Video Games DCC

My brother and I played Goldeneye once at my cousin's house on his N64 and he got nightmares from it. :( For years and years after that, my mom refused to let us play anything violent. We had to argue just to buy Super Smash Bros and even then she hated that we'd play it. It's not so big a deal anymore but even as of a few years ago she'd get really antsy if we played FPSes while she was around, haha.

It kind of annoyed me when I was younger, but now I really appreciate that it meant she was paying attention. Of course, it also meant that when I borrowed GTA4 off of a roommate once and brought it home for a break in early university, I was SO surprised when she thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen. I spent a good hour trying to drive as many cars into a hospital waiting room as I could and she was in tears every time I'd manage it which just seemed so out of character of her. XD; (And she'd cheer for me whenever I gunned down the police trying to stop me after I stole one of their cars for the same purpose.)

Parents are funny.

I played my first M-rated game at 10-11 years old, and it was my dad that introduced me to it. (It was probably GTA but i wasn't sure haha) It was a lot more bloody and I didn't seem to be bothered by it. xD

I played my first M-rated game at a young age, but considering that I was 10 5 years ago doesn't make it sound surprising at all since there were quite a few released at the time and my Dad didn't mind me playing them.

My first M-rated game was probably way back when I was five or six and I'd go into my uncle's room to watch him play these gore-infested shooting games. I didn't have a good understanding of the whole thing and so I had no idea what the meaning of all the blood and guns were. I'm relatively sure he let me play a few times, and that would've been my first, haha.

I did play Super Smash Bros. and Star Fox when I was a kid, but I don't know if they can be considered violent at all. xD I didn't start playing violent games until I was about thirteen.

In my opinion, violent video games should be kept away from children completely. By seeing what the characters do in the games, they tend to do similar things in real life just because they think it's okay to. Most of the time, kids who play violent games end up becoming abusive.

I don't think mature games should be kept completely away from kids but parents should definitely be in the room as the kids play them, imo. For the first while, at least. :/ Or they should know exactly what the rating entails (either from doing research, playing the game themselves, or whatever it takes)--it's not like the ratings aren't there for a reason. Some kids can handle it, some can't.

Personally I think it's up to the parents' common sense to draw the line for what games are too violent. I personally believe that the ESRB ratings shouldn't be strictly followed or ignored (hell, my first M-rated game was at 13, but my parents didn't/still don't know about that) but parents can make their own goddamn decisions.

I totally agree with that, but when their kid goes on a rampage because of them they have to witness the consequences of it... I've seen it happen dozens of times (luckily i didnt do that), and even worse, people kill each other over video games.

Perdition Haze said:

All right, I hope this isn't too early to start a new topic, but here it goes! =)

A lot of kids are playing violent video games these days, and their parents are doing nothing about it. How do you all feel about this? Do you think they cause behavior problems to them? Are they more harmful to the minds of young children than violent TV shows and movies? Could they possibly lead them to commit crimes in the future?

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I think we have to remember there's a lot more than just the video game to consider when blaming violent video games for violent kids. I've spent the last 6 or 7 years watching my little brother become aggressive, arrogant, basically an ass, partly because of the village he went to school and was babysat in. This town is very much "violence is the way". When my brother was about ten I can remember hearing that some of his classmates had beaten lambs to death with Hurleys (think big hockey sticks) for sport. That's pretty brutal.

At the same time, he was becoming big into COD, FPS games, etc, and would throw angry fits whenever he wasn't allowed to play it (my mum's big on permission). All we could think to do was blame the games.

Since he's moved away from that village entirely, the difference is uncanny. Sure, he has a tantrum every now and again, but don't all boys? He still plays COD and the like, but he's far less aggressive compared to what he was. I think the environment is at play just as much as the video games he plays.

Personally, I find that when I play FPS games, especially things like CODZombies, I feel dazed and really out of it when I finish, which is probably a result of playing too long too :P

Lightning said:

My brother and I played Goldeneye once at my cousin's house on his N64 and he got nightmares from it. :(

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Same story with me and Resident Evil, it scared the bejeezus out of me :P I had nightmares for years after it :P Such nightmares recurred when I started playing CODZombies too, but I think I managed to work it all out after a lot of exposure to it :P

Leading on from the previous question:

Do you think FPS games glorify war, death, guns, etc?

