What is up, peeps! I am back after a double Hollywood dip yesterday, an Omnibus on Thursday and the Countdown on Friday. What can I say, I am a giver. So yesterday I went out looking for some video games for my new X-Box360 when once again I had one of those “parents kind of suck” moments. Now I have these once every few months or so when I go shopping for video games because for the most part no one monitors what goes on with them. Hell, no one even cares about video games until a GTA or a Mortal Kombat comes out. Meanwhile, Lesiure Suit Larry has been giving us digitized boobies for nearly two fucking decades and I never hear anyone get all up in their grill.
You know, as a gamer I am really against legislation and banning of games targeted for adults. I believe the job falls on the retailers and the parents to police what their children play. I'm sorry as but hard as being a parent is, parents need to understand that monitoring your children is YOUR job. Not the government, not Best Buy, and sure as hell not Rockstar. Stopping Rockstar from making games with violence isn't going to make children any less violent. It's just censorship, people. Besides, most violent video games are rarely purchased anyway due to quality. For every Grand Theft Auto, there is a 187: Ride or Die. Any kid that will buy attempt to buy a game solely because it has violence is not being parented or not that intelligent. To paraphrase Ron White, there is no fix for stupid.
Now this is a re-do of a blog I put up in March of 2006 about when I went to Gamestop and had to explain to a parent that getting their child a game called “25 To Life” may not be the best idea mainly because they would end up serving 25 to life if they played it. Since then, I have had to sit back and hear about the Hot Coffee scandal (to which all I can say is I had to see Samatha’s old naked ass on Sex In The City and I never got an apology for THAT), first person shooters (about the Virgina Tech shootings to which all I will say is if you cant fix stupid you sure as FUCK cant fix crazy. Tragic events but the man was not mentally healthy. Video games were only a small capture of his problems) and the Church’s beef with Sony over Resistance: Fall of Man (Um…your priests have sex with boys. Fix that first THEN worry about aliens having shoot outs in your digitized churches). You know, I honestly believe that developers have to take themselves to task for what they put out in their medium. I mean violence for the sake of violence is not cool. However…it is my CHOICE to decide what is violent. As a consumer and a video game fan it is my right and responsibility to decide not only what is healthy for me but what is healthy for my three out of wedlock bastards. I’m kidding, I have no children.
Now people have gotten in my grill (do the kids say that anymore?) about how I can’t have a truthful insight because I don’t have kids. That can be farther from the truth. I played Pokemon, a-holes! I raised 207 of them before the battery backup in the cartridge went bad and I lost them all. Unless you are Mormon or Mexican (or a Mexican Morman?) you cannot compete with my parenting skills! Maybe if you put your children in Pokeballs and had them battle to gain levels, your kids would be smarter. I’m just saying. You don’t see Pokemon mouthing off, shooting each other or getting pregnant at young ages. Hell, they stay in their ball and do as there are told, just like your kids should! Except Pikachu, but he rules all so there.
The fact is that monitoring in games is not about parenting or even parenting skills. It is about censorship. It's funny to me; I grew up during the videogame firestorm in the 90's and I had my share of violent games. They were trying to have games banned left and right from WarLords to Mortal Kombat to Sewer Shark to Night Trap. You know what? I never killed anyone. I never played Doom and decided to go on a killing spree. I never played Mortal Kombat and wanted to rip someone's heart out. You know why? Because I knew my parents would do the same to me if I even thought about it. My parents didn’t monitor me like a reality show. Yet, I never did anything out of the ordinary because of video games. Now I would scream 'HADOKEN' and make the fireball motion, but I knew that I couldnt ACTUALLY TOSS FIREBALLS. The fact is that we don’t need to run around banning games because we think kids don’t get it. You know why?
BECAUSE THE GAMES ARENT FOR KIDS!!
I bought Rumble Roses XX (Yes, I bought it. I am a lonely and desperate man!) and Gears of War when I got my X-Box360 (W00t, fishes! Fuck a PS3!) and I got ID’d for them. I am 26 years old and I got carded. I didn’t get pissed, it is what he is SUPPOSED TO DO. As a matter of fact, for every Mature game, he carded the person buying it there were a lot of people there that were buying the Crackdown game because of the Halo 3 demo (which on another note I actually like. Not really a Halo fan, but the beta rocked the box). Now, I saw three parents there buying the game for young children. I am a poor guage of ages but I would say they were all under 18. Now I am running under the theory that all retailers card their purchasers (and I can say I have always been carded) but if:
Kids can’t buy the games in stores
Kids can’t get credit cards to buy the games online
Kids can’t illegally download the games via peer to peer because parents are monitoring their kids internet usage (again, perfect world)
That would mean that the kids that always get a hold of these games that parents cause such an uproar about…were purchased by the parents themselves. Looking at this logically with the machine running as it should, there is no other way for them to get said games. There are safeguards to keep these games out of children’s hands already and if parents are usuping that then they have no on to blame but themselves.
