Halo 2 tournament at library causes ire

hmm..i should go. i havent played halo 2 in more than a year but i can easily take that tournament...

quite simple. they sent a permission form. which a parent has to sign. why are they involved? it told the parents what game was being played. good parents would ask about it or research the game. maybe me expecting parents to do that is imposing my view on other people. however, thats what the NIMF is doing as well. so if i'm right, the NIMF is right, but irrelevant.

make sense to anybody?

It should have been mentioned indeed, this way the parents of said kids would have made a more informed decision. Harmless anyway imo, shooting Aliens is not as bad as other M rated games out there.

Call me old fashioned by I like the idea that the PARENTS are responsible for their own kids. If a parent signs something without wanting to know details...then the should not be razing children.

FUCK. I am so sick of this BULLSHIT.

All of the organizations that claim to be just worried about the little children can FUCK THEMSELVES.

DR. DAVID THE NAZI WALSH...FUCK YOU!!!!

I cannot take it anymore. This country is going down the drain. Our freedoms are no longer freedoms we have.

Take away my right cloaked under the "protect the children" clause.

Sorry to use so much colorful language Joystiq....but I cannot take it anymore.

Our ancestors faught and died for our freedom (and still are) yet these groups and politicians keep taking away the few we have left.

I have 2 sons. I pay as much attention as I can to what they are exposed to and to what they are doing. My parents did the same thing. It is not that hard.
It is called being a Parent.

Sick of it all......

one word.....Teabag...
or is it tea bag?...I think its one word....well...w/e you get the point

Old bureaucrats that don't know squat need to stop pretending like they do. Halo isn't even all that bad, especially compared to some M rated games.

Haha, I saw this in the paper. I was wondering if it would show up here.

Hmmm... Do they realize that libraries have books with bad words in them? Some even have books with what some might consider objectionable ideas. Maybe parents should have to sign permission slips before children are allowed to check out books? Better yet, why don't parents just suffocate their kids in their sleep so they can be spared their otherwise inevitable discovery of naughty things.

hey! I live in Chicago! I never heard of this.

Does he even know why it got "M" in the first place?.

This is one of the few times that I agree with the raving lunatic that is the subject of a Joystiq story. There is a reason the games are rated M, and I think parents have a right to know about them (or atleast that the game is indeed rated M) before they make a decision on whether or not their child will be allowed to play the game. Where I disagree is that the subject of the article spoke publicly on the matter, instead of talking about it privately with the library in question.

Personally speaking, I'd let my kid play Halo 2 at a library (where I assume the librarians will keep kids from using the F and N words every two seconds, like they do on live) but it's up to the parents, and I think they should atleast be made aware of what their kids are doing. I think it's reasonable to say that if your kid says "Can I go to the library?" that a parent wouldn't ask anymore questions, and this seems to be the case here.

I killed 5 people with plasma rifles after playing Halo 2.

"Yeah, because mentioning on the permission slip that the game is rated M is SUCH a burden on your rights"

The library is doing that. My point in case you missed it was...I will do the parenting...NOT these groups or politicians. The permission slip thing is absolutely the right idea.

"I'm sure you're a great parent, but you won't be able to protect your sons from everything all their childhood lives"

I have no intention to "protect" kids from everything. In fact, I have chosen (my wife also) to expose my kids to things that most parents would try to hide.
I am teaching my kids to think for themselves, respect others, not to b quick to judge etc.

My kids know that GTA is just a game. They know that beating someone over the head with a bat is a BAD thing.
They understand that movies and games are make believe and that no-one is actually getting hurt.

I have decided that it is pointless to protect my kids from everything. What I see everyday is that the more parents or athority figures just say no without explaining...the more the kids will want to do those things.

I never say because I told you so...I tell them why I am doing something or why this is happening.
So far, I think it is working.

Kids are remarkable...they can comprehend and understand much, much more than most people give them credit for.

I get comments from other adults all the time that my kids are so smart and that they are so mature for their age.

