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12 May 02 - 05:09 AM (#709360) Subject: Dangerous games From: Escamillo Sorry for bringing yet another subject about abuses, but I am really impressed by this ranking of downloaded games from www.download.com, categorized as "most popular": Found: 50 Listing:1-25
This week Most Popular titles in Games Two out of the 4 most popular games, are impersonations of criminals. Just a game. Isn't there a law against this ? I know, there are sites in the Internet which teach you how to build a bomb, to commit a perfect murder, etc., but they are somehow prosecuted. Crime games seem to have the benefit of immunity. If we can do something (petitions, claims) please tell me. Un abrazo - Andrés
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12 May 02 - 05:17 AM (#709365) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Banjer So the purists can't cry about this being another non music thread, may I suggest that until there is a way found to squelch these types of games and other 'entertainment' we all make a concentrated effort to help introduce least one child to the wonders and beauty of music! Teach one how to play an instument and he will soon be looking for others to accompany him and they will look for others to form groups and who knows to what good ends that may lead? I think the point is that many of these kids that play these games are the same ones that are allowed to find their own amusements because the parent figures in their lives are too preoccupied with their own afairs to care what they do. |
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12 May 02 - 05:38 AM (#709372) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: katlaughing I saw something neat along those lines, yesterday, Banj. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Gem & Mineral Show which I remember going to as a child is still going strong, each year, here. We went and they still had grab bags for the kids at $1 a pop. They've gotten even better, though, in that they were not using paper bags as when I was a kid, but now have homemade drawstring bags, plus each kid got to draw for a *prize* rock...pretty neat with no inflation over 30 odd years. Anyway, the really neat thing is I saw LOTS of young kids there and LOTS of folks from the local rockhound club working with them and their interests. They even had some beginning work displayed from some of the junior members. It was wonderful to see so many people interested and the very real effort to interest kids. Of course, being in the middle of dinosaur country helps to pique their interest, too. So, yes, whatever we can do to entice them away is good. Andres, I don't think there are any laws against such games, in fact I've heard that in Japan they believe it suts down on crime for people to use them as an outlet, though I don't know if that would extend to ones which impersonate criminals. I personally think children should never be allowed to play such games, but I think it'd be pretty hard to restrict adults from doing the same. kat |
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12 May 02 - 06:03 AM (#709387) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Banjer That's my whole point, I think. Get today's kids interested in something constructive and tommorow's adults won't be playing those kind of games. They may follow what they learned as kids. |
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12 May 02 - 06:25 AM (#709398) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Jerry Rasmussen When I was a kid, we didn't have those cruel, violent, disgusting, sickening video games. We had cruel, violent, disgusting, sickening comic books like Tales From The Crypt and even cooler yet, Crime Doesn't Pay, where criminals did the most vile acts, and finally got caught and prosecuted in the last panel with the ominous pronouncement, "Crime Does Not Pay." Nobody bought the comic books for the last panels.
When I've sung for kids, one of the most requested songs is, "That song where the woman splits open someone's head with an axe": The Farmer's Curst Wife. Adults who wouldn't be caught dead playing a gruesome video game slow down to ten miles an hour at a fatal accident, hoping to see the body.
I find violent movies like Pulp Fiction disgusting too, and usually successfully avoid them. Pulp Fiction taught me to read reviews more carefully before I went to see something. I was truly sickened by the movie, and while I recognized that it was brilliantly executed, I wish it had never been made.
When I was a kid, we killed Japs and Krauts without blinking an eye. Never mind that we used pressed sawdust army 45's and had to stop our wars to go home when our Mother's called for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Kool-Aid for lunch.
If video games were the cause of violence, it would be easy to stamp it out. Just "prohibit" them. Like they did alcohol during prohibition.:-) It always seems like we're trying to find a way to legislate morality. One thing hasn't changed over all these years. Morality starts at home. People get all up in arms at the word "Morality" because people like the "Moral" Majority have usurped it. It is just a system of values, and isn't dependent upon a belief in God, or any "System." My kids didn't play those video games, although we loved beating the crap out of Space Invaders. They didn't go to violent movies, but they didn't just go to the latest Disney flick, either. They were raised to live "in the world," but not "of the world." My oldest son is married and he and his wife are raising their kids the same way. If kids don't learn basic moral values (And I don't believe that religion is a requirement) at home, They'll be taught by the folks on the street or in the school yard. Jerry |
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12 May 02 - 09:27 AM (#709431) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Midchuck What Jerry said. P. |
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12 May 02 - 10:31 AM (#709448) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Celtic Soul Begin with the kids within your influence. The culture will do what the culture does. But, if you can help even just the kids in your own family to see beyond what the culture offers, it makes a difference.
