Janice, **** off.

Sounds like a really uncool boring left-wing hippy mom. A good parent lets kids try all sorts of entertainment, carefully monitors their activities and rations them accordingly - not just blatantly censors them because of some half-baked notion of what they're about.

Here's a tip: buy a Wii and play WITH them.

Then get laid 'cos it sounds like you need a good shafting.

More leftie knee-jerk balloney. Well done Janice for making your side of the argument even less credible than it was before.

Instead of commenting on the article, go to the contact page of the times, email the editor directly. I am about to do so, requesting that their "columnists" fact check before being allowed to slander an entire industry without doing the slightest bit of fact checking.

People jumping on the anti-gaming bandwagon without reason are really starting to annoy me.

... although it is nice to see a parent espousing the educational value of ****py cartoons and lame soaps.

you can't hear that kind of advice enough

She may be spotting off and is going well over board but the way games have gone and are going is still very disappointing; the line between each genre is getting more and more blurred.

I'd love to see see point and clicks returning and games that really tax the mind more rather than viryally every game being a fps or a sport game.

I really hate when people slander games when they've probably never played them before!! >_< Is mario that evil?

What she really means is she says her children aren't allowed to play games when in actual fact, they are giving her the silent treatment because she couldn't find a Wii in time for Christmas and wouldn't pay the £100+ extra to get one through eBay...

Is Mario Evil? Course he i****ler moustache, manical laugh, walks around with a wrench in his pocket, clearly looking for trouble. Talks to magic mushrooms, the guys psychotic.

This 'i****ler ' should be 'is Adolf H'. For some reason it was censored.

I hope Ms Turner actually played a wide selection of games before she wrote this column.

However I'm guessing she hasn't. Is this responsible of a paper like The Times to print such un-researched opinions?

What a sad, out of touch woman.

Poor kids.

Say no more.

That "get a life thing" - as much as a cliche as mentioning spinal tap in a review of a rock band, the last bastion of the clueless hack .

In many inner city areas, Crack is Crack for kids. I can see great benefit in having kids indoors in front of the TV, instead of doing drink & drugs and kicking people to death.

The worse people are the people who are not objective but treat things like a dictatorship. It shouldn’t be yes or no or in her case NO! Entertainment for children has been around for along time, the way in which the child is entertained has changed but that is how we develop. Games promote hand eye co-ordination, patience, concentration, the ability to follow things through, the ability to think laterally etc etc etc! Its true you do need to watch how much your kid plays but not take Stalin’s approach and dictate your beliefs!!!!
The Wii is the best selling platform ever, why? Because the parents want it more than the kids as it is an amazing tool for bringing the family together like the good old fashioned board game, the only difference is that we have moved on and technology gives us things like the Nintendo Wii!!

sorry but how out of date is she! has she ever SEEN a game? theyre not like they 'sound' on coronation street etc Janice...they are generic sounds....kids these games play games that teach far more than a lot of harry potter books...take 'brain training' for example....
i think this is yet another case of some desperate journalist latching onto one of the biggest entertainment industrys to try to heighten her career

Jeeeez... Someone needs to calm down. she's just crazy, downright crazy. Can children be blamed for wanting to have fun? Also, It doesn't look like she has done her research, PS2? Gamecube? Get with the times woman...

It is yet again a sad occurrence to hear someone with the opportunity to write in the public domain, a reasonability to use literacy for information, use it in such a limited and confined manor. What publicity do you seek to gain yourself by jumping on the band wagon of something that is so far outside your semiotic domain that you may as well be one elephant talking to another about the pros and cons of biochemistry?

You as a parent keep your children safe from technology, great for you, well done!! Good to hear. Keep your children away from technology and especially those devil worshipers that create games, keep your children safe in their beds with the satisfaction that you are in control.

Calling games technology satanic is a great example of lazy thinking regarding games and backs up the point on why you don’t buy them for your children. You simply do not understand them. How can you judge something you have no experience of?

