Newsroom
Newsroom
General : FOX Reports on MMO Social Dangers
Posted Dec 10, 2007 by Keith Cross
FOX News offers up a heaping helping of anecdotal evidence to remind us all why we should be afraid of our friends while playing games online.
Massively multiplayer online games — or MMOGs, as they're called — can foster more vulnerability than there might be on other virtual meeting spaces such as dating and social networking sites, where participants are inclined to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior from the start.
"When you're in a social situation like that — playing a game, having fun — you're comfortable with the people you're playing with," said cyber-stalking victim Jayne Hitchcock, president of Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA). "People are just not very careful. They lose all sense of reality and themselves."
Such conditions can lead participants to be more trusting of each other and less cautious. Players tend to be focused not on meeting each other, finding a love connection or promoting themselves, but on getting through the game, working as a team and concocting strategies to win. The pressure to make a good impression and project a certain persona is off.
Read more here.
There are mentally unstable people who play MMOs??
More anti-MMO FUD from the FOX "news" network. Don't they ever get tired of making their viewers paranoid?
Concidering the millions of ways to have these kind of events occur, its interesting that they focus on 4 events that involve online games. I think if we as a comunity could get the road toll down to 4 in 10 years people would be dancing on the street. Because it involves computer games its news worthy - and if its news worthy you know its a random, rare and interesting event...(unlike the amount of people who die on the road each year)
Next they will be warning about pixilated pornography while allowing the web/news agents etc to be stocking endless supplies...
Fox is such a good news site ....
Mylin
I take your comments more as a biased editorial against Fox News than an accurate dipection of the article.
I read the same article and did not read any alarmist warning of doom. I saw a reminder to be cautious with strangers that you meet online.
The article calls for people to be smart and use good judgement, not to "be afraid, be very afraid".
Fox "News" is always great for a good laugh.
"We Report. You Decide"
I think what was really missing, was a good distinction between roleplayers, and casual players. Maybe I missed it, but one person said "They force you to pick an alter ego." I don't think there is any "forcing" involved
Video games are evil! Blame Columbine on Doom!
It's the same crap people have been saying for ages.
"Oh my, something terrible has happened."
"We need a scapegoat. Find something obscure."
"Look! He played Doom a lot! That HAS to be the reason he killed all those people!"
"Call the press! Call the press!"
We'd rather make up excuses and find scapegoats rather then deal with the unpleasant truths. There are bad people in the world, always have been, always will be. Sorry, it's true. The old saying "life's a b!tch and then you die"? Well, there is some truth to that. Anyone who looks outside their own little bubble once in a while can see that.
To try and stop these bad people, do you punish the rest of the people who haven't done anything wrong?
Blaming WoW or other online games for this kind of stuff is stupid. It's like blaming the telephone after a phone argument. "Stupid phone! Why did you let me say that?" Dumb.
They are blaming the medium instead of the cause. Cause = F'd up people Medium = MMOGs so the guilty party must be.... the MMOG? I mean, if the MMOG wasn't there the F'd up people would have never been able to stalk so and so etc. etc.
That's just stupid reasoning.
Truth is, watching FOX news is much more of a social danger then any MMOG could ever be.
Yes, there are. They're all around us, in every day life.
<insert creepy music here>
I might agree with you if this were the first report from them. However, it's not, and they are well known for making up or significantly altering stories to support their own political agenda. Stories regarding online gaming are no exception. Seems like every few weeks they come up with some new reason why the Internet should be locked down and monitored.
Fox can't be trusted.
Though FOX is a bit suspect as far as a news source, being "smart" when it comes to meeting people online is not.
Especially if you are a parent. One would think that this is common sense but the reality is that there are just a lot of dense parents out there. And, even if the parenting is good, that doesn't mean that the children are going to pay heed to their advice.
It is not stupid to be aware. It can be stupid to watch FOX news without an adult or someone to explain all the yellow journalism.
