farla | I think I should move someplace where kids don't play videogames

So I caught a passing reference to Bioshock involving weird little kids. Being always interested in weird little kids, I then sought out the various interesting videos of the game.

I pay only passing interest in games, so I'm quite impressed by how designers are better and better able to render people, environments, and how to kill people with things in your environment. Apparently the AI isn't too smart. I did not notice because I was distracted by the fact every enemy in the game has dialogue. They talk to themselves and when they see you their dialogue changes to reflect that. So stuff happens like a guy lighting himself on fire and running at you screaming "Don't go! I just want to talk! I just want to talk to someone!" Or a insane mother talking to an empty baby carriage. It also changes when you attack them. And the movements of the people are very well done. They obviously spent a great deal of time rendering how a body collapses after you beat their head in with a wrench.

No, really. It's really impressive. They put a lot of time into things like body language and movement. The little kids are especially well done. They skip around, talk happily to their companion, scream when they see someone coming for them, run in fear from you, cry when you brutally murder their cyborg protectors in front of them, and scramble backwards sobbing in terror as you approach to kill them. They did a very good job on that. I was impressed.

It makes for a very good movie. Movie, in which there is a distinction between what is taking place on the screen and events you are causing yourself. People who actually play the game are future serial killers, however, and should have some sort of warning brand etched onto their foreheads to identify them. Seriously, the kind of people who do this are not well.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

farla.livejournal.com

First, Rome isn't really a good example - you're referring to a particular small area of a small-in-overall-terms empire, and one that imploded. Historically, we tend to remember the sensational. Most of the world wasn't watching people fight each other to the death. Even in Rome, most people weren't. And what's often forgotten about the Coliseum is that even then, many of the battles weren't to the death (there are debates over how many gladiatorial battles were to the finish, but all agree it wasn't standard, and they also had nonviolent performances), and no one, not even those in the front row, were viewing the battle up close. It's somewhat comparable to Spanish bullfighting - horrible and brutal in execution, but with those elements not visible to most of the spectators. On top of all that, if reports of the time are accurate, the point was to show stoicism in the face of death - that even the lowest would die bravely, and so should Roman citizens - not gore.

It fell largely do to lead poisoning of a good deal of it's upper-class citizens.

No, it fell because it stopped expanding and the empire ran on a pyramid scheme that required steady influxes of new territory to support itself, and because they were brutal repressive dictators to the people they conquered, so that they needed a large standing army to keep control of the outer provinces. The lead poisoning may have something to do with why they didn't manage to realize and fix this in time, but the Coliseum decadence also reaches its high points about the same time they're behaving worst.

Christianity? Comes from the fact that the guys in charge of Jerusalem were so awful people were willing to revolt at the drop of a hat with no real chance of success, because they were so regularly abused. Pilate was such a psychotic fuck that Rome of "hey let's let lions eat people!" fame ultimately recalled him in horror at how he was handling things.

They are really just not an example to point to. There's precedent, but it'd be better to find precedent not linked so closely to disaster. Maybe the Romans weren't affected by viewing violence, but maybe that's because they were already self-destructive violent nutcases.

Also, while they may be doting, loving, and attentive, there seems to be one thing that these parents have failed to teach their children: compassion and the Golden Rule.

Those aren't taught, though. Oh, they're reinforced, but like most widespread morality systems, they're based on innate values. We're hardwired to understand pain reactions. Even small children will react to crying. So will monkeys, for that matter. Any normal person can understand reactions, as well - if I shove you, and you shove back, I'm supposed to learn that there's a cause and effect there. I'll learn that even if I can't empathize, just as I should learn that touching a hot stove burns me even though it doesn't happen because the stove is angry I touched it.

You have to go out of your way to lose these things.

My major nit-pick here is that you seem to hold the gaming industry responsible for this when really it is the parents of such children.

Well, yes. I hold movie companies responsible for creating movies with excessive violence. Additionally, parents aren't able to screen everything, especially if the kids are smart enough not to play it around them. Latchkey kids don't necessarily have neglectful parents, but at the same time, if Mom and Dad show up at seven, and the kid normally eats and does homework around then, it's easy for them to have no idea he just spent the past four hours playing some incredibly violent game (And if they catch on three months later, the kid will quite reasonably point out that they've had it for months with no problems, so what's the big deal?).

Also, there are a lot of laws in place because we recognize that parents aren't always responsible. Kids shouldn't buy cigarettes, so there's a law against it. Kids shouldn't drink, so there's a law against it. Kids shouldn't be put to work at a young age or stop going to school, so there's a law against it. Kids shouldn't see violent movies, so there's a law against that, too.

