It Is Not the Fault of Games By: Ninjarantguy About the author: Ninjarantguy previously worked as a GM for a global MMO and is now trying his hand in writing while handling his own business.

It's an age old discussion that games have been the proverbial bad guys when it comes to parents and their children.

We would often hear parents say "will you stop playing that blasted game? Don't you have anything better to do? Like giving me a foot rub?". Okay, fine I exaggerated on the foot rub bit but, am I not right in the part?

Video games, or to be more specific violent video games have been the target of our parent's disapproval ever since time memorial. They think that it's unhealthy, stupid, unethical and!@#$%^ for anyone to make games that teach children to lie, steal and cheat to win.

You ask me, "But hey, isn't that argument isn't just for console and pc games like GTA? What's it got to do with us MMO players?" well my friend, I was just going to get to that little detail there.

A friend of mine in the Philippines has sent me a message regarding a legislator gunning down DotA and Online games as bad influence and that students should stop playing them on the grounds that online games have don't help students for work and even higher education (the article is found here).

Thankfully the said legislator did mention that students should play in moderation which is compared to most of the game nay sayers is a less extreme stand to the whole thing. However, the idea of only game developers having any "positive" effects when it comes to gaming is just an outright irresponsible statement.

As a way to disprove this outrageous claim, a local blogger made this entry about what he has learned in MMOs. Another counter-argument for gamers in this regard is this article which posted that a certain company hired a guy because he plays WoW.

This issue that arose is only just one of the numerous complaints parents, authorities and 'concerned' individuals have. The thing is, I think they're just hiding behind the fact that they are not doing their jobs, duties or whatever you call them right, thus finger-pointing the most obvious "bad influence" kids have these days, which is in fact games.

I say that a game does its job when it's addicting. It's not the company behind the game's fault if the people behind the kid fail at trying to curb their son/daughter's addiction. I firmly stand that it's the lack of proper guidance, understanding and effort for the parents and the society around them that kinds turn for the worse.
If the parents just cared enough to at least try to make measures for kids to be encouraged to self-discipline themselves because instead of just being asses and leave the 'molding of their kids' to schools with teachers who have no bond with them whatsoever.

Another problem is with the people who have power to do something. Instead of just pointing out the things wrong on something why don't they do something constructive for a change? The same goes for parents as well.

The lack of discipline of a child is not the gamer's fault but rather it's the shortcomings of the parents themselves that let these kids turn out like this.

I say stop blaming games for something that's not their responsibility in the first place and start doing your part of your kids 'molding' into a more responsible adult. A note for parents is that learn to be more constructive when it comes to your kids, 8 out of 10 kids these days don't talk to their parents about what's important to them because they think you'll just be an ass about the whole thing instead of helping them out.

If you want your kids to grow up, you should grow up first.

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