By community correspondent Julien Kenrick

The highly anticipated game Modern Warfare 2 went on sale at the stroke of midnight on Tuesday, with record breaking sales of 1.23 million copies being sold in the first 24 hours. The game rated 18 allows you to be a terrorist, and kill innocent civilians in a airport terminal.

This leads to a new question though. Will children get hold of the game? The obvious answer to that is no, since the managers of the shops where the game retails, will not allow it to be sold to anyone under the age of 18. However, it is easily possible for the parents of such children to purchase the game for them.

One reason that the game isn’t sold to children, is because of the effect it can have on a child’s behavior. Jim Steyer, founder and CEO of ‘Common sense media’, says that parents should keep their kids away from such violence, and he also states “It’s a really violent game. So the real issue is how old is the person who’s playing it? There’s no question, that certain forms of video game violence can be correlated to aggression in the kids who use them”

The opposing view of John Christensen (founder of ‘gameslash.com’) says that the violence depicted in these games is pixilated and isn’t real. He says that the retail owners do a good job of keeping adult games away from children but “Kids can definitely pick up the game if parents buy it for them”

But recent studies show that by labeling games as 18 or mature, you are increasing the children’s desire for the game. A statement from the BRA (British association of pediatrics), says: “An important finding for parents and pediatricians is that age and violent-content labels do not prevent young children from playing games with objectionable content. In fact, they have the opposite effect. Study authors suggest that video games should not be forbidden in the UK because that will only make the games more attractive, and parents should help in selecting appropriate games for their children to play.”

So if you are planning to purchase a copy of the game for your children perhaps think twice about it and read up on the reviews before making a decision that could perhaps damage your child’s innocence.