Grand theft Auto should not be played by anyone below the age provided by the ESRB
We were debating whether or not pepole under the ESRB game should be allowed to play certain games.
My team were arguing that people shouldn’t be allowed to play games if they are not of the correct age which the game is rated. Some of our main points were; popular games may discourage children and teenagers from socialising outside; children are more susceptible to ideas and likely to react in inappropriate ways, younger children are less likely to understand the subtle undertones of the game, children may not understand why you get rewarded for bad actions, and finally, as characters become more realistic in backstory and personality, the more they may become like role models to younger people.
Discourages people from going outside
As more and more games have online features, people tend to spend more time playing online with their friends, then going outside and socialising with them face-to-face. This could have detrimental effects on peoples’ charisma, and personalities, especially given the language used on most online games.
Kids are more susceptible to certain ideas and more likely to react
Although there have been many studies on the effect of video game and TV violence on children, there always seems to be a different result. Some show that it has negative effects, others show that they don’t. One thing is clear though, and that is that children are affected more by external stimuli then adults. Whether this has negative effects is unclear, but they are more susceptible. Children in some schools have been observed pretending to shoot each other in the playground, and jump from imaginary moving cars. This suggests that they are reacting, and re-enacting scenes from games or movies.
The younger you are, the less you understand why you do things in games
When I was a child, I didn’t know why I was doing certain things in games. I just asked my brother what I was supposed to do, and did it for the game play. Many children these days will do the same. With games like GTA, that equates to senseless killing for apparently no reason, just because you can. This is not a good mind set to have in any instance, let alone one to do with murder and theft.
Rewarded for bad actions
In a lot of games like GTA, you often get rewarded for missions which involve bad/illegal actions. For example, robbing a jewellery store in GTA V provides you with a lot of in game money, and shooting people improves your shooting skill, so that it is easier to shoot more people to earn more money.
More emotionally attached characters become more like role models
As games become more and more advanced, characters become more evolved, and have much deeper back stories. This means that the player becomes more emotionally attached to the characters, and they may even try and change their behaviour in real life in order to mimic the game character. This can be bad if the character is a bad person, such as a particularly charismatic villain, such as the Joker from Batman.
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