A Gaming Problem of Late

Okay, lets list all the things that are dumb about the news: everything.

In a recent news program, online gaming was attacked (once again) by the media. This time they blamed the xbox for allowing pedophilia. Of course we all can recognize this as another cheap trick to boost viewership along the same lines of "Can those french fries give you testicular cancer?". Panic sells. And apparently Panic about sex sells even more, these people must be rolling in cash now.

I'm not taking a laissez faire approach to online gaming, and I'm not making light of the terrible things that have occurred. It's dumb that people in this world do that to begin with.

But the fact of the matter is that xbox live is not the cause of these things getting through, the blame for that lies solely with the parents of these kids.

First of all all of those violent games you saw are M-rated. This means that it is illegal to purchase them without a parent's say-so. I personally think that that is a matter that should be discussed with a parent on a case-by-case basis. Certain games are a little too old for kids under eighteen and these kinds of matters--which games and how much violence is okay--should be discussed child to parent. Or if the kid is being too much of a brat and not listening to what the parent has to say (like I was I bet!) then I guess the kid should be told that its too old for them outright. We never had this problem (outside of the case of Hitman).

For an xbox live membership to be valid for a user under the age of 18, the parent has to give their password-protected consent and use a valid credit card. This agreement explains that xbox live is not responsible for anything that occurs online. Because the parents are entering into this agreement, all those scenes of mothers saying "it's not safe" just reflect on their own households...of course its not safe living with a timebomb parent who lets their children share personal information online.

Finally and most importantly, for children under eighteen, the default settings for the xbox live membership are entirely parental-locked. In order to chat with someone online the paretns have to remove a lock. In order to send or receive messages from non-friends, the parent has to remove another lock. In order to even accept or send a friend request, the parent has to consent to it or remove another lock. Literally everything a child does on xbox live is parent-protected as the default settings. A parent actually has to go through the arduous task of disabling these things in order for these things to take place.

As a result, the fact that all these creepy adults are trying to find creepy kids just shows that their parents are not putting up the appropriate settings. On my brother's xbox it is literally impossible to hear what your teammates are saying because that lock hasn't been removed. The thought that any responsibility at all lies with xbox live or online gaming is pure poppycock and shouldn't even be tendered for a moment.

Xbox does a great job of protecting its children clientele, its time that parents start doing the same.

Oh yeah, and the sexbox joke? That was funny about seven years ago...get with the times. And that joke about older guys pretending to be kids? The largest faction of gamers by about 40% is the 25-35 year old crowd. Its the kids that are pretending to be adults.