What's Junior Playing On His PC?

by Daniel Benson

Lets sit down and talk. Do you know what your kids are playing on their pc's, their xbox ones, their play stations? Well let me tell you, those games are not setting them up for anything positive. The games I will list below are just the tip of the iceberg as to what they play. Others teach them to kill each other in any way possible. So what are they playing?

In the "shooter" games listed here, Fortnite, PugB, Smite, Paladins, Tom Clancy's Siege, Call of Duty, Gears of War and many others not mentioned, "shooters" pit one against another or even teams against one another. Yet, as your kids grow up do they realize how this gaming affects how they think? As importantly, do you realize how it affects how and what they think? Just look at the episode at the recent Madden Tournament, how one loser reacted to losing; he started shooting! So what do you teach your kids about guns (and you do need to teach them). These games teach them how to shoot at other people. Would they shoot at you if they got upset enough? Are you willing to find out? Zombies are a huge part of shooting games and where has anyone seen a zombie?  Horde is the other player vs. player environment, where they get to chase each other around and kill each other. Is this good for their brains at any age?

Need for Speed, The Crew, 1 and 2 and GTA and many  other games like these teach them that destroying personal property doesn't matter, just so you win at any cost and make sure the cops pay. Police are victims of how many violent crimes because we are so used to killing them in video games, why not shoot them, hit them, or kill them in real life? It's all just like a video game, right? Run anyone who might challenge you for a win off the road at any cost. Road rage sound familiar? That's your kids when they grow up! All the talk they see on You Tube and cop chases that should never have happened in the first place is because video games teach us to run from the cops, not to respect men and women trying to protect themselves and everyone else.

Diablo 3 is a great fantasy game, and yes, I have played lots of games, this is just one of the many. But it teaches us to hack and slash our way through life because that's how it's done in Diablo 3. Tera, World of Warcraft, Rift, Black Desert and many others--I can name them all.  We can party up to kill things, we all get some of the loot and wow, we are so good! But the lasting effect on us is slowly numbing us to how many murders this country has each day. And last but not least let's pick on Detroit, or whatever it's called, where you are a machine and there are multitudes of possible endings based completely on how you feel like doing it.  Elder Scrolls and Final Fantasy are two games who do both rpg (meaning role playing games and mmo, meaning mass multiplayer online role playing games, letting you kill indiscriminately whenever you want.  Even Minecraft and Roboblox can't stay away from multiplayer spaces and Roboblox had a young female player in the game, raped by two other male players in the game, so what's the mindset here like???

You don't have a clue what your kids are playing do you? I know one family whose five-year old plays this stuff. Psychologically we are slowly turning into a country whose idea of "fun" is virtual reality. If we can't kill, maim or destroy something, we won't play the game. Great thought processes for our future generation to be engaged in, right? Fortnite just lets you run and kill. Why think? Oh, let's play tag, but wait, why run around in real life when I can jump around like a monkey online? Forget social graces--we can taunt each other and make fun of each other in the mmo games. Who cares about how others feel? I won't meet them in real life will I? Well, yes, you just might. Consider that that person is just like you and they have feelings just like you, or have you gotten so numb you can't feel anything anymore?

To close, do you, even for a second, watch what your kids are playing, where gold  is just picked  up by the 1000's at a time they think money grows on trees? It doesn't, but they won't know that because, hey, they are going to play games professionally, you know, and they will be rich! Good luck with that!