Tuesday, March 17, 2009

WIth new Grand Theft Auto, parents try to dodge the bullets

You know my son is only 13 weeks old, but I already want someone else to raise him. That statement is both untrue and ridiculous. Yet when parents cry time and time again about how the state and private companies should help raise their kids, people agree.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown just came out of the Nintendo DS. Parents are complaining once again that game makers need to take responsibility for making these violent games. True. Nintendo should send someone over to each kids house and monitor what kids are playing. Nintendo should take an active role in the raising of kids. The government should put laws into place that limit the choices kids can make, thereby encroaching ever so slightly on that pesky 1st amendment. Or... parents can grow a pair, realize they are not their kids BFF and sometimes lay down rules that might make them looked at as the bad guy. As I recall it wasn't Nintendo that got you pregnant; If anything that the lovely people at Coors and the faulty people at Trojan.

In this game my parents are hypocrites.
Look I just called mommy a selfish bitch! 500 points!

5 comments:

Harris said...

So, do you think video game companies should be able to put out ANYTHING?

I know of a brou-ha-ha over a Japanese video game called something like Rape Fantasy (you can guess the idea of the game).

Should that be sold next to the Pokemon games too?

harris

Josh Homer said...

I do think they should be able to put out anything, as long as they are labeled with the appropriate rating and they are sold with like items. There are pornographic books, but they are not sold next to the Dora the Explorer books. Toys are constantly labeled to the appropriate ages, I don't think this is any different.

Should the internet take down all porn? I mean the internet is one place that Thomas the Tank and Debbie the Coed are just one click away from each other. The answer is no, parents need to "police" what their kids do in everything. It may not make you the most popular parent, but it might make you the best.

I think that parents always want someone else to step up and be the parent so they don't have to.

Harris said...

Okay, I dont really wanna take it a step further, and see how committed you are to allowing illegal activities glorified in video games, but I would think any reasonable person would have some limit to what can be bought or sold.

Think of the most horrendous act you can - would you have a problem if SONY wanted to sell a game based on that?

I would, and I consider myslef fairly liberal when it comes to these things.

Josh Homer said...

that's the thing murder is the "most horrendous act" and there are tons of games out there with murder, tons of movies, tons of books, tons of tV shows, including the news. Targeting one medium is, to me, very hypocritical and hypercritical. Trying to stop it now is like closing the gate after the horses are out.

I will not let my kid play those games, that's my right and responsibility as a parent. I am not defending the games, more so saying that what a child does and watches is not the responsibility of Sony, but rather mommy and daddy.

Now if there was a game called "open Mic" where you got points for telling dick jokes, I might protest.

amypatrick said...

As a parent, I could not agree more. I am an adult and in control of my household. When kids are older you can't stop certain things from happening when they are not around you. But, you can monitor what goes on in your house. What music is played, what is on the TV, etc. is ultimately the parent's responsibility.
When we start expecting others to do the job of parenting, maybe we need to re-think being a parent.