I was talking to a friend recently about violent video games, and how it’s just violence and gore, etc., and how it may not be teaching our children good values to play games where they’re assaulting and killing other characters all the time. So I thought: “Hey, why not make them more realistic?” And by realistic, I don’t mean more photo-realistic or gory, etc. What I mean is, let’s make it more like the real world!
So here’s how it would work, for a fighting/combat game like the old Mortal Kombat: In the first level, you’d fight some guy, and you’d beat him up or kill him. So then, if he survived, he’d rat you out to the police, or if he died, his family would get the cops on you, and you’d be arrested for assault or murder. So then you’d have to hire a lawyer, go to trial, and serve your sentence (or escape from prison) before you’re allowed to get to the next level up and fight the next guy. Get it?
This way, at least they would learn that life isn’t just violent, deadly assaults all the time, and they’d learn valuable legal lessons as well. And that way, if they ever beat someone up or killed someone in real life, they’d already know what to expect the law enforcement and justice system experience to be like, so they’d be ready. And don’t we owe it to our children to tell them the truth about the real world? It’s not all fun and games: Sometimes, you have to go to jail.
