November 24, 2004

Mothers Against Video Game Addiction and Violence

Fact: Hardcore gaming not only leads to video game addiction and abrupt lifestyle changes, but to crime and felony as well. Hardcore gamers never buy computer video games. Instead, downloading illegally copied video games or “warez” is the only method acceptable by the underground. Buying a legit copy is grounds for abandonment by community groups. You may not be buying your child videogames, but they can illegally obtain them off the internet. I HATE your mother.
posted by Debaser626 20 years ago
  • You should tell LarryC about this.
  • If violence in video games led to violence in real life, I would have toppled governments by now.
  • Yeah... Unfortunately, Newsday and the Daily News was also quoting Mr. Yoo's work. Though the real MAVIA isn't much better.
  • I only found that by chance... I did a whois and decided to Google the domain owner and his address.
  • shut up! just shut up! *cries, runs to Monkeybashi*
  • Did you get a phone number? KIDDING, kidding.
  • relax, like dng said. not that there are haters. CNN's website was featuring a list of 10 video games to avoid for children this holiday season (can't find link now). since they were all rated M, I thought that was the first clue.
  • er, not that there *aren't* haters. previewed and everything. oh well. to redeem, here's the list of 10 best and worst games for kids this year, from Mediawise.
  • I'm surprised it has Prince of Persia on there - the main characters have sex towards the end. Ban this filth. And Pikmin 2 mentions the concept (theory?) of evolution. Ban that filth...
  • I'm not so sure that calling GTA a game without morals is completely accurate. I mean, sure, there is a hell of a lot of violence and shady deals going on in the game. But a lot of that is directed toward cleaning up the street of drug dealers and corrupt cops. I'm not trying to say it's a Bible Adventures, just that the character in GTA: SA isn't completely unredeemable.
  • And in Sly 2, you STEAL. Clearly that needs to go, too.
  • Games "aimed at children" include Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude?! WTF?!.. That's like saying cartoons "aimed at children" such as Fritz the Cat are bad for the little shit stains... m'kay?
  • I think amoral (or morally ambiguous) is accurate for GTA. It's not immoral (well, bits are, but as a whole not). The game allows the user to make moral decisions without judgement, with rewards either way. The game is definitely redeemable, but that requires a level of judgement that is a little more sophisticated than what your average 11 year old can handle.
  • *what really got my knickers in a bunch this morning was that Halo 2 was on the "bad" list* I don't get it. You kill aliens... who bleed purple blood, to save the earth... not once do you shoot another human. Unless you're in multiplayer, and I agree that children should not EVARRRRRR B 4ll0w3d 0n Teh 1nt3rn3t GAY-M3 S3rv3rs!1!!11! I would seriously pay an additional $15-20 per year to my Xbox Live subscription to play in a 18 and over only area.. (maybe 16 and over)
  • Yea, like everyone 18 and over is the model of maturity and restraint, especially when it comes to online gaming.
  • Aren't maturity and video gamers mutually exclusive?
  • That's a mighty big brush you have there, rocket88.
  • Just out of curiosity, when Mario Bros. came out, was there an increase in the tendency of children to jump on people's heads?
  • Cabingirl, I'm not saying being 18 equates to being mature, but I don't think it's too much of an assumption to expect an 18 year old to be more mature than a 12-13 year old, especially when it comes to boys. The sole exception seems to be kids from Texas. I've played with many a pre-teen from Texas that were more serious than other, older folk.
  • trampnews - i don't know 'bout jumping on heads, but i still like eating mushrooms. mmmmm.... portabella.... my favorite part of the MAVIA website was this little ditty: '); function makeArray(){ this.length = makeArray.arguments.length for (var i = 0; i < this.length; i++) this[i + 1] = makeArray.arguments[i] } function randNum (num) { var now = new Date(); var rand = Math.round(num * Math.cos(now.getTime())); if (rand < 0) rand = - rand; if (rand == 0) rand++; return rand; } // --> --> i mean, jeez, you gots to field-test that sheeyat before you gos and posts it, right? and for the record: rampant pirating of video games? hell that's the only software i really ever pay for. i mean, seriously, i want blizzard to have my $50. they deserve it for the hours of fun i've had with their game. but microsoft? whateva. they owe ME for making me beta-test windows 98 and calling it win95, and they did the same damn thing to every poor sap who bought winME. they all should have been issued a winXP disk as an apology.
  • After spending some time in the presence of GTA/SA - not even playing, just in the presence of - I wanted to commit some felonies. Especially knocking over lampposts. Just like I swear like a sailor after taking in a full season of the Sopranos in one sitting each Thanksgiving. Luckily, I've got this higher reasoning thing going on to keep me out of jail.
  • my favorite part of the MAVIA website was this little ditty: [...] And they even sign their work with pride:
  • Oooh. I recall the NYT magazine had a nice side bit about this subject in, I think, an article about boys having trouble in school or using Ritalin or something along the lines of The War On Boys book. Essentially, the statistics (supposedly) disprove all of this. Video game sales have gone up since the 80's, childhood violence has gone down. The odd sudden explosion of child on child gun violence ala Columbine has gone up, but appears to be an anomaly in that kids are now bringing personal problems to school, and that now it's white kids doing the shooting. But overall, the trend is clear, child on child violence has gone down. The author of the article then goes on to theorize that video games are responsible for this decline because they provide a virtual sandbox. Instead of kids running around with bb guns playing cowboys and indians (or is the modern version cops and Ole Dirty Bastard?), getting hurt or getting into fist fights, they are doing the same in counterstrike. My personal theory is that there are only so many hours in the day, and that for every hour spent playing Starcraft is just one less hour to get into trouble. Plus, by being so sedentary, they are getting fatter faster, and thus are too out of shape to really get into something so tiring as a knife fight. Either way, unlike television, I haven't seen the controlled studies that prove that violent video games (like Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons) provoke violent tendencies.
  • yentruoc, I know what you mean about the Sopranos. I've been going through the first three seasons on DVD at a pretty rapid clip and find myself cursing a blue streak these days. Goddamnit.
  • Isn't there a Mothers I'd Like to Fuck Up website somewhere? I think Frank Zappa started it.
  • Sooooz - if you think that's bad, try watching Deadwood. Very good show. Very difficult not to say 'cocksucker' incessantly after watching it.
  • *shows up late* Uh, someone did tell LarryC about this As well as the link showing that this was a school project.
  • *shows up late, suggests to armaghetto that s/he reads the first comment in the thread*
  • Cocksucker.
  • They're stopping kids from playing Half-Life 2? Those bastards.