From:

farla.livejournal.com

The gaming industry is not the like the cigarette companies, which intentionally targeted youths and children, at least, not with the Mature games

Then why don't they want laws preventing kids from buying them? Kids are playing these games. Twelve year olds are the major gaming group. If a developer says that Hitman is an attempt to target 30 year olds...well, the tobacco industry spent years maintaining their ads were aimed at adults, and it's not like telling people you intended your gore splatterfest to be for kids will go over much better.

I remember years back a boy I knew told me about some game he was playing. I was in fourth or fifth grade. There was part of the game where you met prostitutes in a room, and you could shoot them and kill them, or you could pay them money to strip and have sex with your character. He told me that his favorite thing to do was pay them money, then shoot them while they were half undressed so that their guts exploded all over the place like that.

This same kid once told me he'd clubbed my cat to death with his rollerblades. He hadn't, but to this day, I don't know if that's just because my cat wouldn't come near strangers. Later he threatened to dig up the grave of another cat if I wouldn't come out and play with him. Another time he pretended he was electrocuting his much younger brother and kicked him hard enough to stun to try to lend enough verisimilitude to convince me.

Was this because he was playing videogames? I don't know. But none of the other kids who didn't behave like this ever volunteered the information that they enjoyed playing a game where you paid women to strip and then shot them halfway through. And I don't really see many adults as being people who would want to play a game like that, so I'm really left with the idea that he was the target audience for the game.

But Bioshock, I would want to play. It's moral quandaries are not the same as you would find in a game like Grand Theft Auto or Hitman.

Two points:

First, does the game need to be photorealistic and with an emphasis on hand to hand up close combat to cover the moral quandaries of the game? My issue isn't the basic idea of killing people or the choice of saving/harvesting kids. It's making those people look and act recognizably human, and then viewing the results up close.

Second, since you enjoy the game, you're going to be biased against the idea of removing it in particular. This doesn't mean your arguments aren't valid, just that you're weighting things to also include the fact you want the game around as well as the issue of causing desensitization or not. (Similarly, I tend to like fantasy violence with no real consequences over realistic, even though it's suggested that gives people impressions that violence is okay, so I'm biased in favor of keeping that around.) Enjoyment isn't a meaningless consideration, but at the same time, better to work out if the underlying thing is a problem by itself, then how much of that is acceptable given artistic licence and such.

From:

blackaeronaut.livejournal.com

Okay, forgetting the whole Roman Empire thing for now (not that I don't love to argue the point with you)...

Those aren't taught, though.

Well golly-gee, Wondergirl! Ain't it obvious how we've gone from an age where the Golden Rule was preached to one where we're satisfied that our kids at least don't do drugs and don't get themselves pregnant? That is my point entirely. We no longer bother to actually teach these invaluable things to our kids.

And as for reactions... You seem to have forgotten one important fact about people in general: There is no such thing as a normal person. Everyone has quirks. Everyone has secrets. That principal of yours barely applies to the majority. I have a lady-friend who is quite the masochist - she even goes so far as to say that she likes menstrual cramps and thinks they feel 'cleansing'. I, myself, have got demons in my head that if you knew about you'd probably think me a sick and depraved person. Did the media or the gaming industry plant these things in my head? Some of them. Others are products of the dark side of my own imagination. I'm not perfect. Neither are you, nor is anyone else out there. That is why we need to make up for these imperfections, and it does not start with demonizing the Other Guy.

And yes, all children are latch-key kids. I was an unholy terror in that respect! Once, when I was three, I got out of my grandmother's house and walked five blocks down the busy road to a neighbors back yard where they had a huge trampoline that I liked. Gave my Mom a heart attack.

It all starts at home. Keep the TV's, gaming systems, and computers out in the open where they can be easily monitored. Program parental controls on said appliances. They exist (though with PC's any number of different, highly effective remedies can be administered), the industry has provided them. NOW USE THEM. You only have yourself to blame if your kids get ahold of your pin numbers because it was A) too easy to guess or B) left out in the open. As I said before, the Gaming Industry is not trying to pollute young minds. They are not the next Joe Camel's of the world, so stop trying to make them out to be such.

Oh, and if little Tommy's parents don't support your veiws on parental controls, then Joey can't go to play at Tommy's house... But Tommy is more than welcome to come over where we have working parental controls. I am not saying that it is a perfectly effective measure, but it still remains a very powerful tool to aid the vigilant parent.

Oh, of course, any child that is determined enough of going to find someway of getting past the system as a whole... But then, that is also where the parents come in to counsel, guide, and educate. You see, with an effective system in place, it is going to be pretty obvious that someone's been doing something they shouldn't be doing.

Now comes the part where I become very blunt, direct, and brutally honest (not, necessarily, in that order).

I have to wonder, do you even have kids of your own yet? If so, quit arguing the point with me and go spend some time with them for crying out loud! I can guarantee you, as a member of the US Navy, any spare moment I can get I am going to be spending with the family I hope to have sometime in the future.