I just wanted to say "35 frag lead" = lol. So awesome.

Please let me take the RF Guerrilla sledge hammer to the room above.

Joking aside, you make some good points Tom, and hopefully Tracey will do further reviews of the games.

Things I learned while in my tween years:

1) If there is ever a government cover up, I know how to pilot a giant robot to defeat legions of government robots.

2) If I'm ever in a forest, bears and mountain lions have a greater chance of attacking me. I should move to a road quickly. Unless...

3) I'm trying to level up. Then I should carry many tents and walk back and forth in the forest while I wait for a bear to attack me.

4) If I ever lose a hand, I will replace it with a grappling hook and join a top secret military organization dedicated to defeating anything named like a giant bird.

5) I can fire a rocket at my feet, and if I jump correctly, I can leap tall buildings and will not be hurt.

6) My body has hit points.

7) A dagger does 1d4 damage, so if I'm high enough level, I can stab myself many times and not die.

8) When I die, if someone presses my buttons, I will resurrect.

9) Sometimes, however, when I resurrect, I have to come back as a baby and do all this crap over again. Which totally sucks.

10) Video games require a certain amount of skepticism, and no one should play them unattended if they can't comprehend that. Same goes for reading books, watching TV, or pretty much everything made for an audience.

I think a better question than "What are these games teaching our kids?" is "Why are our kids not skeptical of the lessons these games are teaching them?"

"For instance, is Miss John serious when she offers the following observation about the lesson learned from a THQ game due in September called My Boyfriend?"

From my reading, not at all. She seems to me to be against the lesson. As contrasted to her approval about the Daring Game's lessons.

Oh, and the title of her post - Ridiculous Life Lessons From New Girl Games - see the word ridiculous? Right there in the title!

Matt, so awesome!

Warren, my question was whether the My Boyfriends game really does play out like Tracey says, not whether she approves. I actually tried to find some info on the game after reading that. And let me tell you what: researching "My Boyfriend" on the internet is no picnic!

The lesson my daughter is learning is to ask for more toys!

Thanks Tom! Sometimes people ask the wrong question, which inevitably leads to the wrong answer. In this case, the focus should be on the consumer and not the producer, since demand drives all supply, not the other way around.

In this case, the question "What do video games teach girls?" leads to the answer that there are "bad" lessons in these games, and that therefore girls should not be exposed to them (and presumably censored by a parent.)

In essence, this approach means that we as parents do not trust our children to listen to differing viewpoints, make conscientious decisions, and explore the world as they see fit. This authoritarian parenting style is doomed to failure because instead of nurturing a child's ability to question, the child is instead implicitly told that they lack the capacity for thought.

Now I'm not saying that all children should be let loose to play GTA or My Boyfriend when they are old enough to hold a controller. However, it is equally silly to ignore such matters as death, violence, relationships and sex until they reach 18.

My three year old asked me, "Daddy, why do things have to die so we can eat?" The last thing I would say to him is-- "Sorry son, you aren't mature enough to fathom that question" --which is exactly what labeling these games as "ridiculous" implies.

^ Interesting point. For the sake of clarity, however, most three year olds wouldn't understand the concept "not mature enough to comprehend" anyway. Four year olds, 12 year olds, 18 year olds, and 25 year olds are going to see things in completely different ways. Often adults tend to see child as little adults period instead of recognizing that there are stages & levels of maturity and development. A good parent recognizes where their child is at, takes them at that level, and appreciates that their stage at the moment isn't static and will continually change.

I agree absolutely. I wasn't trying to say that all kids can handle all topics at every stage of their development. I just find the idea that all kids are unthinking automatons in their tweens is silly.

If I had assimilated every bad lesson from every game I played when I was ten, I would jump in a sewer pipe, single-handedly take on an alien horde, and then after lunch, I would band up with my friends to cast some spells and search for some magic orbs.

However, I'm sure that someone somewhere (possibly Tracey John) would say that I unthinkingly absorbed the bad lessons of saving princesses, hero worship, megalomania, and possibly even occultism from these games.

I wrote my original post to showcase the absurdity of the assertion that kids (and people in general) will blindly follow some of the ridiculous lessons while disregarding others.

Or said another way: if a girl isn't going to believe that they can throw a fireball after playing Street Fighter, then why are they going to believe that they should "pretend to be someone you’re not in an effort to become one of the most popular girls in school" after playing The Clique: Diss and Make Up?

Setting aside the fact that I despise the thought that some games should be made for/played by a specific gender, I think that one point she brings up is an interesting one. Why is the media etc. so obsessed with protecting children from violence in video games, while not caring at all that there might be games out there that teach other bad lessons?

Either way, I don't think children with attentive parents have anything to worry about. If you do right by your kids, they will know the difference between the fake world of a video game and real world consequences of their actions.

Tom,

As Wired.com's games editor, I wanted to say, thanks very much for this -- it's great to actually get constructive, helpful criticism. On the Internet, no less!

I think you're quite right -- although our intent was to run a lighthearted humorous piece about this topic, there's plenty of room for serious discussion, of which Tracey is quite capable.

She's out for a couple personal days right now, which is why I'm answering instead, but we'll definitely be talking about this when she's back.