Immediantly after one of the school shootings, they were talking about how violent video games was the likely cause of the shooters problem. They were stating it like it had been a fact the day after, even though they had zero idea, or any reason to support this argument, and had no idea if he even played games at all.
I also recall during the boston adult swim bomb scare, they were trying to describe what Aqua Teen Hunger Force was, and at one point he guy in mid sentece gave up, and decided to simply call it a "A show for stoners" It was fantastic XD
Try actually reading the article for yourselves.
They don't BLAME MMOs or lump all online gammers in the criminal catagory.
The article points out that law enforcement sees MMOs no diffrent than any other internet meeting place that involves a crime.
Calm down people.
Ranting and acting paraniod only shows MMO gammers are all nuts.
or another way to say this is, "OMG maybe there really is a wolf this time! But probably not." FOX's credibility is so bad at his point that even if they did suddenly engage in honest journalism it would be ignored by thinking people.
"Truth is, watching FOX news is much more of a social danger then any MMOG could ever be."
Agreed.
I did read the article. I wouldn't have posted if I didn't.
Fox News has always added their spin to everything they've ever reported. Take for instance when John Stewart was on the O'Reily Factor. He kept calling "The Daily Show" audience a bunch of stoned slackers, yet it was proven that the average Daily Show viewer was a college graduate, not a stoned slacker teen.
Or when the Fox news opinionist said that he didn't like Obama for president because his name sounds too much like Osama.
Just blind, blatant political spin being added to everything that they do.
I'm sure the Christian Coalition was upset about something having to do with MMOGs, so they phoned President Bush and Fox News and told them to run a story about the dangers of MMOGs so that they could "preach" in their Zealotry Colliseums that MMOGs are evil and dangerous...
Again, it's shifting the blame from the guilty party to the medium they used. It's like blaming the car for a drunk driving accident instead of the drunk. "The car made me drive into that tree!"
It is naive to think violent video games do not have an impact on the people who play them to varying degrees. Do I think we shouldban violent video games?? No way they are fun...But, the argument alot of people make against a person's environment not having any influence in a person's life is disingeneous and foolish.
Quoted for truth.
dont give fox any attention. their staff is incompotent, they dont know what they are talking about on any topic, including the time of day.
the best way to handle fox, is to stop paying attention. when we do that, their advertisers, stop paying...
Reason #635374 to vote for Ron Paul
That is were a little thing called "attentive parenting" comes into play.
If your child cannot handle or distiguish the difference between a game and real life, then the parents need to step in and do something.
I mean, look at the recent tragedy at the mall in Colorado. The kids parent (maybe adopted parent) admitted to the kid showing her the gun the night before the shooting happened. She said "as soon as I saw the reports on TV I just knew so-and-so-cowardly-kid was involved."
COME ON. She had the power to stop it.
Bad parenting = 99% of all "problem children" who either do something stupid/terrible at a young age or grow up to be pedifiles and perverts, stalking kids over MMOGs...
It's nature and nurture. It's also cause and effect.
i laughed when i read this. and just how many people at fox do you think play MMO's
edit: lol and they are targeting WoW... hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha no more explanation needed, yeah anyone who plays WoW is probably mentally instable. good find Fox
I agree completley..which is why I think articles such as these are helpful to parents who may be otherwise oblivious to the un-policed world of MMOs...where people of any age interact in game and on voice chat. The fact is, there are 40 year old men mixed with 14 yeard old girls chatting it up etc.. Most parents are clueless to the potential (whoever obscure) risk.
What I find most shocking is that the article actually has quotes, reasons, statistics, etc. about the fact that gamers are smart, cautious, and unlikely to fall for this stuff.
Unfortunately they still spend most of the time talking about 8 cases that have happened in the last 5 years. I agree with a previous poster that if these types of statistics were related to just about anything else involving humans, there would be people estatic about how safe their lives and hobbies are.
