My son Alex (13) and I have had a long-standing head-to-head on video games – should he be allowed to play first-person shooter games? For those of you not plugged into the the gaming community, these are the games where you play out scenes and scenarios from the first person perspective of someone wielding a plethora of deadly weapons.
I’ve been vehemently against the idea – I struggle with the concept of how playing out morally questionable fantasies supports social and moral development. But as Alex constantly reminds me, I’m in a rather small minority here.
Things came to a head with this year’s Christmas list – at the top of Alex’s list was an XBox 360 with Kinect that, I was assured, was only worth getting if he was allowed to play first person shooters!
Being rather devious parents, my wife and I decided to resolve the issue by suggesting Alex write his weekly English essay on why he should be allowed to play these games.
He did. And it was a good one. So good in fact that I thought I would post it in this week’s Lost in the Maize:
A note before I begin: this is intended for my dad, who doesn’t believe in 1st-person-shooter games. If I can successfully persuade him with this, he might let me buy 1st-person-shooters.
1st-person-shooter: A video game genre which centers the gameplay around gun- and projectile weapon-based combat through the first person perspective. What’s wrong with this type of game? It’s inappropriate for young children ages 10 and below. How old am I? 13. The majority of my friends have these games, and I don’t see it affecting them. The violence may be considered gruesome, but I’ve seen R-rated movies (many), and I can tell you that many more fake bloodstains cover the shirts of the actors than the video game characters. I have no plans to obsess over my gaming life if this persuasion is successful, and I shall not be assassinating famous political leaders in my free time after school. But justification is what you want, so I’ll give it to you.
Gaming brings teenage boys together. The most competitive (and least strategic or difficult) type of games they play are 1st-person-shooters. With games like this of my own, I might actually be able to understand what people are talking about at school, and, gasp, I may even be able to join in and talk to them myself! That would be oh so jolly. Having a social life that’s A) not over the Internet, and B) not with people who do not in fact share one of my top interests would really allow me to connect with others. So far the majority of my conversations with the other guys have gone something along the lines of, “Hey Alex.”
“Hello (insertnamehere).”
“I didn’t do the homework, so I need to copy all of yours.”
“…”
Just imagine how much more I would be able to extend our conversations if we had similar interests in an out-of-school hobby.
If it’s violence that’s the problem, I don’t see what’s wrong. My current favorite game (Starcraft 2) has some pretty gory death animations, and the strangely disturbing Zerg units resemble creatures from other fictional writings such as “Alien” and “Cloverfield.” I have seen such massacre, and so far I believe it hasn’t damaged my brain. If it had, I probably wouldn’t be doing advanced classes and teaching myself Algebra 2 and Calculus on Friday evenings and weekends. Anyway, there really isn’t that much blood in 1st-person-shooters.
Addiction is a definite no. Sometimes I’d love to just quit all my extra activities and relax while playing video games all day long, but I don’t, and even when I have the chance, I don’t always play video games. I’m still adding new activities to my schedule, and I wouldn’t do that if I was an addict, right? Plus, I need relaxation. The only game that interests me right now is Starcraft, and that involves intense strategy and attention. After a tiring week at school, stretching my mind isn’t exactly the first thing I want to do. 1st-person-shooters are mindless! They require almost no strategy! You (dad) just plomp yourself down on the settee and enjoy the evening! Every so often, you have to watch a “mindless” movie as you call it, and in my world, I need a mindless video game to rest my head and just slow down for a bit. A satisfying movie and a satisfying game aren’t that different! On another note, you already know I can’t be that obsessed with video games: I already reconsidered getting an X-box 360 for Christmas so I can have a new oboe. What kind of video game crazed child gives up his chances of having a brand new gaming system to get an oboe?
As you can see, letting me play 1st-person-shooters would in no way affect my grades or opinions, and it would only be a benefit in my life to be able to socialize with more people at school. Relaxation is necessary in a teenager, and I believe I deserve some true relaxation. So therefore I conclude that playing 1st-person-shooters would be more of a good thing than a bad thing, and if I’m correct, this is enough justification to convince you.
I’m still not convinced about the ethics and morality of first person shooters. But it looks like, in this case, I may have to cave!
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May I hi-5 your son, please.
Perhaps you would be interested in this, wot I wrote some years ago, on this very subject (though not only re: FPS games).
http://noodlemaz.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/guns-dont-kill-people-rabbids-do/
Thanks Marianne,
Really helping my cause there
Looks like a battle you’re about to lose. What a great essay! My only advice is that you pick up the Orange Box when you cave on the XBox. Alex will get the joy of killing nasty, inter-dimensional, world-destroying creatures in HalfLife and HalfLife 2 and of puzzling his way through Portal, a simple but wonderful little game. Of course, the Orange Box is a few years old now, so it won’t solve the talking-to-other-teenage-boys problem, but I’m sure Alex has specific ideas on that front.
I have played many FPS games. In-fact you could make the argument that i have dual citizenship in FPS games, although i haven’t played for about 2 years now. The most important thing to remember here is that there is a very large range of “FPS” games as Kate suggested. Not only is there a large range of game types but of almost equal importance is the fact that these games are social. More often then not you play online in teams of 3 to 20 (generally for x box) against other players.
