Pizza Luigi
Member
Hey GAF, hope you can help me. I'm Dutch but I have my English oral on Thursday. I wrote my assignment but I hoped that you could help me correcting the text on the subject of spelling and grammar, and obviously if the sentences are correctly built.
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Since 1986, when one of the first videogames, Pac-Man, was released, have games become a celebrated medium with a lot of attention in the media. When something entirely new becomes popular, it also attracts critics. And games were no different. Everyone was all over the fact that there were violent games. Precisely this is what makes people think or believe that games are the cause of violence. It is because the media tell them so. The media tell them the horrifying stories in which children or adults kill or wound eachother as a result of playing a videogame.
This entire phenomenon is a case of history repeating. Earlier in the 20th century, when movies were becoming popular, exactly the same happened. Everyone read stories in the newspapers about how people got violent after watching a movie. Im not sure why this was the case, but it happens all the time when something entirely new is getting popular. It happened with books, with movies even with kinds of music. When Ray Charles first made the song Ive got a woman, where immoral lyrics were used in a gospel song, everyone was all over it and accused Ray and his song for blasphemy. They said children could get wrong ideas from these songs, just like Whatd I say from the same artist.
For a strange reason, those stories have now vanished and the horrorstories about games have taken their place. OnIy, these accusations are just as undeserved as the accusations that were made against movies and music. You probably would like to say: But, wait, games are entirely different, because in videogames, you can actually be the one who kills and feel how that feels in real life. I dont think that being interactive makes a medium, in this case the videogame, more dangerous to children or people in general than when it isnt. The killing in games is not in any way similar to real-life killing and therefore you cant blame games for giving players the chance to kill in the first place.
Maybe you have heard about Jack Thompson. It is an ex-lawyer from the USA that devoted a lot of his time trying to ban certain videogames, like Grand Theft Auto. It is a game where you have to do missions in an open world and there is a lot killing and driving involved.
Thompson tried many times to ban the game from the stores, but not only GTA. The developer of the game, Rockstar, has a lot of those controversial games, like Manhunt, where you have to brutally kill innocent people for no reason at all. This was reason enough for Thompson for trying to get it banned from the stores. It is true, two men went out on the streets to kill after playing Manhunt. But both men were already shizophrenic. The game just triggered the violence in those two men, instead of feeding them violent ideas or feelings.
When you think about it, something is not quite right. Ill give you an example. A boy from New York was in the news last week, because he drove to his school in the car of his parents because he was late for school. The boy was six years old. When he ran over someone at an intersection, the police came to ask where he learned to drive the car and the boy told the police officers that the game Grand Theft Auto IV teached him that. This is a moment where half the world can point their fingers at the videogame for giving an innocent boy the idea that he can drive, or even blaming the game for murder. But that is not what is going on, because the game, Grand Theft Auto IV, has an 18+ rating, which means that it is prohibited for children under the age of 18 to buy the game. No, the boy did not buy the game himself. His parents did. By buying the game for the boy and knowing that it is juridically prohibited for a 6-year old boy to play the game anyway, they are actually guilty for what occured with the car and the ran over man.
This is an example that actually sums up the whole problem. The idea that it is videogames that are wrong in general because they unleash some kind of aggresive or violent feelings inside a person, is biased by the media. Games are the future. Games are worlds where one can jump into and do things one cannot do in real life. One can race in an expensive beautiful Italian sports car or can explore magical worlds. And yes, one can also kill people for no reason whatsoever in games but therefore were talking about games. It is not real. When you know, as a parent, that your child is not exactly immune to such violence in games, movies or even books, you should not let your child play it. When someone is killed by someone else and they find out that the killer has been playing videogames, it is very easy to point your finger at those games. But a lot of people play videogames.
I play videogames as well, but Im not a killer as far as Im aware. Please correct me if Im wrong, but I think Im perfectly normal as far as normal goes. I play the videogames because Im fascinated about other worlds and I love exploring them. I love the music, I love the artwork. I, myself do not like games where it is the objective to just thoughtlessly kill someone. Maybe that separates me from the masses, but it is impossible that a medium as videogames can unleash violence in someone that is entirely normal. Games dont kill people, people do, and therefore a videogame, a normal DVD or even a program on the computer, is not able to make someone perfectly normal a killing machine. You cant blame games for making people violent or aggressive. Parents buy videogames and salesclerks sell the games that are not suitable for certain children. Games are not able to change that.
