So I was trying to come up with a controversial topic for my english class and I stumbled upon an article about youth gaming and the pros and cons of them and I'm considering writing my essay on it. Of course I'll be arguing in favor of video games. I figured the teacher would be sick of hearing about the war in iraq, abortion, gun control, euthanasia and all those other repeated topics and he'd like to hear about youth and gaming.
I'm wondering what you guys all think, considering you are all gamers, about youth and gaming. Is it OK? Should it be somehow more limited? Or should it just be up to their parents? Are the age ratings enough? Do children really learn stuff from it? Or is it just something to kill time? Is it even something we should care about? Are FPS's giving games a bad rep? haha
I know that in alot of eastern asian countries they take it a bit too far and some youths actually die from lack of sleep so it would probably be best if you just didnt mention those countries in your essay. (S. Korea, Japan, etc)
Its not so much the FPS which give games bad reps, its game like GTA mainly (In my country anyway)
Sorry i dont have a big pile of pros and cons but it seems pretty neutral to me, its no worse than T.V anyway, but more entertaining than T.V.
I think the responsibility comes down to the parents more so than the age restrictions because age restrictions can easily be by passed.
I'll start by saying that your teacher may have also read many papers regarding this topic. I've tutored many students who have written about it and the biggest mistake I find they make is that their focus is too broad. And they always use the same games as examples such as Doom and Grand Theft Auto.
It's kind of a challeging topic to write about cause you have to decide how much time to spend on whether violence is learned or innate. And if it's the former, then what must be done to censor violent video games and movies. Or if it's the latter, then they must be censored anyway cause they only exacerbate violent tendencies.
There's plenty of research to support either side of the argument. I don't know what kind of studies have been done recently on the effect of gaming on youth. Cause the latest rating systems as well as accepted accountability on the parents' behalf have somehwhat cooled the issue. Are you focusing on violent video games in particular? Or just all games? Cause I definitely think excessive gaming at a tender age can make kids totally uniterested in other hobbies, and that they should be more well-rounded in interests.
ouch thanks for the heads up. most the articles i read it talks about violence in games. not like are they too time consuming or are they just making us dumber. and when i think of violent i think of, well GTA, but also like gears of war. i played it for like a couple minutes and it was pretty gross. i posted the site with some pros and cons. pretty good site.
if you ask me, i'd say RPG's and RTS's enlighten people about stuff. like battle formations, history, medieval weaponry, government systems sort of. i personally always thought of games as books with visuals and that which you can interact with.
It does often seem that it is FPSs that are the ones associated with video game violence, you always here about how someone shot up their house/school/town/neighbourhood becuase of something they saw or did in say a game like Doom or Duke Nukem, its rare yo hear of someone going crazy and tearing up the place after something they saw or did is a medieval fantasy epic RPG like Diablo, im by no means saying it doesnt happen, its just rare. So does that mean an RPG like Diablo wouldnt have as much of an affect on your mental thinking/psyke as say a FPS like resistance fall of Man would? seems like from all the news reports.
video games ruin lifes, pff if a video game ruined your life there obviously wasnt much of a life to ruin.
video games teach us so much, even if at first it doesnt seem like it, take a game like diablo, im willing to bet just about everyone here can think of something that that game or series taught them that prehaps they didnt know before playing the games.
like wise for games like Dungeons and Dragons, hell i learned that a Djinni was a creature like a genie from playing DND, likewise with a Efreeti.
if you ask me, i'd say RPG's and RTS's enlighten people about stuff. like battle formations, history, medieval weaponry, government systems sort of. i personally always thought of games as books with visuals and that which you can interact with.
who didnt get their ass school in history while playing Age of Empires? AOEII tutorial campaign is Willam Wallace at Stirling and Falkirk (ok he actually lost Falkirk but if you lost that stage in the game you wouldnt finish the tutorial now would you)
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-Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth.
i'll comment on your earlier post tomorrow Siaynoq, im too dam tired right now haha. and its English 300 hmm i think that's equivilent to English 1A at a University. my community college changed the names of their classes, but its the first one you take for credit towards transfering.
Well, if that's the topic you do decide to go with, I'd be happy to go over your drafts for you. If not, I could help you come up with some other good topics for an argumentative essay.
Watching television is much the same thing except you don't get anything from tv, games, well multiplayer games, you react to other people, talking to them ect.. This would make a great topic, one I would consider if I was given the freedom to write about anything other than a freaking newsweek.
