Won’t somebody, please, think of the children?!
by Samuel
The notion that video games make us oblivious to our surroundings is absolutely ludicrous!
As gamers, we’ve all been outraged at times by the sensationalist headlines that certain, mostly rightwing, sections of the media insist on putting out that suggest that gaming is a source of evil in the world. Less concerned with integrity than in scaring the bejesus out of their more ignorant viewers and readers, we’ve seen supposedly professional journalists come out with such comedic gems as the PSP being able to collect porn from thin air, paedophiles being able to talk undetected via the DS’ chat facility, and God alone knows how many murders attributed to first-person shooters or Grand Theft Auto. Some supposed “experts” have made it their career to malign video games and those of us who play them, and still manage to get coverage even when exposed for the belligerent ignoramuses they are (Jack Thompson, I’m looking at you).
It has consequently become rather easy to dismiss any seemingly anti-gaming or anti-gamer headline as just another cheap shot made for cynical motives. I think most of us will at times have seen a headline including the words “game” and “blamed”, and snorted derisively in response, suspecting just another biased tall tale.
Unfortunately, not all of these stories are entirely baseless. As always, it is a small minority that are ruining things for the rest of us, but some of the games related news stories that pop up every now and then are truly chilling.
Recently the BBC reported how a couple from South Korea let their three month old daughter starve to death whilst they spent all of their time raising a virtual child on an MMORPG, apparently addicted to the internet and playing for 12 hours at a time in a local all-day internet cafe having decided that the fantasy offered was preferable to a reality that saw them suddenly both unemployed and with a small baby.
This is by no means a one-off, either. The internet abounds with stories of child neglect as the result of addictions to World of Warcraft, and other online games. There are joke images spoofing them, and even popular online sitcom The Guild has one of the main characters that are seen neglecting their young children (and husband) in order to play her MMO and dick around with her guild mates, played up for comedic effect and avoiding any of the potentially more serious effects this could have.
For many, the thought of immersing oneself in an online world is more tolerable than reality
Other stories have reported people dying from neglecting their own health, again from spending inordinate amounts of time obsessed with MMOs, or even outright murdering other people over online gaming disagreements or suspicions of virtual adultery. It seems laughable at first, and easy to shrug away as extreme examples, but some of the reasons for these stories could easily happen to most gamers. A lost job, depression, jealousy… human beings for the most part have very complex emotional states and social levels of interaction, and I think it probably fair to say that a large proportion of gamers have a hard time with these aspects of their lives as it is. I include myself in that, too. The internet increasingly is becoming more and more a part of people’s lives the world over, and that it is getting tangled up in their emotions and priorities and how they respond to other people isn’t that surprising, when you pause to think about it.
There are other, less obvious ways in which gaming is increasingly having an influence, and that is with children directly. Most progressive, reasonably affluent non-gamer parents think nothing of allowing their children to own a games console, yet are totally oblivious to the parental controls that have become standard during the current console generation, and to the various disorganised age ratings systems used to classify the games themselves. Nintendo have been including health and safety booklets with all of their licensed games for years, but I’m not sure that anyone actually reads them. I didn’t, for a very long time, until idle curiosity and a lack of other reading material in the bathroom led to my flipping quickly through it. And even then, I’ve ignored the advice entirely.
The overused topic of kids playing GTA and killing hookers to steal their money... although this was happening LONG before the advent of video games. Scapegoats can be handy though.
Those same parents would be absolutely horrified to see their child viewing an adult film or television show, but carry on unaware whilst their child plays Gears of War or Left 4 Dead. Liberal idealism to one side, it seems obvious that these kinds of game must be having some kind of lasting effect on children playing them. However, unhelpfully, the only people who go out of their way to point out to parents what their children have access to are those rightwing activists and pundits who want to get rid of gaming entirely, and paint the hobby as some kind of evil, corrupting force in the name of their own religious or political agendas. Either this leads to parents ignoring them outright, or being sent into a panic and taking an extreme opposing position and stopping their children playing games altogether.
It might be time that the gaming community stopped dismissing these occurrences as the province of the biased and ill-informed, or the actions of one or two cranks with a loose screw. As it stands it’s all too easy to make attacks on us and our hobby, but perhaps if gamers were more active about educating the less enlightened about ways they could restrict their children’s activities without cutting them off entirely, and in promoting awareness of gaming addiction or obsessive behaviour, it wouldn’t be such a simple matter to castigate us as a whole.
I don’t intend to scare people here; this isn’t what this is about. I’d also hope that nobody shrugs this off as my being some kind of idiot, too. Because common sense isn’t all that common, and it can be fairly easy to fall into some of the traps that can lead to these kinds of news stories in the long run, especially when you think it couldn’t possibly happen to you. It’s worth considering the next time you realise you’ve been playing WoW or Second Life for most of the day, every day, or find yourself becoming a little too personally involved in an online dispute. Most of us know someone whose kids play games they probably shouldn’t too; just mention the parental controls to them, tactfully, and without being too heavy-handed about it.
The more we help ourselves and each other, the less open a target our hobby will be… and most importantly of all, the even rarer it will be that we hear about these tragedies occurring in real life.