Unfortunately i would have to say that the majority of the people who play the game are total jack-asses who are obsessed with being “cool” and “kicking ass”, talking shit and the likes. Which is to be expected from pretty much any sport, right? I was highly competitive but i played a FPS game that required more then any other i have played that the players self-organize them selves into a hierarchy or the team would loose flat out. I loved the competition but sportsmanship was very important to me and shit talking was the most worthless waste of attention around, leading quickly to loss.
My advice is this. Think of it like a sport, make sure that he knows there is a difference between the reality of death and killing and the sport of the game. Don’t let him get soaked up by the killing but rather encourage him to be a good sportsman and competitive in a honorable way, not one of those fools who obsesses about killing and being the best. These games are very addicted and highly frustrating at times, but that is the nature of sport, it is competitive.
I have learned much from online FPS games, diplomacy and team work mostly… Just make sure he understands this one thing: if he looses really bad don’t let the shit talking get to him, make sure he knows that he is young and often many of these skilled players have hundreds of hours of experience, if not thousands.
Don’t let him go in solo.
If you ever need a mentor hit me up, i have trained many of folk both in real life and through the digital world on how to be both skillful and be honorable.
Thanks Kyle!
Hello Prof. Maynard,
I had written such a long and very personal statement to your disput with Alex. But if I wanted to have it submitted, your server told me that I wrote a invalid E-mail adress, and closed the dialogue without transmitting and storing.
Time is to expensive to cry about that. Now the whole thing in short terms.
Alex argumentation chain is “r-rated videos are more comromising, than it.” hello?
Why does something uncool makes something worse better?
In Germany we call that sort of games ego-shooter, and that`s what they are, they train your heart-brain connection, if it is not strong enough. I think he has a strong one anyway, cause he is your son. He told that it is a kind of diversion, that is the argument for that he has more important aims. Juddging is a thing to do for his whole live, and learning that could not trained early enough. I mean to judge if a ego-shooter is a thing someone needs. That would be my only argument, why he should buy it with pocket-money or something similar.
Christmas is the day of birth not of death. That`s the reason why this wish is unplaced on a christmas-gift-list.
Love hits more than a bullet, I think you should spend more time with him to get closer to his personal agenda, his brain-heart connection, cause globalists whom chairman you are by supporting these global agenda don`t need your energy and respect more and anymore than him.
Cause he lives when they old men are long dead, and he should not been stucked as a ego-shooter.
hugs from an unknown
dirk
One thougt more.
In Germany we have the fairytale-collection of the Brothers Grimm.
(That are the originals) Sometimes we get given a Disney-version, so we are able to compare them.
An example? O.k.
You know the fairytale of Snow White, a little princess whose stepmother looks in the mirror and the mirror tells her, that she is the bautiest, but there is a girl living by the 7 dwarves who is prettier, and so on.
In the Disney-version stepmother changes herself in an evil witch, but in the original – and now listen – she dresses up herself as an old market woman.
And that is the reason why you have to go to that point, to face the essenz. And also the essenz of something someone tells you. And Alex tells you, please spend a little bit more of your time with me.
Mr. Maynard I lost a real father when I was thirteen, and he was a real one, you know what I mean. He lost his memory, after a 13 hours brain-operation.
Please, get closer to your child, nothing on this world is more important. I have to little daughters, I do not thresh some phrases. I support my experiences.
hugs
Thanks Dirk, and rest assured – Alex are close and do get on well. Honestly!
My sons are older so I feel nostalgia reading this. We caved and let teens play games that 1. they buy themselves with money earned 2. in appropriate settings (not when young neighbors visit) 3. in rooms we can walk into, observe, and nudge them into conversation about (and you’re already there), and 4. not for endless hours on nice days, no matter what the game is!
Maybe the practiced hand-eye coordination will pay off when the kids drive. That’s what I tell myself…
A little piece of the pie:
Although the follow video does not represent the whole (and i’m sure risk or statistics based people can respect that) it does represent scenarios which happens often enough for them to not be anomalies. Thus, i post this little video to show some of the humor, vulgarity and mindset behind one section of FPS gaming… This is the not the majority, but shows the types of treatments which can occur.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcHFpiqHfI0&feature=channel
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29417231/ns/technology_and_science-games/
Thought this might be an interesting read in light of this article…
Great link Nic – thanks!
Here’s a not-well-known image I ran across years ago, that I’ve been trying to spread around to anyone concerned about video games causing violence/maladjusted children: http://i25.tinypic.com/2r6ns4y.jpg
(See those first two games? They’re both first-person shooters)
Like your son says, video games are the new social convention. Just about everyone college-aged and younger plays some sort of video game, with FPSes being the most common just-sit-and-play type of game.
And contrary to the media that likes to claim video games cause violence, research into school shootings find that the shooters most often are the students that shut themselves out from social contact, that the other students find odd because they don’t play games of any sort. “All work and no play..”
Thanks Izkata,
Very interesting plot, although of course I suspect there are a lot of other factors associated with the data other than FPS…
I hope you went out and bought him the oboe
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