Covenant of the Phoenix Forums: A child's hobby...I think NOT! Average gamer is 37 years old... - Covenant of the Phoenix Forums

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Caught the story above today, and since I'm 40 it caught my attention! We (folks my age) ARE the pioneers of the video game, the generation that crossed the atlantic to found a new world, the ones who braved the wild west and settled the gamer nation: most of us teething on the Atari 2600 and Intellivision consoles of the eighties, or beginning our gaming careers on a Comodore 64 or Apple IIe long ago. We were the ones feeding millions of dollars worth of quarters into arcade games back in the day. Now, we are the ones buying the lions share of video games these days: both for ourselves and our children. We built the 25 billion dollar industry that is video gaming today.

The general gist of the article was that the government and activist groups keep targeting the game industry for violent and sexually themed games saying they are aimed at children and too easy for underage folks to get thier hands on.

Both of my kids were born during the Internet Age. They will never know what it's like not to have computers and the internet, not to have a cell phone, or not to have video games. They will never watch black and white TV unless it's on Turner Classics or AMC. Technology is so interwoven in thier daily lives that they almost cannot survive without it (just take away your teenagers electronics for a week and see what happens!).

As with all things that could be dangerous or harmful, there needs to be regulation and safeguards in place...but it never ceases to amaze me how some people blame video games for causing bad behaviour, instead of blaming lack of guidance and parenting and common sense in most cases. We as a society have such a hard time taking responsibility for things: the gun killed him, not the crazy person wielding it...the car killed that family, not the drunk behind the wheel of it...the video game makes my kid a sex crazed violent maniac, not my lack of parenting skills and refusal to guide my child on what is real and what is not, or what is appropriate in life and what is not.

Yes, media effects behaviour (that's ALL media: movies, TV, newscasts, video games, music...), but as with all things in life we as human beings have free will to make the choices between good and bad, or right and wrong; regardless of what influence we are effected by.