Re-posted from my personal blog at http://gcadrian.blogspot.com

"The following is a post made by me on News Channel 7's Facebook page, in response to two women who support the restriction and eventual devastation of the video game industry:

"1.) Good to know the people who support banning video games spent so much time on their own education, especially learning proper grammar.

2.) Parents don't need help protecting kids from these games, they just need to pay attention. The ESRB created a rating system specifically for this purpose, and that system has been implemented since just before the days of the Nintendo 64. The problem is that the parents don't pay attention to them, even when the retailers selling these games inform them, quite clearly, what the rating of the game is and why it received that rating.

I'd also like to add that the proponents for stricter video game control presented an unfair case. They specifically dug through and found the absolute worst examples of those particular games possible, and then went even further down the rabbit hole when they singled out the specific gameplay sequences that were deemed too offensive. I'd also like to state that many of the gameplay sequences they found are not obtainable in normal gameplay without a cheating or hacking device, which most respectable gamers will not use and which most younger gamers will not know *how* to use.

Furthermore, the idea that kids are wasting all their time playing video games and not "making memories" for their children or grandchildren is utter folly. The idea that video games are keeping children from a proper education or proper physical activity follows likewise. The gaming community is more active outdoors than most people like to believe. I happen to live in an apartment with three roommates, and all four of us are gamers. I, personally, have two jobs, usually working between 50 and 70 hours per week. In my spare time, I play video games, but my roommates and I also bowl on Sundays, play disc golf during the fall and swim at least an hour per day almost every day during the summer. I graduated high school six years ago with a 3.25 GPA, and the only reason I'm not in college right now is because a college degree isn't required for my chosen profession (and it's also been statistically proven that a typical college graduate will only make around $3,000 more in their lifetime than a non-grad).

The short form is this: If you want to restrict your children from playing a specific kind of game, fine. That's your right. But you do not have the right to attempt to influence change on someone else's children, nor do you have the right to attempt to bring an end to an art form (and a respectable field which many college students are currently pursuing degrees in). Take control of your own life, focus on your own house. Mind your own business, and let the rest of the world go about theirs."

This should speak for itself. Many parents suffer from the delusion that video games somehow have a negative impact on children's education and social life. I presented the points above to the WSPA community on Facebook, but I wish to add these points here.

The gaming community is vast. According to a recent study, 46 million American homes contain at least one game console from the Big 3 (Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, or X-Box 360). Globally, this community expands exponentially, beyond current means of measurement or census. Many of these consoles are connected to their specific manufacturers' online communities (Nintendo WFC, Playstation Network, and X-Box Live, respectively). These communities have rules of their own, and once you immerse yourself in one of these networks, you begin to find that they're more like a society, with their own expectations, etiquette, rituals, and practices. Many children, teenagers, and even adults, make new friends on these online communities, where they might not have in the outside world due to problems with social interaction and introversion, or even mental disabilities. It is my opinion that barring children from video games and online gaming communities is akin to socially castrating them, in that these children, specifically the ones incapable of maintaining normal relationships and friendships in the outside world, would be deprived of a critical forum in which they could converse with those that truly are their peers.

In closing, the video game community should be left to operate largely as-is, with only very few minor changes, inasmuch as such changes become necessary. Federal bureaus have been establish to regulate the sale of video games, using a system that is proven to work with proper interaction from both the retailers, and the parents. The parents are the most critical component to this system, because it is their responsibility to regulate what games their children should or should not play, until their children reach an age at which they can establish their own self-awareness and maturity level. When the components all work properly, the machine can function perfectly, as it was designed. But the parents must also learn that they can only affect their own children's actions. Attempting to actively interfere in the way children they are not directly responsible for are raised is a basic violation of Freedom of Speech rights."