Grand Theft Auto.

[Sbh052]

Grand Theft Auto is a popular Play Station 2 game. The game involves shooting people, stealing cars, house breaks, drug deals, and prostitution. The game is rated T for Teen, but you see seven year olds playing it.

My seven year old nephew loves it. He absolulty loves it. His mother lets him play it, while my sister and I protest, saying it's not suitable for a child.

What are your opinions?
Do you think that if a child grows up playing violent games such as GTA, they will grow up as a killer, or to pick up prostitutes?

[SoylentGreen]

Cases where a person cites a game as having given them a motive to act violently are usually shown that the person has a prior case of mental illness or drug abuse.
If your 7 year old nephew has shown schizophrenic behaviour or is using hard drugs and already has a history of violence then its probably not a good idea.
Otherwise he is probably smart enough to discern reality from fiction.
Even if he is only of average intelligence he would still be capable of using his own imagination to create violent imagery and like most people is capable of not acting on those fantasies.

[shawmutt]

That's too young. I wouldn't let my kid play it. I also wouldn't let my kid swear, get fat, or watch R rated movies either. I also wouldn't let my kids wander the streets this time of night. It's midnight. I can get up, hop on my bike, and go for a ride downtown right now and see 7 and 8 year olds walking around the streets with their parents a block away. My wife is a grade school teacher and teaches those kids--she comes back with some horror stories let me tell you. For generations now, those kids that have been allowed to do whatever they want, have become teenagers, had kids, and now their kids are doing whatever they want in hopes of becoming just like their parents.

wow, sorry, that was a rant! Guess it strikes a cord with me because I'll be a father in six weeks (more or less). However...

...bottom line, his mother lets him play it. She's the boss.

[Praxius]

Quote by: Sbh052 Grand Theft Auto is a popular Play Station 2 game. The game involves shooting people, stealing cars, house breaks, drug deals, and prostitution. The game is rated T for Teen, but you see seven year olds playing it. My seven year old nephew loves it. He absolulty loves it. His mother lets him play it, while my sister and I protest, saying it's not suitable for a child. What are your opinions? Do you think that if a child grows up playing violent games such as GTA, they will grow up as a killer, or to pick up prostitutes?

My Answer to that?

I remember growing up and my brother getting NARC for the Nintendo.... for the time it was quite violent....



And this was a police role playing game and the police were blowing the snot out of everybody.

Anybody remember the Mortal Kombats? Yeah, I played those at a young age. I loved setting people on fire, throwing a spear into someone's chest and screaming "GET OVER HERE!"



Have I killed anybody yet?

Not that I can Remember.

Therefore, no.... I don't believe this will affect him..... what will affect him is how you guide him and educate him about these kinds of games......

I grew up watching Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, The Iron Triangle, and many other war movies with my father..... I'm not out there killing people.....

The game is fun, because it potrays real life..... I have played the game over and over from begining to end, and although the missions sometimes involve violence or sexual references, you have the final decision in the game on how you proceed through a mission.

Will you be a heartless freak, breaking every law in the game?

Will you do what is nessicary?

Don't forget that the GTA games have always had law enforcement in them and they will go after you and increase their forces to get you depending on your crime(s)...... the game shows what is not tollerated by society, but at the same time, show how many people in the world work around those laws......

Sure, I'll be the first to admit the law enforcement in the games are certainly not up to par with real enforcement.... but if the police were as realistic and as hard as real ones, even if you did try and follow the game as safely as you can, you'll still end up in front of the police, and you'll never get far in the game.....

and that's all it is.... a game... that potrays real life in the hood when the farthest thing you can think about is your own safety outside of your street.

Also, if you play the game much further then you seem to have, you'd realize that there is much more to the game then just the ghetto. I'm not much on hip hop and blinging it all out.... I'm a old fasion rocker... but even I could appreciate GTA:SA for the work they put into it, the storyline, and the important social messages they try to get across.

However I would like to point out that you're newphew's mother has overall responsibility over properly educating him over the game itself.

If properly explained, it could be a very good learning tool.... as kids these days learn more by visual entertainment, teach them the realities of the game as being a game. Teach them that things they do in the game that get them arrested, will do so in real life..... but since it's the game, play it in the game as you want..... just teach them to keep it in the game.

Violent games have been around forever. The fact that the graphics are much better when we were a kid, I can vividly remember my father saying the same thing when the Super Nintendo came out, and he was used to Atari's Snoopy and the Red Barron. When I was a kid, I remember that game kinda freaking me out..... the Atari made some wierd noises....... but a classic none the less.

[ZNFYRH]

GTA is different from those games.

You play the bad guy, and the violence is not the focus, but is on the sidelines and is consistently present.

7 is way too young to be playing that game. Unless, of course, the 7 year old knows all the drug references, swear words, and knows what sex is.

