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In this I can totally relate to you, senjuro. My mother brings up the videogame topic whenever she wants to rebut me in anything. Some of her favorite thoughtless phrases are:
'Videogames have ruined your life'
'You don't gain anything, you don't become more cultured'
'I don't know how you can spend hours and hours playing those'
'What awful monsters! No wonder you always have nightmares!'(said a person that keeps watching thrillers and terror movies at the TV)
'If I could I'd dump your console'
'You don't drink or smoke, but you do have an addiction'
'You have lost the connection to reality. You think those games are the reality'
My theory is that people that don't understand something demonize it.
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That must be it. I have no idea why people see it as such a big deal? The games don't damage people. The games are rated for a reason. Negligent parents are, as always, to blame.
It's aggravating to have my favorite hobby declaimed as the downfall of society again and again by people who don't know what they're talking about.
I think it is because only the "bad games" get big attention in the media. Bad games like Grand theft Auto have been in the media over and over again for its bad content, but good games like (just throwing one out there) like Pokemon Puzzle League have had no media coverage at all. I must have gained like 10 IQ levels while beating that game on super hard mode alone. That's not even counting how much I got just to get to super hard mode. People think that reading uses your mind, but in the example I have just given so does gaming. I could even even expand this to say people are just negative by nature, and we only dell on the bad things about things, but I think that is just going to far.
~Aser~
senjuro Wrote:That must be it. I have no idea why people see it as such a big deal? The games don't damage people. The games are rated for a reason. Negligent parents are, as always, to blame.
Exactly. As a little kid, my parents controlled what I watched on TV, what games I played, all of that. They even made sure the books I read weren't too graphic or violent. Until recently, I wasnt supposed to watch COPS, and until i was about 10, I wasnt supposed to watch wrestling. I'm still not allowed to watch South park. and theres a lot of books (most fiction books about murder) I'm still not allowed to read.
If there were more parents that actually cared about what their child was doing, we wouldnt have a lot of the problems we have now.
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I played mortal kombat and any other violent game I could get my hands on since I was four and all it hasn't done anything but sharpen my reflexes to the point where I can literally grab a paintball out of midair.
"Stand tall and shake the heavens!" - Xenogears.
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Ahh... I never thought I'd see a rant like this. I simply will tell the truth, throughout all my life, I have had argues with my parents about video-gaming FOR EVER, and yet, I haven't ever shown any simptomns of becoming stupid, lazy (err..) blind or an adolecent with a retarded mind.
Instead, why not calling TODAY's video-gaming, learning as well? I mean, here, I think 34% (I think lower) aproximately people don't know english, when I play RPG games, there are MASSIVE dialogues scenes, and I NEVER buy spanish games (for first, because I think the spanish accent sucks); and guess what? The little english I used to understand basic things now turned out to writing skills thanks to them.
Books and Games... come on... what differece they are? Both have unreal stories, both make the reader/player dive and EVEN take part in the story, the only thing with the games, is that YOU decide what to do and show how you would react to a problematic if you were that person in that story.
Not talking about MK or Street Fighter of course; though I don't know why, maybe society finds that the whole gaming issue drives children out of their minds, I personally find that wrong, maybe I'm attracted to games of pure senseless violence like House of the Dead or games of pure imagination like Chrono Cross, but for first, guns are used in real life, and not only to protect if we go to the fact. And for the imagination, what about when you read Harry Potter? Would that REALLY stimulate your mind? Meh...
I think that society is plain wrong when judging, and yet again, they are a bunch of hipocrites.
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Zephyr of Darkness Wrote:My theory is that people that don't understand something demonize it.
That's a centuries old problem with people. On the subject of video games, my parents and I never got into too many arguements on the subject, fortunately. However, what I've seen on the news and read sickens me. Games are not that different from books and both can stimulate and train the mind. Heck, some games have so much dialogue and text, it is just like reading a book. I've never experienced anything negative from gaming and I'm sure that's the same for all of you. As far as I'm concerned with those shootings, etc. it was neglectant parents more than anything. Though as long as people dwell on the negative and remain close-minded, then the truth can never really be heard.
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DragonMasterX Wrote:Books and Games... come on... what differece they are? Both have unreal stories...
That would be the case if all books were only non-fiction. There are more types of books then just stories (real, fake, or loosely based on reality). There are books that just consist of opiniontated philsophical socialism of the world. Basically books that inform. Some games do try to use that in it, but I doubt most people play games to learn historical facts.
Most video games are and have been violent. That is what these people take it for.
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But children's cartoons are no less violent. Take a look at good ol' Looney Tunes. How often does Elmer Fudd ending shooting himself? Or having his gun explode in his hands? Or how often is a piano/anvil/elephant/other comically huge or heavy object dropped on an unsuspecting target?
What about the ridiculously convoluted plans Wile. E Coyote goes through to obliterate the Roadrunner, generally by use of huge amounts of explosives?
How is this humorized violence any different from what you see in games that kids are SUPPOSED to be playing? Yeah sure, in MK, Sub Zero can rip his opponent's head off, but any parent with half a wit should realize that a kid under the age of 15 or so shouldn't be playing it. Personally, I saw that fatality back when I was...hmmm, grade 3 so I was 8 years old. Did that fuck me up? Not even a bit. A bad relationship in highschool screwed me up worse than videogames ever could.
DragonMasterX Wrote:I think that society is plain wrong when judging, and yet again, they are a bunch of hipocrites.
"Never speak ill of society; only people who can't get into it do that."
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