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Horrors of online gaming #2: Small children
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He is there... waiting...
Picture yourself: golden, serene, luxuriously lounging in your highbacked chair. You are poised, fingers twitching anxiously upon the keyboard or console controller, whichever your preference. Finally, you enter the game of your choice, free to unleash the emotion of the day into a slew of carnage and mayhem upon other players.
The moment you arrive in game, you smile to yourself as you equip your favorite instrument of chaos and destruction, and prepare to enter the fray. You adjust the headset to make sure of efficient communication with your comrades and/or foes.
You emerge, blinking hard in the bright sunlight, only to watch your character explode, get pounded into the ground, or experience some means of horrible, agonizing demise. Your mouth hangs agape as you watch the respawn counter crawl its way towards your redemption.
Screeching in your earpiece, you wince as a high-pitched voice giggles profusely a the successful carnage accomplished. They pause for a moment, over your body, to defile it in some fashion while you passively observe all the while spouting inane garbage about their skill and your lack. Jaw set, you emerge again, thirsty for revenge.
This scenario repeats itself in some fashion for the next half hour. The voice continues to pound through your ears, vibrating your skull, quenching your will to live. This person, this child is leagues better than you at this game, defeating you time and again with brutal efficiency. Every single time they do they tauns you mercilessly. You eventually give up, logging off with an unmatched feeling of supreme sorrow.
Sound familiar? Maybe not in such a fashion, but when it comes to age-related trouble online, there are two primary things: how some children act online and how we treat people when we find out their age.
The way some kids act when they play online or even just chat can only be described as horrifying. Their behavior makes us wish that we could somehow call their parents and get them in trouble, but after the further abuse, whether or not it is in the form of effective play or poor attitude, we begin to get the feeling that there's a good chance that the parents would care very little about it.
It's always just a little uncomfortable to be playing a game intended for adults with someone who hasn't yet disregarded cooties in the opposite sex. For one, we aren't entirely sure that they ought to be playing it. Then again, we fondly recall our teenage moments playing games not fit for ourselves at the time. Then, of course, when the vile urchin begins taunting us, we quickly switch or tear the headset free to mute the horrific sounds.
I'm not going to make any statements for or against children playing games with Mature ratings because I feel it is up to parents to take the responsibility in their offspring's lives to actually decide one way or the other if their child can handle it, rather than by some arbitration. The trouble really comes in when the small children take the anonymity of the internet and just run rampant.
Profanity, rudeness, teamkilling, greediness, foul play, and a million other annoying things come out because they just haven't developed the maturity to understand any semblence of respect or tact. Worse yet, they give an impression that any other person who is young and mature is exactly the same.
Now we hear the high-pitched, pre-pubescent voice and we cringe to ourselves, remembering how wronged we were that one day. As it turns out this person is thirteen with a soft voice, a thoughtful mind, and a genuine respect for his fellow person. Still, we laugh, ridicule, and send that person away because we assume that maturity and age always correlate.
Keep this in mind when you play with people. Age can not always give indication of how that person will act, and not everyone will always act like that horrid urchin who destroyed you and desecrated your remains. Sometimes you'll run into someone who will surprise you. Give them a chance!
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