I'm on the other side of the fence saying that the video game industry NEEDS to be responsible for what they show to kids.

It's no different than placing a real gun in a kid's hands

Thank you Zido_Z

I can't really confirm or deny what you've said. I can only say that in my opinion, focussing on video game violence as a causal factor in the sorts of shooting rampages we've seen is not the type of discussion game developers want to get involved in.

I think the scope must be expanded A) To all media B) to all negative media messages.

I just feel that would be more productive in terms of spurring broader research and the stopping of the scape goating of games in particular.

noatom: making parents ultimately responsible would be a good first step. But at least in the US, this is not the norm. Most children who commit crimes (for example) serve time in juvi or jail or prison on their own.

The reason parents are not held responsible is because it would be the first chink in the armor of the "personal responsibility" doctrine. It would open up discussions about things like worker pay that results in both parents working and children seeing their teachers and peers more than they do their own parents during K-12. Then of course refusing to deal with the pay issues, you'd have to blame the next adults on the totem pole... teachers. Otherwise we'll just have it your way and do nothing and let the kids rob and kill the people you know.But we'll blame the kids and throw them in jail and that should make up for your loss.

noatom: I don't know how to ask this question without seeming antagonistic. But how do you know your view of "blame the parents" is not just a product of media indoctrination? What is the basis for the position of parents in our society being the be all and end all of child guidance? There are societies past and present in humans and non humans where all members of the tribe or society rear the children for the benefit of the society.

Children are influenced by so many things, it's really a cop out in the end to just say "parents are responsible!" or "personal responsibility!" Even if you judge that the parent(s) are MOST responsible (besides the fact you're now opening the door to mutliple responsiblities) is that any excuse for the rest of society to ignore the welfare of children that aren't theres? We already know that is not the case. So the question is how far does that responsibility for other children of the society go?

I must state my point of view on the topic of "games causes violence". I think it depends on a person. I have played some agressive games when I was pretty much young (actually i still consider myself as VERY young, so let's say that I mean when i was 10-13). I am that kind of person that wouldn't hurt a fly, I wouldn't even kick a dog if one would attack me... But I also know people with opposite influence from games. Every coin has two sides. Media and parents always shows that bad side, but I consider it as just an excuse for their own mistakes. I don't think it's that hard to look at the game cover and see signs that says "Violence", "Bad language", "Sex", "Drugs" etc. I remeber how my father reacted when he saw me playing such games. He didn't shout at me, he didn't take the game away. Instead he started talking with me. And I believe that's best approach, there's nothing better to talk with own child. Nowadays parents don't have time to explain things and talk with their kids.

I would also add that I lerned from games that you should always pursue your dreams and never give up. One can learn that, other that guns and drugs are fun.

Oh I also noticed that:

It's no different than placing a real gun in a kid's hands

So don't do that! If a parent won't buy a game, the kid can't play it. For me it's just simple as that o.O

@Hypnotron

What exactly is the point of this discussion? noatom said practically the same thing I did.

Also this thing

The reason parents are not held responsible is because it would be the first chink in the armor of the "personal responsibility" doctrine

You do remember that until the person turns adult 18-21 years old parent has the final say. Of course when the person turns 13, 16 or 18 parent is not exactly in same position as earlier, but still responsible. And then we have the other issue which is piracy, where anyone can get unsitable content illegally and for free, and also in this case user or his parent is responsible for doing this.

There wasn't single case of someone going crazy because he played a violent video game, ever.

If you are 10 and you steal a toy parent has final say? I don't know what that means.

I'm saying the child is still the one who is going to get in trouble with the law. Not the parent. In the U.S.A at least, the child will be charged with the crime and face legal punishment.

My point about the "personal liability doctrine" is regarding this robotic mantra we site about "personal responsibility." If suddently we start sending parents to jail for crimes committed by their children, you throw that doctrine out the window. That wont ever happen because of the political dogma we preach. Do a mental exercise and consider what starts to unravel there if you start charging the parents. Parents that are both working just to provide basic necessities. Parents that say "Why am I responsible? I see my kid one hour before school and one hour before bed!" Everyone else has more influence on my kid than I do! If these parents are still ultimately responsible for their childs actions then it's for no logical basis other than they are the legal guardians.

What other reasonable basis is there?

My position is that all of society must be responsible for the welfare of the children being raised in it. This includes media producers. And to be clear (and to reitterate for the xth time) I'm not just talking about video game violence. I'm talking about media in general. I'm not talking about violence either. I'm talking generally about virtues and vices that children pick up.

If you are 10 and you steal a toy parent has final say? I don't know what that means.

Parent is responsible for teaching you to not do these thing and to be nice to others and say 'thank you', etc, etc. Anywhere in the world you will get in trouble for stealing.

Parents that say "Why am I responsible? I see my kid one hour before school and one hour before bed!"