Interesting read. For the number of subscribers that WoW has and that is the number of such instances that was able to be found makes it look like a possiblity of happening but not a great one. Seems like a little common sense and remembering that the other players are people would prevent some and people who are not the best suited to be with each other can't be stopped. People make bad decisions and the number of people playing games to the number of crimes listed here doesn't make it seem common.
I gotta say, it doesn't matter where these people go or what they do junk like this is bound to happen.
Someone who stabs someone over a virtual sword is just as likely to kill someone over repoing their car, or taking their promotion at work.
Blaming mental disorders on a video game could just as easily be blamed on any other thing. I don't remember in WoW there being a part where you can beat and toss a baby around the room.
Although there are alot of sick people out there, thats primarily a parenting thing, but also a behavioral thing bound to them by society and their ability to make friends. Friends help shape people about as much as the parents do.
people always try to make a witch hunt out of everything..maybe these killers drank soda? does that mean we should bann coke and pepsi from being drank since killers are drinking it?? the world is full of ignorance
Fear has become the coin of the realm. Whichever politician, company, or news outlet can make you fearful enough to buy what their selling wins.
It's the politicians, companies, and news outlets which are trying so hard to scare us we should truly fear.
They should focus on the dangers of being around right-wing 'Christians' with guns.
That seems to be MUCH more deadly than MMORPG players.
I like the idea of seperating adults from minors when it comes to gaming, more specifically in a social environment like an MMO. I do not see anything wrong with this ~ and to be honest (being an adult), I don't really want minors on my server to begin with.
Let me just repeat this individuals very very pithy statement
"Truth is, watching FOX news is much more of a social danger then any MMOG could ever be."
That pretty well sums it up, definitely!
LOL
"
The common goal of annihilating the foe can bring out a belligerence that sometimes spills over into real-world interactions, especially within those who become addicted to what they're playing, said Robert McCrie, a professor in the law and police science department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
"You observe people playing these games — it draws out a kind of aggressiveness and competitiveness in their behavior," he said. "There is a concern for people who become obsessively involved with cyber gaming."
"
because your not trying to defeat a foe when your physically knocking him into the ground like football. oh wait but thats not more aggressive and competitive than trying to right click a mouse button and press some numbers to see particles float across the computer screen and "annihilate" your opponent.
--------------------------
"
Since teammates typically don't compete using their own identities but instead take on characters called avatars, they frequently feel safer and less exposed than they might if they were putting up personal profiles on sites like MySpace, Facebook and Match.com.
"
yea. because there DEFINITELY are NOT many more cases of people being killed, raped, molested, etc from meeting and hooking up on myspace, facebook, or match.com.
--------------------------
"
"When you're in a social situation like that — playing a game, having fun — you're comfortable with the people you're playing with
Such conditions can lead participants to be more trusting of each other and less cautious.
pressure to make a good impression and project a certain persona is off.
"
and then they go on to quote.
"
"You're hiding behind a cloak of anonymity and false pretenses," said University of Baltimore criminologist Jeffrey Ian Ross. "They force you to pick an alter ego."
"
double LOL.
also id like to point out that on the side in most read.
Scientists Make Fruit Flies Gay, Then Straight Again
just found that amusing.
Well let's see Wow has ht over 9 million players. Considering the numbers, things like that are bound to happen. You have a large population of people, of course you are going to get a few wacko's. I am personally surprised that there have been that few problems. But Fox will blame the game for it, and not the fact, that with that number of people playing, there is going to be a fair share of wacko's and pyscho's playing. It's just plain old stats.
"FOX reports" is an oxymoron.
Bored academics studying cultural/social anthropology and behavior in the online realm. It's interesting and what should also be noted is no one factor or occurrence in any person's life is enough to cause them to act out violently, become depressed -- or whatever. It's the culmination of years of issues and a person's inability to deal with said issues.
Anyone can conduct a study and provide evidence to back their findings.
It's just like inMichael Moore's films, except there -- it's called editing.
Have a nice day.
