Parents

From memory I don't think I can recall posting on the subject of violence and the way in which video game violence is controlled. This post will include my thoughts on control via reference to a very interesting article.

Gameculture.com features an article about a Los Angeles family that remodeled their home, with a twist. The whole house is set up via a network of touch screen panels and the like so that the mum, (who obviously won a friggin' huge divorce settlement), could monitor what her little children are watching, playing or searching on the internet. This link shows pictures of several areas of the house, including the 103 inch plasma: http://www.electronichouse.com/slideshow/category/7791/1126

What this article achieved was that it cemented the notion of fragile parental control methods. It is all very well to rest responsibility on the parents shoulders, but the fore-mentioned article clearly represents a contradictory process of heightening realism. A 103 inch plasma? Come on. That would be like killing a dude up close, with 7.1 surround as well you pretty much seal the deal. I'm not saying that all the games that these kids play will be violent, after all the whole point of the system is to monitor this, but... These are young kids, the youngest being 5 years old and as we know from Kevin's clip in the "Violence" lecture, children's brains are constantly developing and becoming aware of their surroundings. A five year old child growing up with life size representations of fictional worlds runs the risk of becoming extremely anti-social. The convenience of having a 58 inch plasma in your room with seven different consoles is also very frightening. Unless there is a violence alarm on the system what stops these rich kids from playing Manhunt 2 when mommy is in bed. If the poor children can find violent video games so can Richie Rich and his siblings.

I am in no way trying to support Jack Thompson and his love for all things hypodermic, but that setup combined with the increasing realism in games is bound to warp some brain cells.

NICK GARRETT