No, i don't the controllable urge to rip people's spin out after playing MK.

I think the public would be better served with warning labels regarding not the content of the game, but rather the likelihood of gamers sitting for dozens or hundreds or even thousands of hours playing the game, getting fat.

Here in California, the legislature is out of control. They have the Stalinist mentality that "Uncle Joe" is here to save you from yourself so we get all sorts of crazy and stupid legislation that the governor has to veto.

I can remember playing doom for the first time like it was yesterday. I was so pumped after a few hours of killing some of mars most fearsome beasts that I couldnt wait to test out my newfound skills on the new assault on our planet.
I waited outside behind the shed close to my parents house with my newfound handy chainsaw. At promptly 5:30, they both pulled into the driveway to find me hulking towards them with my new weapon roaring their deaths. After their quick and messy demise, I moved on to the neighbors dog, and then pulled out my double barrel shotgun to take care of the neighbors wailing daughter. And then? The rest of the world, because hell on earth wasnt going to kill it'self, now was it?

BlahBlahBlah. I'm so tired of all these politically correct douchebags trying to forcefeed us their version of saftey.

It's no ones business what games I play. If you say playing games cause violence then so do movies. Movies are worst than games.

You get just as fat watching movies all day long as you would playing video games.

And cool breeze, why do you care if I get fat anyway?

Bunch of communist trying to control everything.

games are better then tv, most games make you think (at least about how to kill the other guy), tv doesnt do that, you just watch. any brain activity is better then no brain activity. put health warnings on Congressman Joe Baca's mouth please.

I feel the need to run someone off the road and see how big of a wreck I can make after hours of Burnout and I feel the need to jack a car after hours of GTA IV. NOT!!!!!!! Whatever all their views are I remember watching the Three Stooges and seeing them run a saw over someone’s head and also hitting them with a hammer but no one said that was bad......how times change as you get in trouble and the law can take your kids for spanking them in public now. Wow lets go back a few years and see the differences if they want to point fingers they need to look at their laws they are making!!!!

I seriously thought they were going to say that playing games makes you fat and have no friends. It would be a better warning that anything about violence in games.

Wait, wait, wait. Who's failed to live up to a responsibility here? He mentioned them... parents.

Parents decide what their children do, not the world outside. Or at least responsible parents do. Until we make parents responsible (as they once were) for their childrens' actions, nothing here will get solved.

And oh ya... video games don't cause trouble kids. Trouble kids are a product of their parents.

just a cool thing to know.. the original hulk in that pic [lou ferrigno] graduated from brooklyn tech, the same hs as me! coolio

I raised my kids on video games. My one daughter has downs syndrome. Video games have helped her immensely. I voted yes on prop 8, even though I am liberal by nature, because these local politicians are getting way out of hand. Hey Baca, why dont you worry about the green moss that is now appearing on our CA roads? Do something usefull or I'll fire your ass, being that I am a taxpayer.

Ya know, people have been complaining about one thing or another for years. Elvis caused children to be disobediant and turn into little pinko-commies. KISS and AC/DC were satanists leading children to the devil... ARGH!

As games technologies develop, so do social rulesets imposed by all those that "think" they know better. When children used to get in fights at school, normally you'd go to the principal's office and a slap on the wrist, in whatever form that might take. Now, you are carted away in handcuffs and now have a record, regardless of whether or not you started it... because all violence is wrong. Again, I say ARGH! When you sorepress base emotions in one way or another, they have a tendancy to fester and become something more than when they started.

Games, IMHO, allow for a healthy release. Ok, so you can't beat the hell out of a bully at school in fear of being arrested; fine, turn on some old school MK or Quake (with the Scourge of Armegon expansion... w000!) and let the fragfest begin. An hour later, you are good to go.

The only reason those little bastards pull out the real firepower and go crazy at school is because they weren't allowed to play video games at home. Thanks a lot Gov't.

(Disclaimer: the kinds probably had real issues... I was making a point. Want to flame, call your congressman)

^+1

The fuc...ing govt is just looking for new ways of make money for hes own ...how he calls or send warning emails to companies that make violent videogames like sierra or other well reputated companies and ask for hes advice services regarding the new violent game the company sierrra is making so then they charge for those advices to them in order to say yeah they have our good rating system approved because we personaly advice about potencial bad material that in not in the game anymore... motherf... go steal somewhere else money ...u fat porn addict...

i still think violence in tv and movies does more mental damage.

this is stupid they might as well put warning on all the war shown of the tv news, that affect kid just as much, or why not do it to all the violent movies?
This is just the older generation still not liking the fact the younger gens like game often more than movies and they can't understand it.

After reading the article.... "good grief"...

Being a native English speaker from Europe, when I read these kinds of articles the first thing that pops to mind is... "only in America" not to offend the true honest to God goodhearted Americans but after seeing warning labels on the rear view mirrors that state "Objects in this mirror are closer than they seem" and hearing how a woman fried her pet in the microwave and sued the company whose product the microwave oven was for not having a warning "Do not attempt to dry your pets in this oven" written in their manual... well... Crazy stuff.

