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“Sandbox” Video games may be destructive to young black men.

3 min readFeb 18, 2024

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When I was a child I use to love to play in the sandbox. I would always take my Ninja Turtles and my GI-Joes to the sand box all the time. Now there were times when I did not have any toys, and every parent knows when a kid don’t have a toy in the sandbox they will use their imagination to have fun. “Sandbox” video games have been inspired by this activity, however sand box video games have become very controversial.

The first “Sandbox” video game that ever played was “Grand Theft Auto 3”. In “Grand Theft Auto 3” you play as Claude, a silent protagonist. After being left betrayed and left behind by his girlfriend, Claude seeks revenge. In the beginning of the game you are in the open world of Liberty City. You get left behind in the middle the city and you can do whatever you want. This video game is one giant sand box. What makes this game not good for black children is you commit so much crime in the game, and what makes this game so insane is that you can pick up sex workers.

There is another “Sandbox” video game series that is suppose to be a parody of “Grand Theft Auto”. The game series that is called “Saints Row”. This game is so crazy that it “jump the shark” in the “SandBox” video game genre. There is one mission that cause me to uninstall the game. In this mission you have to go into a strip club to find a pimp with a purple suit that owes you money. After you find this man you ending up chasing this man while holding a strange object in you hand. I will not say what the object is, but I will tell you that I felt so uncomfortable with that mission.

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The next and final “Sandbox” video game that I will be talking about is a video game called “Bully”. “Bully” was released in October 17, 2006. This “Sandbox” is about a juvenile delinquent named Jimmy Hopkins who is dropped in a fictional boarding school called Bullworth Acadamy. While in the school he fights off bullies in various student factions. The way that he does this through pranks and machiavellian politics. Jimmy Hopkins while rising in power has his former friend Gary Smith tries to undermind him at every turn. Gary Smith is dangerous, because he has the mentallity of a school shooter that wants to cause chaos in Bullworth Acadamy. Parents do not like the subject matter of this video game, because it has themes of bullying that actually happens in real life.

Their are a lot of young African-American kids who are playing these “sand box”, video games. Games like “Batman Arkham City”, and “Sony Spider-Man” video games are great. However “Sandbox” game like the ones that are named earler need parent supervision. You also must pay attention to your childrens behavor while play these games. I believe you should not allow your children to play these video games at all.

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