[Gods_Mercenary]

7 is too young, but I doubt it will do him any permanent damage, usually it's a mix of medias that will desensitize the kid, not just one thing. If the kid also watches the worst movies and listens toviolent music, then you might be concerned, but it's the mothers choice.

[Lullaby Chainer]

I dunno, if I couldn't kill people once in a while in video games I might be more tempting to get out this desire in real life.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Give him some good nazi killing games, nobody can argue with those, and they actually are slightly educational about ww2. Medal of honor is great, and there's a bunch more. I find them more entertaining than GTA

[Mr.Vicchio]

Medal Of Honor is good, Call of Duty is good as well.

I got my son the Super Monkey Ball series and Mario Sunshine, he LOVES those.

[padrisimo]

I grew up playing violent video games and action movies, i am mentally sound. I haven't even gotten in a fight before. I believe like with other issues similiar to this one it simply varys from one person to another how much a video game affects behavior. personally i would not let my child expose itself to this game at such a young age, it will have to face the real world soon enough

[Osborn F Enready]

This is irresponsible parenting if the child doesn't understand what is reality and how it connects to the "life" in the video game.

That game has an age rating, and responsible parents should be able to tell at what age their child can seperate reality from the "life" in the video game.

Grand Theft Auto allows many options of playability, not all of which entail being a "gangster", "hoodlum" or "outlaw". The underlying message is how hard drugs, when absued can destroy people, famillies and culture. The good message is that as individuals we all have a choice to live by that code, or not, and can choose to be better than "the average".

[Praxius]

Quote by: ZNFYRH GTA is different from those games. You play the bad guy, and the violence is not the focus, but is on the sidelines and is consistently present.

You play the bad guy in those games above too.... and the violence is the main objective. Also CJ, the main character, isn't a bad guy, in fact he fights people in the game who are much worse, such as drug lords, crack dealers, corrupt policemen who kill innocent, evil government conspiracies, etc.

He's just your basic person stuck in a difficult situation.....

7 is way too young to be playing that game. Unless, of course, the 7 year old knows all the drug references, swear words, and knows what sex is.

I did.... come on.... how old are you? Have you forgotten your childhood?

Now I'm off to go play Day of Defeat and then maybe Battlefield 2....

[shawmutt]

Day of Defeat rules!

come over to my group's server, the 907th. We're mostly packed in the evenings unless there's a private match going on:

208.101.39.64:27015

Have you tried insurgency yet? INSURGENCY: Modern Infantry Combat

We have a server for that too:

208.101.39.68:27015

See ya there, in game name is Shawmutt too.

And a BF2 server, I don't play that though, I don't think it's that active:

64.34.175.203:16567

sorry--and now back to your regularly scheduled debate--

[ZNFYRH]

Quote by: Praxius I did.... come on.... how old are you? Have you forgotten your childhood?

Realize that once upon a time a 7 year old didn't know those things.

Regardless, the implications in the game require a maturity and understanding that 7 year olds don't possess.

[Gods_Mercenary]

I did.... come on.... how old are you? Have you forgotten your childhood? Now I'm off to go play Day of Defeat and then maybe Battlefield 2....

You were fully aware of all sex and drug references in 2nd grade? As I recall the worse swear we used regularly was hell or some other version of it, and that was only the troublemakers. At 7 some kids can barely read, you can't tell me they know the mechanics of sex and the descriptions of drugs.

[Chris the Chees]

Quote by: Sbh052 Do you think that if a child grows up playing violent games such as GTA, they will grow up as a killer, or to pick up prostitutes?

I don't think so. I was playing violent computer games at a similar age, perhaps a year or so older and I have never killed a person or picked up a prostitute or had the urge to.

I was 11 when the first game came out in '97 which was the same year as Postal. I also played games such as Doom and Duke Nukem 3D long before that.

The theory that such games will 'harm' a child is a load of rubbish. Children have been enjoying violent entertainment since violent entertainment has been there to enjoy. For example if it isn't computer games that worry over protective adults, its films, music, TV, books, etc.

Placing games, TV, music, films or books in the firing line for todays problems is simply an excuse for dealing with the real causes for those problems and providing an easy scapegoat.

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary As I recall the worse swear we used regularly was hell or some other version of it, and that was only the troublemakers.

Then you obviously went to a very sheltered school. At that kind of age, I and my peers would gleefuly lambast each other with whatever cuss we had seen when we had watched Diehard or some other mindless action flick that children do so adore. Especially if the child thinks that their parents don't realise they have watched it. If not that scenario, then most children will undoubtedly have heard such language from older children, be it at school or wherever.

it strikes me that many adults have a very detached, naive and indeed patronising view of children; blissfuly unaware that their little angels are in fact quite happily foul mouthed when they aren't around.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Granted, I was a good boy, and 2nd grade is kind of a blur, but as I recall, the heavy swearing didn't start till 3rd and then is got serious in 4th, when everyone knew what the stuff meant.

