Hmmm, well I hope this isn't too repetitive with what's been said over 9 pages.
For me the story lost credibility not over the Church line, but when she said she wouldn't buy that game (if I read it correctly), how did the kid get it? What's more if he's 14 he shouldn't be playing an "M" rated game and honestly I'm surprised that wasn't an issue. To me at least this article reeks of being some kind of farce, I wouldn't be surprised if it was pulled from "The Onion".
That said, when it comes to gaming I think there is a generation gap involved. What a lot of older folks do not realize is that current games are very involved, and part of the challenge of the game is working within a limited save point system. A player cannot just "snap off" most modern games at a moment's notice to head to bed or whatever, and depending on the game, simply getting into a position to save (heading to a save point, town, or clear area) can take a little while.
Even living with gamers (my father and stepmother) who understand this, it can be grating for ALL of us when we want someone to do something but whomever is involved in a game and can't just turn it off, or leave it sitting in some cases.
I've oftentimes felt that services involved in counseling should consider adding a bit of "video game awareness" to their speil, as ridiculous as that sounds. Half the time when listening to non-gamers, talking to gamers, guys who haven't played a game since the Atari 2600 think that the current games are similar, and have no idea the kind of work that goes into them.
When it comes to MMORPGs, I have some mixed opinions about kids playing those to begin with, especially when it comes to raiding. I see raiding as being similar to an amateur team sport (played just for fun). It takes a degree of committment, and having been in PUGs where some kid (whose age you might not know) is called away for dinner, or schoolwork, or whatever else, sometimes cannonballing an entire raid is actually teaching a bad lesson (in a way) not to mention really frakking up hours that as many as 24 other people might have invested. Parents who have talked about WoW in articles and such seem to literally have absolutly NO clue about this other than "Jr. is addicted". I for one DO tend to agree that schoolwork and such are more important, and as such kids shouldn't be allowed to make committtments they can't keep. As such I've sort of felt for a while that things like raiding should be limited to 18+ and policed by the companies.... however the point is ultimatly that I think parents are ignorant.
Now honestly, I think the industry could do a lot to solve a lot of problems by making it mandatory (not a law or anything, but a design standard) that games allow you to save anywhere, and not penalize you for doing so. If you work from that assumption before making games (as opposed to working in how it saves as an afterthought) due to a policy, I think it could be made to work. I suspect that something this simple could do a lot to reduce tension. Make it so a player CAN snap off a game, even a very complicated one, with minimal effort so they can go take out the trash, use the bathroom, or run to the store for some milk... or in the case of kids, get started on homework, go to bed, or get dragged away by the parental units at a moment's notice ("We need to get to Grandma's! I told you 20 minutes ago, what do you mean your still trying to save your game?").
By the same token I think that internet addiction among kids could be lowered a bit if they were simply prevented from getting involved in any of the deeper aspects of MMORPGs. It might sound "unfair" but really I don't think your typical pre-18 year old who has to do 6 hours of school, plus bus travel, plus homework, plus dinner is logically going to be able to maintain a raiding schedule without something breaking. It's hard enough for adults who aren't disabled (like me) to do that, and when I was working full time I simply could not do it so I didn't even try (work had to take priority, duh!). Adults can make their own desicians and arrange their schedules if they really want to, kids can't. It has nothing to do with "skill" or anything else... basically if they're under 18 make it so that they0 can't access any time consuming "raid" or "endgame" content.
For those that read this far, I think those two things would do a LOT to stop the situation mentioned in this article... which is allegedly not all that uncommon, even if this case went to a ridiculous level (assuming it's real at all, the details mentioned make it sound both absurd and fabricated).