Last five articles by Samuel
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- Sony Conference - GamesCom 2011
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- WipEout 2048 - Hands-On Preview
- City to City - Travelling to Cologne via London with Gerry Rafferty
Games aren’t evil, everyone knows music is the source of evil. That Marilyn Manson music, or metal music or rock n’ roll. When’s the last time you heard of a gamer going to the crossroads and selling their soul to the devil for a huge gamerscore. I play alot of games are don’t listen to alot of music and look how pure and innocent I am, so it must be true. :p
I actually disagree…I don’t see it as ‘obvious’ at all that certain games will have a lasting effect on a child any more than an 18 rated film/book/comic. Like most people I know, I had sensible and reasonably liberal parents who were themselves the best judges of what I could and could not handle. As such I enjoyed a wide range of adult media and violent films as a child, getting Predator and Commando for my 10th birthday and the sex laden Riders novel for my 13th. The only damage it did me was being subjected to some god awful Arnie one liners and as for obvious lasting damage…well, the embrassment at watching so many Arnie films and loving them has to be right up there.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I personally think that the issue of kids playing adult games is never cut and dried. While there are idiots out there who know nothing about games and don’t utilise parental controls and ratings put in place for them, there are other game-savvy parents who know their children far better than a random stranger or government body. They are best placed to know if their child/teen can cope with the content and issues contained in any specific game and therefore it should be up to them whether they ignore the rating and allow their child to play. If the government and various hand-wringers want parents to take more control and responsibility, then they have to respect the knowledgeable parents who do so too, using their superior knowledge of their child’s capacity to understand, whether it means their children play adult games underage or not. Not every child could cope with certain games, while others would…as always catch all systems are problematic. Ratings are there, or should be, as a guide for non-gaming adults (I am still amazed that they exist, given that our generation is now the age it is)…who can ignore them yes, but this doesn’t mean that ‘in-the know’ parents should be lumped in with them as irresponsible by the media or anyone else.
As far as mentioning to a parent that their children probably shouldn’t be playing certain games, I would never be that patronising or presumptuous. If, in ten years, a child of mine was playing Grand Theft Auto 9, anyone sticking their nose in would have several chips inserted up it, as seen in that violent film about a fish.
As for the rest of the piece, interesting. Perhaps couples in MMO hotspots should raise a Tamagotchi first before being allowed a child
Everytime a piece like this comes out, you can pretty much predict the Daily Mail headlines and sigh.
@Rook – “When’s the last time you heard of a gamer going to the crossroads and selling their soul to the devil for a huge gamerscore.” For the love of whatever you hold dear, NEVER mention that idea to Victor. Heh.
@Lorna – Of course there are parents who are more savvy than others, or possess better judgement. And no, not every child is the same. That’s actually why I never advocated any government or other legal body’s interference in this piece. I thought about it a lot, and ultimately the way that mature games are currently handled in Australia put me off, being able to see how mishandled a more official and totalitarian ratings system can pan out.
I’m personally of the belief that children take onboard a lot more than people might think. If I were to sit down and think through some of the influences on my own more neurotic tendencies, I think they’d mostly stem from things that happened during my childhood. I grant you, I didn’t have a typical childhood. But still, even little things, like seeing Alien when I was 8 have stuck with me. I haven’t been able to see that film since, because of how much it scared me then. Fine, that’s no big deal, mostly harmless, but it had an effect. I never actually said it was “obvious” that games would have a more lasting effect than films or books. I said it was less obvious to some people that would not allow their children to view those mature films and books that their games can have a similar kind of influence.
It is still ultimately down to the parents. I believe I intimated that, in saying that the problem lay with those parents who are less knowledgeable, and usually the first to start screaming when someone points out what their children actually get up to. I know other parents who are very responsible, according to their own ethics. I did not intend to get into an argument about the best way to raise a child. Personally I believe the very best way is to not do so at all, but that’s a big mess for another time and place.
I also wasn’t suggesting you go up to someone who lets their children play adult games and accuse them of being a bad parent, and telling them to use the parental controls. I did mention tact. No, what I meant is, we probably all are aware of parents whose children play adult games without supervision, or without the parent even being aware. It couldn’t hurt to just say “Look, you do know what that game is, right?” and then elaborate if they’re interested. If it’s clear that a parent does know, and is okay with it, and rational about how they expose their children to such things, then butt out.
If it were you, since you used yourself as a hypothetical, I would not say anything. Because I know you’d at least be aware of what you were doing, and be responsible about it. Not every parent is, and it doesn’t hurt to mention it to one side, rather than ignore it and wait until the shit hits the fan. It might not, but if it did, how would you feel knowing you might have possibly prevented it with just a few well-chosen words?
I’m a bit of an anarchist in that I think it’s cool to let them watch or do what they like… but I’m not a father yet. My mind may change on that one day
I have my own reasons for thinking the way I do, but it’s a little heavy for a comment thread so I’ll not bother getting into it now heh heh.
My parents let me watch violent films and play violent games when I was a kid and i turned out fine(ish). I agree with Lorna when she said about the parents being the judge, I’m sure if my mum and dad thought I was gonna run off and ninja kick someone in the face after playing mortal kombat then they wouldn’t have let me play it. I for one intend to take the same stance with my future kids, however my girlfriend has a different stance on the whole gaming debate, one might say more right wing than liberal old me, so it will be interesting to see how that pans out.
Interesting post Preacher, I enjoyed the read even if I didn’t agree with everything you said.
Fair enough, thanks for the comments chaps.
Sorry, I meant to say that I enjoyed reading it last night as I was preparing it. I actually read it through three times (mostly cursing as I couldn’t find any really appropriate imagery, which was annoying the hell out of me) but just haven’t had a chance to comment properly as B0SS is still here and I didn’t want to just vanish away and do other things as he’s only here until 8.45 tonight. Shame really. I’ll comment more later