FPS's and other games, bully, GTA, ect, are the games that give the bad reputation to all games. When GTA game out I remember hearing about how games are bad for our youth, they cause them to kill people and kill themselves. This is one of those cases where the media makes such a big deal about certain problems, the kid in China that killed himself to "be with the characters I worship so much" of course he is talking about Warcraft. So thats one documented incident out of how many Warcraft gamers?? Shit more people overdose from tylenol than that. To me the arguments on games and gamers are nothing more than overblown media hype, the onlything the media is good at, or bad depending on your stance.
I say go for it, just point out how few cases of actuall violence their is, if they don't buy that then ask about tv, more people watch violence on tv, does that make them kill people? And make sure you add how games do give you lots of information that is usefull, scrabble? lol hey it works. And finally, this is college, always, always give some cons for video games, it makes your paper much more balanced rather than reading a strickly pro video game paper it will seem you have looked at both sides of the argument, maby say "It is far to easy for kids to buy M rated video games, and some games should be given a stricter rating depending on content." This will help with your credability.
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If you ever meet a hafling and a hungry dragon you dont have to outrun the dragon, you only have to outrun the hafling.
I'd like to contribute something, but I feel I'm too much of a target. I think I fit into Siaynoq's statement:
Cause I definitely think excessive gaming at a tender age can make kids totally uniterested in other hobbies, and that they should be more well-rounded in interests.
It's not that I don't enjoy doing other things, but games are often easier to start and finish, can be performed any time of the day regardless of other people's schedules, and give measurable progress. I can see that I reached lvl 50 today, that my attack was raised by 10 and now I can kill that monster five times faster.
In this case, I find games to be different from most other forms of entertainment. Sometimes I don't play to have fun now, but to have fun tomorrow. An excellent example is WoW. I farm for hours so that I can finally create my Frozen Shadoweave Set. But the farming process isn't really fun, it's a bore. It's somewhat similar to training for a sport, only that training is often enjoyable.
In regard to your paper, I think you can write it. Give me a narrowed spectrum, or else I'll write way too much for it to be fun to read.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
hm, iono i don't think its bad at all take my brother for example, he plays A LOT more consol games then ANYONE i kno. and i know a lot of gamers.
but he knows the difference between good and wrong, and he never missed a homework assignment. hes never been in trouble in school. and he's missed a overall 2 days of school, since K-grade.
so i think that it all depends on how people raised theire children. in my opinion of course and im not getting into other country or other kids because my little brother is the only one that i kno plays so much games.
and he's 6 years old ^^
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We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive. Tupac Shakur
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SICK_Paladin 95 Necromancer (12th necro)
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This is great feedback guys. Thanks a lot. My draft isn't due til next tuesday i think, but I'm actually gonna enjoy writing this one so I might actually do some research and what not. I got class in like 30 minutes, and I won't be back til tonight then I'll comment on your guys' feedback.:D
Video games don't ruin lives, they are only catalysts to those who have addictive personalities. Is it really my fault if tomorrow I go buy two swords and start hacking people because I did it in Diablo 2? Yes, it is. Diablo 2's fault? Not at all. These games are meant for Mature audiences, people who can handle such games without becoming addicted and so heavily influenced that they think its ok to kill others.
The purpose of games is to have fun, to be entertained and forget the hard days at work, or sometimes to learn more. Chess is a great game of wit and strategy and therefore you learn from it, as you can apply it to real life. Video games are not always necessarily as influential and redeeming as Chess, but they all offer different ways of release from stress. Some of us enjoy strategy games such as Age of Empires, or Rome: Total War (my favorite strategy game) which offer a more profound understanding of ancient military tactics. Some of us enjoy puzzle games, such as Tetris where the objective is to think as quick as possible and apply your quick thinking to succeed. Others enjoy role-playing in which we make a virtual character whom we better as well as play with others who enjoy that interest.
Video gaming is a much safer interest than drinking or drugs. If one becomes addicted there is not nearly as much destruction as one would generate from becoming addicted to drugs of any kind or alcohol. Because of this, gaming should be as respected and admired as any other hobby.
I'm sure you can add that somewhere in your essay Fuddy Buddy. Thats two of your paragraphs and part of your conclusion. Good luck.
I don't consider video games containing NLP. I'm pretty sure that TV does contain NLP so I consider it far more dangerous than computer games to normal people.