Look up ‘James Paul Gee’ and open your mind to the wonders of technology if you need to reassure.

I bet you never masturbated for fear of going blind!

It is yet again a sad occurrence to hear someone with the opportunity to write in the public domain, a reasonability to use literacy for information, use it in such a limited and confined manor. What publicity do you seek to gain yourself by jumping on the band wagon of something that is so far outside your semiotic domain that you may as well be one elephant talking to another about the pros and cons of biochemistry?

You as a parent keep your children safe from technology, great for you, well done!! Good to hear. Keep your children away from technology and especially those devil worshipers that create games, keep your children safe in their beds with the satisfaction that you are in control.

Calling games technology satanic is a great example of lazy thinking regarding games and backs up the point on why you don’t buy them for your children. You simply do not understand them. How can you judge something you have no experience of?

Look up ‘James Paul Gee’ and open your mind to the wonders of technology if you need to reassure.

I bet you never masturbated for fear of going blind!

I'm actually taken back that such draconic thinking is still is common place in our society. Video games are the work of the devil? Surely such ridiculous ideas were put to bed with the equally stupid notion that rock & roll and Dungeons & Dragons were the 'devils work'?

I despare, I really do.

Everything in moderation...however if kids are left to their own devices then over exposure to games can turn the blinkers on your child. I know myself that when I played Final Fantasy VII for 40 hours and had to start again as I did'nt have enough materia, and had to play it for another 50 hours to complete it, I did'nt speak much...and when it came to speaking to people I'd forgotten how to socialise properly.
In my mind there are two sides to every argument so let's not brush off the concerns that people have about "crackbox" so swiftly.
All I can say is that I enjoy my games much more in moderation than I did playing them constantly and I now have a social life. With regard to children, a "good" parent will monitor their child's activities...BUT...not all parents do. Some are single parents who are happy to get an hours peace whilst their kids try to snipe the Nazi's in a virtual WWII. As long as you have aggressive marketing campaigns for such things as video gamers and fast food there will be kids who get the opportunity to be consumed and manipulated by it. We don't live in an ideal world but an ideal world for Microsoft in the console war would be that all the children would be playing Halo 24 hrs a day on Xbox Live...I don't think that's a good thing.

Mmm... Why not allow children to experience things themselves and make their own conclusions instead of panicking over such a trivial matter as a kid having fun with a Nintendo? I think you are rather scared of technology and new things in general because of your age and personal background.

Keep an open mind, Janice Lady. Skynet's not coming and you're not so clever.

Her poor kids... Glad my parents weren't idiots like her.

If you don't know enough about games and consoles to even speak the lingo correctly, you have absolutely no room to criticize.

@MDK74
"I did'nt speak much...and when it came to speaking to people I'd forgotten how to socialise properly."

So... 90 hours of gaming screwed you up? That's sad. Your argument just supports that everyone is very different and what everyone else here said - childrens parents need to be involved with what their kids are doing and know when it's break time. Some people are bad parents, and don't... so what is your point? You want some kind of goverment monitoring to make sure people are not letting their kids play too many games? Should there be articles about the dangers of too much gaming? Should studies be done on aspects of it? Of course! .. and they are! so what does anything rational like that have to do with this article? Nothing... she rants ignorantly.

Seriously...don't let waffle like this bother you. People like this aren't going to change a thing....as soon as the next big "controversial" thing comes along they will move onto that instead. Every medium goes through such attacks, whether it be music or movies etc, and the fact that videogames is now garnering such attacks says more for our industry than against it.
As irritating as it is, I think the response to this article is as overblown as the article itself....ignore it, and let her and all the other ignorant dinosaurs move on.

Whats more interesting is that it is titled "Xbox is ...." not "Playstation"....has Xbox now replaced PS as the everyday term for videogames ?

""‘Once, such kids would be the playground outcasts, but no longer. Mine are. Because, unlike the TV-hating parents, I refuse to buy them portable gaming consoles, Xboxes, GameCubes, PS2s....""

