Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

[Ties Stuij]

2008/1/17 Bennett Todd <bet at rahul.net>:
> 2008-01-17T15:46:31 Bryan Berry:
> > I feel very strongly that violent games should not be associated with
> > OLPC.
>
> Who decides? Who draws the line between appropriate and
> inappropriate? Does anybody with access to email and web get to ban
> games for being violent, according to their standards? Or is it just
> going to be for a special group? If the latter, what's the criterion
> for joining?
>
> -Bennett

What's wrong with erring on the safe side with a controversial topic
like video game violence in a learning setting like the OLPC project.
It's easy for the majority of us in the western world who have never
been in a violent conflict to take a standpoint on violence in
video-games. That's however not the topic I feel.

Do you know for sure how playing Doom will affect a Nepali ex
child-soldier kid? And do you know for sure what the viewpoints of
people from a warzone community will be on a project that 'advertises'
playing Doom? I don't know. I'd say the latter might not be such a
problem. But I'm not really sure, and it's certainly not an absurd
thing to imagine. So why take the chance? What's there to gain?

/Ties