Violent video game law

[EvoMunster]

This is out of the blue but after reading about people blaming video games for childrens' violent acts, I have to say, blame the parents. Gaming companies should not be penalized, convicted or even barred from putting out games because some child thought it would be wonderful to re-enact a scene from a game.

I love my video games, whether its Counter-Strike: Source (Oh yeah!) or one for looks (Rumbling Roses). I have been a gamer for quite some time and I gotta tell ya, I haven't had any violent tendency what-so-ever. But if one does, the parents should be blamed because it is them who is letting their own child play the game.

Once again, this was just out of the blue and had to get some thoughts out. If you really wanna see some violent behaviors, play Magic the Gathering. Going to those tournaments, you see a lot of angry people.

 

[Wolfy]

I blame kittens.

 

[llama_man]

Don't be daft.



Killer bunnies are to blame.

 

[red_onion]

EvoMunster, as a parent, I couldn't agree more with you: parents, not goverment, should be responsible for keeping the Big Bad of the world away from our children. Children today are too often overexposed and undersupervised. It's refreshing to see how many new parents are returning to child rearing that was popular in the 1950s (before the failures of the "build self esteem at all costs" philosophy): high expectations and firm, tough love.

As a client of mine used to say, "Love your children ... but WATCH 'em."

 

[sandmannight]

what about the movies. they dont make people want to do things so get of games back

 

[red_onion]

what about the movies. they dont make people want to do things so get of games back

I don't know ... movies, television, music, games, all of it probably has its effect. I mean, can anyone deny that violence has gotten a lot worse in the past 50 years (and not just by children)? Where do you think people get their ideas? I'm sure some, if not a lot comes from media.

But that said, the question is who should should be responsible for keeping children away from inappropriate content, since I honestly believe that adults should be able to look at/listen to/play whatever the heck they want to.

 

[sandmannight]

what about the movies. they dont make people want to do things so get of games back

I don't know ... movies, television, music, games, all of it probably has its effect. I mean, can anyone deny that violence has gotten a lot worse in the past 50 years (and not just by children)? Where do you think people get their ideas? I'm sure some, if not a lot comes from media.

But that said, the question is who should should be responsible for keeping children away from inappropriate content, since I honestly believe that adults should be able to look at/listen to/play whatever the heck they want to.

I would agree. Though overly violents things make me sick even so I am not a GTA fan or other things but I guess it is peoples right. I think some things are wrong though but hey thats just me

 

[Snorkius]

what about the movies. they dont make people want to do things so get of games back

I don't know ... movies, television, music, games, all of it probably has its effect. I mean, can anyone deny that violence has gotten a lot worse in the past 50 years (and not just by children)? Where do you think people get their ideas? I'm sure some, if not a lot comes from media.

But that said, the question is who should should be responsible for keeping children away from inappropriate content, since I honestly believe that adults should be able to look at/listen to/play whatever the heck they want to.

Yes.

source

Violent crimes are not on the rise, mass hysteria is. (The fact that rates have been dropping sharply since about the time DooM came out is a nice bit of arbitrary circumstantial evidence.)

For a bunch of pretty graphs.

Conclusion: all this talk of violence is pure political FUD.

 

[red_onion]

Pretty picture, Snorkius! But you misunderstand me: I'm not saying that the rate of violence has gotten worse--your graph makes it clear that, at least in the last 10 years or so, it has declined--I'm saying that the violence itself has gotten worse, as in the type (and severity) of the violence. I submit that in 1950 you would never have heard of weapons in schools the way we do now, or actual school shootings, or college kids flipping cars and attacking police, or anything like it. Back then, such violence was unheard of. And my choice of words is intentional: "unheard of."

My suspicion is simply that, if children/young adults never encountered these kinds of incidents, they would typically not invent them on their own. But I also don't want to misrepresent myself: I am NOT in favor of government censorship, and I firmly believe that adults should have access to whatever they want. I'm in favor of parental censorship in the form of supervision, intelligent discussion, and high expectation.