Control and Consent (Parents and Videogames)

Control and Consent

Parents and videogames

Alan Davidson

     Imagine, if you will, this situation. A child stands, gun in hand, on a dusty street in some forgotten town. The weapon is almost as big as he is, but he holds it with cool confidence, fingers wrapping around the cold steel and molded rubber. He is dressed as most children his age would be, a favorite superhero on his shirt, blue jeans on the verge of being too small as he is reaching yet another growth spurt. The dust and rocks remind the world of their presence as he shifts his feet to adjust his weight. A shadow appears in an alley, a man walking carefully  towards the street where the child stands. The child’s breathing slows, and one foot drops slightly backwards, settling him into a secure stance. A quick glance around ensures that the child and his prey are alone. The shadow creeps out onto the street and a leg steps carefully out from behind the building. Slowly, carefully, the man creeps out from the cover of the alley and into the dusty street. He has a knife in his hand, it is bloodied with the life of a recent foe. The man turns towards the child and in a flash the child raises his weapon and fires two shots, hitting the man in the center of the chest, knocking him down. The child walks a few cautious steps towards the man, and upon seeing life still in his veins the child squeezes the trigger once more, sending a burst of flame and lead into the man. Blood sprays upward, hitting the child in the face and he smiles as he feels the warmth on his skin. The child looks up from his prey and steps over the lifeless body as he strikes out into the city to hunt again.

     This is exactly what is simulated every time your child picks up the controller and plays games such as “Black Ops”, “Medal of Honor” and a plethora of other violent games. When you read a description like the one above the instant reaction should be “I want to shield my child from this”. That reaction often leads to a movement to ban videogames and witch hunts for software companies being held, which is a wrong reaction because it points to a very dangerous thing in us: uneducation or miseducation. So, let’s reverse that.

Making, marketing, and moaning

     The media feeding frenzy would have us believe that all videogames are made for and marketed towards children. This is not true. Marketing expert JP Sherman outlines the difference between direct marketing and exposure marketing in his article “Marketing to kids”. To summarize, if you see an ad on Nickelodeon, it’s being directly marketed to your kids, if your kid watches sees a banner ad for a game on MSN, that’s exposure marketing. What’s the difference? Marketers know that your kids watch Nickelodeon, and thusly place ads which will make then whine to you until you give in and buy them Super Train Adventure for the Wii. The marketers are betting that you will be looking at all of the celebrity gossip on MSN and will see the banner ad for Shoot People and Blow up Stuff for Xbox 360 and you will buy it because it sounds like good stress relief. Let’s say that MSN is your default homepage, as it is in most households. Every time your kid gets on the computer he’s going to see a banner ad for Shoot People and it’s going to look a lot cooler than Super Train. Your children will be exposed to games, movies, websites, and manner of media via exposure. It wasn’t targeted towards them, but they saw it anyways and are now bugging you to buy it for them.

     These games are also not made for children, as they deal with VERY adult themes and have tones that are not suitable for children. There are plenty of games that are suitable for kids, you are not without want in that department. But there are also plenty of games that are not. You, as a parent, must decide what your children will be exposed to and to what level. Which brings up a very important question:

What’s it rated?

     The ESRB rates every game on the market in America, and it is a good guide for parents to know what is in the game. Take a look at the list hyperlinked here, and look at the difference in wording for games rated “Teen” and “Mature”. To place it in a more relatable context look at the MPAA’s rating board here. Essentially, an ESRB rating of “T” equals the MPAA rating of PG-13. As a parent you have to decide what you are comfortable exposing your children to. Would you be okay with letting your 10 year-old watch “Schindler’s List”? Hopefully not, because of the mature themes that are expressed throughout the film. But many parents are perfectly content with allowing their children to play a game such as Heavy Rain without a second thought. This is akin to allowing your child to sit and watch Se7en over and over, hopefully something that you would never do. Ratings allow you to be selective in what your child is exposed to, and helps shelter and protect children from things that will warp their view of “normalcy”.

What about us big kids?

     Videogames offer a huge opportunity to both entertain us and educate us. Games (often) do not educate us about great historical events or figures, but rather educate us about ourselves. Take a moment and re-read the opening word picture. Here, I’ll give you a moment.

     Now imagine that the man is now a woman. She is naked and crying, having just been violently raped, bruises and blood covering her body. She turns and sees the child, and is struck with fear. The creature that she is running from is close behind and there is no way that the child can defeat it. If the woman screams in terror, the creature will come and destroy the child, or at the very least severely handicap him. The child is now faced with a decision: kill the woman and stealthily navigate away from the creature, let the woman be and take a risk that she will bring destruction to him, or take the woman and shove her into the arms of the creature and run swiftly away, all the while knowing what will happen to the woman, and hearing her screams as he runs for cover. Consider these choices, there is no good option. But you have to choose one, there is no alternative. Games make you an active participant, that’s why they have the potential to be more affecting and impactful than film ever will be. You, as an adult, can make the decision, and if you allow it, learn from it. Now imagine your child being forced to make that very choice. It should be an appalling thought. Mature games like Silent Hill give us, adults, opportunity to learn and even grow as people if we look beyond the surface of “It’s only a game”. We are presented with truths about ourselves and our human condition and are forced to act upon very difficult moral dilemmas. A 10 year-old is not yet able to process such abstract thought. Take the woman, you feel compassion for her, yet you have a fear for your own life. To you, she is a moral choice, to a 10 year-old she is simply the concrete, black and white live or die choice. That is, in fact, what it boils down to, your life or hers, but to be human you must take into consideration the true implications of that choice. How do you justify killing the woman? Is it mercy and compassion so that she does not have to live? Is it so that you may proceed and accomplish the greater good? If you kill her, does that make you a monster, just like what is pursuing her? And if you hand the woman back over to the creature are you, in fact, an accomplice to what happens afterword? Now put your child in that position.

     Mature games are mature for a reason. It is because they deal with mature themes and material. Some handle it well, others in a pandering and juvenile fashion. The question is, what are you comfortable allowing your child to be exposed to? When you allow these games into your home, you are consenting that they are acceptable for your children. Keep in mind, however, that these games that feature sex, violence and destruction were never created to be played children. Just like you would protect your children from films and television shows that would corrupt them, you should take normal, sane, measures to protect your children from the influence of mature games. Read the package, read the rating. You have control over your consent.