Gamers Are Good People, Too 294
The Ticktockman writes "For years, gamers have been looked down upon by the media. We are said to be crazy lunatics who, given the chance, might decide to shoot up our school because of the games we play. Well, the game-themed webcomic Penny Arcade has had enough. They have now started a little something with the Seattle Children's Hospital called 'Child's Play', where gamers can buy videogame and non-game-related gifts for patients there. So if you feel like showing the world that gamers are compassionate people too, then head on over to the Penny Arcade 'Child's Play' page for more details."
Go PA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't Complain. (Score:4, Insightful)
People are the same all over (Score:5, Insightful)
Whereas the things you don't like are unprecedented levels of chaos, evil and destruction never before witnessed in the history of man?
It doesn't matter what the issue is, or what side you're on: play this to your advantage and you'll win ever time
Parental role? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm certainly going to contribute to what the guys are doing with Child's Play, but what I'd really like to see is some sort of media backlash against the parents who are neglecting their duty to our future! Our children should be viewed as a responsibility, not a liability, and we should stop looking for scapegoats and step up to the plate!
Too late... (Score:2, Insightful)
Umm... Too late, I say. By this last generation of game systems (PS2/Xbox) gaming became nearly mainstream. It's more widespread that it had ever been, and it's not mainly kids anymore, but adults. You can see this from the more mature themes of more and more games, and the very widespread advertisements for Mature/AdultsOnly-rated games.
Gaming is close to becomming as legit as home movie-watching is. It's big business now, and saying anything bad about gamers is just as suicidal as saying anything bad about white males.
This would have been a decent idea back in the Nintendo/SNES days, but now it's pointless.
Benefits for Charity (Score:2, Insightful)
Has this worked for anyone else? (Score:3, Insightful)
problem with reality (Score:5, Insightful)
now I'll elaborate with further statements.
I've played my fair share of bad games, watched faces of death, rotten.com, goatse.cx....*shiver*
so I'm not a stranger to horrific things.
But at the age of 18 when I saw a dead man it was different. way different.
He had suffered a heart attack behind a gas station in bakersfield.
Then there was the late night car drive back from san fransico with my sister when we saw the flipped minivan and the grotesqe result of ejction and head vs pavement.
Both of those incidents were nothing like the movies or even the video accounts of similar events. This was real.
When someone's experience in reality is the same as one imagined, there is something else wrong.
Re:Has this worked for anyone else? (Score:5, Insightful)
Alternatively, you could do it for the kids...
Re:Parental role? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a parent, you need to teach your kids right from wrong, and that a price may be paid for you wrongs. They need to learn how to respect others and their opinions, even if they differ from yours. If you bring your child up in a sound, moral environment then they will learn to know the difference between real life and fiction. Parenting is a big responsibility, and unfortunately it seems like more and more people are not willing to take the time to do it right. It's just too easy to blame someone else.
Re:Too late... (Score:1, Insightful)
I stand by my previous statement that
I beg to differr. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe if little Cancer-Boy wasn't going to be getting a wonderful gift, which he (or she) might not otherwise be able to enjoy. Nintendo doesn't care if you've lost all your hair or if you only have 6 months to live, it's just there to love you with all the Mario and Zelda it can.
See, it's not just about the kudos for gamers not being granny-killing, child-raping monters, it's also about helping people in need.
Re:"Good" gamers and "bad" gamers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Has this worked for anyone else? (Score:1, Insightful)
Biker clubs used to be synonomous with biker gangs.No more. There are a shitload of biker clubs, comprised of only honest citizens, up to and including doctors and lawyers.
Just because you are stuck in the past doesn't mean everyone else is.
Not the Point, at All (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is that they've set up and streamlined a way for us to genuinly make a difference. It's an effort headed by some guys that we, as a community, know and trust. It's a theme (games as a positive distraction/passtime/playtime) that I'd suggest a large selection of us here can identify with. And it's more personal than your average charity, since we'll even get to see pictures of the results, when all is said and done.
This is a great thing, and I hope it's just a beginning.
Anyhow. Kudos to Gabe, kudos to Tycho, and the same to everyone helping them out, and to everyone (including you) who're donating to this or other causes.
