, so peoplw see it as part of life and are more accepting of it and less likely to look for ways to slow it down or stop it. Plus, with the violence all around, there's less non-fighting for people to pick up.

And technically, you would have foiund that more of these games goes with a lower crime rate, but not what the causes are.

[DeeBye]

Y'know, I often like to sit with my son and watch hockey. He doesn't really understand the game of course, but he knows that daddy likes it and he loves to spend time with his daddy. So, he's usually excited to watch a game with me.

Inevitably a fight will break out during the game we are watching. As a hockey fan, I loves me a good hockey scrap :) As a father to a very young son watching said fight, I'm always a little uneasy about what he is watching :( My son knows that hitting other people is bad, but how do I explain to him that fighting=wrong but hockey+fighting=okay?

I personally don't see anything wrong with the violence in hockey, but I'm old enough to know that it is consentual and well-regulated. It's a million miles away from hauling off and kicking the crap out of some guy walking down the street. My son is not nearly old enough to make that assessment for himself. I do the best I can to explain to him that the men fighting during hockey are doing a bad thing, but I always feel like a liar because I personally feel that there is nothing inherently bad about a hockey fight.

I'm not going to censor hockey for my son. Hell, this is Canada and we don't do this. I was playing hockey on a team when I was 4 years old. For now, until he gets older, I'll continue to tell him that fighting is bad. When he gets old enough, I can begin to explain to him that the fighting he sees in hockey is not the same as fighting in real life.

I guess what I'm saying is that this issue is not limited to video games. I have no answers.

edit: for reference, my son is two and a half years old

[Griselda]

Probably a good idea to keep up that "fighting is bad" thing- at least until he's old enough to know that *he* can't start a hockey fight on any children's hockey team he might be on.

Hockey and hockey fights are a complete mystery to me, but I imagine that fights during children's hockey games aren't as accepted as professional ones.

About the only game that I could say for sure that I wouldn't allow my child to play would be a GTA-style game. My husband enjoyed a few of those games for a while, but never when our daughter was in the room. I think there's a difference between a game with violence like a fps, and a game that glorifies violence, robbery, prostitution, etc.

Mind you, our daughter's also not welcome in the room when he's playing a fps game, either, but she does run the characters around levels he's designing. She likes the elevators.

A friend of mine had his son play Doom with him when he was younger, manning some of the keys for him. He mentioned that he had been raised in China, where very young children were raised on the violent kung fu tales of the local storyteller. Apparently even local moms had a fair share of kung fu novels. Yet, the people in his town were quite peaceful in real life, even though they enjoyed the violence in the stories.

He made the parallel between the violence in those stories and those in video games, and I can relate to that. I'm not ready to go down the "hey, little Gris, come play UT with me" route, but I can understand and appreciate that point of view better now.

My biggest problem? Our daugher is not interested in video games! With all the time that my husband and I spend playing, you'd think she'd play a lot, but she's really not interested. I think she's decided that video games are something boring that old people do. :unsure:

I like the fact that, at 7, she's not that attached to any type of screen. But, I'd also like to find a video game that she could enjoy (in moderation, of course). Her eye doctor even recommended it. :P I bought her a Spongebob XBox game for Christmas, but she won't play it. Luckily Mr. Gris likes it. She won't touch Tetris or Nitro Kart. She has a friend who enjoys Diablo (the original), but she won't even give it a try. She enjoys her "I Spy" game, but really never asks to play it. I wonder if there are games that aren't designed to be just educational but are still playable by fairly young children (someone who can read but isn't going to be able to catch huge amounts of text flying past quickly, and who isn't going to be performing any huge feats of manual dexterity any time soon).

We have an XBox and she has her own PC she can use (our old one, of course). Any suggestions? What games are your kids playing? Oh, I guess that all of the Barbie fashion design or shopping games would be off limits, probably for the same reason that GTA would be off limits in this house- that's not an aspect of society that we want to encourage.

[DeeBye]

Probably a good idea to keep up that "fighting is bad" thing- at least until he's old enough to know that *he* can't start a hockey fight on any children's hockey team he might be on.

Hockey and hockey fights are a complete mystery to me, but I imagine that fights during children's hockey games aren't as accepted as professional ones.
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Fighting is absolutely not allowed in any hockey league until they reach at least Junior-level (age 15+), and even then it's limited to a few select leagues consisting of gifted players. Even saying that fighting is "allowed" is a bit of a misnomer. Fighting during a hockey game is against the rules, and is penalized. In pro leagues, the penalty is a 5 minute sit in the penalty box. In any other league, it's a game ejection and likely suspension from the league.

I won't even attempt to defend hockey fighting to someone who doesn't understand hockey. That's a battle I know I can't win :)

I've been watching NHL hockey for as long as my memory goes back, and it never prompted me to pick fights with other kids. I always knew the separation between fighting on the ice during the big TV games and fighting in real life.

Now that I really think about it, it seems that I'll have to phone my parents and ask them about what sort of controls they put in place for me when I was a child. I've always tried to raise my son as I had been raised. I bet they could clear a lot of things up for me. I sometimes forget what a valuable resource my own parents could be when it comes to parenting my own child.

[whyBish]

My son knows that hitting other people is bad, but how do I explain to him that fighting=wrong but hockey+fighting=okay?

Maybe neither are wrong, or maybe both are. :unsure:

But explain to me how the two can be different?

[DeeBye]

Maybe neither are wrong, or maybe both are. :unsure:

But explain to me how the two can be different?
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It's like boxing or any other consentual full-contact sport.