I can remember hearing someone speaking about video games saying they're a way of fulfilling a fantasy to be a certain hero or character, hence why many of us find the mindless destruction of GTA to be AWESOME. We'll take COD: Does it glorify war and killing and the like? Sure, the action scenes are flashy and whatnot, but while playing there's a sense of heroism to be gotten from them, being powerful and all. Personally I've never been big on FPS games that are all out war games, but I'd just like to see what others think. In this day and age, we have children of any reasonable age able to access these games, and for the more impressionable ones, could it leave a lasting kind of propaganda in their brains???

I think we're getting to that point in our technology advances where if we want to keep harmful and inappropriate concepts from the eyes and ears of underage children, drastic measures must take place. The world is at anyone's hands with a device that can search the web, and so even if a kid doesn't get exposed to violence through video games, there's always some other way. Still, I think if I had kids of my own, I wouldn't let them play anything of the sort.

I played a violent game myself at a young age and i wasnt really impressed of it, not being affected by the violence. It differs with everyone else, though the risk is high that a child will be affected by the violence in games

I cringe whenever I see a kid trying to get their parents to buy an M-rated title at a local game store. I just want to tell the parent about how irresponsible it is to buy a game for a kid he's not old enough to play. But then you usually get their responses saying "it's my children, and I can do whatever I want to determine whether it is safe for them or not," even if they know they're being irresponsible.

In other news, Nolan Bushnell, one of the founding fathers of the video game industry, is saying how Nintendo is going to the path of irrelevance due to the rise of the mobile market, as what I've mentioned from my previous thread regarding it: http://mynintendonews.com/2013/09/07/atari-founder-says-nintendo-may-be-on-path-to-irrelevance/

That reminds me of the irresponsible dad from Happy Wheels lol...

I do agree, i mostly see people playing games on a Playstation/Xbox or PC, and barely you see Nintendo games.

ShadowExcadrill said:

I do agree, i mostly see people playing games on a Playstation/Xbox or PC, and barely you see Nintendo games.

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I blame the current video game industry trying to be more like Hollywood (cinematic cutscenes, realism, quick-time events, etc.) and constantly pressuring Nintendo to abandon their games' colorful nature and take their path.

Well i like cutscenes, but i prefer the animated ones over the ones that use real people in it.
StarCraft 2 for instance has amazing animated cutscenes.

and yeah nowadays the videogame industry focuses more on realism, they wanna get as many people into their games as possible and Nintendo suffers greatly from this

Well, I understand what you're coming from, Pinkie...but when my dad bought me my first M-rated game, I understood what my dad said when it came to violence, blood, nudity, etc. The whole game was graphic and has partial nudity, and was I terrified of it? No. Was my mom scared of me playing the game? She was aware of it, but she saw me as responsible so she was perfectly okay with it. Unlike other parents who think "violent video games promote murder lolol" parents should also be sure if their children are okay with viewing such content, but also they should be constantly aware of their surroundings as well.

But then like...video games back when I was 10-11 didn't seem at all violent. Splattering blood seemed like ketchup and dead bodies disappear within a second. idk, it's just me. xD

I bought my first M-rated game at 12.
Also Nintendo is kinda going down. The only reason they sell 3DS is X/Y. I'm sure sales will drop a couple of months after X/Y.

JNathan said:

Also Nintendo is kinda going down. The only reason they sell 3DS is X/Y. I'm sure sales will drop a couple of months after X/Y.

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Um New Leaf? Luigi's Mansion 2? Ace Attorney 5? SSB4? FEA? LoZ: ALBW? Project X Zone? Sonic Lost Worlds? Pushmo? Rolling Western? Professor Layton Vs. Phoenix Wright? Kid Icarus Uprising? There's a whole library of good-quality 3DS titles that keep it from dropping from the top 10 sale charts.

I made a typo. I should have said the main reason. But the 3DS library isn't very diverse like the GBA was. Most of the titles you mentioned are platforms/strategy games. There aren't really many action games for the 3DS when you look at it.

JNathan said:

I made a typo. I should have said the main reason. But the 3DS library isn't very diverse like the GBA was. Most of the titles you mentioned are platforms/strategy games. There aren't really many action games for the 3DS when you look at it.

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The GBA didn't really have any more worthwhile action and adventure games than the 3DS currently does. A lot of them were awful ports or just outright shovelware.