[Praxius]

Quote by: shawmutt Day of Defeat rules! come over to my group's server, the 907th. We're mostly packed in the evenings unless there's a private match going on: 208.101.39.64:27015

Server sounds familiar.... I'm more of a drifter myself, going to whichever server has players.

BTW: I don't have Source.... just the classic DoD mod on HL.

Have you tried insurgency yet? INSURGENCY: Modern Infantry Combat We have a server for that too: 208.101.39.68:27015

Nope, haven't tried it.

See ya there, in game name is Shawmutt too.

Name is usually either Praxius, or Cpt-Praxius. I'm not in any clans, as I have more fun putting the boots to clans.

And a BF2 server, I don't play that though, I don't think it's that active: 64.34.175.203:16567 sorry--and now back to your regularly scheduled debate--

Actually BF2 has a lot of servers and a lot of players...... however the gameplay isn't as realistic as I'd like it to be.... three shots to kill someone with a sniper rifle? Come on.....

Realize that once upon a time a 7 year old didn't know those things.

Maybe in 1812.

Regardless, the implications in the game require a maturity and understanding that 7 year olds don't possess.

Keep treating them with that attitude and they never will.

You were fully aware of all sex and drug references in 2nd grade?

Besides the detail of sticking your wang in the chung (Which I had a basic belief how that worked without comfirmation) yes. How sheltered was your life in comparison? I knew that a baby came from the mother, I knew a male and a female required to get together in an intimate situation to have the ability of creating a child. I knew it had something to do with the genitals.....

I remember seeing pregnant women when I was 4-5.... what do you tell your kids about pregnant women? That they're just fat and babies come from storks? How Silly.

And violence? I grew up around primarily WWII weapons, equipment, books, movies, etc... from a father who was also in the military..... if I could understand what a World War was at the age of 5 or 6, perhaps even younger..... I'm sure I can comprehend someone getting beat up.

In the enviroment I grew up in, I required true education as to what it all was about, or else I would begin to interp what was all around the house and who know's where that would have led me.

As I recall the worse swear we used regularly was hell or some other version of it, and that was only the troublemakers.

Wow... lol.... my cousin reminded me just recently the first time he got into trouble for swearing, which he picked up from myself and my brother.... the earliest recolection I have of soap in my mouth was at the age of 4.... for the F word I believe..... and it was that horrible brown/transparent perfume smelling soap too.

We've been swearing for as long as I can remember.

At 7 some kids can barely read, you can't tell me they know the mechanics of sex and the descriptions of drugs.

My god.... problems reading at the age of 7? I mean, sure there are some here who have reading problems and what not.... but you make it sound like it's a common thing with the average child...... If that is the case, That clearly shows something about your education system..... I was considdered behind in reading skills at the age of 5 and didn't take me long to catch up.

And besides.... since when has someone's ability to read ever determine their intelligence?

If you guys are actually that limited in educating your children about the world around them, then perhaps it is a better idea not to let him play the game until he is educated in these situations.

The Government shelters you guys from the truth, and in turn you guys seem to do the same to your children.... that explains a lot.

It all boils down to education, teaching of responsibility and knowing limits..... whether she allows her child to play the game or not is her decision as a parent.... if she does not properly educate him or her on the game being played, then that responsibility falls on her shoulders as a parent.

If you don't agree.... then have your own kid and bring him up right as you see fit..... until you hold a kid in you for 9 months and then push it out of your body, I don't think too many mothers will enjoy you preaching to them how to raise their child.

Playing a game is one thing..... teaching your 7yo how to launch an RPG or rape a hooker is another.

[ZNFYRH]

Praxius

There is a difference between educating your child and glorifying those things.

Rewarding them for beating the same prostitute that just 2 minutes before they drove across town to protect isn't educating a child.

Or getting in trouble just to get that really good FBI Enforcer for you garage...

Sure kids aren't going to do it in real life, but I'm willing to bet you're white and grew up with married parents in a middle class neighborhood.

What about the kids for whom C.J. and Tommy Vercetti are actual heroes and role models?

The ratings on those games are there not because they think kids don't know about sex and violence. They are there because a 7 year old doesn't understand sex and violence.

At 7, you can learn where babies come from. But how do you understand the emotional aspects of sex? The physical enjoyment of it? The consequence of unprotected sex?

As a parent, I feel it's my responsibility for my child to understand all of those things... to educate them when they are actually old enough to understand... before I let them see those things as vulgar entertainment.

