Re: Anyone offended by the "New video" games?
I've been doing more thinking about this subject, and remembering back to my formative years. Video games consisted of Pong and then Atari at home, and Pac-Man and Donkey Kong at the arcade. I didn't play the games much, as my family didn't have the money to allow me to spend extensive amounts of hours playing games (but I did a lot of watching, I'll admit). For the most part, I played with my buddies. War games, running around, that sort of thing. <br /><br />I also remember that, despite the lack of negative video game influence, there was still crime. There was still rape. I saw first hand the kids who were violent, who beat the snot out of other kids for no real reason other than they felt like it. I saw the kids who tortured animals and then later probably became hardened criminals or killers.<br /><br />The constant that existed then exists now: Poor parenting. The parents were/are either lazy, or just not in the childs life because they have to work two jobs and a babysitter is raising their kids. It isn't the new games that are creating the problems, it is the bad environment the kids are raised in. If a parent raises their child properly, the child will have the perspective that allows him/her to understand that they are playing a game. If the child is surrounded by bad conditions, lack of care, criminal activity, it is hard for the child to tell the difference.<br /><br />Obviously there will always be a percentage of kids, regardless of background, who might be negatively inspired by the games, but that percentage will be small compared to the percentage of rotten kids who would have been bad even if the games didn't exist.<br /><br />I see this as being no different that the good ol' days when Rock n Roll was supposedly warping our kids minds. It's just people blaming their failings in child rearing on everything but themselves.<br /><br />Todays games are not creating criminals, they are just creating fat kids, which is the truely real crime if you think about it.