Anyhow... as common as the "only in America" phrase is in Europe I would like to point out that like in many cases this is yet another one of those cases where it boils down to bad parenting.

In Europe this is also a very current issue.

As parents are becoming more and more restrained by law to discipline their children appropriately and a lot of parents just do not raise their kids properly at all (Which usually doesn't require THAT much disciplining at all unless you are too late.. plus I do not mean by any means that disciplining should always be physical.)

Anyhow... due to the fact that parents seem to have stopped caring to raise their "brood/spawn/offspring/children" appropriately and the law restricting them to simply spank or perhaps creatively discipline a child (read: firmly tap the child's bottom to let it know it's wrong, not physically hurt the child... or think of a solution that would make the child realize it's done something wrong... ie no tv, no computer games or whatever.)

By law for instance in The Netherlands the children can call a children hotline and report their parents ... reports have come in quite frequently that the children "report" their parents for not letting them watch tv and make up a story if they have to ...

By this overall we put too much power and faith in other people's opinions.

Think about it. If a complete stranger would stand up and say that you molested them verbally or even physically and enough people would believe him or her, you would be sentenced and sent to jail or just publicly labeled to be something you are not... cause after all you never met the person.

Restricting humanity by tons and tons of rules is definitely not the answer.

Have parents start by taking parenting classes before being allowed to have children ... or somehow think of a plan to get parents to actively be involved in raising their children again and watch the numbers of crimes committed, school shootouts, social outcasts etc drop beyond belief.

In my opinion if you think hard enough you will see that a great many things balance on people simply fulfilling their duty as a parent.

And slightly more directly on topic:
THE GAMES ARE LABELED MATURE or 18+.... this should already suggest you should not buy the games for your children.

Point of view:
The fact that a game is labeled mature or some such already suggests you should not buy it for your children and games are not a danger to your health unless it becomes something other than a game to the person playing it. (aka when the mental barrier and understanding that a game is not reality fades due to the child not knowing the difference because its never been told the difference or because the person in question is mentally ill....)

Realize though that the crimes that are usually committed and get linked to a video game are not committed due to the content of the video game, but because the person playing the video game is disturbed.



POINT:
PARENTING!

Clarification on the Children's hotline point: Children have been known to report their parents and come up with the most amazing stories that later turn out to be a lie... stories of abuse and the likes. While the underlying reason is simply that they wish to go to bed whenever they please and do whatever they want.

I'm not saying that this hotline is a bad idea, as it has revealed many cases of actual child abuse and domestic violence and such.

However I AM saying that in those cases where kids report their parents unjustly it should be investigated before it becomes some kind of spectacle or the kids are removed from the home or some other extreme course of action is taken..

You have to realize that in these cases it's not even the child's fault per se, as it's not aware of the full extent of what lying about something of this magnitude can and will do to a family.

But still... offering endless possibilities and warning signs and labels is no answer... there is a thing called common sense. USE IT.

And as for the messages I have posted I want you all to realize I do not mean to offend or upset... it's just that bad parenting is a very important issue that NEEDS to be addressed.

(I myself have come from a broken family, parents divorced and children in many cases neglected or exposed to responsibilities that should not be put on a kid's shoulders so all of this is coming from somewhere besides thin air....)

I am sick and tired of the constant crap I hear about in regards to video games and people's health. The problem is not the game, it's the parents and the government.

I live in Australia, and much like the US, it seems that the sole purpose of a teenager is to make themselves blind drunk and wreak havoc on the community. The problem is that this mentality and this behaviour is causing these issues. People that go out and kill people might be basing it on a game, but they are clinically unstable, diagnosed as sociopaths or whatever. You don't see Grandpa Ted who waited to get married before having sex for the first time put on a top that goes past his knees and a big dollar sign round his neck, hold up a 7-11 with a desert eagle down his CK boxers which coincidentally sits three inches above his jeans, do you?

The parents are at fault because they let their kids grow up with bad influences, whether it is letting them mix with the wrong crowd, getting away with doing drugs or criminal or moral/ethical/social offences, and not smacking their child (NOT ABUSING) when they are growing up because they are afraid of who is around. The government is at fault because rather than trying to educate the public, they BAN EVERYTHING! You don't need a gun or a knife to kill someone, so banning them won't help. People can still kill themselves on a moped, so stopping teens from driving high-powered cars isn't going to help either.

They talk about labelling games for people up to the age of 18 years, so that parents can control their use. But the story TH posted a little while ago about the two 30+ year old brothers that stabbed each other over a video game also proves that this is all crap. What are they going to do then? Introduce 40+ ratings? Then you'll read about two 50 year olds get into it over a Wii game.

Like I said...they are all heading the wrong way.

The children or people who end up killing or committing a crime "due to playing a game" would otherwise ended up committing a crime or killing people anyway. However the style or the method or any other aspects of the crime or killing may be affected by a game. But the same is true for cartoons, comics, books, tv, the movies and even the animal kingdom. Their nigh demonic inspiration can come from any source... The gaming industry is not at fault as it's not spurring on the gamers to kill people or to commit crimes.

