Are Video Game Predators After Your Children?

Here I am trying to get my girlfriend to let me play Halo 3 online with her 8-year-old son and USA Today has to go and release another sexual predators using video game consoles to get to your children story. The story, titled "Predators use gaming consoles to 'get foot in the door'", details several cases in which child predators used games like World of Warcraft and Halo to gain access to children, and the efforts of law enforcement officials who are now forced to play video games undercover to try and catch criminals.

"Child predators are migrating from traditional methods to alternate media," says Detective Lt. Thomas Kish of the Michigan State Police. "They are going to places where children are."

This is the kind of story that would be easy to dismiss as anti-gaming propaganda - were it not entirely factual.

Games Help Prison Guards Guard Better

The Cumberland Times News of Maryland brings news of a tour two children recently took of the North Branch Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison. They were with their parents, of course.

During this tour they learned that video games help prison guards do their job:

From the front of a computer-filled control room inside Housing Unit 4, prison Warden John A. Rowley said Nintendo was a great tool to train today's officers. Every aspect of an inmate's cell life can be controlled by a touchscreen video monitoring system inside the control room, he said. When the doors open and close or whether a cell has water or not is up to the staff on duty.

Let's think this through. If some people say that video games help train criminals and if warden Rowley says games help train prison guards. Then... it's a wash?

A view from behind bars - Cumberland Times News. Image courtesy of Morgan-Keller Construction.

ESRB And PTA Launch National Parental Awareness Campaign

Video Game Safety For Parents

When I read the headline " Internet and video game safety: Ten practical tips to help protect your children" over at the UK Telegraph website, I was certain I was about to read some overblown warning about the dangers of violent video games. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by ten actual practical tips that encourage parents to be responsible about their children's internet and video game use. Who'd have thought?

Some video games teach children important skills, from cooperation to patience, but others really are just about gorily blowing other people's heads off. The more you understand about which games your child uses, the more you'll be able to guide their choices.

Is it Dangerous to Work at GameStop?

A Washington State GameStop employee was robbed at knife point Monday night by a man muttering to himself, Bellingham police report.

The employee told police that a "tall, very skinny white man" in his 20s was browsing in the store for about 45 minutes before taking several games to the register. After the employee rang up the games the man began to walk out of the store talking to himself. The muttering man then turned around and pulled out a small knife and demanded cash and games.

The man took the lucre and ran from the place. Fortunately, this time around no one was killed. The story does remind me that periodically we get a slew of emails from GameStop employees complaining about how very unsafe it is to work at their particular store, due sometimes to the late hours and sometimes to the one-person shifts.

I can't help but think of my brother, who worked part of his way through college back in the 80s at a 7-Eleven, he was robbed several times and eventually quit because of how dangerous the low-paying job was. Has GameStop become the 7-Eleven of this generation?

I've contacted GameStop for comment on this issue, but haven't heard back.

Young man Robs Game Stop [Bellingham Herald] [Pic from previous story]

Nick Yee had an unenviable task last week.

The Stanford research assistant and massively multiplayer online gaming expert was flown in to Denver to explain online gaming to a room full of criminal investigators, educators and internet safety experts from area district attorney offices, police departments and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Yee, whose landmark Daedalus Project continues to study behavior in MMOs, hoped to present to these members of Qwest Colorado Coalition for Online Safety a take on online gaming that they may not have heard before: That it can actually be good for you.

Nintendo's Anti-Baby Seal

I just found my original donkey kong game and watch and it had all the documentation with it. You thought Nintendo of 2007 was paranoid, try Nintendo 1982. Stickers specifically designed to keep babies from breaking open the unit, and feasting on the sweet sweet batteries inside.

The New, New Wii Strap

More Wii Safety Updates Coming From Nintendo

U.S. Safety Commission Keeping an Eye On Wii

Clips: The Wii Safety Manual Gets a Narrator

Nintendo Sends Wii Safety E-mail To The Masses

The Lost Wii Safety Pages

Nintendo Comments On Broken Wii Straps

Gamefest 2006: I Was There, I Saw It!