Parents More Concerned with Video Games than Alcohol or Pornography
It's okay to get drunk and spit roast a hooker, Jimmy, as long as you're not just pretending to.
Published: August 11, 2008
According to a release sent out by What They Play, a parental guide to video games, we're just as screwed in image as we had previously thought. Two polls that they have conducted show that parents are more concerned about their kids playing GTA than, you know, drinking or looking at porn. The raw deets:
"The results of the initial What They Play online poll, conducted April 4-10, 2008, found that the 1,266 participants were most offended by the following in a video game: a man and woman having sex (37%); two men kissing (27%); a graphically severed head (25%); and multiple use of the F-word (9%)."
So, yes, people are far more satisfied with watching their child sever a human head in virtual reality while listening to an N.W.A. album than watch some queer kissin', or WORSE YET, a man and a woman doing the exact same thing that they themselves have done and likely continue to do on a regular basis. More:
"The second poll, which ran August 1-6, 2008, queried parents on what they’d be most concerned about their 17-year-old child indulging in while at a sleepover. More than 1,600 respondents revealed they’re more apprehensive about their child smoking marijuana (49%) and playing the video game Grand Theft Auto (19%), than watching pornography (16%) and drinking beer (14%)."
So, in other words, feel free to go out and get shitfaced with Bobby down the street, as long as you don't play that game, you know, the one with the central theme about crime not paying and false redemption. If I recall, it was the GTA franchise that got in trouble to the point of warranting congressional hearings during a freaking war for showing poorly-animated, non-erotic copulation that was sort of kind of hidden on the disc if you decided to go through the arduous task of trying to unlock it, sometimes involving third party peripherals and hexidecimal code, and that you fully knew about before trying to see the damn thing. It's apparently better that your kid opens up a Hustler and gets slammed with a three-page centerfold of Pam Anderson's cooch becoming sentient and sliding her around the floor like some sort of tentacle.
Too much misinformation is going around about this medium, and it's good we have people like What They Play and the ESA to keep it from becoming the next comic book scare or Midnight Cowboy. Unfortunately, it's likely to stay like this until the shiny smiling faces on Sunday morning television decide to stop trying to scare us with bad journalism about things we're not familiar with for a bump in ratings, and go back to reporting relevant stories like water-skiing squirrels and Britney's latest move.
"The results of the initial What They Play online poll, conducted April 4-10, 2008, found that the 1,266 participants were most offended by the following in a video game: a man and woman having sex (37%); two men kissing (27%); a graphically severed head (25%); and multiple use of the F-word (9%)."
So, yes, people are far more satisfied with watching their child sever a human head in virtual reality while listening to an N.W.A. album than watch some queer kissin', or WORSE YET, a man and a woman doing the exact same thing that they themselves have done and likely continue to do on a regular basis. More:
"The second poll, which ran August 1-6, 2008, queried parents on what they’d be most concerned about their 17-year-old child indulging in while at a sleepover. More than 1,600 respondents revealed they’re more apprehensive about their child smoking marijuana (49%) and playing the video game Grand Theft Auto (19%), than watching pornography (16%) and drinking beer (14%)."
So, in other words, feel free to go out and get shitfaced with Bobby down the street, as long as you don't play that game, you know, the one with the central theme about crime not paying and false redemption. If I recall, it was the GTA franchise that got in trouble to the point of warranting congressional hearings during a freaking war for showing poorly-animated, non-erotic copulation that was sort of kind of hidden on the disc if you decided to go through the arduous task of trying to unlock it, sometimes involving third party peripherals and hexidecimal code, and that you fully knew about before trying to see the damn thing. It's apparently better that your kid opens up a Hustler and gets slammed with a three-page centerfold of Pam Anderson's cooch becoming sentient and sliding her around the floor like some sort of tentacle.
Too much misinformation is going around about this medium, and it's good we have people like What They Play and the ESA to keep it from becoming the next comic book scare or Midnight Cowboy. Unfortunately, it's likely to stay like this until the shiny smiling faces on Sunday morning television decide to stop trying to scare us with bad journalism about things we're not familiar with for a bump in ratings, and go back to reporting relevant stories like water-skiing squirrels and Britney's latest move.