But when it comes to people who are a bit crazy, video games act on them faster.
if you ask me, i'd say RPG's and RTS's enlighten people about stuff. like battle formations, history, medieval weaponry, government systems sort of. i personally always thought of games as books with visuals and that which you can interact with.
I learnt alot of vocabulary from Pokemon. I learnt history and how the world runs (economics and such) from Civilization and Age of Empires.
I learnt alot of vocabulary from Pokemon. I learnt history and how the world runs (economics and such) from Civilization and Age of Empires.
Hehe, I actually learned the word fane from Diablo and successfully used it once in a Scrabble game. Someone challenged me and they lost. They thought I was adding the e at the end just to reach the triple word score.
I don't consider video games containing NLP. I'm pretty sure that TV does contain NLP so I consider it far more dangerous than computer games to normal people.
But when it comes to people who are a bit crazy, video games act on them faster.
I agree, thats what I said about video games being catalysts to those with addictive personalities. And I agree once again that Television has a TON more negative influence on people, because more than 90% requires little to no interaction. You stare into it, and take the information in without second-guessing it. Video games however require some sort of interaction whether it be just button smashing or communication with others to attain a goal.
History Channel, Discovery Channel, Colbert Report, Whose Line is it Anyways, and George Lopez (Nick-at-Night don't tease me plz) are the only things I watch on television, and most of it is not daily. History and Discovery are pretty much the only redeeming qualities on television.
If someone is going to go out and kill someone else, they were going to do it regardless of whether they played video games or not.
That's all there is to it.
The age rating system is fine and whether children play mature games should be up to their parents and absolutely no one else, especially not stores or the law.
The age rating system is fine and whether children play mature games should be up to their parents and absolutely no one else, especially not stores or the law.
You sir, are an intellegent person. I played Diablo 1 the first time when I was 8, and Diablo 2 not too long after. Its all in the parenting, if your kid goes out and kills others its not because of chemical imbalances or anything else. It's because as parents they failed. An interesting fact about kids who kill others is that the parents were not always there.
I saw two X-Rated movies and more R-rated movies when I was like 8 and I played stuff like Quake and whatever... I think people who watch or do stuff like that at early age either don't comprehend it or ignore it...
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I'm wondering what you guys all think, considering you are all gamers, about youth and gaming. Is it OK? Should it be somehow more limited? Or should it just be up to their parents? Are the age ratings enough? Do children really learn stuff from it? Or is it just something to kill time? Is it even something we should care about? Are FPS's giving games a bad rep? haha
So yeah, I'd like your feedback, thanks;)
http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_effect.shtml kinda sums up the pros and cons.
Its not so much the FPS which give games bad reps, its game like GTA mainly (In my country anyway)
Sorry i dont have a big pile of pros and cons but it seems pretty neutral to me, its no worse than T.V anyway, but more entertaining than T.V.
I think the responsibility comes down to the parents more so than the age restrictions because age restrictions can easily be by passed.
It's kind of a challeging topic to write about cause you have to decide how much time to spend on whether violence is learned or innate. And if it's the former, then what must be done to censor violent video games and movies. Or if it's the latter, then they must be censored anyway cause they only exacerbate violent tendencies.
There's plenty of research to support either side of the argument. I don't know what kind of studies have been done recently on the effect of gaming on youth. Cause the latest rating systems as well as accepted accountability on the parents' behalf have somehwhat cooled the issue. Are you focusing on violent video games in particular? Or just all games? Cause I definitely think excessive gaming at a tender age can make kids totally uniterested in other hobbies, and that they should be more well-rounded in interests.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
if you ask me, i'd say RPG's and RTS's enlighten people about stuff. like battle formations, history, medieval weaponry, government systems sort of. i personally always thought of games as books with visuals and that which you can interact with.
video games ruin lifes, pff if a video game ruined your life there obviously wasnt much of a life to ruin.
video games teach us so much, even if at first it doesnt seem like it, take a game like diablo, im willing to bet just about everyone here can think of something that that game or series taught them that prehaps they didnt know before playing the games.
like wise for games like Dungeons and Dragons, hell i learned that a Djinni was a creature like a genie from playing DND, likewise with a Efreeti.
who didnt get their ass school in history while playing Age of Empires? AOEII tutorial campaign is Willam Wallace at Stirling and Falkirk (ok he actually lost Falkirk but if you lost that stage in the game you wouldnt finish the tutorial now would you)
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
and elfen we already talked quite a bit
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
FPS's and other games, bully, GTA, ect, are the games that give the bad reputation to all games. When GTA game out I remember hearing about how games are bad for our youth, they cause them to kill people and kill themselves. This is one of those cases where the media makes such a big deal about certain problems, the kid in China that killed himself to "be with the characters I worship so much" of course he is talking about Warcraft. So thats one documented incident out of how many Warcraft gamers?? Shit more people overdose from tylenol than that. To me the arguments on games and gamers are nothing more than overblown media hype, the onlything the media is good at, or bad depending on your stance.
