Not Again! Another Games Rant in the Newspaper!

[Cauterize]

This was in todays Daily Mail! Why cant they leave games alone for once!

[Cmosfm]

Well, he DOES have a Dreamcast controller in his hands....



What can you do? People are always looking for something or someone else to blame for something. There kids are failing school, it's gotta be those DAMN video games.

[thegreatescape]

He's got my number on the sleep thing... Infact its almost 3AM as I write this and I was just playing a quick-fire, adrenailne pumping game of Enemy Territory

[Vroomfunkel]

Man .. why are you even reading that trash-rag anyway?

"Do computer games harm children? Tell us your view at www.dailymail.co.uk"

I'm sure that a few people here could balance the perspective up a little!

Vroomfunkel

[Cauterize]

Well, he DOES have a Dreamcast controller in his hands....

I was gonna mention that too.. usually u see a Playstation Pad.... quite unusual!
Either way im fed up of this blame games issue!

[PentiumMMX]

That's crap!

I played "Rampage: World Tour", and I did not go and destroy a town in real life.

I played "Mortal Kombat", and I did not go beat up somebodyto see if 3 gallons of blood will come out.

I played "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night", and did not go and kill zombies.

I even played "Final Fantasy 7", and did not try to destroy the world by building Mako Reactors.

[Cauterize]

That's crap!

I played "Rampage: World Tour", and I did not go and destroy a town in real life.

I played "Mortal Kombat", and I did not go beat up somebodyto see if 3 gallons of blood will come out.

I played "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night", and did not go and kill zombies.

I even played "Final Fantasy 7", and did not try to destroy the world by building Mako Reactors.

I played Leisure Suit Larry and i didnt go rou....... infact wait a minture....

[IntvGene]

I love these stock photos they get of people playing video games. I've never met anyone who plays a game with the joystick above their shoulder blades. I mean, he can barely see the screen... Holding the joystick above your head, does not make your character go up.

[crazyjackcsa]

Bah, Who reads the Daily Mail anyway, may as well be in the Enquirer. Anyway a while back,a show on the Discovery channel called Daily planet did a segment on how videogames actaully improve a childs capacity to absorb knowledge visuallly from multiple sources at the same time, and this neat little ability to not have to count to 5.I forget what it was called, but if a person sees say two apples, they know it is two apples, they don't have to count. The average person can do that to three. The average gamer can do that to five. I forget what the skill was called.

[MegaDrive20XX]

I love these stock photos they get of people playing video games. I've never met anyone who plays a game with the joystick above their shoulder blades. I mean, he can barely see the screen... Holding the joystick above your head, does not make your character go up.

Hey you're right. That photo is fake. I have never seen a kid do that before and the serious look on his face is so priceless.

Kind of reminds me of how anti-tobacco companies always have that "pin-up" victim to make the audience feel guilty.

And you know they are doing it to attract readers by siding the parents who can't stand video games.

I find it funny this article was posted after the holidays...you'd rarely catch these people during Christmas sales now would you?

[Cauterize]

Bah, You reads the Daily Mail

I know what you mean... Its my parents who get it everyday, i just have a glance at the Football while eating my breakfast... i happened to see this today thou.

[josekortez]

That's nothing. During the past week, there have been a rash of people slitting tires down here, and the woman on the news blamed the success of Tony Hawk's Underground 2 for it, even though I don't see the correlation.

[Lucifersam1]

I teach at the high school level. ALL my students play video games until the wee hours of the morning. However, the ones who under achieve do so, from my experience, not because of video games, but the family environment, outside stresses, and peer expectations. People are always looking for scapegoats (video games are often the target). Why not look a little deeper and discover the truth. Just my two cents.

I have a better relationship with many students because I play games, and can connect with them.

[Xexyz]

I gotta give mad props to that kid. It's 2005 and he is playing a Dreamcast. A young kid that knows what a quality console is, amazing

[Lady Jaye]

well, it could also be a stock photo going back 5 years...

[vultar]

I personally agree that young kids shouldn't have TVs and game systems in their rooms; because, parents really do need to know what their kids are into, and they need to be able to monitor how much time the kids are spending playing games and watching TV so they can make sure the kids are also doing thier homework, playing outside, etc. as well.

That being said, this article is such bull, like all the rest of them that pop up from time to time. I'd love to know where all of these psychotic people are; everyone around here seems pretty dang normal. The game industry has had around 30 years to create a world full of crazy, anti-social, amoral dropouts determined to bring anarchy to the world. I don't know about anyone else, but from my experience it doesn't seem like the world domination plan is working out to well.

Finally, anyone know why a fertility doctor is doing research on child psychology?

[Crush Crawfish]

Hmmm... :notes severe general lack of sleep:

:notes waaaay too much time spent playing video games:

:notes 3.7 GPA:

:dances a happy jig:

[lendelin]

The thing consists of babble. Nothing else. It is assumptions, speculations and political agenda in science clothing.

The truth is: there is NO empirical evidence that volent games lead to violent behavior. This is the result of 15 years of empirical research.

School performance? In the end they reduced the cause to a lack of sleep. The cause then is not videogames. If a child doesn't sleep enough because it reads adventure novels and children's books, I think we would not get the headline 'Reading books leads to bad grades.'