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12 May 02 - 12:54 PM (#709525) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: hesperis Yep, if there's something more constructive to do, then why bother with violence! And some people are trying to make games that offer something other than mindless violence. |
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12 May 02 - 01:19 PM (#709534) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: GUEST,Aghadoe You have to keep in mind that most computer games are actually played by adults - most of them being probably between 15 and 35 - age increasing, because the new generation will not stop playing games at a certain age. And if you start censoring games, were will you set a limit? Forbid books, that include criminal characters? Movies, like Oceans Eleven? Forbid Fairy Tales and Folk Songs? How many of them feature criminal heroes or violence and cruelty in general, which could be used as inspiration for crime? I have read the Scottish border ballads lately, and its just that computer games are more popular than the border ballads - otherwise there would be more burning-on stakes! (as you may guess - I love the ballads AND the games) |
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12 May 02 - 03:20 PM (#709603) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Nigel Parsons Yes, you can read gruesome stuff these days, reminds me of the story (paraphrased) where a woman gives a man food and drink, and then gives him shelter in her tent (no, not at a folk weekend). When he has fallen asleep, she uses a mallet to drive a tent peg through his head, nailing it to the ground. Judges 4:21 |
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12 May 02 - 04:01 PM (#709631) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Escamillo Valuable comments, with which I mostly agree. I grew up in a highly censored society, and witnessed a process of liberalization of all expressions of art and intellectual research, and pure amusement. But in this case there is no art, nothing intellectual, and no amusement. It is an advanced simulation technique to test your skills to become a criminal, and to reward you for your achievements. Indeed if you fail, there is punishment, but that punishment is virtual and it comes only as a consequence of your inability for crime. You are encouraged to try again. Instead, the rewards are real: you feel great. And there is no age restriction. The top game has been among favorites for 161 weeks, and this last week has been served to 52,436 kids and adults. The question is: should we set a limit ? I mean a legal action, not the action we as parents take at home. Don't we take immediate action when a friend of our kids tries to involve them in drugs or guns ? Do we allow an adult to initiate them in his own criminal activities ? First of all we talk to the kids, but second, we isolate the individuals, and some parents report them to authorities. I find it very difficult to not use the same arguments that have been used in history to censor political ideas, sexual tastes, alcoholism, or to support dictatorships "in defense of the nation". I actually FOUGHT against that, when my country was under the military. But I think that there must be some limit, some equilibrium. Is the praise of terrorism that limit ? It could already be in the market, I didn't see it as today, but it could be no surprise. Un abrazo - Andrés
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12 May 02 - 04:27 PM (#709642) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Jerry Rasmussen Un abrazo - Andres:
Who decides what should be banned? Who enforces it? Admittedly, Grand Theft Auto glorifies crime on some level. But then, real life glorifies crime much more effectively. Now, if they had a video game based on Enron, I might agree to march in protest.
As Woody Guthrie said, "Some rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen." Of course, he was glorifying someone who robbed banks and killed people. But, he left a good tip under the plate when some poor farmer put him up for the night. :-) Jerry |
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12 May 02 - 04:58 PM (#709652) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Peg I think Jerry has an excellent point in that kids engage in so-called "violent" play in which they use pretend weapons, slay pretend enemies, etc. We did the same thing, plus got in fights and caused trouble all the time. HOWEVER: In those days kids actually used their imaginations to engage in such play, occasionally drawing upon what they saw in books o comics, or maybe at the movies or on TV...but video games do not require much more than hand-eye coordination...the characters, situation, rules and environment are already thought up by someone else. Because they are not using much of their brains in the way of making decisions or imaging possible outcomes, not to mention actually engaging in play with other human beings as both comrades and pretend enemies, that lack of creativity and failure to develop social skills while using one's imagination, may be what is REALLY wrong with the types of play kids engage in today...and it may be what is also responsible for their short attention spans and very poor skills in basic math and language.
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13 May 02 - 12:02 AM (#709898) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Jerry Rasmussen I think PEG makes some excellent points about kids having imagery provided for them in a way that doesn't require much imagination. When my sons were young, I tried to see if they could enjoy listening to some of the old radio programs that are out on tape... The Shadow, for example. They kinda got in to it. When the movie came out, it didn't look anything like their minds had imagined. The issue of violence aside for just a moment, video games if take to excess can be substitute for engaging in socializing and real life. I think that's a danger for very few kids, but it certainly has proven to be the case with some kids who withdrew into their own fantasy world.
