Thursday, May 27, 2010

Do video games hurt kids...?

...by not properly preparing them to survive the coming zombie apocalypse?

(I do know this, however: Video games have dumbed down the discussion of firearms on teh intertubes more than any other single factor. More than The Matrix and Equilibrium combined. Even more than airsoft.)

12 comments:

  1. During our teenage years, my sisters and I agreed that no girl ever dated a guy because he had buff thumbs.

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  2. Never played a video game. Or airsoft. Never seen Matrix or the other one. Don't own a tv. A bit adrift here. 'Dumbed down' because people now think guns should never miss, and all carry two thousand rounds, or what?


    Best wishes.

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  3. For a while I was trying to get the kids to try America's Army, because of its focus on more realistic combat scenarios. Turned out, they didn't want realistic. They wanted Matrix-style "cool".

    Needless to say, they've learned more about guns from going to the Range than they ever will from their games. Even more, what they've learned is accurate, and not a lot of hype.

    But I'm showing them Joanna's comment. ;-)

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  4. Joanna

    What about a whopping great joystick? Mine has trim controls and everything...

    ;-)

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  5. Dumbed down, or, because of wider exposure we have a larger sample sizze of people interested in guns? With a larger sample you get a larger noticeable group on the idiot end.

    Once the rat gets through the snake, and the COD kids actually learn about what they speak, maybe we'll just have more knowledgable gunnies.

    .... or I'm just talking out my butt.

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  6. And Kidney-Boy got you thinking about Equilibrium again didn't he?

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  7. .. even more than Top Secret and 80's gun magazines? :)

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  8. As an ex-counterstrike/airsoft kiddie, I can say that NJT is correct. Infact, gaming is what got me interested in guns in the first place. Otherwise they would just be those things we keep in the closet except when hunting or shooting skeet/trap. The games get the intelligent interested in learning. I decided to take classes, do research, visit shows, and eventually purchase my first gun. I didn't have anyone immersed in the culture as a role-model, games were my starting point. Granted, for the idiots who can't separate reality from fiction/play, dangerous things happen (like "grab the slide!").

    You can't fix stupid. The larger any community gets, the larger absolute number of idiots increases, if not the proportion.

    Kids have been running around pointing their fingers and screaming "Bang" for a lot longer than airsoft, videogames,or Hollywood have existed. Kids are kids, all too many just fail to grow up.

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  9. x3 on what NJT said. I help run a game fansite as a side job, and while there are plenty of typical CS kiddies, we also have a number of serious gun nuts and military guys. From time to time we even manage to educate and convert gamers into real gun owners.

    As for preparing anyone for the zombie apocalypse, playing through Left4Dead 2 on realism + expert mode can't hurt. :p

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  10. Of course, some of us technically owned firearms before ever playing video games...

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  11. And real FPS'ers use a mouse and keyboard. Not a "thumb controller". ;)

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  12. Is it wrong or just old that my first response to the title was, "Depends on how hard you throw the carts."

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