Treat kids as human beings, explain what you are doing, stick to your guns...and you will be surprised how much they will listen.

Allow kids to make mistakes too. That is how you learn.

Sorry for the ramble...I just feel very strongly that we to quick to blame and to slow to really understand what is going on in a child's head.

Yea yea, just like this one time at the library I read some book called Fight Club and it told me to be self destructive so I hit my head against the wall until I went into a coma.

Seriously there are much worse things to be found in a public library that kids could see so long as they can read. If you aren't mature enough some of the books could influence you to do questionable things. My elementary school library had one book I read that tought me all sorts of things about sex, violence and drug use.

@ NvM

wow, that was so random i lmao!

@ GodisaMyth

i agree with u completely, i couldnt have made a better argument. nice to see u post for real and not troll like u usually do. is this the mature post that u said u would make just for the shock value of it.

i think R and M ratings for movies and games are way to old. 18 years old? Come on. We let kids today drive on our streets with real cars that KILL people if the slightest thing goes wrong, and when they are only 16!!!. So we trust a 16 year old to drive a motor vehicle, but not to differentiate a video game from real life? This is sad.

Especially today with kids who are alot smarter then they used to. I see no reason for anyone older then 13 years old who would not be able to handle any R rated movie or M rated video game. And im sure 95% of people younger then 13 would be fine with it too.

I think R and M ratings should be lowered to the 13 age group. Once your a teenager, you really are smart enough to know where content in movies/games lies.

I think we're all missing something. How many kids do we think went to a Halo 2 tournament without already playing Halo 2? Most of these kids most likely already owned the game.

I have to agree with the complaint here. The library should have posted the game's rating on the permission slip. Doing so is cheaper for society than having each individual parent research the game independently.

Halo's multiplayer is incredibly tame anyway.

We really, really need a 15+ rating. Going from 13+ to 17+ and then to 18+ is just ridiculous.

I keep hearing how much more intelligent today's children are. I certainly hope you're all right--because nearly everyone making that claim seems to have trouble with spelling and grammar.

This can only bring up the best clip off the daily show ever.

"and as I watched my kids play these games, I stood there helpless to stop them and not knowing what to do."

Wow, this hits a little at home. I go to ITT Tech in Greenfield, WI and just yesterday (Mon, 7-23) we ran a multi-game tourney open to all high school age students (16-19) who are considering enrolling. One of our games was Halo 2 and there was no mention of the game's rating. We recieved no complaints whatsoever and there were no incidents. I completely agree w/ Joystiq's statement that compared to other M-rated games, Halo has next to nothing content-wise and I fail to see the problem. Thank you. (whew, that was long...)

Yeah outrageous, who on Earth would want their kid playing supervised in a library?

Much better to have them doing crack cocaine, drivebys, underage sex and whatever else kids get up to these days.

How many people enter tournaments (especially video game tournaments) without ever having played the game before? That would be murder and totally not fun (kind of like in the beta when my ranking kept going up mysteriously and I got increasingly destroyed by the competition). This seems to once again be parents caught by their own lack of oversight and suddenly picking someone to blame it on.

what about all the 10 yr old kids up at 3am playing the game now, what about them???

Halo is about as "m" as an episode of Dr Who!! This is just the age old tale of old media hating what it doesnt even try to understand in terms of new media.dont understand something?-hate it and blame it its easy!!! As gamers we are currently under heavy unjustified and constant attack that our chosen art form is worthless and corrupting it gets quite depressing sometimes with all these attacks from powerful censorious groups and misinformed ignorant people looking for a convenient scapegoat to hang all their percieved ills of society. I think its because of the word "game" we live in an age where having fun is frowned upon as it is not considered productive. If a lunatic starts killing people the first thing old media jumps on is games. These people just depress me.Just leave us alone- people playing halo are not harming anyone or anything the very idea that halo2 is rated as mature just shows how out of touch the groups such as ESRB are -i would let my 5yr old play halo2 its just space aliens for crying out loud.

Does everything GodisaMyth writes has to be an essay long?