really you let your kid play THIS

[AgentNein]

You. Are. Overreacting. He's 9, his mind won't be warped by it. In fact, mind warping is next to time warping (LETS DO THE TIME WARP, YEAH!) on the list of impossible things morons will believe.

And here I thought the jury was still out on the effect that violent video games may have on the psyche of children. I'm glad your extensive research has come in and cemented the matter.

Studies have shown that it has NO LASTING EFFECT. The jury is in, it's harmless.

Cite your sources.

I swear, if you're one of those morons who don't trust Wikipedia even though THEY cite THEIR sources, I will be VERY pissed off! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy]

No problem with Wikipedia as a source when it cites it's sources. That didn't exactly back up your claim however, in fact what I got out of that was that the effect of violent video games on children is still pretty poorly understood, and it's still a hotly debated topic.

Saying that all of the other side of an argument are idiots isn't getting us anywhere.

 

[rokkolpo]

it's quite disturbing how parents act nowadays.
as in not acting at all.

my parents didn't let me watch robocop until i was 12. might be overprotective but at least they protected me.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I tend to think this, but in the opposite direction. Doom was roughly equal in violence to most modern M rated games, but games like Rise of the Triad and the second and third Mortal Kombat games were far and away more violent than almost anything on the market today. Funnily enough, I'm pretty sure almost everyone on this board played at least one of the games just mentioned as kids. Any maladjusted serial killers here? I thought not.

Don't be so sure on that, if you hang about here for a while you'll notice we have more than a few potential classroom gunmen on here.

But on topic I don't think Doom can really be compared to AvP in terms of violence. It's about how graphic the violence is, doom had more kills but less realism. Doom had sprites leaking red/green when shot, AvP features guys getting their throats ripped out, the end of the artery wiggling and their gurgling breath. They're rated the same but one is far more graphic.

Besides which we're not a representative sample of the population. Holding us up as proof that modern graphic games don't affect youth is faulty logic because we didn't grow up with them. I'm thinking that graphic violence will affect kids since the only refutation we can offer is that it'd be great if they didn't because we love games. We're a tainted sample so we can't really be expected to come to a useful conclusion. We don't have the data we'd need, the research and analysis or psychological training and we want one result to be true. We're the worst possible group to come to a conclusion.

It's true that Doom is less violent than the most violent games of our time, although I would say that it's equal to or worse than games like Modern Warfare or Halo. However, Doom wasn't exactly the most violent game of its time either. Rise of the Triad is my favorite example of how todays games just aren't as violent as they used to be.

Spoiler: RoTT Images and Youtube

Those still shots aren't even a good example of the highest level of violence in the game -- they were just the best I could find. The youtube video doesn't do a good job of showing the gibs at all, because of the resolution and the distance at which the player was shooting the rockets.

There's also the inevitable Mortal Kombat, but I think everyone here is familiar enough with that one that I don't need to include pictures.

Also, yes, we are somewhat biased as to the effects of videogame violence. But so are the majority of the psychologists conducting the studies. Psychology is about as soft as science gets, and it's way too easy for results to be skewed.

Fair point on the potential classroom gunmen -- although I'd imagine we have more potential Hitlers than we have potential shooters

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

Kids should be playing Mario and Crash Bandicoot and Sonic and such. Hell, those games are usually better than most of the stuff that they shouldn't be playing but are anyway.

 

[Ctrl-Alt-Elite]

I have nothing against kids playing these games... granted its always a ***** to be playing with one online i dont think it has any detremental effects to there mental health.

What i dont get is how they get away with some of the voice chat they do... i know if my parents heard me yelling "OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK YOUR SUCH A FUCKING NOOB" down a mic when i was 9-12 they would have beaten the shit out of me.

 

[The3rdEye]

It honestly kind of pisses me off how overprotective my parents are, and I'm against your view. I think if their parents let 'em play the games, then it's their decision. Actually, if and when I have kids, I'm going to let them do kind of whatever. Do your parents have a lot of restrictions on games, music, etc?

Save for some extremely fortunate genetic predispositions, I'd be getting familiar with family services now rather than having to rush through it later were I you. There are a number of staple experiences that people need to learn before they just start doing whatever the hell they want. Like "Hurting people is bad" sort of things. How well adjusted is a kid going to be if they're getting exposed to a crap-ton of violence before they even know what puberty is?

True some parents are over protective, but being able to break away from that is part of growing up too.

I think that a normal person can see the barriers between fiction and reality. You're overreacting.

The OT person in question is 9, so while person still applies, the "kid" moniker overrules it.

 

[imaloony]

I don't think Call of Duty is too unreasonable, especially compared to the others. I don't THINK there's much swearing in it (Other than online, but that's true of every online game), and the only really problem is the violence, which, again, is pretty tame compared to those other games.

 

[Jacob.pederson]

As long as the kid isn't going around shooting people because he saw it on Call of Duty, then I have no issue.

Hell, I was playing fucking Unreal Tournament when I was 6, so I grew up around that kind of shit.

The kid said his favorite games were shooters. Big deal. Fuck, lighten up for a bit.

My kid (currently 9) was playing Unreal Tournament at age 4. So he has you beat there But I do censor games like Call of Duty due not to 'mature' content, but due to the militaristic propaganda inherent in them. Male children have a hard enough time resisting that message without throwing it into every moment of their playtime I find that there are very few games that need to be censored due to mature content, although there are a few, GTA certainly comes to mind.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Bad parents who suck at parenting. You can't even fix it because then you'd hurt their pride, so they ignore you and blame it on someone else. Lovely, ain't it?

wise words

 

[xacto14]

i agree with you both. the parents are the ones that bought the games, did you ever think that they, know what there doing, to be truth full, in my time, i have seen much much worse. for a evample, a few years a go a 1st grader cursing like a trucker.