But, I'd like to say some good things about video games (more modest thread drift, I'm afraid.) Both of my sons were very slow to develop small motor skills. My oldest son was told that he might as well learn to type because he could never learn to write legibly. That was in third grade. By fifth grade, his penmanship was better than the third grade teacher who made the comment. My youngest son was even more limited in his co-ordination, having to receive physical therapy for both large and small motor skills. I believe that they both benefited enormously from playing video games. My youngest son, in particular, gained an enormous amount of small motor co-0rdination and was average to above average by the time he weas eleven or twelve.
There are also video games like the original Tomb Raider that were as much a challenge to the mind as the trigger finger. Both of my sons loved the game almost as much as I did. We all helped each other solve puzzles when we got stuck. Same thing with Legend of Zelda. They both involved a certain level of shooting (or swording) bad guys, but it wasn't as graphic as games like Doom where blood spurts out of the holes in their throat when bad guys got shot. Maybe it's the increasingly realistic graphics that bother me.
I still wouldn't try to bann any games. I think warning ratings are somewhat helpful for those parents who are trying to monitor how much kids are exposed to. In the long run, for me it always comes back to parents taking responsibility for their children and not leaving moral teachings to schools or churches (no matter how much they might at times help to reinforce what is learned at home.) Better yet, recognize that kids are influenced by what they see us doing, not what they hear us saying. Jerry |
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13 May 02 - 01:28 AM (#709924) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: hesperis Many good points. For one thing... video games ARE fantasy. And as long as there is some separation of fantasy and reality, then pretending to be a criminal can be a harmless way of diffusing any real leaning to that direction. Now, I would like to draw a distinction between games that don't require much thinking beyond what to shoot next, and games that do make you think. Games that make you think, such as adventure or rpg games, can be a much more positive experience than watching TV or a movie. They can be more than entertainment. Unfortunately, there IS a real lack of good, family-oriented games with wholesome values, even in the "thinking games" section of the stores. I really hope that game companies will begin to see that there's a market they haven't been competing in. |
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13 May 02 - 02:39 AM (#709948) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: pict I think kids eventually get fed up with first person shooters and crime games anyway and tend to look for more unusual and challenging games after a while some of the games out there are actually mildly educational like Age of Empires which includes brief histories of each of the civilisations and involves managing an economy,building farms,and innovating technologically in order to advance beyond your opponents there's still plenty of war though. I've even played thief which was a thoroughly imaginative game where the character is essentially a good thief who sneaks around in the dark picking locks and blackjacking guards.I get fed up very easily of playing any computer game and so do kids mine have the usual playstation games etc. but they prefer being outside playing using their imaginations or riding the horses the last thing they can be bothered with is music because that's what daddy does"boring." and "oh no not the music shop."Look at pokemon it came and went in a matter of months same thing with these games it's a fad. |
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13 May 02 - 03:06 AM (#709955) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Escamillo Many years ago I designed and developed an adventure game which was text-only, just for my kids. It was a puzzling game which goal was to discover ancient tombs in Central America, learn a little of MAYA language, escape the final flood and come back home with proofs of the discovery. They liked it very much, and having passed the program to customers and friends, soon I started to receive comments and congratulations from very distant places. It was pretty rewarding. Then came the graphics games, the shooting and the bleeding. Along with them, a lot of educational, excellent games. A little orientation and no banning on my part, was enough to avoid any real harm to my little monsters who grew up in front of a computer some years before the popularization of the PC. Then I don't blame the video games entirely, and see that many of them have been an important benefit. Even the ridiculization of heads being split in two and other atrocities seem to amuse kids more than angels coming form Heaven, as well as monsters are they favorites, and I see that in general, they have a clear idea of what is a fantasy to laugh at, and what is real violence or human suffering. In fact, those kids who enjoyed the fantasies of violence, when confronted to some real situation of violence, get really scared. The same can be found in war games: the separation between fantasy and reality is very clear for the kids: none of them would ever think in frying Russian kids or exterminating muslims. I'm in doubt, however, whether a game of impersonation would not unconsciously teach them things that are hardly imaginable. If the authors of viruses work to make damage for free, what would they do for money ? Un abrazo (a hug) - Andrés
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13 May 02 - 01:33 PM (#710345) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: hesperis Wow, Andrés... Some of my friends wanted a game set in Central America... do you still have it? That would rule! If you still have it, please post a link in this forum, and tell them you're a friend of Brassfire's. And if you need hosting for it, let me know, k? |
