What video games were banned when you were a JW teen?

by BlackTwisted 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  A.Fenderson

  Generally: anything with any mention whatsoever of a demon or demons. Attempts to appeal the case by explaining the focus was on killing the demon(s), rather than giving them power-ups, failed.

  Specifically: Mortal Kombat (original)--Dan Rather informed my parents of the life-like violence of the game, and my siblings and I were subsequently told not to buy it. I'm fairly sure we did anyway.

  BlackTwised: if you are considering baptism, please take your time. If you decide to get baptized, and later realize that the JW religion is not for you, there is rarely an easy way out of the organization if you have any friends or relatives still within it. You may find yourself in a position where you have either to submit to the Watchtower's rules, or live apart from your loved ones. Take care.
• 

  Broken Promises

  LIke cofty, I couldn't play Space Invaders because you were shooting at aliens.
• 

  C6H12O6

  Any video games with that M rating...

  

  I even had to watch out for some of the T rated games. Kingdom Hearts was questionable even though it has that E rating, but no one

  complained about Tetris...but I still got nagged that it was time wasted, and that I could have been doing something more "spiritual" (field service,

  studying, anything WT related)
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  MrFreeze

  Growing up we stuck mainly to Atari, Nintendo, Sega and the only game on those systems my mom had a problem with was Mortal Kombat. I would play it over my neighbors house anyway. Then as the newer systems came out, we could not play Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto. We would find ways to play them but we weren't allowed. Eventually it got to a point when she just didn't care anymore.
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  Sharpie

  My parents didn't care about the video games, because they were smart enough to know that violent games don't make people do violent things.
  
  But, the elders sure gave a damn. One time my friend was getting a ride home from field service. He started asking him what video games I played. He said he doesn't know. But the truth is that I play all the Halo games, 1,2,3,Wars,Reach,ODST, and a couple others like Half life, Call of duty. Generic teenager stuff.
  
  He used to come over to my house and play it everyweekend! I was lucky to have friends like that. Sad thing is that he got out of the org, and I'm still in.
• 

  3Mozzies

  Wolfenstein & Doom ... does that show my age or what?

  3Mozzies
• 

  yourmomma

  In my old hall a group of young adults used to get together all the time and play halo. Then the elders found out and threatened anyone who played it with the loss of privlages and had a local needs talk on violent video games. so after that they stopped playing halo they played mario cart. well, then the elders did a local needs talk on that, not that it was violent, but that it was a problem that they got together regularly and wasted time playing video games.

  so then they stopped playing video games and would just have gatherings on the weekends, and shortly after that the watchtower about social gatherings came out. (not sure if you guys remember, but it was about how there should be very few people and how one brother should be in charge of what you talk about and how you should talk only about spiritual things). so that was pretty much the last straw and they all stopped getting together, and i'd say 75% of that group is out of the religion now.

  its odd, when i was younger in the 90's, we used to have social gatherings every single weekend, sometimes on both sat, and sun, and it was praised and looked upon as a very good thing, it helped young ones stay in. it was one of the things that kept me in the religion at a young age, and being honest, i'd enjoyed it and have fond memories of it.

  but now, the society doesnt want people even getting together outside of the hall it seems. i never thought that would happen. so now either there is little to no socializing, or there are groups of young ones with the "f it" mentality, and have huge gatherings with drinking. lol.
• 

  WTWizard

  When I was going into the cancer, they referred me to an Asleep! article dated around 1983 that said that there was nothing wrong with video games in themselves. However, our time is for field circus. They did say something about a few games, like Defender and Missile Command, that had much shooting and/or realistic war scenes for its time. Back then, they never saw my collection of Commodore 64 games because they were on unlabelled floppy discs.

  These days, they can say anything about anything. I got that 50 Cent game Bulletproof--and the biggest problem I have is that I don't know what I am supposed to be shooting at. They could say something about Pokemon (deriding the new world order, using "potions", and psychic moves), and virtually everything. Plus, "Your time is for field circus".
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  sd-7

  Well, we started on video games at a very young age. Let's see. Mortal Kombat was definitely a no-no. But we were allowed to play Zelda and...Double Dragon 1, 2, and 3, and pretty much anything that wasn't overtly evil (or that my mom wasn't playing herself), like say, Castlevania or Ghosts & Goblins. But I'd heard urban legends about video games picking up and playing themselves, so I was kinda scared of those games anyway, though I read a lot about Ghosts & Goblins in a Nintendo magazine we had.

  The irony? They allowed us to have Final Fight, but not Final Fight 2 or 3. They allowed us to have Street Fighter II, but not Street Fighter II Turbo. But I sure played a lot of Mega Man. In later years, I discovered Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9, and 10, with their overt magic use. I'd play a game otherwise until I could confirm actual demons in it or something. Mom didn't really monitor that too closely once we got old enough; we could make our own decisions.

  My brother stuck to sports games but I ended up going towards RPGs, mostly Final Fantasy, but by then I was already in college. As a teenager, it was more so Mega Man and Mario and...more Zelda. Oh, we were allowed to play GoldenEye, too. That was quite a stress-reliever back in high school. Recognizing that killing people in real life is different from telling a computer program to kill another computer program that happens to look somewhat like a human, I think we all got along quite well.

  I just ignored the talks and parts about violent video games. As long as it wasn't too graphic, I figured, no big deal. Most games I played, you were fighting robots or alien creatures or Goombas, and either way, if you press Reset, all the characters you killed get a resurrection anyway. So, evidently, this helps us to see on a small scale what God will do on a larger scale in the new system.

  --sd-7
• 

  pirata

  if you press Reset, all the characters you killed get a resurrection anyway. So, evidently, this helps us to see on a small scale what God will do on a larger scale in the new system.

  LOL! Are you sure you're not on the writing committee?