None More Black ([info]blueyeddevil) wrote,
@ 2008-04-29 00:18:00
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Current music:Deicide Not As Long As We Both Shall Live

I don't feel Tardy...
So, apparently, there's some video game that's part of a popular series out today that has all the Conservative types up in arms. I don't play video games because, well...I got my pubes over twenty years ago. But there are people who are saying it shouldn't be released.

So where do you stand? I don't believe this game victimizes children, but it probably objectifies and denigrates women somehow, from what I've read (I don't know for certain - I haven't seen the game nor will I ever play it. I haven't played a video game since the days of Intellivision). I like reading books.

Do video games encourage violence the way Rap and Metal albums do (haha)? Should we be actively trying to save the minds of people who will grow stupider from playing these games? Do the Conservative types have a point (for once)? Or is this all just harmless fantasy for people who don't lead interesting lives? Can't we just let the poor geeks be poor geeks?

I think the whole thing is friggin' hysterical.


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[info]skywayman
2008-04-29 12:15 pm UTC (link)
If we banned everything that was potentially bad, we would everything.

If we banned all music that sucked, there would be none.

It is subjective. Including the definition of subjective.

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[info]hypoxia
2008-04-29 01:16 pm UTC (link)
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/04/28/grand-theft-ups-copies-of-gta-disappearing-en-route-to-retailers

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[info]blueyeddevil
2008-04-29 01:36 pm UTC (link)
That's great.

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[info]thosquanta
2008-04-29 01:35 pm UTC (link)
I don't play video games because, well...I got my pubes over twenty years ago.

and yet you listen to metal.

i listen to pet shop boys, so i don't have any pubes.

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[info]blueyeddevil
2008-04-29 01:36 pm UTC (link)
Ewww.

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[info]manna_panna
2008-04-29 01:36 pm UTC (link)
Parents should be teaching kids how to discern between reality and fantasy. Should be, but aren't.

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[info]blueyeddevil
2008-04-29 01:37 pm UTC (link)
I think I saw that on Montell.

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[info]manna_panna
2008-04-29 01:48 pm UTC (link)
I thought he died?

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[info]yesididit
2008-04-29 02:48 pm UTC (link)
hrm, i remember playing the nintendo game where you had an orange plastic gun and you shot at ducks. it didnt make me grow up and want to shoot ducks in real life.

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[info]lokey
2008-04-29 03:45 pm UTC (link)
Well, personally I figure that censoring the creation of and selling of the product in question is pointless and silly, not to mention sets a bad precedent. That said, there is definitely a difference between Duck Hunter and GTA. For one, Duck Hunt was more of a hand/eye coordination cartoon game where the target was pretty superfluous and could easily have been replaced with cartoon dishes or colored dots without impacting peoples' entertainment. GTA is in many ways a role-playing game where you are rewarded (therefore positively reinforced) for soliciting prostitutes, and committing felony acts of violence in a relatively realistic setting.

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bull
[info]rskm1
2008-04-29 05:43 pm UTC (link)
"pretty superfluous"? Baloney. That "cartoon" duck flapped its wings, quacked like a real duck, and fell right out of the sky when you shot it (obviously FATALLY, since your dog would pick up the corpse and congratulate you).

Is it relevant that today's videogames are more "realistic"? NO.

Horror movies in the 60's and 70's had cheesy-ass (by today's standards) special effects, while today's movies with computer-enhanced graphics are FAR more realistic. Does watching today's "more-realistic" horror movies MAKE more psycho killers than fakey 60's/70's horror movies? NO.

Proponents of censorship are deluded into thinking that violent videogames are the CAUSE of misbehaving kids. They love to point the finger (at videogames, music, movies, magazines, etc) to avoid taking the blame they deserve for being POOR PARENTS.

There are plenty of not-violent videogames available for kids. Censorship proponents seem to think that kids just pick random videogames up at the store, and OOPS! accidentally grabbed a graphically violent one, that turned them into a psycho killer! "Aack! Take those violent ones off the shelf!!"

Umm, NO, dipsh1ts! Kids walk right past row after row of nonviolent videogames, specifically seeking out the violent ones. There's a preexisting demand for them. They satisfy a base carnal need for violence. They don't CAUSE violence.

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Re: bull
[info]lokey
2008-04-29 07:14 pm UTC (link)
It was still "superfluous". Duckhunt wasn't popular because it was a duck. It was just a target shooting game and there have been plenty of very popular target shooting games since that use bouncing balls, targets, clay pigeons, faceless human forms, etc. So yes, it is a matter of comparing apples and oranges. If she'd mentionned Castlevania or something more along those lines I would completely agree with her as I've played plenty of violent games myself, growing up, without deeming the thug life something to aspire to.

I don't disagree with you that it is up to the parent/s to decide what the kids are seeing, playing, etc. and that it is not the role of government to "protect" by keeping particular games off the shelf. Though I do think it is appropriate to require the purchaser of the game be of a certain age, etc. As a kid who always managed to find plenty of discretionary income myself I know that curiosity alone would get me to buy it even if my parents said not to. And as a latchkey kid I would have had plenty of time to play it without my parents even knowing it was in my posession.

Additionally I think it is entirely reasonable for the content of such games to be discussed in wide-ranging public forums, and even for mass media tales about them on the news, etc. Not to scare people into wanting to ban the creation of the games though but to make parents aware of what the products are. It seems silly to some, but there are plenty of parents who can look at a videogame package and not really know what is in store for the player. For example a few years back I was at my sister's house for Xmas. One of the gifts my 10 year old nephew opened from his stocking was a new copy of GTA: Vice City. It had been on his list with a slew of other games and my sister, having no real knowledge of what it was bought it alongside Madden football, NBA basketball, and DDR. If I hadn't made a comment about her being much more liberal (culturally, not politically) than I'd thought she'd have never had a clue what she had bought her son to play on his bedroom game system until stumbling in, while he was rolling a ho, to grab his laundry.

I'd also argue that the horror movie comparison is inaccurate as well. I think the argument that the portrayal of violence leads to a desensitization hasn't received a lot of clinical support. But where the classic horror film is often purely about that violence, productions akin to GTA have a second argument against them- that being the glorification of being a hard-ass, making common street thuggery something to look up to and aspire to. Does GTA really do that? Or is it actually a very visceral new story-telling medium featuring greater interactivity with its audience, and strong, but flawed characters in heightened but realistic situations? Is it any more dangerous to the purveyor than say a novel with similar themes? I'd argue no, when being viewed/read by an adult. I think that something different is true though when dealing with children though.

So education and easy access to information about the content of such things for adults to make personal, educated choices in dealing with their children is something that I definitely support. As it needs to be their decision-making process that shapes and directs the attention of their children who being years away from having fully developed frontal lobes are much more prone to acting and "thinking" purely from their reptilian brain without the constraints that adults biologically develop.

There is no rule that says that video games and cartoons are expressly created for children. Censorship legislation, particularly anything calling for the "banning" of a product due to its content is founded on the the mis-assumption that such a rule exists.


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[info]lio
2008-04-30 04:27 am UTC (link)
I was a Duck Hunt marksman.

My only dissatisfaction with the game is that I always saved that third bullet for the damn dog, and the bastard never keeled over once.

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