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The Cool Stuff

There was a time when the term “video games” referred to large quarter-sucking machines that sat inside a bustling, slapping and dinging arcade center. Now, video games inhabit most of our favorite electronic devices, from home entertainment centers, to ipods and cell phones. They are cheap, portable, and exquisitely captivating.

Most gaming devices nowadays are actually hybrids. Hybrids can play games that you buy off of the shelf, or they can connect to an online network, where the game can be downloaded onto the machine via an internet connection. Hybrid devices can also log-in to a gaming network where the player can join a game as a guest, never having to actually purchase the game for private play. These devices can also link up with other nearby hybrids, enabling either player to access the games installed on the other’s hard drive. And if you don’t have a gaming console in the house, don’t worry, your child can access and play almost all of the games you’ve heard about via any internet equipped home computer. xfire.com is just one gaming site offering this kind of access. While all this functionality is definitely cool as heck, it does unfortunately mean that your little gamer has access to any game he wants to play.

The Not So Cool Stuff

The technological revolution in video games has been paralleled by a cultural revolution. In the 80′s and 90′s, a high percentage of video games were family oriented. Arcade based and marketed towards parents, the mission of most games was engineered to be inoffensive and broadly appealing. Towards the end of the last century, video game creators embraced the notion that shock sells. Teens with liquid cash, and parents with liquid backbones, purchased “human killer” video games in record numbers. Today, there is still a wide selection of inoffensive, family friendly and entertaining games available. Unfortunately, there is a wider array of painfully brutal, shockingly explicit and morally deprave content on the market.

If you are not a video game player, you might be lured into thinking that last sentence was a bit prudish. If this is you, you probably haven’t yet heard the “F-word” come blasting out of your kid’s games. You haven’t watched your child guide his gaming character into a car to have sex with a prostitute, sell drugs in a ghetto, or shoot a police officer in the head. For most of us, something changes after you’ve listened to your little sweety use his tactical headset to coordinate a brutal military attack, and celebrate when an opponents limb gets blown off. 89% of the video games on the market today involve violence, and a high percentage of those include swear words, profane images, drug use, gambling and alcohol advertising.

Today’s video games incorporate global networking. Players engage in text-chat sessions, and speak live to one another over headsets while they play. This means that kids are no longer “alone” in the basement. They’re conversing, learning, and sharing information with people that their parents have never met before.

The viral popularity of video games has also ushered in a rush of commercial marketing. Amongst this marketing, unfortunately, are advertisers from the alcohol industry, who’ve found a new way to access and influence the next generation of avid customers.

The average teenage gamer spends 13 hours per week on his or her game console. He spends 30% less time reading and 34% less time on his homework than does the average non-gamer.

Most of the complaints, and most of the formal research currently being done on video games, pertains to: The consequences of sedentary activity, The premature exposure to mature concepts, The influence of alcohol advertising, Video Game Stalkers, Gaming Addictions and the Social-Psychological impact of video games upon the Generalized Aggression of the player. To cut through the suspense, there’s not much to worry about here, so long as you’re informed. Read on to get there.