1.9K views Mar 2009
Two satirical news anchors debate whether violent video games prepare children for apocalypse survival, from finding supplies to fighting irradiated monsters and facing isolation.
0:00 Moving on. Many of today's most popular video games take place in dangerous post-apocalyptic landscapes, but are these games doing enough to prepare our kids for the actual post-apocalyptic future we will all soon face? 0:12 Well, 0:12 I think they are. Studies have shown that these games are quite effective at teaching our kids skills that they'll need after the apocalypse, like finding shotgun ammo and leading elite squads of super soldiers. 0:22 But these aren't the advanced skills that they're going to need. 0:25 That is advanced. 0:25 They're going to need the more practical skills, like how to build a shelter from abandoned cars, or 0:31 You're not thinking 0:31 how to find drinking water by collecting the morning dew in human skulls. 0:34 Yes, or, or how to deal with depression when the sun is blocked out for 500 years by a cloud of radioactive dust. 0:39 Absolutely. Now, that's the type of knowledge these kids are going to need when their world has been turned into a brutal hellscape. 0:45 But these games don't have to be an accurate depiction of a post-apocalyptic world. 0:48 Well, with hell. 0:49 They just need to teach the basic concepts, 0:51 Yes. 0:51 which they do. 72% of kids said that they know how to find items to barter at weapon shops and how to use medicine packs to heal zombie bites with these video games. 1:01 That's excellent to know. The game Fallout 3 has taught my son Charlie that it's easier to kill cyborgs with a grenade than a machine gun. 1:08 The games make it all seem deceptively simple. I mean, in the future, a kid's not going to be able to kill a 6-foot-long irradiated beetle just by pressing a few buttons. 1:17 Absolutely. 1:17 And he's going to have to get down there with an axe and hack and hack and hack. 1:21 David, our kids are going to have the rest of their lives to get actual experience in how to desperately fight for survival. 1:28 Exactly. What's important is that we teach our children the fundamentals now so that they can be successful in whatever nightmare scenario that they may find themselves in. 1:36 Well, if they survive that long. 1:37 Of course. So right. 1:38 Another flaw with these games is that most kids will become mutants themselves once the apocalypse hits. 1:43 It's a huge problem. 1:45 I think that it's a chance that we're going to have to take. 1:47 Playing video games all day, alone and friendless, is simply the best way that we have to prepare our children for a life of solitude and a bear. 1:56 Of course, yes. 1:57 Yeah. 