No chance of a Playstation 3 then, eh mum? Oh well back to the glue, smoking and speeding

Games are like any other media. They are generated of content, and are capable of delivering that content in a much broader and more interactive scope than any television could ever.
Mature gamers, such as myself, prefer more advanced titles capable of delivering that broad scope of content.
Many games do not feature great content and this woman's statement:
"Even the ****piest cartoon or lamest soap teaches a child about character, plot, drama, humour, life."
This is just appalling. A person with this kind of outlook writes for the Times?

What the hell does this person read for entertainment?
The phone book?
"Even the most flacid black and white text on paper can resemble Stephen King's finest literature, if you want it to."
Sure...

No child is imprisoned in any creators mind...
They are being exposed to content and there are many forms of content that they can be exposed to.
If, as a parent, you could shift your sights away from Television and focus on the qualities, as well as, the issues with Video games, you'd suddenly realize there's really very little difference.

You can watch soaps, like World of Warcraft and Everquest.
You can watch a series, like a single player RPG.
You can watch commercials or infomercials, you can watch educational programmes.
The choice is yours.

Want your kids to get something out of the XBox? Buy them games that excercise their hand eye coordination.
Games that require critical thinking in an adventure element without a lot of the gore.
I would suggest the Abe's Odyssey games. A lot of the earlier ones.

How about the Wii in general? While many of the titles are a mishmash grab bag of ****, so is most television.

Be a conniseur.
Don't fear video games just because you were brought up on Sesame Street.
The Muppets have more video games to their name than I can count on three hands.

I cannot believe they let someone so ignorant write so ignorant and article.

Calling it crack cocain, shows just how much the author of the article understands of games... and slamming her for writing it shows how much some readers understand of the real world.

Being a gamer since 1981 myself and having grown up with all kinds of games, I would compare games rather with beer or wine, than with hard drugs. Yes, it can addict and yes, it can have evil side effects to a person's mental health. However if not consumed in overdose, it actually helps.

I learned about finances from management sims, practised english with non-localized games and got pretty damn good hand-eye coordination with snake and yes also with Counter-Strike...

However, what MissTurner, interestingly enough, argues is kids playing excessively. She also stated, that she is missing the parents call for reason, which undoubtedly should be there. So far I actually agree with her.

The part I don't agree with is that we - meaning game creators like myself - are responsible for that... not the parents. Excuse me? Come again?

I have seen this argument over and over and heard it echo and recited in the global press, no matter if english, american, german or whereever. People think, that we - the game developers - are to to blame, that parents show no interest in what their kids do...

Sorry, I have to disagree. If someone takes over the responsibility of having a child, you take over ALL the responsibility that comes with it, like teaching them about media usage (to pick just one). Yes, being a parent means you have to disregard some of your own needs and care and support your child. Being a father of an 18-month old, I know what I am talking about. It ain't easy, but then that's what being called "mommy" or "daddy" is all about.

So please, critics, go ahead and critizise games reasonably. Critiziese us for our content - which is pushing the boarders to far sometimes- please argue with us about our role in the global social picture and please feel free to share your concerns about improper use of violence, language and nudity, just the way you do it with films, books, internet, artshows and theatre. But please, please, please, do not hold us responsible for mistakes of people we have no control over. If our products are consumed as responsibly as books or movies, there is no problem in games. The problems only arise, when people fail to exercise control over their gaming behavior. And that has to be learned. It really doesn't help to use the NDS as babysitter and pacifier. Honestly, that's not what's it meant for.

Calling Amnesty International!!!! Our children are being imprisoned!!!!!!!!

Calling Amnesty International!!!! Our children are being imprisoned!!!!!!!!

Janice Turner-Just another ignorant, publicity seeking ***** who will go to any lengths to get her name noticed.

Well done you old dinosaur, it worked.

I'm sure there are plenty of 'crack-heads' that would love to be addicted to games instead of Crack.......

Geeeez......