These are idiotic parents that are the root of todays problem. Parents are ALWAYS responsible for their kids actions.

This is one of the more ridiculous posts I've ever seen, ever.

You're using your own personal experiences to draw conclusions that are asinine, and then anyone who responds to you using their own personal experiences, you instantly switch positions that "personal experience doesn't matter, it just reinforces your opinion." You also go on with some ridiculous claims like (paraphrased) "putting a gun in a kids hand in a video game is the same as them having a real gun, because it sounds and looks the same." (also as a side note, you claimed that a child would be responsible for stealing a toy in the US, which is actually flat out wrong - any crimes committed by a child require restitution by the parent or guardian, however at the 18th birthday the parent/guardian can petition the state/county/city/federal court to shift the fiscal responsibility to the adult, now that they've legally reached adulthood.)

First, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you've never been forced into a position where you had to actually shoot someone, so your logic here is pretty disrespectful to those who have. Taking another persons life, in reality (not in video games, movies, tv shows, cartoons, et cetera), is a MAJOR thing. Why do you think that even those who've been professionally trained to the best of their countries ability (any country) still suffer from PTSD from real life combat? If it's so real, shouldn't people playing video games, watching movies, and consuming the media you're chastising experience PTSD at an equal rate? If so, half our population would be catatonic from games like BF3/Halo/COD and movies like Saving Private Ryan or Kill Bill or basically anything where anyone kills someone.

Second, let's go ahead and agree that mass media in general (this includes all forms, including videogames) is in a pretty sad state. It's easy to see when shows like Jersey Shore are popular, or the long-lasting decline of the Discovery/TLC/History channels (Honey Boo Boo deson't belong on the learning channel, storage wars/pawn stars etc do not belong on the history channel.) But let's step back and remember that consumption drives creation when you're a business. Why did we stop showing the formation of the universe, or explaining the processes of childbirth with 3D MRIs of fetal development stages to show Honey Boo Boo, or Entourage, or The Wire or Breaking Bad. Because that's what people want to watch, the companies would go out of business if they didn't provide it.

Third, personal responsibility is basically what makes us humans. I agree that in the time we're alive (and, historically pretty much forever as far as I know.) Human beings are pretty terrible to each other. Things like rape, murder, assaults, fraud, theft - pretty much all of those are directly beneficial to one person and detrimental to others. The simple fact is that we're not in the utopia of humanity that Gene Roddenberry envisioned for the Star Trek universe. You can't pretend that asking companies to go out of business by providing edutainment when that's not what the populace is asking for right now, isn't a little short sighted.

Finally, let's be completely totally honest, and use what you hate - personal experience. I've played violent video games basically my entire life, I love violent movies (especially war epics, and post-apocalypse survival tales) they're so different from reality that they're an interesting experience for me. I'm not a violent person, I've only ever hurt another person (or animal, or anything) in self defense, and if you think you can tell me my personal experience of having to take someone else's life in defense of my own is irrelevant to the topic, you're too angry or delusional to reach logically. In fact, I tend to go out of my way to protect other people (even complete strangers.) It also so happens that some of my best and closest friends happen to be your typical 'hero' archtypes (firefighters, emergency medical workers, all sorts of first responders actually including law enforcement, my family has a military history, and I know my fair share of doctors, scientists, et cetera - as well as what most people would consider skeezy - people who might sell weed, or maybe just are highschool drop outs covered in tattoos.) Guess what? Most of them are completely decent people, and every single one of them likes violent movies and video games, for the exact reason I stated - it's an interesting experience that we all know isn't real.

People have got to stop blaming companies, media, guns, celebrities, whatever - for the problems that our society is having. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, our society as a whole has systemic problems throughout it. Education and parental involvement in a childs development are absolutely required. My ancedotal evidence would be that myself, and all the people I know who are good people - we all were raised by very good parents, involved in our lfies, allowed us to learn and grow, et cetera - and most of us, myself included - didn't come from well off families. I went to public school, both my parents worked, but they raised me to be responsible for my own actions, and shaped my moral system. Stop blaming everyone else, the problem starts and stops with the child and his or her own parents (or guardians), if you want to make a difference, you don't need to try to change the media. That's a top down approach (that if you haven't noticed, has been proven to be pretty ineffective at changing anything at all.) If you want to help, go find a kid who needs a mentor, and help them become a better person. If other people follow suit (even if it's just that kid, when he grows up, helping other kids, who will help other kids when they grow up) you will eventually cause the slow, gradual bottom-up change that's necessary for a permanent paradigm shift. You're trying to fix the effect, you need to fix the cause. If you're not mentoring or helping a child who doesn't have a good role model, and you're posting arguments like this online, you're part of the problem - not the solution.

This is absolutely all I have to say on the subject, and I will not respond to this thread again.