Guns > FPS

Well, I worked on these games for a living.  No telling when I'll just fly off the deep end in the middle of a triathlon.

First person shooters are just the latest easy target for politicians and parents looking for something easy to blame.  It was dungeons and dragons before that and comic books before that.  Anytime you have something that's popular with kids but parents aren't up to speed with it, there'll be someone to put it under a microscope.

Don't forget Bugs Bunny and Road Runner. And Tom and Jerry.  And.............

There was a long heated thread about this some time ago, so I'm not going to get into it if I sense it's going down the same path.

BUT, I don't think they games MAKE killers, but I can't argue against the suggestion that they could make killers more efficient based on strategy and planning.

But maybe the same could be said about movies.  I bet I have gotten more "ideas" of how to do bad stuff from movies than games - only because someone else thought them up and presented them to me via TV/movies.

I read that children under 6 cannot mentally separate video games or movies from reality.  That's great if they're rearranging puzzles or picking which fruit is red, but if they're blowing heads-up.  That can't be good.

I play some FPS games.  I also play Zombie Gunship.  I don't think I can be affected by them anymore (the whole military training, 2 deployments to a war-zone kinda took care of that).  But I don't play them around the kids at all.

I don't know what age kids should be allowed to play those games.  Don't most of them have a T for Teen rating?  In which case, a 13 year old should be safe to play them???

I would think that a kid who plays those games too much and, as I think Kido pointed out, is socially-isolated, they might start wanting to visit that sort of violence on other people.  I'd like to see some serious thought put into this concept though.

But Bugs and Road Runner and Tom and Jerry are clearly cartoon characters.   If you saw those walking into your office, you'd freak.

I was playing an FPS last night that was just way too realistic.  Blood all over the floor, etc.  That's the kind of thing that probably needs to be drawn down a bit.

I absolutely think that's up to each parent.  You know the maturity level of your child, what your personal boundaries are and what you think of each particular game.  Ratings can make a general recommendation but they should not be treated as an absolute.

I just don't think the stats are there to back this up. Who hasn't played a FPS? And how many of us have gone on a real life rampage? I don't think that FPS' are a good scapegoat for this sort of thing.

That doesn't mean that I won't restrict what my future kids play or don't play.

Back to legislating common sense, personal responsibility and good parenting. So hard to do and sad that it seems necessary.

As a side note, this is another interesting take on our Constitutional rights.  Are games a form of artistic freedom, and thus protected by the 1st amendment?  The courts have mostly taken that view.

Some have really pushed the boundaries of what society thinks is acceptable.  Go look up "No Russian Modern Warfare 2" on Youtube (warning: very violent) ... it stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy.

I feel the same way. I'll sit down and try to play with my 17 year old and all the gore just turns me off. We're responsible and follow the guidelines but a lot of parents will buy their kids games that they couldn't buy for themselves.

Wouldn't that just desensitize younger kids to violence?

Is it that these things need to be drawn down more or that those adults responsible for the kids playing these games need to be more vigilant about policing their kids activities?

We as a society have developed this horrible ability of looking for something to blame instead of looking for ways to prevent. I had video games/comics/tv/movies growing up but my mom made it clear to me that I was not allowed to play anything extra gruesome and violent and explained to me why she did such things. 

IMHO we need to put down all of our phones, computers, iPads, tablets and re-discover each other. Well, except for when we've got to log our training and chat with friends about tri-whatever!

I don't think it's the FPS games so much as it is the virtual worlds that exist around them.  Kids who are isolated by their peers become great hero's in these virtual worlds by playing 10+ hours a day on the game.  50 years ago the social outcasts still had to go outside and find friends to play with, but today they don't have to.  They just get sucked further and further into virtual realities which I feel degrades their ability to get along in society even more.

My wife's little brother is almost 30 years old and has never had a girlfriend, still doesn't know how to drive, still lives with Mom and Dad and does nothing but sit at home playing video games all day and night.  He finally has a job doing customer service for one of the video games he plays.

She was such a junky!

Always popping those pills, claiming to being chased by ghosts... girl was whack!

And Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Twisted Sister, etc....

Agree with this. I'll admit I got sucked into World of Warcraft earlier in life. While I don't think WoW has a violence problem it was way too easy to spend all day playing that stupid game and yes it can alter reality a bit. There is social interaction but it is very anonymous and I think it can desensitize you to the outside world and outside social interactions. For someone already pre-disposed to withdrawal games like this allow them to withdraw even further.

But I don't think you can really legislate against this sort of thing. Just goes back to parenting being very important. 

I think most can.  I think your selling parents a bit short.  I think that majority of parents strive to stay a part of their children's lives and help guide them through those years.  We spend alot of time with our kids....so do our friends with their kids.  I'm also pretty impressed by what I see of my kid's friends and their parents.

I think we need to start identifying other solutions than legislation.  When this subject comes up, or the subject of guns, we often turn it into a black or white discussion of "ban" vrs. "freedom."  We can do better than that, and need to develop a more complex approach to these issues.  What responsibilities are we willing to collectively take for ourselves?  Will we as consumers rise up to say that we won't buy extremely violent FPS games?  Can we reach a consensus that these games contribute to a culture of violence?  What else are we willing to do?  Because if we don't, at some point, our only tool will be legislation, which is a blunt instrument, and will lead to more one size fits all approach, with the result either being ban it, or the opposite.  

Personally, I find those FPS games disturbing.  Yes, I know the first action on my part is to not buy them.  Done.  Check.  But, is there more that we can do?  Is there more we can agree on?  It seems at time our response is, "I'm not a psychopath, and I like to play those games, so its my 1st Amendment right to have them."  Sometimes, we have to see beyond our first person perspective.