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13 May 02 - 01:46 PM (#710357) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Jerry Rasmussen I desinged games for fun when I was in college. The one I thought worked best was an evolution game (I majored in Geology.) You had a choice of being a Mammoth, a Saber Tooth Tiger, a Stegosaurus, and one other animal I've since forgotten. Each animal had it's own adaptations for a particularl environment, and there were environment cards which changed when someone landed on an Environment card space. You moved by drawing from you gene pool. Depending on what the environment was, you either moved forward (thick wool on a mammoth when it was an Ice age or backward if it was a tropical environment.) If you got stuck in the wrong environment too long, you kept going backward until you went off the board and went extinct. If you were in a favorable environment, you kept moving forward and the first player to reach the acme of evolution won. There were four different environments, each one most favorable to a particular animal. My nephews thought it was pretty cool, but not as good as the mountain climbing game I designed, where the dirtier you played ( partially severing your opponents ropes, or loosening the pitons) the better chance you had to win. None of my nephews because of my bad influence..:-) Jerry |
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17 May 02 - 01:16 AM (#712081) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: hesperis Thanks, Andrés! Incidentally, some other people are getting concerned about the increasing violence in games, at least in the US. |
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17 May 02 - 06:31 AM (#712174) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: katlaughing Andres, that sounds fantastic! When our kids were little Rog had a TRS-80. We bought them a text only game called Pyramid, I think it was. They had to explore inside a pyramid, picking up different things along the way, tracing a safe route through, etc. It took a lot of thinking, paying attention, and imagination...oftentimes one of us would get frustrated when we came to a chasm and couldn't go in any direction. Finally we would type in the command "Jump!" at which point the scren would display a message telling us we just went up in a puff of orange smoke, would we like to be reincarnated and start the game over. It was a lot of fun! Jerry, yours sounds like a lot of fun, too. We should have a MUdcat gaming venue! |
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17 May 02 - 07:41 AM (#712196) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Grab Don't forget that the third one's a fantasy thing as well. And D&D encourages players to go round hunting orcs and other creatures, and rewards players for their bloodlust in killing everything in sight, and teaches them that magic is good, and eventually they'll end up serving Satan and going to Hell for all eternity, and Back in the real world, everyone knows it's fiction. Some young kids (like maybe under-7s) can't distinguish fact from fiction, but by the age of 10-11 or so, every kid should be able to tell the two apart. Until kids have their critical faculties working, parents should be supervising their kids to check what games they're playing, and that includes supervising what they do on the Internet. If the parents don't, then if the kids get hold of an adult-themed game at too young an age then it's purely the fault of the parents, not the games. By the same token, I hope you wouldn't insist that all films featuring violence or criminal activities be banned. If a parent leaves "Nightmare on Elm Street" in the VCR and their kid comes down and hits play, it's not Wes Craven's fault that the kid sees it. Other ppl certainly exist without such critical faculties - these are ppl with serious mental problems such that they can't distinguish right from wrong. They may enjoy these games for the violence and fantasise about killing ppl. However, the game does not cause this, and these disturbed ppl would be just as likely to act out their fantasies with or without the games. Serial killers have been around for ever, and they've never needed computer games to set them off in the past. The only dangerous games being played here are the mind games. "This is dangerous bcos kids could get hold of it/see it/use it. Therefore it shouldn't be allowed to exist." Thank god there isn't a law against it. The world is NOT Disneyland, Escamillo. Graham. |
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17 May 02 - 09:31 PM (#712653) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Escamillo Well, I don't like the idea but I have to admit that the game of legally banning or not banning could be worse than the exposure of kids to violence and crime teaching games. I think we parents are still strong enough to set an orientation in what gets into our homes and what does not, as long as we have a significant PRESENCE in our homes. In the extremes, talibans had banned music because it was distracting to the prayer, and the military in our country had many times banned political parties because the political dissent was dangerous for the organization of the nation. I don't want to sustain a parallel argument. I'm still against the crime academy, be it for kids or adults, and if not legally, we should strongly show our reject. And never get convinced that something is as harmful as the intention of the people who use it. There are too many things designed or built or invented to be harmful. Hesperis, I posted a message in that forum offering my old game, but I don't think that anybody would be interested in a piece of museum like that. Fortunately, there are lots of modern and brilliant educational games out there ! Un abrazo - Andrés