Most of the stories on Fox News are meant to keep the populace in a state of fear. Bin Laden is coming!! Hillary will make us communists!! Food can kill you!! etc....
So why not games?
robot chickens are the future!!!!!!!
All of us who are over the age of 40 remember the same thing went on about Dungeons and Dragons when it was at a social high point.
Fact of the matter, there will always be those who are unstable, manipulative, predatory or dangerous in our society. Just because we play a large, widely played game does not mean that they are suddenly gone. You will find those same types of people in all aspects of society.
My sister's ex-husband lost her and his kids because of his obsession with football.......should we ban the sport? No, we shouldn't. Even though more marriages and lives are upset and destroyed because of sports obsession than anything else in the world, I have never heard of any news reports about that. Haven't seen any groups come crawling out of the woodwork to ban or curb sports addiction.
Those people will be everywhere. There will be places we all think that we are safe from them, but we will not. Get rid of the games and something else will take their place. That's the way of things. You can only do what you would do in real life. Be careful to not become obsessed with the game, don't let ourselves get lost in the silly things and just relax to enjoy playing and having fun.
Faux News? Are you still paying any attention to them? :D
I bet you could do a similar report about people that met while playing on a social bowling league.
Bush is evil! Bush will ruin us! OMG!
Both sides put their spin on things.
Fox has the best ratings though, so they gotta be doing something right,
Correction, Hillary will make us socialists.
Careful Murphy the koolaid kids will lynch for dissin the queen!
A little two-year-old girl is dead. Fox News didn't make that up. The mother (if you can call her that) met the man, who she married, while playing WoW. That man later killed the little girl . Fox News didn't make that up. And Fox News did not advocate locking down and monitoring the Internet. The gist of the article is that you have to be as careful online as your are in real life.
In the Fox News headline, it specifically says that the "Phenomenon Remains Rare". I'll bet dollars to donuts that the vast majority of posters decrying the news article didn't even bother to read it.
Why are gamers so paranoid? Why do you rant against articles you don't even bother to read. Could it be that you fear the truth and are in self-denial?
I read Fox News every day and have found them to be the least biased of all the major news outlets. Maybe you should take time out from gaming so much (not addicted are you?) and read about the world that is happening around you. Read all the news outlets and then make up your own minds. What have you got to lose except maybe a roll on the next uber item.
I guess there warning the idiots that are in all masses of people be careful , some people are stupid enuff to need warnings that someone might be crazy in a mass of people,
Fact of the matter is, no matter what the doom and gloom media are trying to convince us of, that the unstable and dangerous people in the world will go where they can and do as much as they think that they can get away with.
And it doesn't matter what that activity is.
The lunatics and predators of the world will always be amongst us. We, as a whole, need to be on guard against it by being vigilant and cognizant of the signs of predators and nut cases out there. And those signs are not too different from the signs we get when we are meeting them in person.
To be honest, I have seen more unstable and violent personalities at sporting events and other public events than I have ever seen in any of the games that I have played.
Just remember that the media, Fox in particular, tends to ride the doom and gloom bandwagon pretty heavily, so they all want us to be overcautious. Here are a couple of prime examples;
"But some hook-ups have had deadly consequences.
In the case of toddler "Baby Grace," whose real name was Riley Ann Sawyers, her mother Kimberly Dawn Trenor met second husband Royce Clyde Zeigler II playing "World of Warcraft."
Trenor, 19, had had a volatile relationship with Riley's birth father and wound up moving from Ohio to Texas to be with Zeigler, 24.
Zeigler and Trenor abused the toddler, according to court documents, and Trenor told police that one July day, they beat, tortured and threw the child across the room, killing her. They allegedly concealed her body in a box in a shed and then tossed it into Galveston Bay.
In the Lenz and Broome cases earlier this year, both adults allegedly struck up relationships with teenagers playing "Warcraft" and then convinced them to meet in person before authorities caught on."
