As a side note, I was really disappointed that Rockstar omitted the ambulance and firefighter missions in GTA IV. The ambulance missions were one of my favorite parts of the pre-GTA4 games -- challenging and well-rewarded.<p>(Edit: ...and, as the article shows, these missions are some of the only pieces of the game that could be played entirely ethically -- which may be why they were removed. I'm surprised no one's created a similar driving-and-saving-lives sandbox game outside of GTA, although the taxi minigame is similar to Crazy Taxi, which may be where GTA got the idea in the first place.)
Much is said about protecting children from video games, but what about other mediums (mainly TV, given its exposure)?<p>Any station can air some movie at 4pm featuring the good cops shooting the bad guys. Or, for instance, it is easy to be watching some news report at dinner and being exposed to something beating the horror or gore movies by points.<p>Aren't kids exposed since birth to the notion that violence becomes acceptable if against the bad guys? Where goes the moral of don't to others what you don't want to be done to you?<p>Even some very successful animated movies like Lion King end up with the bad guy being killed. Either intentionally or not, kids end up satisfied that the bad guy had what he deserved and that all become happily ever after.<p>I'm not for one side or the other, I just wanted to raise some questions to see what you guys think. I don't think video games are bad for children, but I agree they have to be picked appropriately for their age.
But I also think we end up avoiding violence in the obvious places but letting kids completely exposed to it in another ones.
I found this article incredibly disturbing.<p><i>Instead of plowing into the rear of the car ahead of him, he swerved to the right and popped up onto to sidewalk. In doing so, he accidently ran over a woman walking towards his oncoming car. He was incredibly ashamed of himself and profusely apologized.</i><p>I was an extremely sensitive young boy. This would have been <i>deeply</i> affecting to me at the time.<p><i>“It's okay. It's only a game. It's not real”, I reassured him. After a few minutes of me explaining the difference between a game and real life, he felt comfortable enough to continue playing.</i><p>Dear god.<p>I really hope the scene played out like:<p>- Child was disturbed<p>- Father was reassuring<p>- Child continued playing <i>entirely of his own volition</i><p>And not like:<p>- Child was disturbed<p>- Father was reassuring and encouraged child to continue playing, because it's okay to kill people in a game<p>- Child continued playing
This speaks to why people are afraid of Grand Theft Auto: it isn't intrinsically bad; it can sometimes, however, speak a lot about people playing it.<p>Even more so, though, it also speaks a lot that about our society that it places a lot of value on decisions people make _in a game_.
What the ... This is truly unbelievable. If the kid wants to drive cars, there are tons of games available (my three year old loves one such game on iPad). And you can't argue that it isn't "intrinsically bad" either, a lot of stuff that is OK for grownups (alcohol, nudity, coke) may be bad for kids and may cause permanent psychological damage. Do you want to risk it?
I always thought it was kind of obvious that the rating for the games meant without adult supervision. When you sit behind your kid and take care of him and stress the difference between real life and game (and do not let him play for 20 hours straight) then almost any game would be ok.
I posted this here because I think the actual actions of the child, against overwhelming odds, are probably a more credible indicator of its future than any images of filth he may have encountered. If you believe that playing this game and seeing hookers and blow will turn you into a delinquent, then what this kid did should turn him into IronMan.
