Thank you, Dante, for your objective approach to the matter.
Autism can mix very poorly with Mature games. I'm in education and I currently work with Autism. Your parenting is exemplary, and not characteristic, unfortunately, of many parents in the modern world. Please keep in mind, however, that it is possible for your child to see violent games at friends' houses or even at school, thanks to the mobile gaming market.
It'd be best if he learned about the darker side of man from you, and not from a pixelated image that will make it "fun" to shoot at stuff. I'm not sure how old your son is, but think of it as a "Birds and the Bees" talk. He's bound to pick up on it eventually, so it'd be best if he heard it from you.
Not an easy task, obviously. I got stuck explaining greed, power, and lust for resources when explaining what war was to one of my kids.
Just like you can't blame BMW for their drivers driving at dangerous speeds without turn signals, so too can you not blame Mature video games with M printed in very large bold on the front of the box.
Note that it's "Mature" and not "Adult." This indicates that the person must be emotionally stable to play the game, and be able to define what is reality and what is not. I'm feeling optimistic today, so I'd like to think that most adults reach "Mature" at some stage in their life.
These stories are giving me doubts, though. If I go out and commit a crime as horrible as any of these (and that's a big IF), it'll be because of my alcoholic father and my completely messed up family. But hey, if that kid can get the publicity he does from saying "video games killed my mom," why the hell wouldn't anyone say that? Unless, of course, they're actual fans of gaming. That's the answer, pure and simple. This kid was a psychopath, not a gamer.
Freedom of speech. Freedom of the press. Freedom of religion. Sum it all up: Freedom of expression, dammit how can people not get that? Creating games is an art. Your liberal ideals will never pass. The founding fathers intended for certain freedoms to be allowed.
Since when does the media take the words of a crazy person seriously anyways? In my opinion, if you had a childhood with rated M games and parents who obviously didn't care what you played, you have issues far more serious than gaming. These idiots would have killed regardless of whether or not they knew how to fire a weapon. And no you can't hold us accountable for the idiots who get their hands on firearms and commit crimes either.
Katie, there are certain laws that just cannot pass. The same law that protects your right to spew garbage about people protects a developer's right to spew garbage at their gamers. It's media. Stop PMSing and get over it.
@Sam_021 Agree whole-heartedly with you Sam, and I'm educated, so there goes that misconception.
DRM is a very bad idea. Gaming is an art. If you're going to go about gaming as a business, at least follow this rule: Make sure you provide the customer with something that's functional, otherwise it's on you when it doesn't work.
The irony of this is, of course, that unlike any normal business, EA usually doesn't offer refunds for their own products. It's a loophole that they're exploiting. If you insist on DRM, make sure that your servers are always online. Even Activision Blizzard will reimburse its customers for some of their money if their servers go down unexpectedly. (Speaking of WoW, Diablo is another case and point example of another DRM screw up)
EA was not prepared for this. They have no idea of how DRM works. They heard "Stopped used games + torrents" and didn't see a downside. Well, this is the fallout.
And 1 more thing: Diablo 3's DRM was awful, and Blizzard went to make the console versions with an offline mode. Now we have EA and Maxis apologizing for Sim City's horrendous launch. You'd think companies would have learned by now that this just doesn't work. Gamers get mad. It's really not that complicated.
@cuddlyfuzzle @SoreThumbsBill The concept of trusting others to work just as hard as I do is, forgive me, laughable. So long as there are lazy, unmotivated degenerates in a country, and there are, the only way to get them to work would be to force them to.
And if there's one thing "us yanks" hate more than Socialism...it's a dictatorship.
@Zoza24 Now if only there were more developers like CD Projekt...the world would be a better place. As it stands, however, we're dangerously close to a monopoly of either only EA or Activision gaming.
God I hate this man. He's the worst thing to happen to the industry. You want to complain about how impersonal developers are now? About DRM? About overpriced DLC? Here, gentlemen, is the root of all evil...the industry hates him, and yet he has an 800% increase in pay this year. If Activision ever bothered to read feedback on the guy, they'd realize that we hate this guy, hate this bit of news, hate the way they treat their franchises, hate the way they treat their developers...and that only gamers who know nothing of this company or its practices are zombified enough to buy their lousy games year after year.
@silviu_1784 Optimists aren't necessarily dumb, it's a difference of opinion. Your argument holds more credit if you don't personally insult the person you're trying to convince. You pretty much just blew hot air at all of these commenters.
There's many motivations at work here. ANY DLC ever made is 1 time use, would you rather them just not give you any DLC? I'd rather have the option...and I'm going to buy the game regardless.
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