seriously guys, I want to say this in the most friendliest way possible because I like yeah, I really do!
But if you believe that, then its so hypocritical ...
games are a form of entertainment, just like movies or books. Why should it get some special treatment? Because of the interaction? Or the way you identify eventually with the protagonist?
Before games became this next popular media and form of entertainment I can remember how a lot of people never became tired of blaming Chucky the killer doll for a boys behavior in Britain where he used to tear the wings from pigeons and skinning cats alive he catched in his neighborhood. And that all because his father had those movies at home which they found when the police looked for the family ... instead of eventually explaining more the situation of the boy in his family. Or how one of my teachers loved to blame porn movies for children/teenagers raping someone, or well the stories he has read about it.
Is it possible that the entertainment we consume can be a part of violence? Of course. A damaged, sick or otherwise easily suggestible mind will eventually take those in a different way then most people. But its usually not the cause of those problems.
If you ask me, games get a lot of attention right now for pretty much the same reason movies did in the past. Because it's easy to make politics with it. It's easy to blame movies, books or games for the most violent situations, because it is very often something you will find with people that enjoy a lot of violence or which simply run amok. But those people also enjoy eventually breed. A stupid example I know, but just to show that it can be a bit more then just "that". People with a huge affiliation to violence will very often seek any form of violence, similar to a drug. This is not a unique kind of behavior for people with issues.
I can see that someone who has a family might have issues with children getting killed or harmed, particularly in a video game. As said. I can understand the feelings a game developer might have with said content, but its hypocritical to have those with games and not feel any problem by watching eventually a movie at home where a child got killed, because its "just a movie". Does it feel better when the protagonist in Grand Theft Auto beats a whore to death or some other random people because they are not children? Why is that not a problem? and I am not one of those guys who is a fan of violence for the sake of violence. But even those exist in other medias, like movies (saw just to name one) and also a lot of comic books and particularly books have seen all sorts of weird content. I don't think that the interaction does play the biggest role here but how we actually feel when we consume it. A book like The Sorrows of Young Werther was for many people so engaging that they committed suicide just like the main character in the book. How many people use the Bible or the Quran to do something that could be explained eventually as a psychotic personality with religious hallucinations?
The death of children, or just the option to kill them, never disturbed me in any way in games. Yes, there is certain content that I don't want to see, like child rape for example, or rape in general. As said, I am not for violence just to "shock" the audience. But there are certainly a lot of movies that get away with this, and its not a problem really for many people, where characters perform actions we don't even question anymore. But as soon you have a game, a "video" game it suddenly becomes a problem. I think to talk about it is a good thing and its important. But I have the feeling that there is a huge double moral going on where people rather want to blame games for issues which they don't cause.
