Proving that parents truly do have their priorities sorted out, a recent survey has shown that child spawners are more concerned about Grand Theft Auto than alcohol or pornography. It seems that, when given a single choice of what they'd least like their children to experience at a sleepover, GTA took precedence over porn and booze.
Marijuana topped the poll, conducted by What They Play, with 49% of parents choosing it as their object of fear. 19% picked videogames, while 16% answered with pornography, and a mere 14% went with one that can cause family-destroying chemical dependency, liver damage and arguably more deaths than pot, porn and videogames combined.
I am convinced that a vast majority of human beings have not been able to evolve in step with our development as an overall species. While technology has advanced in leaps and bounds, most of us seem still to be mentally identical to medieval peasants. As sad as it is to say, many of us are frightened and confused individuals, clearly unequipped to handle the rate of evolution that we've set for ourselves.
It may sound overly pessimistic, but this is a story where parents have admitted to being more frightened of a game than a mentally uninhibiting toxin. I don't think things could get more depressing than that.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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A complete genius
jim sterling if i didnt have respect for you before this article i would sex your face after that comment.
Im going to get blown so hard, I'll start fucking killing people, building nukes, and nuking the shit out of Washington D.C.
And America will be more afraid of Little Timmy playing GTA.
Perfect Fucking Crime, here I come.
Seriously though, after violent crimes and such, what does FauxNews go to? What would you be scared of if all that told you what to be scared of was what a little talking head?
This is why we need to make the cloning of velociraptors a top priority. We need something higher on the food chain than us, something that will weed out the stupid ones.
On a more serious note, I'm a parent. I also happen to be a gamer. I'm smart enough to know that, when my children are older, there will be games out there that they shouldn't play, unless I feel they are mature enough to handle them.
That said, my 4-year old son snuck in on me playing Dead Rising. While he knows about zombies (hell, he knows what'll kill a werewolf or the weaknesses of vampires), it was still a little too much for him, and he ended up having nightmares that night. I just have to make sure the little ninja is sleeping before I pop in a game he shouldn't see. The only way to calm him down when he woke up was to explain to him that what he saw wasn't real, that it was a game, and that zombies aren't real (until the Zombie Apocalypse, that is).
It was no different from when I was his age and snuck in on my parents watching Halloween II. For weeks, I thought Michael Myers was hiding in our bathroom. They had a much more difficult time explaining to me that Michael Myers wasn't real, as I saw this actual guy on TV slice and dice people, not a video game character made of pixels and polygons. And yet, even after that, I grew up loving horror movies.
Okay, sorry...tangent...
I'm willing to bet that most of the parents polled blindly let lil' Jimmy have their permission to buy GTA IV, and then were shocked to see what the game entailed. It doesn't say "M for Mature" on the box for nothing, mom and dad. Learn to check the ratings and do a little research instead of buying a game for your kid so they stay out of your hair and let you drink your problems away.
1. porn
2. alcohol
3. marijuana
4. video games
But really I'd only be worried about the porn. Watching porn at sleepovers? Isn't that kind of weird? Are they all going to masturbate together too? GROSS!
Maybe alcohol would be a problem too, depending on the kind of drunk my kid is.
I'm sure my parents would rather have me playing GTA than being publicly drunk every weekend at school.
This was kinda-sorta my mom's reasoning behind letting me play video games. She told me a year or so ago, when I made a joke about how I played video games all the time and look at where it got me (married, 2 kids, good-paying full-time job), that "when you were playing games, I knew you weren't out having sex or getting drunk". Nope, I was at home, skin turning pale and thumbs a' twitchin'.
But you have to consider: most parents these days are still stupid children that didn't exactly become parents intentionally (or if they did they just suck).
and i smoke tons of bud
and game when ever im not working
parents need a ball check
High Quality Colombian shit, don't get any better than this smack right here.
Damn, even Samuel L Jackson would be jealous of this shit...
Did I tell you this is some good shit? Imma sell this shit to the kids.
This is some good shit.
Consider the following oxymoron: "My mother taught me to think for myself."
Oh, did she now...
Reason being?
I can't play it with a ten foot pole.....HA
This is, of course, just another way of interpreting the data. I can't say for sure that this is correct either, but it seems more plausible to me.
..but he respawned 5 seconds late.