Here's the thing: the fact that parents let their eight-year-old kids play whatever video games they can buy at Wal-Mart really bothers me. The only way any child of mine will get a portable gaming device is if they have some rare disease that requires 24-hour television contact for survival. The fact that nine year olds get online and play video games with adults - adults who swear at each other and make totally smutty comments - is awful. I would love to have a job where I got to take gameboys away from little boys and could then force them to read books.
However, I have no kids, and people get mad when I make children cry. I'm just trying to get to my first point:
1. It is a parent's job to monitor a kid's video games, a kid's computer use, etc. And make no mistake, a lot of parents have their heads stuck in the sand on this one.
Now I move to my second point: I am a firm believer in free speech. I consider video games a viable form of artistic expression, and the people who make them should be able to create whatever they want. Free speech doesn't just mean letting people do things you agree with. I don't see the need for games re-enacting World War II, and you'd better believe no money of mine will ever go to a game like that, but people have the right to make them. So point two is:
2. Video game creators should have free reign to create.
HOWEVER. However, if it turns out to be true that the creators of Grand Theft Auto actually put that porn in the game and deliberately hid it, just so that the game wouldn't be rated "Adults Only" (and consequently not be sold at about half of all video game retailers) I will hunt them down, tie them up, and force them to watch man on man midget pornography for the next twenty years. Oh, does that sound cruel and unusual? Too bad. I'm livid and it makes me unconstitutional. Parents are having enough time figuring out what's going on with their kids without you deliberately hiding adult content in a game. Yes, you have the right to create it and put it in a game. But you do NOT have the right to hide content so that you can lie about how graphic the game is and thereby get more sales from minors.
I read a comment online from some gamer, most likely a single guy in his twenties, which basically said that parents should just watch their kids better and that this is just another example of people taking potshots at the gaming industry. Hear me now anonymous commenter: you are a moron and you need to go get a vasectomy so that you don't breed. Regardless of how aware a parent is, a game developer has NO RIGHT to secretly and knowingly peddle smut to kids. If they created a game with porn in it, which they knew would be found, and which they reasonably expected would be seen by the minors who owned the game, and then deliberately hid that porn so that KIDS WOULD BE ABLE TO BUY THE GAME, that is NOT people taking shots at the gaming industry. That's a couple of perverts ruining it for everyone bc they don’t' have girlfriends.
In the real world, do you know what we call it when an adult secretly makes stuff like this available to kids, in a way that parents might not notice? We call that perverted. And the fact that this seems to have been done for money - for money that could be made from the under-18 market - is disgusting.
*Deep breath* I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself, because we don't really know whether or not the developers put the porn content in the game. And again, they have every right to - they just don't have the right to pretend it isn't there so that they can sell it to kids. This degrades all of the other members of the industry, and will probably create a lot of backlash against video games. I hope that Microsoft sues you when they don't sell enough XBOX 360's because you made people afraid of video games.
And of course, after that, there'll still be the midget porn. I'll find you.
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4 comments:
preach, rach. i feel you, girl.
lately, i've been wondering quite a bit whether i'm a parenting snob. i love kids, i routinely play with and take care of other people's kids, and i like to think that i'm a positive influence on them.
and these past few months, i guess, i'm constantly finding myself evaluating other people's parenting skills--or lack thereof--and lamenting and vowing to never do the same with my kids.
of course, i often wonder if it'll be different some day when i'm old and tired and don't have patience/energy/mental capacity to do the "right thing" with my kid. then, will i start to get lax and will i then seem just like all the other shmucks out there who don't raise their children to be noble, dignified human beings?
this issue is an interesting one... because it seems like, although there are some clueless parents out there, even the parents who are trying their damndest get fooled by evil, sexually frustrated, male video game creators. yuck. some people are truly sick. which is what makes the idea of being a parent all the more frightening...
oh well, until either of us has to jump off that bridge, i support you on your crusade. :)
If you ever decide to run for judge, I volunteer to be your campaign manager. We can base your whole campaign on the man-on-man midget-porn solution to fighting crime.
You wouldn't have to worry about bad influences if you just lock your kids in the basement like I've been saying for years.
You know, some of these evil perverted sexually fustrated video game makers could be FEMALE--as a proud member of the male gender i just wanted to throw that out there :)
But, as the sole voice of moderation, i must say that it is unfair to come down solely against the game makers: parents also must take some share of the responsibility in this matter.
If the game makers did what you claim they did, then they did it because they believed they could get away with it, or at the very least make a profit off of it.
However, this also means that video game makers believe parents do not monitor their children enough to catch such things, or even if they do catch them, they won't do anything about it--and in this they are most likely right.
Industries are like teenagers in that they will do whatever you let them get away with. And as long as our society, our consumers, and our parents allow the industry to make a profit on this, then these things will continue.
The answer, therefore, is to put pressure on both sides: not only take action to make such conduct by video gamers unprofitable, but also by equiping parents with the tools and knowledge necessary to preview and monitor the games their children play. It takes action on BOTH sides to solve a problem, not just on the side of one.
oh, and P.S: my dad was one of those dads who made me read all the time (for each hour i played a game, i had to do an equal hour of reading/studying). Yeah, i now despise reading like The Plague (for doing such things makes children see reading as a chore/punishment, not as a pleasure).
-Raymond
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