In the first case, we have a set of violent personalities that got together. What would they be saying if these two met at a sporting event? What if they met at an art fair? What if they had met at the fireworks show on the 4th of July?The media wouldn't say anything about those events or activities, had that been the case, but since they met on an MMORPG, then the "culprit" is the game..........GIVE ME A BREAK!!
In the second case, we have a couple of pedophiles. What was so special about the games that brought them out? NOTHING. Pedophiles don't exist because of these games and those two, had they not been online, would have been seeking out their prey in front of schools, at video arcades and other kids hangouts.
Again, since they used an MMORPG to aid in the commision of their crimes, the media makes a big deal out of the fact that they used the game.
Was the game the culprit that the article tends to lead you to believe? NO, it does not.
The media is creating a sense of elevated fear in the hopes that we will not see the flaws in their arguments. I, for one, am not that gullible.
So I hope that no one is bothered if some of us do not completely freak out over this, since some of us have been around long enough to have learned a few things about the world that the fear-mongers of the world want us all to forget.
Such as the fact that the media makes it's living off of it's ratings.....ratings that depend on viewers......which, of course, is driven by sensation. And what's more sensational than fear, death and gore? That is why many TV stations show the fatal car crash before they show you the story about the cat that got pulled from a tree by the neighbor. It improves ratings.
That's what the story really is....a blatant attempt to increase ratings by driving fear.
Ok lets get down to brass tacks here with this the fact of the matter is if someone actually goes off and kills someone from playing a video game there is obviously another element that was there before hand. In all likelihood they have a mental problem or were brought up in a bad home or a violent household. Your normal person without problems knows to distinguish between games and reality or tv and reality.
Fact of the matter is they probably in all likelihood had some problems and exhibited warning signs but their parents, friends, teachers, peers and the like likely refused to acknowledge it. Many parents dont bother cuz they dont want to acknowledge that their kid has some kind of problems.... Anyways games, music, movies, and television dont cause people to go off and kill someone. Look into these people's medical background (yeah its privileged) but i can pretty much guarantee you that there is some red flags in their medical history and if not then the blame is really with the parents, peers, friends , teachers etc.... I've played violent games for years and I'm fine. I have only ever been violent if i needed to protect myself or someone else and then i try to resolve it without violence first.
Parenting and numerous other factors come into play with these things. Yes there are going to be wackos out there but no more so then your chances of walking down the street and getting mugged.
i can tell you fox's research on this right now.
well throw me down and call me willy. fox you convinced me! i'm quiting!
That is without doubt the worst horse shit I have ever read/seen since I 13 years ago watched an -again american - tv-programme saying the same things about heavy metal. My god, the whole article lacks heavy arguments! Those things they claim to be happening to a greater extent in MMOs are so easy to prove wrong! LOL -Did they even ONCE consider comparing the numbers to the outside world?? 30 million people play online games and thats all they can pull out?? I bet even a city of 5 million people see murders every single day! Oh my god, there is no end to northern american religious stupidity!
My only question is this: Noone can be that unintelligent as to claim what they claim to be true.. there must be some kind of hidden agenda! What is it they really want? Maybe scare people into believing in god?? You tell me!
I agree with what Wargoo said..
Fox News *sighs* Enuf said
Friend...you are wasting your breath. You simply cannot reason with some people. We had a Anti MMO group called Parents Concerned about WoW visit the High School I taught at.....They were alarmist, paranoid zealots. They were also the exact same people that came in the week before shilling for Al Gores and Inconvenient truth, and calling Bush the Anti- Christ.
When you see Jack Thompson on any news show he is on CNN, CBS, or NBC. Ask Al Fraken what were the causes of Columbine and he will tell you Video Games and Guns. I hear folks call fox evil, but ask them if they have ever read a single article or have watched a single program..they say no, or they point to some highly edited piece of crap on youtube. It just goes to show how effective propaganda can be.