There are more research going on about influence of games on health then on anything else lately. We hear about them every week or so. One finds out that children react heavily on it, other that it doesn't others that it will reduce the violence.

The fact is, it only affects a fraction of the gaming public, just like everything else is not that bad. Cigarettes destroy your body. Watching tv, reading books, playing videogames, doing nothing only destroys about the same amount of brain cells if you do something or not. It's not like you destroy anything. With cigarettes not everyone get cancer and dies from it, there is a direct relation between cancer and smoking. And it's bad for others too.

The less than 1% of the gaming group that commits these crimes, is the same as the less than 1% of the general public.

Trying to proof there is a relation between playing games and committing crimes is the same as saying if your heart beats faster than normal, you are a criminal. Yes small children still need to learn the difference between right and wrong and if they play games at that age, they might be influenced in believing in a fake world where killing people who oppose you is the right way to handle. But I think with good parenting, a kid from any age can play any game. Yes even GTA. How many of us have played Doom or Wolfenstein 3D when we were kids? Too young to play if you try to buy the game now, you'd be stopped. We walked away with it and now we are all good citizens. There is no increased crime rate that is a by-product of playing Doom or Wolfenstein.

I'd say bad television is a bigger problem. How can you watch the marathon of The secret life of blablabla or that housewife show for 17 hours. Man that will kill you, not playing games.

I think games will help people become smarter and more creative. Better able to handle problems. Removing games will prevent creative thinking and put us back in the stone age.

I concur however the stone age ... meh.. . but in the general line of thinking I see few flaws.

When guided on the right level and taught properly a game will remain a game. (however gruesome content where heads are severed etc ... those games I would still not set my children loose upon until they are older.)

But all in all .. I believe the main issue still is parenting and/or those individuals who commit crimes being criminals ... just because they played a game before committing a crime doesn't make the game itself bad, just the person committing the crime.

Then again there are those who believe that the disney animated movie "bambi" is the work of Satan or the roots for some weird conspiracy... when can people start seeing things the way they are ? I wonder...

but bambi is evil.

Sure stone age is a bit too much but it wasn't meant as a we will go back to the caves, make stone tools. But we will go back in evolution, creative thinking will be less common, as games promote thinking outside of the box, not all games and not all gamers, but some gamers can go very far in thinking.

And while parenting is the main reason, don't forget puberty. All kids are different, I've seen children raised the same way and both result differently. Not in jail and the other in a very good job, but I see it more often then not, the kid decides how much he wants to proof himself to his friends, his environment and parents get blamed where they could not have prevented it.

Not everyone will become a university student with only top marks, go to the library to study straight to home etc. And parents can do everything in their power but in the end, the kid has to make the decision to follow the rules or break them.

But we don't need the government to take over the parenting job. If parents can't handle their kids, teachers should pick it up with meetings and how a kid behaves at school and they are the ones who should signal it. Unless you want to create some checkup system where every parent is being interviewed every week that will cost more and will prevent less.

The systems are in place, if you give the teachers more to say and a way for them to report kids that might have a problem, so someone can see if anything is wrong.

99% of the kids who shoot at schools would have done something bad with or without games, movies, internet (also a common enemy of the parents who can't control their kids).

Thank God we have the Governator on the side of reason.

Nice comparison!
Some are addicted to cigarettes, others to videogames, and they do affect health.
I mean, everyone can agree that sitting behind a desk playing violent games makes them a bit more on the edge with their emotions.
Also sitting on a chair all day can be seen as less healthy.

It is an escape from reality, that could be good if used in measures;just like alcohol.
I wouldn't go as far as to deem it 'hazardous', but I do know guys who spend their whole free time behind computer games,and apart from the chat-menu in some games,really have no social life!

I believe games are a great way of entertainment,when used in measure, but like all things they should not be used to escape reality.
And men just need to be aware of it's influences.

I mean, there are people out there that can get so agitated when they lose a simple game of 'prince of persia', and that happens more to the younger players (sub 15 years of age).

But I liked the comparison of computer games and cigarettes/liquor,since it has some similarities.

But it has been proven that Porn has influenced many Serial Killer such as Bundy yet there is no warning label on it. The only rage I get is when I read an article like this. CA wake up and vote that dork out of office is all I can say.

now if one day i turn on the tv, and see a news report of a kid performing an actual hadouken, then video games would need a label.


Now, about parenting....

What's the number of people murdered a year due soley to video games? It's probably close to the number of people killed by air, water, lint, string and suffocation by labels. All labels should be labled as hazardous. (including hazardous label labels etc.)

How about the number who die from food poisoning. All food should be labeled as hazardous. Baby bottles might contain some chemical we don't fully understand, all plastic should be labeled. Pencils contain lead... they need a label (and not just on the box.) Paper could be a suffocation hazard... label. Babies could spread/have a disease, they should get a label.

Labeled as AWESOME!

We need to put warning labels on politicians like this one:

WARNING: This nanny-state liberal fascist wants to control every aspect of your life! Do NOT give him/her money!

Can you even call somebody a "liberal fascist"? Aren't they mutually exclusive? Conservative fascist would make a lot more sense.