Monster killing

My 11-year-old son has told me about an internet game that he has played. The game starts off with monsters walking around. Then all of sudden some of the monsters may suddenly launch into an attack mode and harm the good guys, so the player, in order to win the game, has to kill the monsters as soon as they appear on screen. My son says that he feels sorry for the monsters who are supposed to be bad but who are just walking around doing nothing but then the player has to kill them just because they may become bad. He says that he is confused about who is good and who is bad in the end.


It is a game that he has played at a friend’s house. I am wondering if it is a game involving violence. Does any parent know that game and can shed a light?


I am going to chat with him again about what he has said but I am not too sure what I should say. I have told him that it is just a game, it is not the real world, that he needs to know the difference between the real world and the virtual world of internet games, that a game may be designed in such a way that certain characters or parts are set as bad and others good so that in eliminating the bad, you are just playing by the rules of the game, that a game does not necessarily have any morality in the way that it is played out, but it is entirely different in the real world, that you cannot kill just because you believe or you think that someone is bad, that even if someone is bad and no matter how bad, killing him is not an option, and if you feel bad about killing the monsters, just don’t kill, let them go, there’s nothing to be gained or lost in winning or losing a game. May be I am being over anxious but I have been thinking about it a lot this morning and wondering how as a parent I can teach my child to tell right from wrong, good from evil. I would love to borrow the wisdom of other parents.