So true. It's disturbing to see the amount of parents who expect some outside force (namely, the schools) to raise their children while they attempt to stay "young". My folks wanted me to explain the things I liked all the time (especially when it came to why they should pay 20 bucks a month for me to tie up the phone line every evening). It was annoying, but it at least gave them an idea of what I was into. They also had this mindset that if I couldn't explain it to them in a way that they'd understand it, then I must not really understand it myself - which meant I HAD to research it until I could or there was no way they were going to go along with it.
In direct response to the article, there was a time when I would've bashed Fox for something like this, but different people need to be informed different ways. My significant other's step-mom explained that she relies on articles like these to relay the seriousness of things she would otherwise see as insignificant (what's a game compared to keeping track of the finances of a university). While it does make her overly paranoid (she thought that by simply playing World of Warcraft, I was going to drop out of vet med school, become a recluse, and dump her step-daughter for a nightelf girlfriend), it does make her react to the little things that she should, in all honesty, be paying attention to in the first place. The burden then falls upon child to use her/his resources to show her the flip side of things. I can accept that argument and, as a result, accept Fox's attempt to inform the general public who need things presented to them that way. It's just kind of annoying to deal with the close-mindedness that it usually spawns...
That is why I watch FOX and MSNBC that way I get the conservative and liberal "truth" this allows me to estimate the real truth by heading somewhere in the middle.
Actually the truth is somewhere way to the side of both views. Are these the only stories they could come up with considering the millions of players they had to work with? I'd rather be stalked by a freak in a MMO then shot up in a school or a mall. Just more idiotic fear-mongering to an ignorant public.
I've found that BBC news (not BBC news America) but the actual British version is the most unbiased news source that is readily available in the U.S.
BBC + MSNBC + CNN + FOX + The Onion and I think I get a fairly unbiased and accurate analysis of what's going on in the world....
Unbiased? LOL. You're only listing the big corporation / establishment news sources.
Fox News has a hell of a way of making the "bad" news they report on look like Satan incarnate. It isn't bias to me. If anyone is biased, it's the ultra conservative Fox News team. Anything that has been a target or could be a target they attack when they are able to pull something out their asses or discover an evil in it. They make NO attempts to suggest the rarity or unlikelyhood of the "evil" occurring, and instead suggest, either blatantly or subtly, that what they're reporting on is somehow a bad thing that every bad person will take advantage of to commit bad acts.
This article called for good judgement just as much as their news cast about the DS and pedophiles, and the way they presented that, it may as well had been a report on the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Yes, one biased against the U.S. one for the left, one for the right, and one biased against everyone else.... I then filter the nuggets of truth from the piles of B.S. and call it a day!
what would you suggest?
Oh, and btw.
anyone who looks like Kimberly Trenor
Royce Clyde Zeigler II, will definitely kill their children... hell I would too.Must have been the ugliest baby known to man. They were only doing a favor.
Yeah that's all you need if you just want your news from people motivated by greed and control. Oh yeah they give you this nice little buffet. But the problem is it just different flavors of the same junk to suit whatever mainstream political taste someone has. Ever wonder why Fox and CNN pretty much report on the same things? Why can't two completely different news services vary more in their stories? They even match eachother with these stupid tabloid domestic dramas. The news is more about what they aren't showing us then whatever politcal slant they put on stories. So much of it is just a diversion, fearmongering and propaganda targeting the modern peasant. Look for some grassroots sources like soldiers who talk about what they see on the ground. It's out there if you look or you can opt to continue being spoon-fed. These sources may not always be accurate or unslanted but it's more balanced than what you call balanced.
Way to turn this into some political showdown, Mr. Spartan. I think the bottom line is, MMO games are not for everyone. Much like alcohol is not for everyone. Some people just have no responsibility. If you don't have some sort of responsibility in your life (as in not spending 12 hours a day playing computer games), then there is a good bet that people may end up like these people on the news. I'm sure you of all people know that there are some people who just don't get it, or don't want to get it, and continue their lives much like any other reclusive addict. So please, don't blame the media outlets for putting two and two together.
