The PTC's "Campaign Against Violent Videogames"

[Something Amyss]

If they do this why don't they attack all mediums. So if using an RPG to kill a grandmother in GTAIV is hienous to these groups then why can Rambo tear someones throat out. Its all the same thing. The only reason why games get exceeding violent is becuase trying to sell sex gets a whole lot wierder with a ps3 than it does with a cheesy movie.

You do realise that the PTC has long campaigned against television and film, right? They've spent a lot of time pressuring sponsors to drop support of programming and so on. The PTC doesn't want any of that stuff going on.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like what they do. But they've taken on far lighter stuff than Rambo.

 

[King Toasty]

"Family-friendly show promoting responsible themes and traditional values".
That's what they want all shows to be.
By "traditional values", I assume they mean exclusively Biblical values: Gays are bad, don't drink, don't trim your beard, etc.

 

[lacktheknack]

If you ignore them, they'll go away, and you'll be happier.

THEY CONTROL PEOPLE.
IMPORTANT PEOPLE.

Who?

They control as many people as Jack Thompson. Don't be hysterical.

Most of those "family-friendly-Christian-oh-aren't-we-so-smart" twats like Sarah Palin.

I'm technically a "family-friendly-Christian-oh-aren't-we-so-smart" twat, as you probably define it, but you don't see me listening to this group of trolls.

 

[Motiv_]

The question stands, are they really that ignorant of what goes on in the games industry, or do they choose to purposely ignore it in order to further their agenda? Let's face it here people, there's three things that these kind of groups want.

1. Supporters
2. Money
3. Attention

Making outlandish, completely off the wall and 90% of the time completely wrong statements such as these gets them #1 and #3. It's exactly this kind of publicity that they want. Even if we were to speak out against them, they need only to fall back on the excuse "Oh look who's talking. Gamers talking about how safe and fun video games are. They can totally be trusted to come up with an unbiased opinion."

So, you know what I propose?

Ignore them, up until the court case in the supreme court. Then, bring out all of these posts, and accuse the other side of "Making slanderous statements that hurt the industry as a whole, and created a rift between developer and consumer"

Their own strategy, used against them.

I mean, so far, Jack Thompson has told us to go to hell, this group has called us thugs and bullies, has accused us of willingly selling violent and sexually graphic content to minors, all of which we have evidence of the contrary. I think we'd have a decent case.

 

[lacktheknack]

"Family-friendly show promoting responsible themes and traditional values".
That's what they want all shows to be.
By "traditional values", I assume they mean exclusively Biblical values: Gays are bad, don't drink, don't trim your beard, etc.

Alright, stop. You're making yourself look bad. The Bible allows drinking, not drunkenness. "Don't trim your beard" was a traditional Jewish belief that doesn't need to be followed now.

 

[SpireOfFire]

I could only read a little of that article before I had to quit. Seriously, they are using some seriously faulty statements and logic. My favorite was this.

A ten-year-old can purchase an Adult Only (AO rated) video game.

Ok, so does anyone know where a ten year old can buy a AO rated game? For that matter, do you know where I can buy a AO rated game? I've never seen a store carry one. Especially not out in the open. Maybe that's because Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo refuse to license AO rated games on their consoles. But why would the PTC let minor details like facts get in the way of their agenda?

you said basically everything i needed to:

i didnt finish the whole article and where do i get a hold of some AO games?

 

[Romblen]

Dear PTC,

If you leave my entertainment alone, I'll leave your entertainment alone. I promise.

-Romblen

 

[Thaius]

I hate how organizations like this invalidate their entire cause. You know what, I support the idea that children should not be playing graphically violent games. When I have kids, I will definitely wait until they are mature enough to handle things before letting them experience them. Otherwise is just lazy and irresponsible parenting. And you know, some websites out there do a great job of saying, "Hey, video games are awesome, but you want to watch what your kids play! Here are some reviews and resources to help you do well with that!" Those sites are awesome. Unfortunately, sites like this one give sites like those ones a bad name and completely invalidate the perfectly reasonable ideas they've buried in ignorance and stupidity. Sad, really.

