Hey, no rant, just your opinion :)

I just think differently as I've taught too many kids who play games that end up being very disturbing for them. Also, for some kids in their early to mid teens, they do have a problem differentiating between fantasy and reality. They also have a problem controlling their anger (all those raging hormones :), which I do think some adult-rated videos can make worse.

I never thought I would think this way, as I'm very liberal about what kids should and shouldn't be able to see but....after teaching teenagers for six years, I saw what those types of videos can encourage in some of them. And it's not good. Like I said, there are tons of video games appropriate for kids that, yes, still have some kind of violence in them, just not the over-the-top kind.

It also sounds like your parents had good heads on their shoulders. Unfortunately, as I said and as I've seen with many of the parents of my kids, although most of them meant well, the choices they made for their kids were pretty awful in some cases and downright dangerous in a couple. Those are the parents I worry about when it comes to making the 'right decision' for their kids as, some of the ones I knew, didn't have much better parenting skills than their 13-year-old kids did.

It's pretty fascinating to see all these different philosophies come together in this thread. I love debates like this, especially since it's remained civil.
There are always going to be screw-ups. Bad parents have and always will exist, and I don't think it''s right to punish the good parents for the mistakes of the bad. I believe that "doing it for the children" is a very slippery slope. How about no video games at all? No violent tv, no music with "bad" lyrics. We have to protect the children. That's how I see it anyway.

I don't see it that way because the Europeans have managed to handle it so well :) Some games are just off limits until kids reach a certain age. Others will always be fine. To me it's just the same as the ratings for movies, which have been ongoing for decades. When I was a kid I always wanted to see 'R' movies and my parents wouldn't let me (they knew I wouldn't sleep afterwards). Some of my friend's parents did, and then they had nightmares. I was kinda glad my parents were a bit more strict after that :)

And yep, discussions are always good as long as people don't start screaming "dickhead" at each other, LOL. I've even changed my mind on some things because someone explained why they had the opinion they had so well.

I haven't read through the whole thread yet, so could you direct me to that post?

Sorry, I should have been more specific :)

No, not in this thread (or GOG for that matter :), but I used to have a very different opinion about certain books for instance. ie: I was never a fan of Stephen King until someone explained to me that why they liked him was he's "not a good writer but he's an amazing story teller". When you look at his work that way, it becomes completely different and, now, I'm a huge Stephen King fan (and actually think his writing isn't that bad either :).

If the guy I know hadn't explained it that way, though, and just called me an "idiot" for not likely Stephen King, I may never have read another of his books.

Sorry to be posting off the main topic here, but I felt the same way regarding Stephen King at one time, especially after the flood of mostly terrible book to movie projects that occurred. I remember reading about 3/4 of the way through "It", put it down, and didn't care how it ended, lol. Then one day my brother gave me his copy of "The Gunslinger", and his story-telling skills swept me away. To this day, I find the Dark Tower series as one of my favorite reads.

Up to Wizard and Glass, The Dark Tower is one of my favorite book series. I've even dreamed of climbing the Tower. The first four books just had me spellbound. As for the other three: Wolves of the Calla was ok, Song of Susannah was awful, and The Dark Tower had it's moments.

I agree for the most part with you...Wizard & Glass was my favorite of the group. Like you, the next two were "ok" for me, with The Song of Susannah being my least favorite as well. Just curious...how did you feel about the ending? Without trying to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read them yet, although I was expecting something much more profound, I ended up finding the ending just fine (unlike a multitude of fans of the series). I can remember as I was reading the last few lines, and the realization of what was happening hit me, as it hit Roland. I had the same "Oh Crapppppp" reaction as the Gunslinger himself...which to me, is what it's all about....feeling what the main character is feeling. To me, the mark of a good read...

I feel he should have just left it with <spoiler> Susannah meeting up with Eddie and Jake in New York.</spoiler> I would have preferred it if he left the interior of the tower to the reader's imagination, like the ship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. To me, it was a story of the journey and not the destination.

Fair enough. As the author himself stated in a short note after the conclusion, " It was *all* about *reaching* the Tower..."

Most of see "real breasts" at a very early age, as in a few weeks to a few months.

You haven't met my nephew, who at the age of 7 could quite severely kick my ass at split-screen CoD 4 on the Xbox 360.

It's actually been well-established that violent games do not make you violent. It's only agenda-filled ideologues like Christian Pfeiffer and his self-appointed "criminalological institute" or Jack Thompson that make claims like this. What has been well-established is that violent people do tend to be fired on by violent games, i.e. people who are already fucked in the head are made worse by playing games like this. Children are especially susceptible to this, especially children raised with a heavy gun culture focus (like Germany, the US, or parts of Scandinavia) and in abusive families.

And it's usually abusive families that don't give a shit what their children play.