I say go for it, just point out how few cases of actuall violence their is, if they don't buy that then ask about tv, more people watch violence on tv, does that make them kill people? And make sure you add how games do give you lots of information that is usefull, scrabble? lol hey it works. And finally, this is college, always, always give some cons for video games, it makes your paper much more balanced rather than reading a strickly pro video game paper it will seem you have looked at both sides of the argument, maby say "It is far to easy for kids to buy M rated video games, and some games should be given a stricter rating depending on content." This will help with your credability.
It's not that I don't enjoy doing other things, but games are often easier to start and finish, can be performed any time of the day regardless of other people's schedules, and give measurable progress. I can see that I reached lvl 50 today, that my attack was raised by 10 and now I can kill that monster five times faster.
In this case, I find games to be different from most other forms of entertainment. Sometimes I don't play to have fun now, but to have fun tomorrow. An excellent example is WoW. I farm for hours so that I can finally create my Frozen Shadoweave Set. But the farming process isn't really fun, it's a bore. It's somewhat similar to training for a sport, only that training is often enjoyable.
In regard to your paper, I think you can write it. Give me a narrowed spectrum, or else I'll write way too much for it to be fun to read.
but he knows the difference between good and wrong, and he never missed a homework assignment. hes never been in trouble in school. and he's missed a overall 2 days of school, since K-grade.
so i think that it all depends on how people raised theire children. in my opinion of course and im not getting into other country or other kids because my little brother is the only one that i kno plays so much games.
and he's 6 years old ^^
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive.
Tupac Shakur
100% Legit baal runners
SICK_Bambi 93 Barb (46th barb)
SICK_Paladin 95 Necromancer (12th necro)
SICK_ferret 95 Assassin (10th sin)
~~us West Ladder~~
The purpose of games is to have fun, to be entertained and forget the hard days at work, or sometimes to learn more. Chess is a great game of wit and strategy and therefore you learn from it, as you can apply it to real life. Video games are not always necessarily as influential and redeeming as Chess, but they all offer different ways of release from stress. Some of us enjoy strategy games such as Age of Empires, or Rome: Total War (my favorite strategy game) which offer a more profound understanding of ancient military tactics. Some of us enjoy puzzle games, such as Tetris where the objective is to think as quick as possible and apply your quick thinking to succeed. Others enjoy role-playing in which we make a virtual character whom we better as well as play with others who enjoy that interest.
Video gaming is a much safer interest than drinking or drugs. If one becomes addicted there is not nearly as much destruction as one would generate from becoming addicted to drugs of any kind or alcohol. Because of this, gaming should be as respected and admired as any other hobby.
I'm sure you can add that somewhere in your essay Fuddy Buddy. Thats two of your paragraphs and part of your conclusion. Good luck.
But when it comes to people who are a bit crazy, video games act on them faster.
I learnt alot of vocabulary from Pokemon. I learnt history and how the world runs (economics and such) from Civilization and Age of Empires.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
I agree, thats what I said about video games being catalysts to those with addictive personalities. And I agree once again that Television has a TON more negative influence on people, because more than 90% requires little to no interaction. You stare into it, and take the information in without second-guessing it. Video games however require some sort of interaction whether it be just button smashing or communication with others to attain a goal.
History Channel, Discovery Channel, Colbert Report, Whose Line is it Anyways, and George Lopez (Nick-at-Night don't tease me plz) are the only things I watch on television, and most of it is not daily. History and Discovery are pretty much the only redeeming qualities on television.
Good points Equinox, lol.
If someone is going to go out and kill someone else, they were going to do it regardless of whether they played video games or not.
That's all there is to it.
The age rating system is fine and whether children play mature games should be up to their parents and absolutely no one else, especially not stores or the law.
Vote:
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17929
You sir, are an intellegent person. I played Diablo 1 the first time when I was 8, and Diablo 2 not too long after. Its all in the parenting, if your kid goes out and kills others its not because of chemical imbalances or anything else. It's because as parents they failed. An interesting fact about kids who kill others is that the parents were not always there.