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Over the years there have been countless studies, debates and questions about how video games influence and affect the people who play them. The studies, for the most part, seem to agree on one thing: Children who play video games are more likely to have behavioural issues
I haven’t conducted any studies or if I’m honest, conducted any real research on the matter. I am however one of the generation that probably spent more time in their rooms playing computer games than they did anything else and this is simply my opinion.
Every time there is a horrendous event involving a shooting, like the recent tragedy in Colorado at a showing of The Dark Knight Rises, people instinctively try to place the blame of what caused it on something. Movies, TV, music and video games tend to be the areas people go to as their first response. I fear the truth is that we will never truly know what causes someone to do these things but I am fairly certain it isn’t simply because they played the new GTA game.
How harmful are mature games?
Video games have age restrictions for a reason. As the culture matures and technology brings us more life-like experiences, we find ourselves playing more mature games. The Last of Us is a perfect example of this. Killing enemies in a game has seldom felt as brutally visceral as it does in The Last of Us and even as I played the game (at the tender age of twenty-four) I found myself subtly disturbed after playing for a few hours.
The point of my semi-random rambling is this: The Last of Us should never be played by anyone under the age of eighteen. Legally anyone under that age is not allowed to buy or rent it so why should it matter how violent a game is or how it will affect a child’s development when they shouldn’t be playing it in the first place?
than children who don’t (with the exception of a few studies that concluded that there is no connection between games and ASBO’s).
It’s a topic as old as gaming itself and one that I think will continue for years to come.
Call of Duty Ghosts is rated PEGI 16. Once again, no one under that age should be playing it however, almost every time I log on to play online I hear children talking over the chat and in one instance a boy told the entire lobby “I’m eight years old” before telling us all to F**k off. At some point we as a society have to take responsibility for raising our children away from game developers or music producers. Why is an eight year old even playing Call of Duty?
I’m sure that some people will read this and say that parents may not know what they are buying their kids or that friends will loan or swap games on a regular basis and that’s entirely true. But once again, this isn’t the fault of Activision.
To put it another way, can we blame Budweiser, Bombay Sapphire or Jack Daniels because a child gets drunk? Is it McDonalds or KFC’s fault that people are overweight? I can’t help but think that if we took more responsibility over what we allow children to play and control it, the same way we do with tobacco, alcohol and matches, then we would eliminate this entire discussion.
Yes, some games are violent, some are definitely inappropriate for minors but these games are not made for them, in fact they aren’t even supposed to play them in the first place. Gaming is growing up and there is a significantly higher percentage of games these days that are rated for adults. The industry is growing and developing all the time and the old stereotype of them being “just for kids” is an out-dated mentality.
Instead of arguing over what games should and shouldn’t have in them and what should be censored or removed I think it would be a much more appropriate action to ensure that if someone is worried about their child playing games that are inappropriate that they simply don’t let their child play them.
