Blaming Video Games

[Veilside]

As much as I agree with the fact that parents use video games as a scapegoat for thier own child-rearing pitfalls, I can't help but think that violent video games can't have a good effect on children, that's for sure. And despite whether or not they make kids more violent, I think that violent games offer up new ideas to kids of how to enact violence.

Example:

The bully at school has never played video games before. He just beats up kids with his fists and feet.
Take that same bully and give him GTA for a few months, and now he decides that he's gonna beat up kids with a baseball bat, or a branch of a tree.
Has the act changed? not really. He's still beating kids up, just as he would have done before. But now, he has more violent means of doing so that may or may not be attributed to video games.

if it's illegal for a child to be playing that game then you cannot blame the game for causing the violent behaviour. You have to blame the innefectiveness of the retail industry at selling these games to the correct age group and the fact that people consider all games to be suitable for children. it's all fine and well saying some 10 year old kid played GTA and started to beat up other kids because of it, but noone stops to think that GTA has an 18 BBFC rating and it's not the game manufacturers fault that the child had access to it.

[Freet]

...You have to blame the innefectiveness of the retail industry at selling these games to the correct age group and the fact that people consider all games to be suitable for children....

No, you have to blame the bully's parents. The problem origionated from the parents failure to raise the child to respect other people. Therein lies the cause and where the blame should be pointed. Unfortunately, the video game market is only offering what sells and society makes this call. Society is nothing more than a sum of it's parts and many of the parts are defective thanks to failure on the parents parts.

it's all fine and well saying some 10 year old kid played GTA and started to beat up other kids because of it, but noone stops to think that GTA has an 18 BBFC rating and it's not the game manufacturers fault that the child had access to it.

Again, if the game is meant for people 18 and over then who is to blame for the 10 year old getting it? Why does the 10 year old have the $40 to pay? Why is the 10 year old spending $40 without proper supervision?

[Veilside]

No, you have to blame the bully's parents. The problem origionated from the parents failure to raise the child to respect other people. Therein lies the cause and where the blame should be pointed. Unfortunately, the video game market is only offering what sells and society makes this call. Society is nothing more than a sum of it's parts and many of the parts are defective thanks to failure on the parents parts.



Again, if the game is meant for people 18 and over then who is to blame for the 10 year old getting it? Why does the 10 year old have the $40 to pay? Why is the 10 year old spending $40 without proper supervision?

you should read the other replies i wrote in this thread :wink3:

hence why the ratings need to made legal requirements in the countries where they aren't already and why parents need to be held accountable for young children having access to these games.

lame maybe but it'd help stop all those bloody moronic parents from milking the video games industry for their faults in raising their child. In england we have BBFC certificates on some games, it is illegal to sell an 18 rated game to anyone aged 18 or younger, so, if a parent chooses to buy that game for a 12 or 13 year old child, any resulting problems are entirely the parents fault.

the person that buys the game should be help responsible for giving it to someone that is not of the legal age. stop nitpicking :rolleyes:

[Sokar Rostau]

you should read the other replies i wrote in this thread :wink3:

I've gotten to the age where I need my false teeth and hearing aid before I can ask where I left my glasses.

ten crahtcreas