 

[technoted]

He'll see it sooner or later, I mean how old were you when you saw your first 18 or played an 18+ video game? Hypocrite much? Wait why are you talking to small children in a swimming pool in the first place?

 

[Pyode]

I have been playing Grand Theft Auto since I was about 13 (that's how old I was when GTA3 came out anyway). I had played many other games that where considered "mature" for that time (Mortal Kombat, Twisted Metal, etc.) but that stuff pales in comparison to what's around these days.

I have also been watching R rated movies for as long as I can remember. Aliens, Terminator 2, Die Hard, Predator... I had seen all of these well before I was 9 and, last time I checked, I still hadn't brutally murdered anyone.

Of course, I watched those movies with my parents, so I had them guiding me an making sure I didn't interpret the movies the wrong way.

So I guess what I'm saying is, big deal. I don't know that kid or how his parents treat him, but as long as they have been raising him right so far I don't see any reason why he can't handle those games.

 

[LightspeedJack]

Hen I was 10 everyone in my class had GTA Vice City. I remember begging my parents because I was the only person I knew that didn't have it. With this said by the time you are 16 you are old enough for anything, 18 ratings are just stupid.

 

[playinthedark]

If everyone who watched a violent movie or played a violent/mature video game when they were younger grew up to be a sociopath foulmouthed psychopathic maniac, there'd be barely anyone left if the world. We'd all have killed each other by now.

I really don't see the big deal.

 

[minarri]

As long as the kid's mature enough to know the difference between reality and make-believe, then whatever.

 

[IxionIndustries]

As long as the kid isn't going around shooting people because he saw it on Call of Duty, then I have no issue.

Hell, I was playing fucking Unreal Tournament when I was 6, so I grew up around that kind of shit.

The kid said his favorite games were shooters. Big deal. Fuck, lighten up for a bit.

My kid (currently 9) was playing Unreal Tournament at age 4. So he has you beat there But I do censor games like Call of Duty due not to 'mature' content, but due to the militaristic propaganda inherent in them. Male children have a hard enough time resisting that message without throwing it into every moment of their playtime I find that there are very few games that need to be censored due to mature content, although there are a few, GTA certainly comes to mind.

Well, at least there's something I can agree with in this thread.

 

[Varun Garuda Maharaj]

this is normal stuff in my country

 

[Savagezion]

Oh dear I think you need a bit of video games so you can man up. Bullshit being violent lol. I hate to tell you but someone calling your post what it is is not violent.

I said it had many violent undertones. Let me refresh your memory so I don't have to rely on you reading through it completely. ( I realise that is not a strong point of yours to say the least.)You know what an "undertone" is right?

-"Bullshit!!!! Pure and utter Bullshit. Rising cases of ADD my fuckin ass."
Let's ignore the fact that you disagree with me. Here we have the use of 4 exclamation points to drive home your point. Not anything in and of itself but let's mix it with profanity and 3 statements in a row that essentially say the same thing. SOmething that is a dead giveaway of hostility.
-"are no longer allowed to give them the ass kickings they deserve for thier disrespectful behaviour."
-"WE CAN'T FUCKING WELL HAVE THAT CAN WE"
This time lets use caps and profanity as our closing statement to refer to the rediculousness of the post you obviously did not read all of.

Now lets look at all the facts shall we. How many of these undisiplined kids are coming from broken homes? How many are latch key kids? How many are raising themselves because the economy is in the crapper so thier parents are working 2-3 jobs? Oh no none of that can be a problem now can it? No it must be video games that are corrupting our youth. There is so many factors to this you can't just point at 1 aspect and say well that is the problem. Well I guess you can if you are a moron but it doesn't solve anything. It doesn't help anything. Because the only thing that will help is not getting them away from violent video games. The only thing that is going to help is getting them in homes with people who have parenting skills.

There is so much here I would have to disect it into little quote nuggets to fully cover it. It is apparent you have yet to go back up and read what you originally quoted. I know ~3 paragraphs is alot for your "mature" mind to have to sit through and logically follow. First off, once again I said this plays a role. I repeat a role. Never one time have I pointed out that this alone is the sole contributor to the problems I sited. I said it has an influence. Are you seriously so dense you cannot see how this has any influence whatsoever?

Because if so you are just as bad as people saying it is the sole contributor. Saying that large exposure to mature content has no effect on a child is as foolish as saying that it has brainwashing effects on a child. It has effects. Which child do you think would be better behaved if one only was allowed to play Mario and Link as opposed that was only allowed to play Saint Row 2 and GTA? Seriously, man, put down your soapbox, it isn't helping anything. My whole point in my post stresses the fact that it has to do more with parenting than the games.

Have a look at the part I bolded. Which child is more likely able to be able to play these mature games society is trying to tell parents not to let you kids play? Ones like you state or ones with solid parental supervision? Are you still unable to form any connection here? Are you even still reading my post is what I am really wondering at this point and not just skimming it. This material is like smoking. It isn't going to kill you on your first puff, but prolonged and large exposure to it is not only "not good for you" it is bad for you. Make sure you read all of that sentence and not just the end of it. Find the full meaning of the sentence. It is especially bad for someone who is developing and has yet to really establish solid social skills.

Alright, I may as well end it as I will be surprised if you manage to read all that. I ain't even going to bother responding unless the arguement actually has some thought put into and not just drivel. All you are doing is pointing at "the man" and blaming him for all of it and giving video games a free ride. Stubborn ignorance like that can't not be reasoned with and thus, is as stimulating as watching someone beat their head against a brick wall in hopes the wall will create a door for them.