 

[CheckD3]

Wow...all the PTC does is blame other people when they can't control their kids.

I'm sure it was stated, but to call us despicable because we like to control our medium is garbage. There are more graphic contents in books and in movies, but they don't complain about that or call people who enjoy those mediums the most vile people to walk on this earth because they would be insulting themselves.

And I've read stories of people who WON'T sell M rated games to minors without their parents in the stores and those parents flip a shit when they have to go in, but are the same ones complaining when we let their kids buy the games because they were too lazy to walk 100 feet from the car to the check out counter.

If they spent as much time as they do blaming everyone else for their problems instead on keeping an eye on their kids and monitoring their content, they wouldn't have to even worry about this kind of thing. My parents monitored me and limited my gaming time and games when I was younger, and it taught me self control. You can't start gaming off by picking up a controller and playing as a barely clothed women killing police officers while she fucks their dead corpses. You have to start small, like with a nice Mario game. Then you move from Mario to Zelda, adding a sword, but keeping a light tone about it. Then you head to Metroid, a darker game for teens. Then you move slowly up until GTA is so mindless and retarded that even talking about trying it in real life sounds like a joke that isn't funny.

Parents who don't monitor their kids video games not only harm the kids, but also the game industry and our image. And it allows people to slander a whole group of people because they don't like our medium of entertainment and want what they want like a customer who can't remember something she was told an hour ago

 

[Techmech]

While I'm perfectly willing to agree that these guys are firmly with the jackbooted thugs of the anti-fun brigade. I am pleased to see that they are at least encouraging parents to pay attention to the ESRB rating system and get involved with their kids games.

 

[Saltyk]

What I hate most about this is the assumption that kids are computers who have no thought process and have no ability to tell the difference between realty and fiction. What do you think they've been doing for most of their childhood? Do they want a ban on playing cowboys and indians/cops and robbers/superheroes and supervillains next? Maybe ban Santa Clause in case kids actually expect the fatman to appear?

You know, I was thinking of this earlier today. As a young child, I had to write something for a class. I remember that it was about a power outage. The first thing I wrote was

"What the @#$%?", said my dad as the lights when out.

Ok, maybe that isn't exactly what it said, but it is the spirit of what it said. The point is, that as a young child, I knew that there were some things you didn't say in public. But I also didn't lie about my dad's likely reaction to such a situation. Basically, I knew the difference between right and wrong at a very early age. Does the PTC think that others do not?

 

[Saltyk]

Wow...all the PTC does is blame other people when they can't control their kids.

I'm sure it was stated, but to call us despicable because we like to control our medium is garbage. There are more graphic contents in books and in movies, but they don't complain about that or call people who enjoy those mediums the most vile people to walk on this earth because they would be insulting themselves.

And I've read stories of people who WON'T sell M rated games to minors without their parents in the stores and those parents flip a shit when they have to go in, but are the same ones complaining when we let their kids buy the games because they were too lazy to walk 100 feet from the car to the check out counter.

If they spent as much time as they do blaming everyone else for their problems instead on keeping an eye on their kids and monitoring their content, they wouldn't have to even worry about this kind of thing. My parents monitored me and limited my gaming time and games when I was younger, and it taught me self control. You can't start gaming off by picking up a controller and playing as a barely clothed women killing police officers while she fucks their dead corpses. You have to start small, like with a nice Mario game. Then you move from Mario to Zelda, adding a sword, but keeping a light tone about it. Then you head to Metroid, a darker game for teens. Then you move slowly up until GTA is so mindless and retarded that even talking about trying it in real life sounds like a joke that isn't funny.

Parents who don't monitor their kids video games not only harm the kids, but also the game industry and our image. And it allows people to slander a whole group of people because they don't like our medium of entertainment and want what they want like a customer who can't remember something she was told an hour ago

In all honesty, that the PTC said this doesn't surprise me at all. I've read some of their TV reviews. You should too, if only for a good laugh.

