Originally posted by BackFire
Wow.What chain is it you work at? If you don't mind me asking. I've never heard of a chain of stores totally negating their own responsibility in the matter, very interesting.
Family Video Movie Club, Incorporated. The corporate office of the company is in Springfield, IL. The rental chain is number three, behind Hollywood Video (number 2), and Blockbuster (number 1). As I stated previously, there is no law in the state of Illinois regulating the rental of mature-rated games to minors. In the absence of such a law, video game ratings only serve as a suggestion to consumers about who should be allowed to rent or purchase them.
Originally posted by BackFire
When I used to work at blockbuster we were not allowed to rent a M rated game to anyone who wasn't over 17 years old. We could get fined or sued if we did. It's the same for most stores in the country, they can get in major trouble if they sell or rent to children under the games age cap.In california a law was (or is in the process) of being passed that would actually make it a criminal act to sell a game to an underage child. As it is now, they can't be convicted of a crime, but all stores still don't allow children to buy games if they are under the age limit.
It dosnt stop them I used to put an r rated movie into a PG rated box when I was underage so I could rent um
Here anyone can buy GTA3 for .... (well I would be an idiot if I said that)
Let's move to another example. When I was 20 i discovered HITMAN and I enjoyed it. But what about a game which only purpose is to find out how many ways we have for killing someone, a game where you can make a bloodbath of civilians an nobody cares. I enjoyed some things but the whole concept is kinda wrong for a teen.
I don't like people who blame videogames because (as it was already said) is too easy, it more accurate to blame families or ambient.
Another issue, when we talk about violence, we talk about huge numbers, I mean, millions of guys exposed and a tiny fraction is affected BUT THIS TINY FRACTION COULD MAKE AWFUL THINGS. How we can control or fix this, i have no idea.
PS: hitman 2 penalizes civilians causalities but due the fact a perfect mark is quite easy the immediate thing everybody tries is a bloodbath.
Parents like to blame anyone but themselves.
The parent is the last line of defense. The parent has a responsiblity.
Yeah, people blame peers and school life for influencing children away from home - thats rubbish for a start. Despite the pressure at school, I was always thinking of what my parents would do to me if I did do something bad. My parents made me take my sensibilities into school and use them. Bad parents are switched off by the child when they get to school, and thats how they become so easily influenced. A good parent sends their kid to school and out with their friends, and the kid never loses that responsibility.
I'm so sick of lazy parents looking for scapegoats all the time. If your kid is an axe wielding murderer, its your damn fault.
This applies to videogames. The discerning parent would take one look at the box, notice the several hundred warnings about explicit violence and judge accordingly.
I think a big problem is the attitude the majority of parents have of videogames in general. They think they are still kids toys, something for little timmy to waste his time with.
Parents should REALLY not ask the question of "how did this filth get released?" - but rather "how did this filth end up on my coffee table".
There's something about parents these days which just screams laziness, especially parents in their mid teens. That's a big problem really, most people are selfish morons who want a family but don't have any idea or the sense of commitment to actually do a good job.
Exactly right.
It happened with WWE a few years back. It's a scripted show with choreographed fights (although by no means "fake"😉 and parents take that for granted.
WWE have warnings before their shows: "Some scenes may not be suitable for younger children and contain violence".
Parents: Oh it's just wrestling. How bad can it be?
Right there^^^. When you take that attitude it's your fault. One parent did and their little boy went and broke some girl's neck in the playground the next day. She sued WWE when it was her responsibility to heed the warning.
-AC
Yeah AC that's happened a lot, especially recently with the whole backyard wrestling phenomenon.
There's a clue right there. Kids are doing these things in their backyard. At HOME. It's obviously a case of the parent not caring at all.
I also blame this whole compensation culture we are stuck in. A parent can absolve themselves of most simple responsibilities because there's usually some way that they can avert their responsibilities, and when something goes wrong, they can safely sit back and point the finger elsewhere. I'm sick of it. Selfish, irresponsible parents.
When I was at school, all the bad kids had crap parents. They wouldn't show up for teacher meetings, or express any sort of interest in their child. Simple as that, really.
Now, obviously there are kids who, no matter how good ajob the parents THINK they did, turn into bad apples. I still blame the parents. An important part of a persons life is the first few years, where it learns its basic moral principles. Those first few years are 100% parenting. They sew the seeds of what is to come later.
Then again, some kids can be badly manipulated into commiting violent acts. Again, I think their susceptablity and will to say "no" comes from their parents imprint on their personality.
Well, you reach a certain age and it's clear what's right, wrong, immoral and moral.
I know a girl who's mother was a little "loose" to put it mildly. She was the same. I believe once you hit your teens there should already be some kind of mentality there. Home influences the child but the girl I knew could have made the "Wow. I'm not gonna be like my mum and open my legs to every Harry Hardon that comes my way, I'm gonna make something of myself" choice. She didn't. That's not the parents direct fault coz she could have changed it.
However I agree on most of what you said, parents just point the finger and blame everyone else.
-AC
Well, well...well looks like the ***** is finally showing her true colors:
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/599/599796p1.html
Riiiiiight, she was never a friggin conservative 🙄
Another reason why I can't stand this woman.
"However, research by the American Psychological Association indicates a measureable increase in aggressive behvior in children who play violent video games."
So if the American Psychological Association indicates that video games increase the amount of violence on children....then those children in Europe, Asia, and Canada could be also becoming very violent all because they play a video game like GTA? Does the APA speaks for the rest of the world? No? Or maybe is just us Yanks who are always looking to blame game designers for making violent entertaining fun games?
Originally posted by WindDancer
So if the American Psychological Association indicates that video games increase the amount of violence on children....then those children in Europe, Asia, and Canada could be also becoming very violent all because they play a video game like GTA? Does the APA speaks for the rest of the world? No? Or maybe is just us Yanks who are always looking to blame game designers for making violent entertaining fun games?
No, it indicates a measurable increase in aggressive behavior among these children. I suspect that these results would be consistent for most children regardless of national origin.