With the advent of affordable consoles, equipped with built-in wifi, often free to use (PSN, Wii) so too came the tsunami wave of younger generation players onto the gaming scene.
Now, a quick word about young children and violent video games, inferences about morality and school shootings aside, there remains the nearly unarguable fact that kids fucking love violent games. They seriously eat that shit right up.
I have firsthand knowledge of this, I'm a witness to its legitimacy as an argument because A: I have lots of young cousins, and B: They are all transfixed by the violent games me and my siblings play on the regular.
They'll fidget and squirm, and spin on their chairs during Mario Kart or Smash Bros, but the second you pop in a shooter like Call of Duty, Battlefield or Halo, they plop back on their respective perches, sit real still and watch, dead silent.
It's eerie, and even worse, it makes us feel like we're completely responsible for the possible future mental trauma its causing them. It makes the indoctrination effect of the gaming very palpable, that unfortunate dude who just haplessly strode over your land mines? Or the bumbling lad who's head was extruding just a little too far outside of cover? While you're laughing at the legless remains being pirouetted through the air like a circus act directed by Hunter S. Thompson. Or smiling and reloading your comically oversized sniper rifle to the tune of the quickly dissipating mass of pink mist that used to be his head, they're watching the screen like its the only thing that they can see. You can practically feel the waves of bad vibes carrying image of carnage right from the screen into their tender young minds.
And you know at a glance that those kids are seeing all that shit and soaking it up like a sponge through those dilated, trance-like eyes. If you were to quickly stop playing, and pause or turn off the game, and look back at them, it often takes them a minute to adjust to the reality of the game not being played and focus on you, their pupils slowly returning back to normal size. It often culminates in one of my brothers or I escorting the little tykes from the room , often sacrificing their spot and controller in order to entertain them enough to take their minds off of the interactive war going on in the screen next room.
But hey, there are lots of times where we don't necessarily follow our duties to the letter and kick them out of the room. This is usually due to a general tiredness with having to have to keep one eye on the TV and another primed to look behind for one of the small people inching ever so slowly towards the television, like cute little ninjas, starved for carnage. And so we tolerate their presences with us, which of course completely incidentally offers us the titles of, "The Cool Cousins." Which is a really awesome thing to be called, because my cousins are amazing, and also, it implies that there are some other cousins that fucking suck. OR other cousins that are cool, but we're just way cooler because we lack the patience to have to deal with them shouting "COOL!" from behind us after sharing with us in witnessing some guy get lit on fire, or eaten by wolves or something.
However, that's not to say that the little bastards don't entertain with their wide eyed wonder, and I'll be the first to admit, they make amazing wingmen. Cance, the youngest cousin (~5 years old) in particular is like a snipers best friend. Weighing in at about <50 pounds with bright amber hair and shining blue eyes, he has, on more than one occasion, proven an invaluable asset. I'll be posted up on some shady hillside, scoping out a distant battle, when Cance will hop down from his seat, trot over to the TV and make some wizard level spot, pointing out "Bad Guys" that no mortal eyes should have been able to see, especially on the shitty family box TV that doesn't really offer any degree of clarity, and desperately needs to be upgraded from. In particular he seems the most proficient at picking out scope reflections, when rays of light reflect off enemy viewfinders and give away their positions with quick subtle flashes. He has an uncanny eye for spotting them from obscene distances and is often times the instigator of the best shots.
I remember one game in Battlefield 3, a first person realism-shooter featuring vast maps, and accurate vehicle and weapon physics, there's even bullet drop, creating a need for calculation when firing long distance. Anyways, this game Cance was on fire, he'd already managed to spot 3 fully camouflaged dudes not moving under thick foliage, and after a dozen kills or so, I went positioned my player facing an oil facility under cover and went to go use the bathroom and grab a coke, leaving Cance and his big blue eyes to watch my back. When I get back he's motioning to the screen excitedly, "shoot that guy!"I lean in, scooping the obsidian controller off of the tiled floor and look with him, my eyes trail down his finger, and at first I'm struggling to see what's got him all jittery, but of course, a couple bright flashes show a sniper just chilling on top of the hood of a chopper, hidden by the propellers. I press the zoom button and BOOM there he is. The little bastard is only partially visible even scoped in, and how that little guy managed to spot him from a profile WITHOUT moving the controller is a total mystery. And the guy was totally firing away from us, the only indication there was maybe a person there was the tiny reflection of the flash reflecting off of the windshield of the helicopter. Right? Like I said, spooky skills. Anyways, so I'm lining up this shot, eyeing the distance marked notches inside the scope to try and gauge the distance so that the flaming 50 calibre chunk of death I'm about to fire drops cleanly into his face, when a group of baddies start to swarm to the chopper.
