Death by video game, or?

The halo kid died, known from many mostly described 'nerdish' video's shot himself while playing with his fathers gun when he was reenacting some halo moves.

this raises the question, is this the fault of games, something where Jack Thompson has been warning for since the Heath High School shooting, or is it the fact that gun ownership is legal in the USA.

That last question is more material for a debate about the First Amendment, but there is another side to the story,

This kid was 11 years old, and his parent where aware that Halo3 is a 18+ game and the obvious fact that this kid was going to far with this game, he skipped school, made fake-guns, costumes and played Halo from dusk till dawn.

So are games like Halo, Gta, Bully and Saints row to blame for this disgrace, or the parents who allow a elementary student to play a 18+ game.

Your thoughts about that last question, would you buy your elementary school attending kid a 18+ game, why would you buy a game for him on that age, or from what age would you say its okay to play a 18 year old game.

MaxVanDenderen

Yeah...is it the games fault? No.

Was his odd behavior caused solely and directly from playing Halo? No.

In a situation like this, the kid was what? 11? The parents thought it was a bright idea to buy him an X-box 360 and a First Person Shooter rated 17+. And not only were the parents not concerned with the child's odd behavior (dressing up like Master Chief and pretending to shoot everyone with his plastic & tin foil guns) they encouraged it by video taping it.

So that's what I think of that. The parents encouraged his behavior that would in fact concern most other people.

Not only that, they thought it was perfectly acceptable to leave a loaded rifle in arms length of an 11 year old kid. (Good parental judgement ther I must say).

Should Halo 3 accept responsibility for this child's behavior? No.

Or should the parents accept responsibility for their own child's behavior? Yes.

P.S. Guns and 11 year old kids don't mix well.

[QUOTE="Palantas"][QUOTE="MaxVanDenderen"]

This kid was 11 years old, and his parent where aware that Halo3 is a 18+ game and the obvious fact that this kid was going to far with this game, he skipped school, made fake-guns, costumes and played Halo from dusk till dawn.

SophinaK

You know, kids like to dress up and pretend. This is pretty normal. I haven't researched this in detail, but the fact that he made a Halo costume and played Master Chief is not an indication of psychosis. I don't know where people are getting this. For Chrissake, freakin' adults dress up like videogame characters, and few people accuse cosplayers of being obsessed (just nerdy). I don't think there is enough data to suggest this kid was doing anything other than being an imaginitive kid.

The fact that his parents let him play with a real gun while doing this is pretty ****ed up. It'd be like a kid playing cowboy, and his parents give him a real revolver, or playing astronaut, and they give him real rocket fuel.

So are games like Halo, Gta, Bully and Saints row to blame for this disgrace, or the parents who allow a elementary student to play a 18+ game.

Your thoughts about that last question, would you buy your elementary school attending kid a 18+ game, why would you buy a game for him on that age, or from what age would you say its okay to play a 18 year old game.

MaxVanDenderen

I might get my 11-year-old (that's how old this kid was, right?) Halo. I was precisely 11 when I started playing shooters (Doom), and I turned out fine. I have no police record, and I'm not antisocial. I did join the Army, so if you're anti-military, this might prove your point.

Halo's about a cyborg who fights aliens attacking Earth. There's nothing in Halo that you wouldn't see in Star Wars, Star Trek, or any number of kids shows (Transformers). I think the only thing that even got the game an "M" rating was the (rather tame) blood splatter when you shoot something.

I wouldn't get him GTA or Saint's Row. I think a supersoldier defending people is a positive role model (your mileage my vary, depending on your opinions of the military). The GTA games, on the other hand, glorify illegal behavior. For the same reason, I'd let my kid watch Terminator 2 before I'd let him watch Goodfellas.

Hear hear! Intelligent and well thought out. I guess I'd only take issue with the idea that his parents "let" him play with a real gun. I live in an area that's fairly rural (Central Maine), where kids often get their own guns at early ages, and where many (if not most) parents think that gun control is for sissies. I don't know any parents who allow their children to play with guns without supervision. Guns are common around here, and accidental shootings aren't uncommon. The two go hand in hand, really. But saying that his parents didn't store the gun properly in an inaccessible place and saying that they negligently allowed their child to play with it aren't the same thing. Let's not cast blame on them for something they almost certainly didn't do.

