Video Games are the new heavy metal

I have noticed as I go through life that people love to blame others for what is wrong in their worlds. Parents are especially prone to this self-deluded notion (in the name of transparency, I am a parent/person and prone to such things). In my life time I have seen heavy metal music, movies, prime time tv, and now video games blamed for all our social ills.

Today's Penny Arcade makes reference of a new documentary by Spencer Halpin titled "Moral Kombat" and its trailer on You Tube. I get the feeling that this trailer is designed to get parents and gamers in to see the piece by pushing the side claiming video games cause violence. I am in hopes that the documentary itself is balanced, even if the trailer isn't.

The continual propagation of the idea that video games cause violence and that people are incapable of distinguishing between real world and the cyber world is disturbing to me. I believe that these accusations are the providence of non-gamers and people who only look at a few select cases, and say "Video Games caused that." Instead of asking, where the parents were and why they weren't aware of what their child was up to, they blame game publishers, retailers, and gamers themselves.

So I ask, where are the parents? My parents spent a lot of time making sure I wasn't getting into things that were inappropriate for my age (of course they didn't always succeed, but I knew what I wasn't allowed). As they allowed me to grow into things (i.e. horror films, etc.) they would make sure I understood that it wasn't real, and violence against people is unacceptable. Hell, they used to make sure I understood that W. E. Coyote would be one dead dog in real life. Why isn't this occurring? Why are parents allowing their kids to play games like GTA-San Andreas (M for mature, now AO-adults only)? I don't have answers. I'm just asking. Dr. Phil I am not.

I have been gaming for all but 6 years of my life (the Atari showed up around 6), I am not violent even though I play violent games. In my opinion, those games allow me to work through the inherent human tendencies toward violence. It relaxes me to knock off some cyber beasties. As a parent, I research games, before my kids play them and as a gaming parent, I avoid playing really violent games when my kids are around. I also explain to my son that we can do things in games that can't be done in real life. Isn't that my obligation?

Back to the documentary, I love the fact that Joe Lieberman is so concerned about gaming violence when he voted to allow a war. I believe the word for that is hypocrisy. Jack Thompson has already made a name for himself as a hater of the 1st amendment by going after 2 Live Crew and N.W.A. back in the 90's. Anyway, I could go on all day about this stuff. The snarky side of me likes the Penny Arcade form of response. Too bad, the gaming industry doesn't have a Frank Zappa to point out how foolish all this is (You Tube part 1,2,3,4).