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18 May 02 - 03:05 AM (#712756) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: hesperis Well, news of it got posted at Anthenor's fangame site, which is a good sign. It does sound like a lovely little game, and there are a lot more people who like older style games than you'd think. People are definitely interested, but most of them don't know Spanish. Including me. :( Actually, would you send it to brassfire at hero6.com? When my Spanish gets better I'll definitely have a look at it! |
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20 May 02 - 10:23 AM (#713864) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Grab "Crime teaching games". There you go again. Why should anyone believe that a game is anything more than a game? I don't believe that playing Quake can teach me to become a Space Marine, or that playing Final Fight can make me a martial arts expert. So why should Grand Theft Auto be any different? Maybe you try to imitate games. In that case you have a problem and need help. Or maybe someone you know does, in which case you need to get them help. Graham. |
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20 May 02 - 01:51 PM (#714004) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Escamillo Then, Graham, we would have to admit that no game teaches anything. I think that games do teach many things, as well as literature, cinema, TV and anything made for entertainment. In fact it's hard to imagine a game that doesn't (Tetris, may be ?). It's up to you to seriously use that knowledge in reality world. When I spent many hours playing Indiana Jones and the Search of Atlantis with my kids, we enjoyed it, and learnt a lot about the legend and its origins, however we and my kids did not get involved in a real trip, so at least that time we did not need medical help. And the same happened to many people I know. I don't have much time but will download some of the mentioned games and try them, and then I'll post my comments whether they teach crime techniques or not, because all I know of them is through other's comments. Un abrazo - Andrés |
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20 May 02 - 02:00 PM (#714008) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: hesperis The thing is, that "suspending disbelief" means that you are believing it, if even temporarily. And what does that do to your mind? Yeah, most people think that they can "take it"... We have no real evidence one way or the other. |
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20 May 02 - 06:00 PM (#714135) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Grab What it may teach is reaction time and faster reflexes - that's fairly well documented. I've yet to see anyone show that gamers act out the game scenario in real life though, and even the few studies that show aggression after being beaten in a game have not been anything like conclusive (there's other similar studies that have come up with the opposite answer). One bunch of ppl (like yourself) say it's teaching behaviour, another bunch of ppl say it's catharsis and we should all be playing violent games to get rid of our violent tendencies, and another group (eg. me) says they should both lighten up! :-) It's certainly possible to make games that do teach facts, but I don't think that's usually the main aim. Lara Croft may be teaching kids hand-eye co-ordination, but I doubt she's teaching much about archaeology. Hesperis, absolutely, for the duration of the experience you empathise with the character, feel yourself in their place. For the duration. The same as every film, every book, every D&D role-playing session you've ever been involved in. Doom and its offspring can be a big kick, but I know several books with vivid sequences that set my heart racing more than any computer game. You may have your own favourites. But only children (who don't yet understand the boundaries between fact and fiction properly) go round pretending to be their hero and refusing to answer to any name except Superman; adults know the score. Or at least, all the adults I know, know the score anyway (I guess that's as much as I can generalise. ;-) Graham. (PS. Tetris is a classic spatial-awareness test, for working out how best to rotate blocks to fit them into a pattern within a time limit.) |
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20 May 02 - 10:59 PM (#714302) Subject: RE: BS: Dangerous games From: Escamillo I would broadly define two kinds of games: those of eye-hand coordination, which indeed help development of fast reflexes even when some are disgusting, and those of impersonation where the player has to develop intellectual skills to manage a virtual situation reflecting reality or inspired in reality. Those situations could be for example 1) discover a magic powder that sends me to the 4th dimension, or 2) find a corrupt cop who would allow me to sell dope in the corner, (jokes about corrupt cops, appart). It is this second subject that worries me. Today our newspapers tell us that there's a new game downloadable from the net. It is called KABOOM. It's a game of impersonation of a suicide bomber who has to learn techniques and tricks to leave this world along with the largest possible quantity of civilian victims in cities of Israel. Its young author (21) says that he does not know what's happening in the Mid East, that he does not care about it, and that the game is only a game, and people who commit suicide are simply stupids. Obviously he does not AIM to anything, and I think that the problem is not where they aim, but the effect of banalization of terrible things. (Let me say that WAR games are at least, impersonations of soldiers defending their nations, those same soldiers that we welcome as heroes when they come back home after the battle) So, the limit I was talking first, seems to have been reached. Ok, I'll find some minutes to download and try those games. If I don't show up for some weeks, please send me some cigarettes and find a good lawyer for me. Un abrazo - Andrés |