this is and has been a reigning issue for years, and will most likely remain so for further years as well. while i tend to have several anger induced words of hate to fire at Thompson and his followers, i like to think these days that i have more professionalism than that, so i will stay my rage and rationally discuss the issue, cause thats what gamers and games need to survive.
i will mostly say that the responsibility of who plays games and what is in them falls unto two groups: the parents, and the gamers themselves. now some might not understand why i put responsibility on the gamers; but it does fall on us as well. and its not just to be responsible about how we percieve reality after playing games. Our responsibility also resides in challenging the developers.
now some might still not get what i mean. what i mean is that we need to start demanding games that have more substance to them. the reason that GTA games make so much money it should be a crime is because there are too many people who will buy such low-brow, violence driven games that have no plot to them. there is enough demand for games that get bad reputations like GTA and Manhunt that create a negative image for video games. if there wasn't alot of people who would buy games like these, then naive or idiotic parents wouldn't get them for their kids who aren't ready for them, who then go shoot their classmates cause they can't discern fantasy from reality. so we as the hardcore gamers need to stop buying such shallow and cheaply produced games so that the industry as a whole can evolve beyond this controversy.
games can retain their violence as long as there is a reason, motive, or philosophy behind it. if it's violence for the sake of violence, then its teaching young kids that this sort of behavior is okay. now if there is a message or lesson that goes with the morality, then the game is at least trying to let them know how or why this is acceptable in the context of the game. this will still be under the control of the existing game rating sysem as well.
now the other half of course falls onto the parents. if your kid is 10, don't get him a game that has a mature rating, or even a teen rating, cause he isn't that old yet. you wouldn't take him to see an R rated movie like Hostel or some other horror movie with tons of graphic violence, would you? if the answer is yes though, you shouldn't be a parent. there is a pretty accurate maturity curve that pertains to the mental development of children. a kid who is 10 shouldn't be watching late night tv with the parents. it is your responsibility to make sure that your child is growing and maturing in an appropriate fashion and at a good pace. this is not the task for actors or tv writers to do this, its your job as a parent. too many parents are so wrapped up in their own lives that they don't know how to communicate with their kid, let alone how to manage them or what they are up to.
the average parent has no idea what they are letting their kid be exposed to through the media these days, and this has resulted in what some refer to as an epidemic of violence among our youth. and who do they blame? the media: tv, movies, the news, and of course video games. this is standard human reaction though, because we always first blame others for our own faults. parents are sacred people, they are the teachers of morality for future generations; so how can we blame them? simple. we just can. look at the world we live in and tell me with a straight face there isn't something fucked up with the general sense of right and wrong.
but there are other factors and others with fault as well. the game developers for not making violent games with some depth to them(not referring to all violent games, just the really violent ones). the kids themselves for not being able to tell the difference between normal and acceptable behavior, and criminal insanity. the media for hyping up all publicity, whether it be good or bad. and the politicians for readily pointing fingers without doing any kind of research on the subject whatsoever. and politicians also see change in society and technology alot as some sort of evil entity, one that will eventually consume our very souls until we are in a matrix or terminator type future. while i'm not totally disagreeing with that, i don't think there will be such a thing as self aware AI like they depict until i hear of a computer or robot killing itself becuase it thinks its fat.
but in the end, games do not demean our society and corrupt our moral values. they are more than anything else, a reflection of our already corrupt moral values. games represent some people's views of the world and how it has gone wrong. now maybe if the world wasn't screwed up to where most of us wish to take a chainsaw to our community, then perhaps there won't be games that let us do just that. there are appropriate outlets for mature enough people to let out some aggression and frustration that comes from our day to day lives instead of drinking heavily or doing cocaine.