Keeping a loaded gun in the house where an 11-year old child can access it epitomizes parental negligence.

Encouraging an 11-year old child to play a FPS rated 17+ epitomizes parental negligence.

Then again, it certainly is an easier cop-out to blame the game the 11-year old child played rather than expect the parents to have "parented" him.

I would never buy my kid a M-rated game until he was at least in high school, or when I deemed him or her mature enough. It was obvious that his parents weren't "parenting" because they would have seen an issue if he had been chronically obsessed with all things HALO related. People like Jack Thompson instantly blame videogames for being the cause of all school-related deaths. Though videogames may play a factor, it usually points directly to the parents who could have restricted the purchasing of the video game in the first place. When I go into Gamestop, I sometimes see parents who don't even think twice before buying their 6 or 7 year old kid a GTA game.

I think it is just during this generation that videogames and violence are held in high controvesy because the videogame industry being such a new industry. In fifteen years or so, people will become more informed of videogames and how to purchase games for their child responsibly.

I think it was kid's fault. I mean he was already eleven! He was old enough to realize not to play with guns...

My little brother found a gun under our father's pillow and no, he didn't shoot anyone or anything. He didn't even try to and he was 9 or 10 back then.

The halo kid died, known from many mostly described 'nerdish' video's shot himself while playing with his fathers gun when he was reenacting some halo moves.

this raises the question, is this the fault of games, something where Jack Thompson has been warning for since the Heath High School shooting, or is it the fact that gun ownership is legal in the USA.

That last question is more material for a debate about the First Amendment, but there is another side to the story,

This kid was 11 years old, and his parent where aware that Halo3 is a 18+ game and the obvious fact that this kid was going to far with this game, he skipped school, made fake-guns, costumes and played Halo from dusk till dawn.

So are games like Halo, Gta, Bully and Saints row to blame for this disgrace, or the parents who allow a elementary student to play a 18+ game.

Your thoughts about that last question, would you buy your elementary school attending kid a 18+ game, why would you buy a game for him on that age, or from what age would you say its okay to play a 18 year old game.

MaxVanDenderen

well..some people just have mentel issues I guess....I'm 14..I play 18+ games..I have no plans of shooting myself

A few comments, which coincidentally are directed at two different posts written by the same person:

In a situation like this, the kid was what? 11? The parents thought it was a bright idea to buy him an X-box 360 and a First Person Shooter rated 17+. And not only were the parents not concerned with the child's odd behavior (dressing up like Master Chief and pretending to shoot everyone with his plastic & tin foil guns) they encouraged it by video taping it.

chefstubbies

Emphasis mine. What exactly did you do when you grew up? I guess it's possible you spent the entirety of your childhood years in a finishing school, balancing books on your head at a dinnner table. However, most kids who grow up in America (or anywhere) like to use their imaginations, dress up, and pretend. This is not abnormal. What, when you see a kid dresssed as a cowboy or Spiderman, you really think, "Woah! What a nutty kid! Better get him to a shrink, pronto!"

Making a costume and playing make believe is not abnormal for an 11-year-old. As I noted in a previous post, adults do this. Do you think all D&D nerds and cosplayers are messed up too? (If you reply in the affirmative, I'm sure you'll be describing some people on this forum.) You go on to criticize his parents for videotaping him. What, you have no family video tapes of you playing as a kid? Again, you're describing normal behavior as if it were bizzare and unusual.

Keeping a loaded gun in the house where an 11-year old child can access it epitomizes parental negligence.

Encouraging an 11-year old child to play a FPS rated 17+ epitomizes parental negligence.

chefstubbies

Yeah, keeping a gun around where a kid can get to it is very bad parenting. I agree totally.

I don't agree about the 17+ comment. I noted, as did several other people in this thread, that we played shooters at the same age as this kid. I turned out just fine, and it annoys me that someone describes my parents as "epitomizing negligence." Describing keeping a loaded gun around, and buying your kid a M-rated game, in the same terms is absurd.