Calm down chief! I think you'll find we fight on the same side.
I watch news from the mainstream because it's easiest to find. What terrible things happened today? CNN.com. What crap is Fox reporting? Foxnews.com etc. I don't have time to scour the internet for 4 hours a day to find unbiased review from grassroots activists.... sometimes I just wanna check the score of the game or the weather...
I also work in an environment where 5 different news stations are constantly on the flat screens mounted to the walls... each with a mega-media news outlet playing 24/7 so it's hard to avoid it.
To research a topic that I care about I don't rely on mass media. I'm just a distrusting as anyone else when it comes to mega-corps.
Actually I can't tolerate either side any more, left or right, nor can I tolerate the establishment and/or the activists. Everyone has an agenda. Try and look at the same thing from enough angles and you'll begin to find the truth.
"Truth is a three edged sword. Your side, their side, and the truth."
I don't believe anyone of any source 100% be it establishment, activist, conspiracy theorist or daily news anchor... it's all about seeing the different perspectives and formulating your own opinion of what is right and wrong.
Back to the original subject,
I think the Fox news article is designed to say "look what COULD maybe happen through MMO gaming." It's a scare tactic. Fox is always using them.
Fox News = support /viewership from right winged Christian groups/individuals
Right winged Christian groups = scare tactics i.e. old Catholic church. Fear people into believing.
Agreed. Only I think Fox news is less Christian / right-wing than they appear. They're more about giving the right something to call their own so they stay happy, keep spend money, and vote establishment. As far as the mmo thing it's just a prime example of how there's such a huge demand for BS. It took someone two seconds to come up with that asinine idea of mmo's being dangerous because stalkers can break the ice easier in a gaming forum. Let's see some statistics. What percentage people who got stalked, murdered, raped, drooled on last year because they played a video game verses going to college, playing at the park or going to church?
We all know who backs FOX and their opinions on video games. If you don't know who I'm talking about then you haven't been paying attention. The simple truth is, in anything new ( yes I know it's been over 10 years now), a large group of people are interested, especially one that involves children, the older generations will see it as the cause of any problem. It's not new and from looking at our history we can see that until the generation that grew up with this new tech comes into power and/or something else comes along, MMOGs and video games in general will continue to be seen as a problem. Until the system changes do not expect a change, as always.
Cool. So one day video game violence will go through the roof! Yeah I could deal with more parental neglect as long as we aren't over-protective anymore once gen-x'ers come to power.
Here is another bashing of MMO's on FOX news. They mention a couple "MMO caused" killings, but why don't they mention peopled getting killed in car crashes every day and tell people not to drive cars. And, of course, they have to show pictures of WoW, the "media MMO". It's kinda weird that they metioned some old ones: Everquest, Ultima, and DAoC. That one about the chinese dude killing the guy for the WoW thing was funny though.
While there are social dangers no more so then going to a bar and meeting people. Jack Thompson would have people believe that mmorpg players and those that play video games are the antichrist if he could. This is the mothers fault, as well as the step fathers fault in what you quoted. She could of gone to a bar and ended up with a guy that did the same exact stuff. Also the fact that she tried to help cover it up just proves that she is a bit loony to.
Getting down to it there is no more danger in MMO's then there is in the real world. Playing WoW didnt make these people kill their baby something else did and there is obviously something severly wrong there. Yes they met in WoW but she could of met him at he bar down the street, at a gym or what have you its not going to make a difference in their behavior.
What grinds my gears is that parents and/or otherwise educated people actually fall into this. Parents normally because they are to lazy to see what their kids are up to and then you have the educated people who just dont seem to grasp the concepts that the news will try to spin off stuff as being evil when it suits their needs.
Doesnt matter if the article was edited and they usually arnt since its a news broadcast taped and you can usually find the original... The fact of the matter is games and mmo's are no more a social danger then being in school or walking around your town at night or going to a bar and meeting someone for a drink. The only time thing become dangerous in either of these situations is if someone has preexisting problems. These arnt caused by simply playing MMO's and mmo's will not make people do crazy things if there isnt something wrong with them.