A while back I saw a newspaper clipping that mentioned that the PTC had done a survey of television shows and found that religious figures, like priests, were often depicted negatively in shows. Heaven forbid that religious authority figures should be shown as human. I didn't even understand why it was in the newspaper. Especially since I knew who the PTC was, and had an idea of what negative might have meant for the PTC.

 

[Jezzy54]

The PTC are apparently retarded douchebags, but I do agree that children should be legally unable to buy adult material.

 

[Robby Foxfur]

Wow well i can say these people are really really misinformed and are displaying the "for the kids" banner high and waving it hard.

"A ten-year-old can purchase an Adult Only (AO rated) video game." really they can?, in my 21 years of life since i was 10 i have never seen with my own eyes a store that carries a game with and AO rating ... i mean really if i can't even find 1 in stores how are 10years getting them?

Its common practice to even be carded when buying an M rated game, i got carded when i bought halo Reach, and i remember buying army of two for 5 bucks at Best Buy during Christmas and the clerk told me after carding me that this game was M rated and is not appropriate for kids under the age of 17, so i think maybe these parents just suck at hearing, that or they don't understand English words.

 

[Telperion]

I got a Civilization V game box, which has an age rating of "12"
I also got a Starcraft 2 game box, which has an age rating of "16"

Hm...let's see...

Crysis got "16+"

Fallout "18+" O' bugger!

Hey, I got AO rated games over here! Check it out! I'm a psycho serial killer who identifies with mass murderers!

 

[ImprovizoR]

I can understand that they want to enforce the law so that kids themselves can't buy AO games. But it solves nothing. Parents will buy them games instead. It's pretty much like the law that forbids everyone under the age of 21 to purchase alcohol. The only difference is, games aren't dangerous. I agree that kids shouldn't be playing online games because they fuckin' irritate me, but I don't give a fuck if they're playing anything else. And neither should anyone else care. Still, when I was a kid I used to play with toys. I had a pretty good time too.

 

[Kurokami]

http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/videogames/main.asp

After reading the news column about the videogame industry being "Thugs and Bullies", I decided to look more into the PTC and their campaign urging Congress to restrict the sales of videogames. I must say, after merely reading the first sentence of this page, I was enraged. Never before has an entire group of people been so callously disrespected because of their preference in media.

So the question stands, Escapist, how do you feel about "assuming the role of the most despicable people to walk the Earth" merely based on the fact that you play videogames?

Wow... I just... Wow...

I think whoever decided that ended up in the wrong match of DotA or Halo.

 

[noble cookie]

FFFFFUUUUUUUUU-

etc.

 

[Korten12]

Here's my post from the News Room article on the PTC earlier today..

Oh for fucks sake.

This is getting beyond stupid now. When will groups like the PTC realise that gaming isn't exclusively for children? Mature games are made with the intention of being sold to adults, or at the very least those who are able to process and understand the subject matter. Last time I checked, GTAIV was never marketed to kids, neither were any of the Call of Duty games. They were marketed in the same way mature films are, explaining the subject matter and letting the audience choose to play them. If kids got a hold of them, it's the fault of the fucking parents for not understanding the medium. All the PTC is doing is making the generalization that because it is a game it instantly correlates towards being childish, or at least intended for children.

Jesus Christ, how many of these groups and politicians are living in their own little bubble world, being unable to differentiate an entire medium? They would never dream of relating the latest Pixar or Disney flick to one another in terms of content and audience demographic, but because it's a 'video game' they think they're all going for the same audience. The game industry has gone all out to promote the differences between content suitable for kids and what is not, and yet they still get burdened with cunts like this.

Fuck the PTC. They should all go die in a car fire.

Can you give me a link to that news topic? Can't find it.

 

[Madara XIII]

Wow....You see kiddies what happens when you become a group of Close-minded assholes!?

This is ridiculous to the utmost extreme. To classify nearly half a nation of people as "the most despicable people to walk the Earth" is nothing short of plain stupidity.