Quote:
Originally Posted by gottabekd
I have no clue about child psychology, but here in my Internet opinion:
Violence in first person shooters gets a bad rap. I play first person shooters because I find the gameplay, tactics, and strategy interesting. Rarely is it about killing a representation of a human being. Instead it is about fragging an enemy to get points or help your team capture an objective in this fantasy world. Guns just happen to be the method of gameplay. (Or maybe I'm just too desensitized I don't even associate the blood spatter of an exploding head as a violent act).
Now contrast that to games like Grand Theft Auto V where you have free reign to drive through a crowded sidewalk market, threaten people with guns and blow away their head/hand/crotch as they beg for their life, torture people by bashing them with a bat or hooking them up to a car battery, pick up and have sex with prostitutes, all while the characters use extremely profane language. Still very fun  , but maybe more damaging to a developing brain.
But I'm not a parent, and I'm sure it is tough. You don't want to be "that parent" that lets your kids experience media they are not mature enough for. And you also don't want to be "that parent" that won't let Johnny play the latest game with all his friends (so he has to go over to his friend's house to play instead). |
I gotta get me some GTA V hehheh.
Great point in the last paragraph though; it is definitely a battle with other parents' and their morals/ethics/parenting skills. One of my son's buddies gets whatever game with all of the maps/add ons on whichever platform on release day, regardless of rating.
One thing as a parent that I have a difficult time with is the actual killing part; regardless of the graphic nature of it, is killing something in a video game really murder? Is murder really pixels doing stuff to other pixels?
I say that as a person that loves FPS, and thinks nothing of playing the halo series for example.
On thread, I downloaded the Battlefield 1 game from EA Access and so I am ready for a couple of hours of gameplay myself to see later tonight (after WJC games).
I also struggle with perspective on this stuff; I decided to talk with my son about the violence in games and WW1 in particular, as captured in this game. He told me that he had been thinking about it too, and we had a great chat about his visit to the national war museum in Ottawa on a school trip where they learned and saw so much about the sacrifices made by men and women throughout history in warfare. He was able to tell me a lot about WW1 and how it was fought, and in particular from a Canadian perspective. I am extremely grateful that we were able to find a way to send him on that trip, and that, to me, was a great learning opportunity. This stuff is real life; if you are aware in real life, does a video game change that? or is knowing that something happened to end someone's life the same as actually seeing or doing it in a video game? As adults, we have that perspective, but do our children?
I didn't mean to derail the thread so apologies for that, but at the same time thanks to all for a very interesting discussion.