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| What's off-limits in games? My dad, circa 1994, would argue that this is. |
When I was probably nine or ten years old, I hijacked a relative's birthday party and made everyone in my family take a vote on whether or not it was okay to play video games where it was possible for a male character to hit a female character. My father had enacted a ban on such games, and I felt the limitation was unnecessary and condescending. So we both stated our cases.
My dad was sort of mortified that his son was taking a pro-abuse stance, even concerning virtual confrontations, and was also sort of mortified that we had taken the spotlight from the birthday celebration in order to hash out a petty parent-child dispute. However, I had forced the issue, and he had to defend his side.
I remember my dad's reasoning being very straightforward -- you're young, you're impressionable, and there are some things you shouldn't even pretend to do.
Since I was nine at the time, my argument (which I laid out with the seriousness of fucking Sam Waterston in a sweeps week Law & Order) involved several tangents ("Sometimes the girls start the fight in the game, then it's self-defense, DAD"), but the main idea was this:
It's just a game.
My relatives weren't convinced, except for my aunt and uncle, gamers themselves, who testified that the "Tekken chicks can kick some ass." The vote was held on the issue, and I was soundly trounced.
This is the reason that video games have ratings now -- so that informed parents can make decisions about what their kids play. Some parents err on the safe side, depriving their kids of all video games except for
this type of thing. Other parents are happy to let their kids murder and carjack the day away. My dad, thankfully, took the middle road.
I'm still not exactly clear on how much things like this affect us as kids, though. I mean, check this out (and turn your speakers down a bit and your cuteness shields way up):
Perhaps you have seen this. If you go to the actual YouTube page for this video, you'll find that the comments are one of three types:
A.) "Once I thought that people don't want to be sword, then I took an arrow to the knee."
B.) "Aww! Your kid is adorable!"
C.) "That child is far too young to be playing Skyrim."
At first I personally was inclined to tell the type C posters to go piss off. (More specifically, I was inclined to tell them to piss off in the form of a "then I took an arrow to the knee" comment). I mean, the parents are clearly supervising, even if they do think it's hilarious. And you can see the exact moment when the kid goes from actual fear to rationalizing the guard attack (1:06, when the look of total horror leaves her face). I gathered from articles
like this one that the family is also adequately involved in providing context for the little girl.But I guess it is weird how quickly little Dovahkiin here decides, after some banter with this unarmed NPC, that it's time to "sword him." We can't see down the road far enough to figure out if exposure to this kind of thing does have an effect on kids, but what if it does? Maybe in my hurry to be pro-game I'm actually not being reasonable.
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I am of two minds here. I do think it's important to evaluate our viewpoints on issues like this as gamers. Sometimes I find that as much as I support the industry and the people who make and play video games, I can come down on the side of games as a knee-jerk reaction in instances where censorship or violence is concerned, and this isn't necessarily useful.
But a part of me thinks that even if games can influence our minds, so can pretty much all other media (case in point). And I think that we need to keep the public aware of the fact that games can and should be about choice, consequences and creativity -- no matter what age you start playing. There's something about having the option to be evil that makes us aware of our impulses -- and, with adult supervision at an early age, couldn't this be beneficial?
My dad eventually let me play fighting games where co-ed battles occurred, but since we had had the discussion about it I realized that abuse was not an issue to take lightly. And I have a feeling if the Skyrim Kid keeps playing games throughout her life, even open-world games that allow her to do things she shouldn't in reality, as long as her parents are there along the way she should be just fine.
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