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So when he turns 8 and starts wasting innocent bystanders for fun, do you take the game away?

by minouye 16y ago

chrischen 16y ago
I thought the point of the article was that the kid didn't waste innocent bystanders. In fact, he apologized for it when he accidentally did it. I'm sure if he keeps playing it one day he'll do the missions and be exposed to the bad stuff, but by then I'm sure he'd be able to distinguish between game and real life.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  He didn't waste innocent bystanders during the particular play session(s) the blog post was documenting. True. But that's irrelevant and distinct from the notion of whether he will be more likely to do it at some future point in life, or do other related actions which result from a lack of empathy for other human beings, or a lack of understanding of negative consequences, or the permanance of harm in the real world. I hear a lot of black-vs-white arguments in debates around this issue, but the problem is that it's not about black or white states or actions. Yes, having a 4 year old play GTA will not instantly turn him into a monster. And a kid can become a monster without ever playing GTA. Neither of those data points disproves a range of other possible negative effects that have shades of gray impact in the real world.
  - chrischen 16y ago
    > He didn't avoid these things because I told him he counldn't try them. It just never occurred to him to commit these acts. Does the game cause kids to go bad or is the game simply a litmus test for evil? The little baby kid didn't waste bystanders because the game doesn't tell you to do that. Perhaps your first instinct is to kill innocent bystanders when you think of sandbox style worlds... but for this kid apparently it's not. Even if it was, the game wouldn't be at fault. I'm pretty sure even if he did the missions, and understood the dialogue, he wouldn't be made to do such things because the missions don't usually have you kill innocent people.

So when he turns 8 and starts wasting innocent bystanders for fun, do you take the game away?

by minouye 16y ago

So when he turns 8 and starts wasting innocent bystanders for fun, do you take the game away?

I thought the point of the article was that the kid didn't waste innocent bystanders. In fact, he apologized for it when he accidentally did it. I'm sure if he keeps playing it one day he'll do the missions and be exposed to the bad stuff, but by then I'm sure he'd be able to distinguish between game and real life.

mkramlich 16y ago
He didn't waste innocent bystanders during the particular play session(s) the blog post was documenting. True. But that's irrelevant and distinct from the notion of whether he will be more likely to do it at some future point in life, or do other related actions which result from a lack of empathy for other human beings, or a lack of understanding of negative consequences, or the permanance of harm in the real world. I hear a lot of black-vs-white arguments in debates around this issue, but the problem is that it's not about black or white states or actions. Yes, having a 4 year old play GTA will not instantly turn him into a monster. And a kid can become a monster without ever playing GTA. Neither of those data points disproves a range of other possible negative effects that have shades of gray impact in the real world.
- chrischen 16y ago
  > He didn't avoid these things because I told him he counldn't try them. It just never occurred to him to commit these acts. Does the game cause kids to go bad or is the game simply a litmus test for evil? The little baby kid didn't waste bystanders because the game doesn't tell you to do that. Perhaps your first instinct is to kill innocent bystanders when you think of sandbox style worlds... but for this kid apparently it's not. Even if it was, the game wouldn't be at fault. I'm pretty sure even if he did the missions, and understood the dialogue, he wouldn't be made to do such things because the missions don't usually have you kill innocent people.