I love video games, the escape and the entertainment factor of playing games. Half-Life 2, Homeworld, Blaster Ball, Call of Duty, there are an infinite number of game titles that populate the shelves of retailers of the world. A large number of these games actually teach our kids some great motor skills and a lot of them are very educational games that can aid in our children’s development.
There comes a time though when the moral question of “just because we can should we?” comes up. Society in general has failed to provide the right answer to this question on many occasions. Lets take one game that disturbs me to no end, which has pushed the limits of this morality question.
The Grand Theft Auto – Series.
OMG this entire series should be banned from all retailers and all copies systematically destroyed. Rockstar Games and Take-two Interactive the major publishers of this filth should be put under close scrutiny when publishing any new games in the future. The parents that allow their children to play these games should be forced into parenting classes. Come on people what are you thinking allowing your kids to be educated by this morally corrupt garbage. This game allows and even rewards it’s players for terrorist like behavior, assaulting innocent people and law enforcement officers. You get rewarded with money for luring prostitutes into your car and beating them in the back seat.
Come on people this is utter filth and pointless, why would any company want to be affiliated with a complete lack of morality praising the behaviors that we as a society are trying to stop. We try and teach our children morals and appropriate behavior but then allow them to play video games that they are exposed to are teaching them to complete opposite. Its like training to be a criminal, Microsoft came under fire for the accuracy in the flight simulator series after the 9-11 attacks. You have got to be kidding me about this crap, our kids are playing GTA and training to be total criminals and rewarded for abhorrent behavior but a game that actually educated and prepares out children for future careers in aviation comes under fire. Grab a freaking brain people how does a game like GTA stay in production and is able to release so many sequels. This a time when censorship is well needed and yet it fails to protect our youth from this utterly barbaric crap.
I know what some will say, what makes Half-Life, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six, and many other Violent titles with a mature rating different from GTA. Well incase you can’t figure this out for yourself, I’ll spell it out for you. These other games involve surviving through attacks from alien races that DON’T exist, defending from bad guys (terrorists) in rainbow six, reliving previous wars in the Call of duty series and guess what you are penalized for taking an innocent life. If that isn’t enough difference for you these games have limits of what you can do in them. GTA has no limits of how morally corrupt the player can become.
It is our responsibility as adults and parents to teach and mold our children into the people that they deserve to be. Guidance and education, discipline and consequence where have these values gone when we are raising our children. Video games and television are major influences in our children’s lives and that is not going to go away. We need to make sure that what we allow them play and allow them to watch programming that teaches them correct values and helps them to make the right decisions in life. I’m not condoning complete censorship of everything as I am a firm believer of freedom of speech. However there should be some moral standards held when publishing products targeted at our children.