Polarised opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no reason to expect that just because someone does something good, they're not capable of doing something evil as well. There's many a tale of mafioso gang members going to church on Sunday with their mother, taking confession, and going out on Monday to kill someone....
I'm not saying that anyone who helps this project out is going on a gun-toting killing spree (as if!) but to say X can't do A because (s)he has done B is a bit too simplistic.
It's a nice idea. Don't hype it beyond what it is, it doesn't need it.
Simon.
Hitler and Ghengis Kahn played computer games, (Score:2, Insightful)
didn't they ?
Isn't they why they killed a lot of people ?
Who Cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why not write the editor? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Polarised opinion (Score:1, Insightful)
Why make it a proper noun ?
Re:"Good" gamers and "bad" gamers (Score:5, Insightful)
The poster you replied to cited 4 factors he felt were common among the shooter kids. You applied those factors to yourself, and since you're not a shooter, you declared his point invalid.
The problem is that you are not interpreting his point correctly. What he said, basically, is "for all shooter kids, there exist these four factors". What he DID NOT say is that "all people with these four factors are shooter kids". There is a very big and important difference.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
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(...) I was playing GTA 3 obsessively since the day I bought it. And usually, I am a careful, courteous, safety-conscious driver.
One night, on the way to a gig, we approached an intersection. The lights were green, but someone in front of me slowed, waiting for oncoming traffic to abate so they could turn.
A car in the lane next to me was barely behind me, almost right in my blind spot. What I should have done is stopped, waited for them to pass, then continued. But I didn't. On a sudden impulse, I sped up towards the stationary car, then suddenly cut between it and the unsuspecting vehicle beside me, leaving a space of what must have been inches between the corners of the 3 cars, a move that if only a split-second mis-timed, would have been a 3-car pile up.
My passenger said "JESUS CHRIST, DUDE!!!". The driver I cut in front of braked loudly and honked reproachfully. And then I realised -- that dangerous move was something I often did in the videogame. I had actually risked the lives of real people, by unconsciously using a learned behaviour from an action game.
I was shocked, and chastened. I now drive ultra-responsibly with an extra layer of "thought censorship" on my impulses. Because I don't trust my mind anymore.
I don't believe the game would drive people to violence, in fact I don't even blame the game for what I did. Rather, it's a more an aspect of my own dizzy perception of reality. However, I am giving serious thought to leaving the more "realistic" games out of my gaming time from now on.
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I think everyone has already heard the "if Pacman affected us as kids, we'd all run around in a darkened room munching pills and listening to repetitive music" quote, but the fact is realistic videogames affect us in more ways than we want to admit. People need to gripe the fact that videogames are an interactive audiovisual experience that can be used to manipulate one's senses in order to achieve alternative mind states. Otherwise, how could videogame technology be used to cure people suffering from acute phobias by showing them a computer simulation of their fears, or to help train pilots and military personnel?
It isn't just a game anymore.
Re:"GAMES ARE GOOD! BUY GAMES! WE HELP THE CHILDRE (Score:2, Insightful)
Excuse me? Please speak for yourself. Personally, I play violent video games as an outlet for my frusterations with life. Some people play sports, other people put their hand through a wall - I play violent video games. Either way, it's better than bottling up the rage until I explode.
Buy offline multiplayer games.
I don't believe this is the solution to the problem of "mindless, unimaginative, illiterate, loud-mouthed assholes with no fucking life" I completely agree that such people exist - but I also know for a fact that people who are thoughtful, imaginative, literate, and kind act the same way online or offline. I believe the problem you're describing is much larger than video games, and I don't think it's caused by video games. I think the problem is caused because either the parents are the same way and the children follow suit, or the parents have neglected to teach the children manners and how to interact with others - instead they've left that to TV and peers.
Don't allow more than 3 hours of gaming per day. Force them to take breaks. Make 'em exercise.
I think having rigid rules, such as "no more than X hours per day" is just asking the kid to either:
1) Play 3 hours every day, even if he doesn't really want to play that day, since it'd be a "waste" if he didn't.
2) Cheat as much as possible, and believe me... if a kid wants to break a rule, he will find a way.