Its a given that these kind of reports show up because news places, politicians etc all have their own agendas and along with children's parents dont want to face the truth that there are in fact a whole slew of bad parents out there. Again the fact is most of the things that happen that they state being the fault of video games or music or whatever is usually the fault of society itself. As i said before bad parenting etc. There are usually signs something is wrong and if your preemptive and paying attention alot of things could be prevents that have happened...
Well it really is bashing. There is something wrong with the kid or people that would kill for money to play a MMO and there are usually signs of something going on as i stated above. If parents would watch their kids and notice what they are doing alot of this wouldnt happen i can almost garuntee it... How about them reporting on real social dangers? Going to a bar and getting drugged. People pulling others off the street and raping them, kidnapping people, ID theft etc? Simply because games are an easy scapegoat and most parents dont want to admit they are at fault so they simply agree
Parental neglect has always existed. There is no way to fix it, at least not one that doesn't take away the rights of every parent. The ratings systems are in place for a reason, whatever the medium. But they are only effective if the parents pay attention to what their children are watching and playing. Yes it's an old line but we all know it's true, no one else can do that job. As for violence, movies, TV and video games are all violent and many are not meant to be seen or played until a certain age. There are penalties for letting children into R rated movies and for letting them buy M and AO rated games. But again, children find ways of getting ahold of them and unless the parents are actively involved in the children's lives we have no way of protecting them from any of it.
Violent kids...
Before video games got popular, they were blaming Dungeons & Dragons...
I can still remember the news on all the book burnings... Poor Fiend Folio...
Bleh
Someone needs to write up a profile on these people and why they feel the need to blame entertainment.
Specifically they want to blame video games and music and movies , tv and everything else they can because its easier to scapegoat a problem then it is for parents to admit that they arnt really good parents. These are the parents that go out and buy their kid's whatever the hell games they want then see said game on TV and freak out when they are the ones that bought it.
This happens because they dont use the ESRB rating that in in position and just lapse on their duties as a parent giving their kids whatever they want so they can sit them in front of a tv or computer and let that be the kid's babysitter. Basically if parents watch what their kids are doing these things have a very slim chance of happening. They will always point out what is easiest to scapegoat but the fact is as I have said before MMO's are no more a social Danger then going to your local bar or walking around your neighborhood at night. In fact in all likelihood your probably safer in an MMO.
I am confused
You say they are just trying to use games as a scape goat and that there is no danger from video games. Then you say its the parents fault for letting their kids play video games...If there is no danger why should parents have to monitor what their kids play at all and why do we need an ESRB rating.
^Now that should be Quoted for Truth!^
Well there most definitely is a social danger in MMO's but its blown out of proportion on a regular basis is what im getting at... This is where the "scapegoating" comes in... They are trying to make MMO's look more dangerous then they are... Way to protect kids a bit more in MMO's is having the parents set up the account rather then just letting the kid set it up. This way is you wanna block the account you can change the password and have it go to an email address your kids dont know....
I think parents still need to watch their kids even if the games dont pose as much of a social danger. In terms the ESRB is there for the parents to watch what their kids are doing. If a game is rated Teen dont buy it for an 8 year old, if its rated mature dont buy it for a 12 year old etc... This is what i mean by parents needing to watch their children. Check their game collections, check the games out when you buy them. Check the cases... If they toss the cases find the name look it up on the net or go to the local game shop...
I'm not saying that there is no danger at all from video games. As i said there is most certainly a social danger.... However violent games will not make people violent without there being something predisposed or preexisting within the person. Same with someone killing someone for money to play a MMO. There is clearly something wrong with the people in this light and most people dont want to admit their faults...
While there is a social danger somewhat as i said its not much worse then going to the local bar (in fact it could technically be considered safer...) I think more what im saying is if parents are not watching their kids they have no right at all to get mad about the content of the game...