Now the machine IS NOT perfect so I know that kids get the games from retailers. If there are rules in place to keep games away from the under 18 crowd and they don’t follow them then the RETAILER should be punished. If kids are buying the games online, where are they getting the credit card from? Its either stolen, which is a bigger issue altogether or its from the parents which once again is not the developers fault. As for the internet, if you read my MySpace and child safety rant you know that the internet is like Diddy; it can’t stop and it won’t stop. Neh eh, neh eh.
In the end, the responsibility lies with retailers to follow the rules, parents to monitor and teach their children and with the developers to consider the quality and content of the material. I do not let game companies off the hook because there are SO MANY CRAPPY GAMES OUT THERE! First off, having titties in a game is not a right, it is a privilege. Having them is a taboo because as we saw with Janet Jackson the only thing America fears more than terrorism and gays are titties. So a game with transgender terrorists in halter tops will never get made. Although I would play that if it used the Metal Gear Solid 3 engine. Back to the point, if you have nudity, excessive violence or cursing in a game to sell copies because your game sucks it dry then you should be stabbed in the face with a copy of Resident Evil 4 because that’s how you do violence right! And yes, I see the irony in that statement; that was the point. There are so many Mature games that rule all that I would never get to play if lazy parents, religious knuckle heads and Jack Thompson had their way. For all the gamers out there, if legislation for the government monitoring of video games passes these games would not be available to us:
Halo 3
Ninja Gaiden Sigma (which may be a good thing because that game is hard as FUCK)
GTA4
God of War III (That sound you heard? My fourth orgasm just thinking about it)
Heavenly Sword
Metal Gear Solid 4
Gears of War 2
Fallout
Not to mention several others! The facts are that the average age of video game players is 33 years old, which is 7 years older than I am. I have been gaming since I was…well born for the most part (Atari 2600, fool!) until last night and not ONCE have I ever contemplated violence based on it. Not ONCE have I ever emulated an act from a video game, and at least not known of the repercussions of any actions I did. Most importantly, my parents did not let me play games that they felt were not appropriate for me. I tell you, Christmas of 1994 was RUINED because I couldn’t get Mortal Kombat II. You know what? My parents raised me right and taught me that with the power to choose comes the responsibility to understand your choice and the repercussions. By taking away the right to choose the games that we as gaming adults find entertaining you are slowly taking away our liberties until all we are left with is Bubsy 3D and The Bible Game. All I have to say to that is unless Jesus is going all Kratos on the Romans I aint interested in no games with the Jew King. Hey, “Jesus of War!” Oh my god, that may be the greatest idea for a video game ever. He breaks off the cross and uses it as a weapon! How awesome (and tastily blasphemous) would that be?!
Long story slightly less long, censoring or stopping controversial games from being produced isn’t going to solve the problem. Education, acknowledging responsibility and monitoring will. Besides, who decides what is controversial? Mario Bros. had mushroom and flowers that gave you magic powers and ducks in turtle shells. Is that REALLY controversial? It is if you have done drugs and BOY HAVE I DONE DRUGS! It’s why I love the game so damn much. God of War had naked women and violence. It is documented that the Greek gods were a violent bunch. Not like they held hands, picked snapdragons and sang “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey all damn day. They were fucking assholes. Is being historically accurate controversial (okay, the accuracy of Greek gods is debatable but so is Jesus being the son of God so there)? Like I said, educate kids on what is going on in the games and if you believe they can't handle it THEN keep them from it. I find it awkward how parents don't want strangers to tell them they are being a bad parent, but by the government censoring what you feel isn’t worth your time to monitor is okay. By doing that, you are saying that you can't do your job as a parent and that you need to take the rights away of law abiding citizens because you cant make sure there are no titties in a video game. Congratulations, you are a fucktard. Ignorance, its spreading peeps.
You know I don’t like getting on my soapbox (riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight) but this has reached a boiling point with me. I am not against parents getting assistance to keep their kids safe by weeding out the bullshit, but I am against people taking my right away to play a game because the main character rips off the head of a Gorgon because they cant keep track of little Jimmy or Jessica. It isn’t they governments job to weed out the stuff that is bad for your kids. The power is YOURS!
Stay up, peeps.
Chachi Out.