I believe the best solution is to simply teach your child responsibility. As much as you'd want to, a parent simply cannot monitor a child 24/7 - you have to teach the child to monitor himself. This means that the child has to learn from their own mistakes - let them play the game for 12 hours every day, and let them see where that gets them. You can help prod them into realizing that they're wasting their lives away, but don't force them into a different lifestyle.
Now, of course I'm not talking about a 9-year-old here, I'm talking a 16-year-old. For young children, simply not buying everything they want you to buy is enough to keep from spoiling them... which brings me to:
Beat the shit out of them, if needed, even if that makes them bitter and spiteful against you.
Yes, that's the perfect way to keep children from being violent. Almost all children raised by parents who beat them grow up to be responsible, model citizens.(/sarcasm)
Seriously, beating a child is not a good way to punish them. There are much more humane and effective methods of punishment - but remember, punishment should be used rarely - only if the child has severly broken the rules. And the best punishment should be tailored towards the specific child. Do something that will make the child really think about what he did.
Anyway, that's just my two cents, as a 19-year-old gamer currently going to college.
said to be crazy lunatics? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bikers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Otherwise, how could videogame technology be used to cure people suffering from acute phobias by showing them a computer simulation of their fears, or to help train pilots and military personnel?
Phobias can be treated in many ways, and with people that have a good sense of distinction between reality and non-reality, video games won't work as treatment, because the phobia won't be as strong (if it exists at all) with the game as it is in real life.
Pilots often state that games can help them with parts of what they need to learn to become pilots, such as learning to fly by the guages, or analyzing situations that would be extremely dangerous in real life. They also state that games still don't replace actual training and time in the seat, especially because even the best controls available for games don't feel like the real thing.
The military uses games both for situation analysis and to teach people how to work in a cohesive group in a combat situation. It's much cheaper than full war games (going out with real equipment and simulating a battle), but doesn't replace either that or any of the numerous other methods they use to bring troops together. In the end, it's about making soldiers work on instinct, with as many different tools as are available. The games don't train the soldiers to shoot, or even to be efficient soldiers, they simply help reinforce their training in situations that may be expensive, dangerous, or impossible to reproduce outside of video games or actual war-time situations.
Overall, your primary example proves one thing: people need impulse control and those without it will often blame anything for their lack of impulse control. If I followed every impulse I ever had, I would've been in jail long before video games got more complicated or realistic than the first Super Mario Bros.
Not Quite (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not right at all. What Penny Arcade is doign is a wonderful attempt to change the lives of so many underprivileged kids. I'm sure they like the good publicity, but I'm also sure they couldn't care less about it. They're doing this to help, not to 'change the public perception of gamers'.
Of course, I could be wrong, but if I am, then I don't want any part of this endeavor - the right thing for the wrong reasons is still wrong.
--Dan
Leave the whole spanking thing alone (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is sort of what you're doing, no offense. Turning this one into a pro-spanking tirade is missing the point and creating a little spat off to the side.
What we need to do isn't scold parents for not spanking their kids. We just need to encourage families to spend time together, it's that simple. When you have time together, the kids will pick up on the values you believe in -- partly because you play the whole parental role and instruct (and sometimes scold) them, but more importantly because they'll see how you act yourself. There are tons of ways that'll come out, lots of different flavors to it. You're into this spanking thing; well, whatever, but at least be there with them, you know?
Personally I don't always blame the parents. Partly this is economic -- two working parents on the same schedule has become the norm in order to keep up our SUV insurance payments, and that means kids just plain have less time with the adults who really do care about them. Scolding a single mother for not spanking her kids more is just not going to help anyone. On the other hand, if her work gave her flex time, for example, that might help. Your "Parents are to blame" angle would probably shut that option down.
But back to the games thing: I like computer games, play them with the kids or with the kids watching often enough, and I'm darn certain they understand the distinction between fantasy and reality there. On the other hand I've run into two-year-olds who couldn't talk except in snippets from video games. Not enough parents in that life, too much games in isolation. That's the difference.
Hmm, we are? (Score:2, Insightful)
We are? As far as I can tell, the media has taken to media and entertainment pretty well. I even saw CNN report on Doom 3 at E3, showing everything. Kill Bill has been well-liked.
I see no gamer-disdain among the majority of media outlets. What's the problem? Most everyone plays games these days, even some women (The Sims).