Video games have always been a target for something. In 1993, a senator named Joe Lieberman said that Mortal Kombat was making kids kill another. Wrong. Now in 2002, the media has yet to see that they blame almost practically everything on video games. It was blamed for many violent accidents, including the Columbine shootings and most recently, the DC Sniper attacks. What the media cannot get through their thick skulls is that it was never the video games fault for kids to go violent. The parents never bother to see what game their child gets. Maybe if they actually saw what the game was about, most attacks in our country would have never happened.
I wanted to write this Home Brewed for numerous reasons. First, I never liked how the media kept promoting games as a gore-fest for teens. Then I seriously got pissed when some "expert" on MSNBC said that games like Syphon Filter were the blame for the Sniper Shootings. I thought it was the biggest piece of bull I have ever seen. In addition, the video game industry isn’t even trying to redeem themselves to the media. They just keep on putting out games like Rainbow Six and sexual-themed games like BMX XXX and Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball.
Like I said in my introductory paragraph, its not the kids fault at all. First off, whoever would kill a mass amount of people seriously needs help. The parents don’t realize that the child has problems and continue thinking nothings wrong. That’s how shootings like this happen. The parents don’t realize anything is wrong because they don’t pay attention to the child. And of course when a child buys something like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and shoot cops and elderly women, they will try to simulate those acts because they have a messed up sense of reality. Moreover, when it’s all said and done, the parents find the game, and blame it. The media then goes on a field trip and start the rampage.
Some precautions have been taken since 1993. We now have the ESRB rating system. Games like Sesame Street can get a Ec rating, games like Mario get a E rating, games like Street Fighter get a T rating, and games like Grand Theft Auto get a M. Good idea, but guess what? It isn’t being used like it’s supposed to. Although M rated games are for ages 17 and up, a 13 year old can still easily pick one up. Sure, some stores have you display some ID before you rent/buy a game, but still very few stores that carry that policy. A few months ago my 11-year-old brother easily rented a copy of Resident Evil. Hark, we all know that Resident Evil is a gory, zombie filled, melee. Yet guess who’s to blame again? You guessed it, parents.
What I am trying to say is that there is a main reason why the media is always blaming a highly-publicized violent attack on video games. The parents. You can ask any child if his/her parents ever see what they play, and 90% of the time the answer is no. However, the other 10% say yes, their parents actually care for them enough to see that they are watching what their child is playing. By these actions, we can prevent them from ever having to consider attacking another classmate or shooting innocent people. Then maybe, just maybe, the media will finally shut their mouths and quit blaming everything on games. If that were to happen, finally, maybe video games will actually be a credible source of entertainment. Maybe even to brighten their image, video game companies like Temco and Konami will throw out their ridiculous ideas of games and start concentrating on more elaborate titles. But this will actually come true if the parents would just TALK to their children once in awhile and see what type of games they like, so they can see if there is any serious problems with the child. But the way things are going right now; parents like those are very few in reality. And that is just sad to hear.
Bryan Rose