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Thanks in advance GAF!
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Since 1986, when one of the first videogames, Pac-Man, was released, have games become a celebrated medium with a lot of attention in the media. When something entirely new becomes popular, it also attracts critics. And games were no different. Everyone was all over the fact that there were violent games. Precisely this is what makes people think or believe that games are the cause of violence. It is because the media tell them so. The media tell them the horrifying stories in which children or adults kill or wound eachother as a result of playing a videogame.
This entire phenomenon is a case of history repeating. Earlier in the 20th century, when movies were becoming popular, exactly the same happened. Everyone read stories in the newspapers about how people got violent after watching a movie. Im not sure why this was the case, but it happens all the time when something entirely new is getting popular. It happened with books, with movies even with kinds of music. When Ray Charles first made the song Ive got a woman, where immoral lyrics were used in a gospel song, everyone was all over it and accused Ray and his song for blasphemy. They said children could get wrong ideas from these songs, just like Whatd I say from the same artist.
For a strange reason, those stories have now vanished and the horrorstories about games have taken their place. OnIy, these accusations are just as undeserved as the accusations that were made against movies and music. You probably would like to say: But, wait, games are entirely different, because in videogames, you can actually be the one who kills and feel how that feels in real life. I dont think that being interactive makes a medium, in this case the videogame, more dangerous to children or people in general than when it isnt. The killing in games is not in any way similar to real-life killing and therefore you cant blame games for giving players the chance to kill in the first place.
Maybe you have heard about Jack Thompson. It is an ex-lawyer from the USA that devoted a lot of his time trying to ban certain videogames, like Grand Theft Auto. It is a game where you have to do missions in an open world and there is a lot killing and driving involved.
Thompson tried many times to ban the game from the stores, but not only GTA. The developer of the game, Rockstar, has a lot of those controversial games, like Manhunt, where you have to brutally kill innocent people for no reason at all. This was reason enough for Thompson for trying to get it banned from the stores. It is true, two men went out on the streets to kill after playing Manhunt. But both men were already shizophrenic. The game just triggered the violence in those two men, instead of feeding them violent ideas or feelings.
When you think about it, something is not quite right. Ill give you an example. A boy from New York was in the news last week, because he drove to his school in the car of his parents because he was late for school. The boy was six years old. When he ran over someone at an intersection, the police came to ask where he learned to drive the car and the boy told the police officers that the game Grand Theft Auto IV teached him that. This is a moment where half the world can point their fingers at the videogame for giving an innocent boy the idea that he can drive, or even blaming the game for murder. But that is not what is going on, because the game, Grand Theft Auto IV, has an 18+ rating, which means that it is prohibited for children under the age of 18 to buy the game. No, the boy did not buy the game himself. His parents did. By buying the game for the boy and knowing that it is juridically prohibited for a 6-year old boy to play the game anyway, they are actually guilty for what occured with the car and the ran over man.
This is an example that actually sums up the whole problem. The idea that it is videogames that are wrong in general because they unleash some kind of aggresive or violent feelings inside a person, is biased by the media. Games are the future. Games are worlds where one can jump into and do things one cannot do in real life. One can race in an expensive beautiful Italian sports car or can explore magical worlds. And yes, one can also kill people for no reason whatsoever in games but therefore were talking about games. It is not real. When you know, as a parent, that your child is not exactly immune to such violence in games, movies or even books, you should not let your child play it. When someone is killed by someone else and they find out that the killer has been playing videogames, it is very easy to point your finger at those games. But a lot of people play videogames.
I play videogames as well, but Im not a killer as far as Im aware. Please correct me if Im wrong, but I think Im perfectly normal as far as normal goes. I play the videogames because Im fascinated about other worlds and I love exploring them. I love the music, I love the artwork. I, myself do not like games where it is the objective to just thoughtlessly kill someone. Maybe that separates me from the masses, but it is impossible that a medium as videogames can unleash violence in someone that is entirely normal. Games dont kill people, people do, and therefore a videogame, a normal DVD or even a program on the computer, is not able to make someone perfectly normal a killing machine. You cant blame games for making people violent or aggressive. Parents buy videogames and salesclerks sell the games that are not suitable for certain children. Games are not able to change that.
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Thanks in advance GAF!