Oh shit.
Problem. I can't hit a moving target from this far away, thats beyond impossible, my only option is to speed up and take the guy sitting on the chopper, because he won't be sitting for much longer. So I decide to single him out. By the time I'm almost ready to paint the windshield with his face, his buddies are already loaded into the chopper and the blades are slowly starting to move. Our chopper straddling sniper is still sitting pretty on the chopper, so it's clear that he's dealing smoothly with the brevity of the situation, content to ride the chopper straight up, take a couple of potshots and then hop off and parachute down to the ground like a total badass. Good, bought me another second or two. I finally have my shot but just as my finger starts to squeeze the trigger the helicopter lurches upwards a few feet. Finger still half depressing the trigger, I glide the scope vertically as gently as possible, trying to trail the bird by the perfect distance when suddenly my concentration breaks with the word "FIRE!" My finger slips with shock and I squeeze the trigger, the gun thunders across the flat valley, and a little shockwave of sand slowly settles back onto the ground around the gun. (okay not really, but i imagine it ya know?)
The shot sails towards the helicopter, far higher than I would have put it, and clearly arcing towards a miss. But then, as I watch, the chopper rises more quickly, sailing up a column in air JUST in time to intercept the careening shot, which travels through the torso of the sniper, out his back, into the windshield, finally ending its voyage to cozy up with the insides of the pilots brain. My jaw drops as I watch both the point values add up on the foreground of the screen, as well as the helicopter start to drop, careening into the ground before its passengers can react to the sudden absence of an operator, and scoring 3 more kills and a vehicle disable.
Cance appeared almost unimpressed, maintaining the trance like gaze that always accompanied his cherub face.
"OMG!!!! WE TOTALLY JUST HOLLOWED OUT THAT GUYS SPINE INTO THAT DUDES FACE! THAT WAS FUCKING EPIC!" I turned and shouted at him. Spittle landing across his startled face.
He stared at me with confused eyes until it dawned on me what I had just shouted, and that the level of glorification I had just given this violence, and particularly the enthusiasm with which I delivered it wasn't child appropriate at all. I apologize for my profanity with a quick mumble and geek out some more silently before an insistent Cance redirects my attention back to the game. "Get another one."
siiiiighhhhh...... my cousins are so fucking cool.
So, I began to come around to the conclusion that most kids, particularly boys, are very affluent when it comes to games. So if you ever catch yourself wondering why live gaming has its own vast audience of prepubescent 13 year old gamers, that's definitely a factor to the 'why'.
Not so much an issue, I think the real problem starts when these younger gamers begin to develop their sense of competition, a staple of skill and style amidst older players. Gaming skillfully can be really rewarding, and the investment that these kids are capable of setting in their favorite games is pretty immense. Logically, it completely follows that these kids, on the cusp of puberty, are developing a dopamine-fueled rewards system, and can probably fall into a rut and have a temper tantrum very easily.
"CAMPING FAGGOT"
"NOOB!"
"GET OUTTA HERE WITH THAT FUCKING (insert name of weaponry here)!"
"I WILL PERSONALLY VIOLATE ALL YOU HOLD TRUE AND SACRED!"
Yeaaaaahhhh..... kids'll say some shit. And I've heard all of those examples, verbatim. Personally, I prefer the latter ones because you just kinda know that those kids are going to be the foundation for the fucked up poets of the next generation.
But until that ponderously impossible time where gaming begins to heavily influence popular literature, we just have to deal with, 'The Voice of The Internet.' Which consists mainly of all the 13 year olds trying to shout over each other, while at the same time insistently reminding you that your mother is a whore. It's a vast cacophony of vulgarity, where, "Suck it, faggot." ranks higher than "hello" in daily usage. Like a LOT higher. Like not even close. The realm of vocal gaming is treacherous, enough to where normally brazenly offensive insults can easily pass by as non-chalant pleasantries.
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