Video Games Ate My Baby
With all the absurd controversy about GTA IV and video games being responsible for destroying the world, there’s a whole lot of inanity out there right now. But, Wil Wheaton is my hero of the month. “Yeah, it’s always about protecting The Children, which leads me to wonder where The Parents are, and if these people are so serious about making the world better for The Children, why they don’t invest the same amount of energy and resources into securing quality healthcare and world-class education for them as they spend wringing their hands over video games that aren’t even supposed to be played by The Children in the first place.”
[...] is an excellent summary of how I feel on the whole brouhaha over the game. Thanks to Ryan at Nerfbat for the [...]
I bought and have been playing GTA IV and so far its no worse than any of its predecessors in terms of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. If parents are worried about this game corrupting their children its as simple as not letting them play it. If you can’t keep you kids from playing a video game you’re a pretty lousy parent.
Man, my wife loves Wil Wheaton. So I can’t possibly like anything he says. She’s on his blog. His vlog. His audio blog. And she doesn’t even like Star Trek. *sigh*
But he does make a great point and it’s a point I completely agree with. However, I don’t think things are as independent from one another as sometimes we may make them out to be.
By that I mean that maybe something in a video game could give a kid/adult the idea about how to carry out their actions. However, I don’t believe that video games, or songs, or role-playing games, or rap music are the CAUSE of someone carrying out their actions. I’ve been listening to Kiss since I was six years old and I never wanted to kill anyone.
I think the thought is borne in someone’s mind and a person is going to act on it one way or the other. That’s where innovation is born, right? So…the positives of innovation we consider to be good. The negatives, we consider to be bad.
And humans are always looking for a way to blame their negative actions on something else. Look at those accused in the Salem Wtich Trials. This kind of human behavior goes back much further than that, though.
While video games aren’t to blame for someone’s actions, they’re not completely innocent either. You can’t look at the GTA series and say, “Those games are pretty clean.” LOL. But are they responsible for making little Billy grab a bazooka and blowing away his school?
How the hell did Billy get a bazooka in the first place?
cmon Makkaio, If we are to follow your logical thought to the end then a huge number of the classics, are also to blame. All the westerns, kung-fu movies, Hell even the man in the iron mask and the Three muskateers are violent. And those books were written before tv existed. Aside from those few people who are chemically unbalanced or have major psycological issues, it comes down to parenting. In fact several of the studies that were done to prove how bad video games are have proven the opposite. Some psychologists say actually playing some of these games (age appropriately) actually make it less likely the kids will exhibit violent behavior, because they get some relief of the urges we all have. Don’t know if they are right or wrong, but in my 26 years of playing games I’ve never personally known a gamer that went nuts and killed someone. Lead paint is more of a threat in that department than games are. And thats a scientific fact. lead makes your kids less smart and more aggressive.