My 10 year old nephew loves games but has never threatened me with a knife or broken in to my house and stolen my property in order to fund his next 'fix'!

Think the paper should be renamed

BEHIND THE TIMES

Kid's minds need to be stimulated. now a days with both parents working or the mom to busy sitting on her damn computer playing pop cap games and writing stupid articles on the net, how are they suppose to be stimulated.

You said going to the playground, what happens if it's raining? what happens if it's a only child? going to the playground is not a all around answer!

If you think your kid is playing games to much, don't come on the internet an and write some stupid article saying that xbox is crack, actually stop your kid from playing the game and do something fun with him. Don't get mad your children do nothing but play video games and watch TV all day because YOUR TO BUSY to have fun with them.

Obviously, she never touched a game and never will. Who is stupid enough to talk about something that they know NOTHING ABOUT?!?! Try it, play it and then we'll talk seriously...

how can we make our own article slandering her? all in favour of making her stfu raise your hands.... seriously janice gtfo u dumb mole, maybe go play a game WITH your kids instead of not letting them have fun... times change, games are like books now, telling stories in much the same way... do some research... but dont use the computer, its an evil satanistic games running machine

FFS! Like this is new news? Wasn't the Megadrive known for it's Kiddie Cocaine paraphrasing via the press in the 90's? Must be a quiet news week! Next week - 'Rock Star Ate My Hamster!'!!! No wait that may have been done before!

I love these comments. Scy neatly covers it with:
'Think the paper should be renamed BEHIND THE TIMES'.

Doesn't it say everything about this woman that she equates the Dave channel, which shows some of the best UK comedies, with feeding children chips? That she piously says that anyone with a television set in their bedroom is 'common'. She practically uses the words 'clarinet practice', even when talking about somebody else, as a badge of her own middle class-ness. It says more about her own mind that she refers to vieogames as 'doom-****'. Why do newspaper commentators over 30 always have to bring sex into everything, particularly when it's about something they are no expert in?

What kind of nonsense is the line: 'what if Microsoft used its power for evil and patented spyware that could suck our brains out through our noses'? She may as well have asked ' And what if I could fly to the moon on a big banana?'

'WE feel warm inside when they play retro boardgames of wood and paper just as we did' she smugly says, assuming that all of her readers have no love of videogames.

With so much hate of videogames, why does she then say that 'the computer is the ultimate plaything'.

'Satan's Sudoku'? Some videogames require puzzle solving abilities that would have your average Sudoku player bewildered. Alliteration sounds good in an article though, doesn't.

'crack cocaine of the brain'. A bit of alliteration again. Surely crack cocaine would be the best example of crack cocaine of the brain.

'Even the ****piest cartoon or lamest soap teaches a child about character, plot, drama, humour, life'. Where I went to school, using words like '****piest' (let alone '****pest') would have marked you down as very common, let alone a candidate for a broadsheet newspaper. Oh dear, your middle class credentials are slipping.

'children are mentally imprisoned, wired into their evil creators' brains'. I doubt that there are many evil bones in Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto's body, to use just one well known example.

'get an inner life'? Does all books do that more than all videogames? Is it because books allows time and space to fill in the blanks? This is arguably a fair point but not all games rely on you constantly making one move after another. Nobody's saying that you have to play videogames all the time or even for long periods of time.

She starts her article by saying that she has a 'purple gym ball' but no desire to allow her children to also do physical play. So is this the crux behind her scattergun attack on videogames? That she knows that board games will not hold her children's attention for long enough? Well, buy some better board games then.

Ironically, she praises The Simspons, who have featured in several videogames. 'How can you object to your children being schooled in subversion, post-modernism, American politics, film pastiche and a hatred of clowns?' she asks, trying to inject some humour into her ill conceived article, without realising that videogames, at their best, are THE pinnacle of postmodernism.

Everybody has a right to an opinion but to get paid lots more than I do to write articles that show no appreciation of her subject should be unforgivable in the 21st century from a supposedly 'serious' newspaper.

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