Millions of young school kids played GTA and Doom and came out just perfectly fine. The few examples of psychos had nothing to do with the games in question.
There's obviously a problem if your kids play games ( doesn't matter what games ) too much, so that's why parents need to engage them in other activities: Reading, Sports etc.
Damn forums went down and lost my post. Here's the short version:
If you re-read my post carefully you'll notice I am *not* blaming games. I did mention there are deeper social issues involved.
I grew up with Mortal Kombat and other similarly violent games, including Doom. There is some difference in concept and execution however: these games are fantasy, they make it clear and give you some bullshit excuse to blow people's (or demon's) brains out. This has a different emotional impact than, say, a game where you embody a psychopathic murderer without reasons or motivations other than pure misanthropy.
Kids are particularly vulnerable to certain topics. Sure, I laughed at fatalities but I think somewhere deep in there, the idea of a child giggling at crude manslaughter is about as disturbing as a child masturbating to porn. Playing games like Doom or MK is like watching a violent action film or a graphic novel. Mature audiences have a functional understanding of the world, culture and society, and are not as impressionable as young children. This applies to any media dealing with extreme topics, including books, movies, games, etc.
And sure, some kids might grow up to become relatively normal people, whatever that means. Still I don't think we should encourage young children to play this type of games, watch porn or smoke cigarettes, if anything for the fact that it might truncate their childhood.
Kids are everyone's responsibility, it's not something to be done purely "on the individual level". I don't have children, and still I would be bothered by other people's children doing any of the above. Like I said, it's not about repression. It's about responsibility, culture and society. As adults we are free to enjoy different types of substances or content, but at least let us fucking grow up first (otherwise what's the point of "mature" games?).
I even said this game might actually be
fun, don't take every game argument like a personal attack.