[Walkiry]

One doesn't really need to play Doom 3 to decide whether it is suitable for kids or not... watching the timedemo will suffice and even viewing a few screenshots will probably do.&nbsp; Actually playing reveals a few things that may be more disturbing, but for the most part is it just raw violence.
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Au contraire! Doom 3 is a game everyone can play! I mean, if you're worried about images of violence, D3 has none, since you can't see a damn thing.

(Yes, I'm still sore over spending my hard earned money with that).

[Swiss Mercenary]

Au contraire! Doom 3 is a game everyone can play! I mean, if you're worried about images of violence, D3 has none, since you can't see a damn thing.

(Yes, I'm still sore over spending my hard earned money with that).
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But... But... Think of the great mods that will inevitably be out for it!

[Occhidiangela]

It's like boxing or any other consentual full-contact sport.
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Horsecrap, pure and simple friend Dee. Fistfights in football are BS also, and get people suspended. Boxing is fighting with no pretense to other types of scoring, as is judo and "Ultimate Fighting." Your comparison is absolute nonsense.

I like a fast paced, well played hockey games. The "obligatory" fist fights piss me off immensely as a sports fan. I stopped watching Hockey at all about six years ago. The NHL are supposed to be professionals. They hardly show that they know what that word means.

Fighting, as opposed to checking, in Hockey is a crock of crap, and one of the banes of the sport, just as the bench clearing brawl is a bane to baseball, and Shaq is an embarassment to the NBA with his "in the key" thuggery.

Hockey got a huge boost in the US in about 1980, when Olympic Hockey, which tends to not have the idiotic thuggery of the NHL and other leagues, stormed our TV screens with superb play and a completely improbable US Gold Medal. Right on top of that, Wayne Gretzky and a handful of classy hockey players (a number of them Finns) emerged as stars in the NHL, and moved the game away from the thuggery of the 1970's that damned near killed the league. Mario Lemieux likewise. (Yes, I know, Paul Coffey and Marty McSorely were The Great One's enforcers . . . and Mark Messier takes crap from no one.) With the greater density of skilled Europeans entering the NHL, there need not be room made on rosters for thugs.

A good hard check, and the crowd pleasing check into the boards, is great stuff within the rules, just as a good hard tackle in football is a crowd pleaser. That is the good contact in the contact sport element of Hockey. Idiots engaging in fisticuffs on the ice is not only not entertaining, it disrupts the SPORT wherein SPORTSMANSHIP is part of the package.

If hockey ever cleaned up its act, the artistry of a well played hockey would once again be the dominant theme of the game.

"I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out." That kind of thinking almost killed the NHL in the 1970's. If the NHL dies the death it deserves in its current post-Gretzky self immolation, it will be a damned shame, but the sport will have brought it on itself due to a lack of vision.

Hockey is a great sport. We have the Ice Rays "AA" rated team here in Corpus Christi, of all bloody places. But as long as hockey above juniors forget that the play is the thing, it will never reach the artform that it has the potential to reach.

A contact sport is NOT by definition a blood sport.

Occhi

[Occhidiangela]

Probably a good idea to keep up that "fighting is bad" thing- at least until he's old enough to know that *he* can't start a hockey fight on any children's hockey team he might be on.

Hockey and hockey fights are a complete mystery to me, but I imagine that fights during children's hockey games aren't as accepted as professional ones.

About the only game that I could say for sure that I wouldn't allow my child to play would be a GTA-style game.&nbsp; My husband enjoyed a few of those games for a while, but never when our daughter was in the room.&nbsp; I think there's a difference between a game with violence like a fps, and a game that glorifies violence, robbery, prostitution, etc.

Mind you, our daughter's also not welcome in the room when he's playing a fps game, either, but she does run the characters around levels he's designing.&nbsp; She likes the elevators.

A friend of mine had his son play Doom with him when he was younger, manning some of the keys for him.&nbsp; He mentioned that he had been raised in China, where very young children were raised on the violent kung fu tales of the local storyteller.&nbsp; Apparently even local moms had a fair share of kung fu novels.&nbsp; Yet, the people in his town were quite peaceful in real life, even though they enjoyed the violence in the stories.

He made the parallel between the violence in those stories and those in video games, and I can relate to that.&nbsp; I'm not ready to go down the "hey, little Gris, come play UT with me" route, but I can understand and appreciate that point of view better now.

My biggest problem?&nbsp; Our daugher is not interested in video games!&nbsp; With all the time that my husband and I spend playing, you'd think she'd play a lot, but she's really not interested.&nbsp; I think she's decided that video games are something boring that old people do.&nbsp; :unsure:

I like the fact that, at 7, she's not that attached to any type of screen.&nbsp; But, I'd also like to find a video game that she could enjoy (in moderation, of course).&nbsp; Her eye doctor even recommended it.&nbsp; :P&nbsp; I bought her a Spongebob XBox game for Christmas, but she won't play it.&nbsp; Luckily Mr. Gris likes it.&nbsp; She won't touch Tetris or Nitro Kart.&nbsp; She has a friend who enjoys Diablo (the original), but she won't even give it a try.&nbsp; She enjoys her "I Spy" game, but really never asks to play it.&nbsp; I wonder if there are games that aren't designed to be just educational but are still playable by fairly young children (someone who can read but isn't going to be able to catch huge amounts of text flying past quickly, and who isn't going to be performing any huge feats of manual dexterity any time soon).

We have an XBox and she has her own PC she can use (our old one, of course).&nbsp; Any suggestions?&nbsp; What games are your kids playing?&nbsp; Oh, I guess that all of the Barbie fashion design or shopping games would be off limits, probably for the same reason that GTA would be off limits in this house- that's not an aspect of society that we want to encourage.
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The Carmen San Diego series is good, and has a droll sense of humor. Yeti Sports are wonderful. :D

Occhi