Believe it or not, I'm actually fond of the idea of introducing kids to gaming through platforms that help them learn. When I first heard of the V.Smile systems I think my exact words were "freakin' sweet". But, in the last few weeks V-Tech, the makers of the V.Smile, V.Flash, and V... other educational learning/gaming systems, have been airing a commercial that opens with a metal-clad orc blasting zombies to dust with an oversized laser gun. He quickly turns to the camera and says "What am I doing? Millions of kids are watching." This then segues into information about their system and its benefits.

Now, you guys know me, I'm very much a proponent of the idea of monitoring kids when they're playing ANY video games (not just violent ones). But, I think it's abhorent that Vtech opted to attack violent video games rather than let their system stand own it's own legs. In essence they've hopped on the anti-gaming bandwagon to appeal to the lowest parental common denominator of passing on the buck instead of accepting blame themselves.

This doesn't mean I will stop supporting educational gaming systems. And I have no intention of singling out VTech by saying "I'll never buy one of their products" (or throw away my cordless home phones) in protest. But as it applies to the issue of pouncing on games young kids probably shouldn't be playing in the first place, like Ted, my opinion is: kiss my ass.

Wow.. I havn't seen that commercial yet.

My almost 4 yr old loves playing his VSmile, and his hand-eye coordination is much better because of it. If you set him in front of a nick jr web site to play games, 9 times out of 10 he clicks places he shouldn't so it's a complete fiasco every 5 minutes to get him back into the game.

The Vsmile solved that problem, the games are easy for him to play and learn and he enjoys it. I'd rather him use it than watch Spongbob for sure.

It's a shame they took that avenue, other than the product being pretty flimsy it really is nice to have.

V-Power to the people!!!

AMEN! I'm really getting sick of gaming attacking itself. We already have to put up with asschairs constantly blaming things like violence on certain games (which are rated for a reason), the last thing we need is internal politics leading to a more major problem.

Speak an Spell for a new Generation!

The only other major problem that I have with the V.Smile, etc... is that unless things have changed, it doesn't ship with an electrical adapter. Who makes a gaming console and then makes you buy a power adapter seperately? If it was a handheld, I could understand, but this is there hook-up to your TV gaming console. Yes, you can run it on 3 "C" batteries, but they really need to pony up and just include the power adaptor.

LOL good one!

Gotta love Ted. He gets to do all those things that the rest of us mostly think about...mostly...

That ad made me angry as well. I really hate it when parents don't pay attention to what their kids are doing. I have a 12 year old who plays video games all the time. I monitor what games she plays and I play them first before I let her play them. I have two games that I won't let her play because I don't feel that she is mature enough... GTA and City of Heroes (she once said "I'm glad I don't live in a big city" and said that it was because of all the crime that there is in big cities... right after playing CoH).

I also have a baby on the way and am looking foreward to inroducing my child to video games at a young age (probably earlier than network television). I really wish parents would pay attention to their kids instead of buying a babysitter in the form of a PS2 (or 3, or whatever their child's gaming preference is), and then just buying whatever game their kid whines enough to get.

I feel old now. In MY day, kids learned hand-eye coordination by banging two sticks together. >.>

I kinda think its sad that people need computers to raise their kids now rather than actually spending time with them teaching them things.

I also think its great that we're getting kids into videogames through learning and I for one can say that playing games has done a lot of things, such as adding to my vocabulary (and no, not just uber, leet, and so on) and making me type non-asshatty.

But, i have to say, if I see this commercial I am going to be mad. I, as well, am sick and tired of all these people blaming videogames. I had my chance to voice my opinion in my psychology class the other day when we brought up the subject while doing this one thing we call "Ditties". Basically they're a bunch of random questions about random things, such as one today was, "Where is your lawnmower right now? Answer in detail." and so on. I was the biggest gamer in the room and my teacher was kind of on the opposing side of the arguement but I got my points across, which was nice.

But really. The ratio of gamers compared to crazy people who freak out is so low I mean its just not right. In my mind I say its like saying "All minorities are criminals" Even though the ratio between criminal minorities and normal minority citizens who are non-violent is just the same as gamers vs violent gamers.