I think about this all the time. 2 boys 3 and 6 yrs old. I cringed a bit when I saw the title because it made me think of the term 'alterna-dad' and of a style of parenting in which children become accessories and 'buddies' to their extended adolescent parents. Sport matching mohawks, etc, etc.<p>But the article was nothing like that. It is short but the feeling I got was of true exploration and of forging a real relationship. (Another HN post of the past few days talked about how you have +/- 10 yrs to connect with yr kid). It also reminded me (as other posters noted) of that SouthPark where they all play WOW and meet Randy in game. Or the classic 'Chinpokemon'. Two really well done episodes - in both cases parents wade through unfamiliar territory to meet their kids and understand them better. Not simply ban the game.<p>There is danger in letting your chidren do certain things. The impulse to bubblewrap them is strong. I catch my breath everytime they do things like walk with me out on our balcony (17th floor), ride the scooter in the skatepark, climb on the rocks in the park across from our apartment, etc. But I consciously hold myself back - watching them but not rushing in to stop them. This week end my 3 yr old got punched full in the face by a 5 yr old. I held back for a count of 10 to let him deal with it as he wanted to and then comforted him a bit and broght him back so he could feel safe playing around this kid.<p>The point is to show them experientially that you trust them - and that you are in the background to help them if things get scary. I felt that vibe from this writer and applaud that.<p>In truth I have no idea of what I am doing. I use my intuition as a guide and hope I am right. What he says about the ESRB is spot on. If - as a parent - you need a school, govt agency or rating agency to tell you what is safe for your kid - then you are screwed. You need to go through it with your child and see for yourself.<p>You can get good advice from individuals - teachers, other parents, certain writers - but not from agencies and bureacracies.<p>As a parent dealing with impact of media in general is a challenge. For the past 2 yrs we went off cable tv and started to rely completely on the internet/ public library/ netflix for movies etc. I have held off on getting Wii/ x-box, etc in favor of PC based games. They have both watched tons of anime and comics (particularly stuff like Miyazaki Hayako (sp?) and the Avatar series). They both love Futurama - which might be too adult at times for them. I will have to explain 'death by snoo-snoo' one of these days.<p>My older son has learned to really enjoy some of the games that an Ubuntu distribution has to offer - things like Wormux, OpenSonic, BattleTanks. He has looked over my sholder as I have played some of the Doom emulations on the android or the Quake-like games on Ubuntu.<p>From hacker news I found out about the Wolfire free bundle and he fell in love with the Samorost series. He cried when it was done and drew a big picture of what he thought the next episode should be.<p>More recently on my wife's computer (WinXP) I downloaded Steam and setup the free version of Portal and bought a Tower Defense game to play.<p>Every time we take the subway or wait somewhere my wife and/or I whip out the gPhone and let the two of them play android games.<p>We try to limit this to certain times of the week etc. because of the vague fear that media will completely saturate their lives.<p>It is not the violence alone that gives me pause. I knwo experientially how absorbing a good game is (thinking of days past playing Half-Life or Diablo, etc).<p>I want them both to enjoy good media and I am loosely overlapping anime, movies and games because I feel like there is power in the imagery of soemthing like Half-Life or Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke" which affects you deeply.<p>What often pisses me off are crappy movies in which the point is simply to sell a lifestyle. I hate movies like "Shark Tales" or "Madagascar" and I cant say exactly why. There are funny bit parts but the whole thing feels like it is in the service of what the philosopher Adorno referred to as the "Culture Industry". I find those movies more disturbing than somethign with more overt violence.<p>In a very interesting way I think this goes back to Plato and his fear of 'poetry' by which he included dramatic arts. It was the fear of the power of images. We have reached the point where video games and anime have reached a complexity and depth of imagery that they have a life of their own.<p>I know myself that these things affect me differently. I am trying to see through my sons' eyes to see how they are affected. At times it feels dangerous - like letting them speed ahead on their little bikes on the city sidewalk - but what this guy is doing is right. Watch them in the background, ready to bolt after them - let them know that you trust them and that you are there to help deal with the scary parts - let them experience it and learn from them as they reflect their experience back to you.<p>Plato on images:
<a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-rhetoric/" rel="nofollow">http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-rhetoric/</a><p>Culture Industry:
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_industry" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_industry</a>
I think the author is dangerously naive because young children, much more so than adults, have a hard time distinguishing between the real world and one's imagination. For them, the border is much more fluid and harder to see.<p>And it's not like we're talking about a 14 year old playing D&D here with heroes and castles and dragons, oh my, but rather a 4 year old with cops, hookers, pimps, drugs, car chases, mugging and vandalism.
I'd sure like to see some peer-reviewed scientific literature, where the peers in question aren't all members of evangelical Christian pressure groups, that documents the 'harm' done to young children by media.<p>If children are that easily traumatized, how can <i>any</i> child grow up to become a healthy adult in a real war zone?