[Praxius]

Quote by: ZNFYRH Praxius There is a difference between educating your child and glorifying those things.

ok, let's break them down, since I have played all the GTA's at least three times, I know every mission and what happens in those games:

Rewarding them for beating the same prostitute that just 2 minutes before they drove across town to protect isn't educating a child.

There is no mission or reward in any of the GTA games that does this.... this isn't even remotely towards the atmosphere in the game.

Even when GTA 3 came out in 3D and the prostitution was brought into the game, there was a big stink about doing this in the media..... and yet, if you ever took the dam time to actually play the game through.... ANY OF THEM.... you'd know there is no such mission in any of the games, therefore this argument is irrelevent.

The closest thing that relates would be the pimping mission in GTA:SA, however you do not harm the prostitutes, you protect them from other idiots like the above you mentioned in the game.

When GTA3 came out.... they showed a clip where a player picked up a prostitute, had sex, got their health up, and when they left the car the player killed the prostitute and took their money back...... The game does not promote this.... the player in question and their own morals do..... that's the key to the game... making your own decisions as to what you do in the GTA world.

Or getting in trouble just to get that really good FBI Enforcer for you garage...

And you expect someone to go out and do this in real life? You expect a child to try and get the FBI after them, just so they can steal a car?

Give your head a shake..... it's a game.... and for what it's worth.... you can also get the same cars by typing in cheats.... without even having to do anything illegal in the game.

Also.... there are many of these cars just sitting around in the game, which are ment to be used in the game.... you don't have to break the law in the game to get these cars.... that's personal decision, not promotion in the game.

Sure kids aren't going to do it in real life, but I'm willing to bet you're white and grew up with married parents in a middle class neighborhood.

Oh I see... you're gonna try and play the race card in this debate..... how pathetic.

You just admitted you agree that kids won't do this in real life..... 1st.... doesn't this dispute your own argument?

2nd.... where the hell does the race card come into effect here?

What about the kids for whom C.J. and Tommy Vercetti are actual heroes and role models?

If you knew the storyline in both games, you'd realise they're not evil bastards as you would like to make them out to be.....

CJ comes back to his family in the ghetto and is quickly thrown back into what he left behind (You can not run away from your past). He came back because his mom was shot in a drive by shooting, if my memory serves correctly. He's continually trying to steer everybody he cares about in the right direction, but those around them endanger their lives and have to survive as set by the rules of the street.....

If you played the game all the way through, you'd realize that CJ stops the corrupt cops who have been fueling the gang wars, he stops the flow of crack and other drugs in his neighborhood, he saves his brother, his community, helps fight against organizations against the security of the US by joining up with G-Man, cracks open many fictional conspiracies and basically becomes an overall hero in the game.

It's not a promotion of that lifestyle, it's shedding light onto something that many like to shut away from society as something that's non-existant, that life is perfect..... well it's not, and perhaps education in this is the best thing to do, so it can be resolved sometime down the road.

About Tommy.... that game was a pretty close cut from the movie Scarface, only Tommy is given a mission in Vice City to start making rounds and income for a larger organization, however he is not aware of that organization taking him over in the end and expresses not to back down to what you feel is right that you have worked hard for in your life.

Each of the GTA games portrays a different lifestyle that is known and common in our society and hits on key social topics that many tend to avoid.

The ratings on those games are there not because they think kids don't know about sex and violence. They are there because a 7 year old doesn't understand sex and violence.

Those ratings are on those games for "Parents" to determine and check to see if the game is appropreate for their child.... if they have played the game before, or know what it is about and they deem their child is of an appropreate knowlege of interpreting the game's messages, then that's their peroggative.

There are no laws out there that will jail a mom or dad if they buy a game not suited to their kids due to the rating.... the ratings are just that.... ratings of average understanding...... Average.... which means it is open to interpretation to each parent.

At 7, you can learn where babies come from. But how do you understand the emotional aspects of sex?

Easy.... you ask.

The physical enjoyment of it?

You Ask.

The consequence of unprotected sex?

You Ask...... how else do you learn things? How else did you learn about these things?

Hell I was taught as a very young age all of this..... and in fact, many kids are still taught this stuff in school at a young age that most would think isn't the time for them, since they are still in their teens..... yet when do you educate your kids on these matters?

That varies from parent to parent and their own values.

As a parent, I feel it's my responsibility for my child to understand all of those things... to educate them when they are actually old enough to understand... before I let them see those things as vulgar entertainment.

When they are "Actually Old Enough?"

How old is that? Please tell me? How long do you expect to prolong their innocence of the world before they have to realize what's around them?

Your children will know when it is time to understand these things, when they begin to ask you questions about them.... if you don't tell them then.... they'll just go and google it. I'd rather inform my children of the truth, rather for them to no rely on me and then go online to find their information.