Short term attention span and not be able to focus over a longer period of time? Geez, I wanna see the "study" of that one. So far, there is no empirical evidence of this either. The article gives a hint of a biased sample anyway, referring to 'quick' fire games only. What about other genres like RPgs, puzzlers, platformers, all which require endurance? and I bet no control variables and test groups were used either.

It is babble. If academics have a political agenda they turn into idiots like everyone else. In the US we have Anderson from the University of Iowa who does the same over the top, biased studies, severly flawed, with ridiculous over the top conclusions consisting of mere speculations.

It is babble and nonsense. In twenty years from now people will smile about this stuff.

[Lone_Monster]

Blech. I'm the gamer in my family, and I get great grades.

My brother however, is the "jock", and his grades suck.

[Push Upstairs]

It is babble and nonsense. In twenty years from now people will smile about this stuff.

I just read it and i am already laughing at it.

I don't have any problems focusing on things and i have played games alot longer than the "kids" in the "study" mentioned in that "paper".

[lendelin]

I personally agree that young kids shouldn't have TVs and game systems in their rooms; because, parents really do need to know what their kids are into, and they need to be able to monitor how much time the kids are spending playing games and watching TV so they can make sure the kids are also doing thier homework, playing outside, etc. as well.

That being said, this article is such bull, like all the rest of them that pop up from time to time. I'd love to know where all of these psychotic people are; everyone around here seems pretty dang normal. The game industry has had around 30 years to create a world full of crazy, anti-social, amoral dropouts determined to bring anarchy to the world. I don't know about anyone else, but from my experience it doesn't seem like the world domination plan is working out to well.

Finally, anyone know why a fertility doctor is doing research on child psychology?

Aditionally, hard facts show that teenagers convicted of crimes are by far less exposed to violent movies, videogames, and TV shows than the average teenager. This is a mere correlation, not a causal relationship, however. I'm not saying that playing less violent games lead to crime and agressivity like these political propagandists do based on questionable correlations. However, the alarm bells of these concerned child activists should go on looking at these facts. May it be that parents, a home, and especially peer groups are the key to influence a kids behavior? Nah, that can't be, this is way too far fetched.

[Graham Mitchell]

As a med student who's taken epidemiology, I can honestly say that Lord Asswipe has no goddamn clue what he's doing.

Did they take into account the fact that particular kids might play fast-paced twitch games BECAUSE they have short attention spans? That's a serious flaw in their research, and any journal would throw that out immediately.

I'm positive I played more video games than ANYONE in my high school graduating class, and I'm one of the mere 30 out of 300 in that class who isn't working at the same job they've had since their sophomore year.

Over the holidays, I was in Seattle visiting some old friends of the family, who I believe have done a total crap job raising their children. They won't allow them to have a PS2 or an Xbox, which they ask for every year for christmas. Instead, they got BB guns. 8 and 10 year old kids with BB guns. Last year they were shooting them in their bedroom, and at animals outside. The point to this rant is that, in the course of dinner, their father griped to me about how kids with Gameboys "don't interact with other kids". Let me tell you: if you took away the Gameboy, those kids would still refuse to interact with other kids. It's an issue of personality type. Plus, look at me; I'm socially adept enough to get into med school. Before kids like this had video games, they were probably reading sci-fi or some other nerdy thing. It incenses me that people have just given up on actually teaching kids anything, and instead resort to hiding them from things that they disapprove of (like video games) and surround them with guns, Eminem CD's, and sports so they can learn to compete and tear the shit out of each other, and pick on those with less athletic prowess.

[slip81]

I played "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night", and did not go and kill zombies.

I even played "Final Fantasy 7", and did not try to destroy the world by building Mako Reactors.

You don't know what fun is then my friend

[Famidrive-16]

I dunno, it isn't as bad as the editorial cartoon of this evil scientist guy hooking a kid up to a brainwashing machine and going 'I CAN MAKE THESE GAMES FREEDOM OF SPEECH'

[Ed Oscuro]

Man .. why are you even reading that trash-rag anyway? O_O

Haha, the Brits @ GameSpy Forums are always bashing it. For example:

In Reply To #29
Daily Mail, probrably our most reliable paper, compared to The Sun, Mirror and Daily Star

In Reply To #58 Snidely:You're right. The Daily Mail. Our most reliable daily instalment of news. Way superior to, say, The Observer, The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, or any other newspaper which isn't written in words of one syllable!
All Hail The Mail, Daily Assortment of Crap!

Yeah, I forgot most of our population are still Daily Mail reading semi-fascist morons.

[Pretty sure I didn't take this one out of context![/url]

In Reply To #42 Daily Mail Headline GeneratorIt remains incomplete due to the fact that the author realised that almost all Mail headlines use the same structures. Also check out the other stuff, the Blunkett policy generator is awesomesauce.

The one that always makes me laugh:

[quoteIn England we have something called the Daily Mail. If it says that Nunchucks will kill all our children and that the Nazi party are alright then Nunchucks get cut from films and we all shout Sieg Heil.

I always figured Daily Mail readers did the latter regardless.

HEIL HOWARD o/[/quote]

The Daily Mail is a nice paper, generally giving fair and impartial views on many things, though every paper in Britain is either Pro-Labour or Pro-Conservative in one way or another.

But when the Mail gets a stick up their ass, Jesus do they ever whinge. Especially on games for some reason...

:P