The State of Violent Gaming

Ownt.com writes "Today we talk with Running With Scissors' Vince Desi of the controversial, recently released gore fest, Postal 2. We talk with Vince about The State of Video Game Violence and his thoughts on the violent gaming, where it's been, where it's going and many other aspects surrounding whether or not games actually 'teach' the players to go... postal."

Comments

Did anyone like Postal, anyway?

[pmz]

I remember seeing the first Postal. It was practically the only game I've ever found so revolting that I felt sorry for the people who actually thought it was fun. And this is after I had been playing all the Doom and Doom-derivitive games for years. Just going around and shooting people without a just cause is absolutely fucking stupid. At least Doom was fighting against an invasion from Hell or something. In Postal, it wasn't even self-defense.

Re:More fucking?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad thing is that (in the USA at least) graphic violence is apparently more acceptable than graphic sexuality.

That's because it's easier to use violence as a control.

You can better control the populace if you outlaw depictions of sex, because sex is normal and natural. The message sent is that sex is not normal and natural, but the population will continue to have sexual impulses (because we're hardwired to want to reproduce), which will cause them to repress these impulses.

You then make depictions of violence acceptable, which sends the message the violence is acceptable. The popluation needs an outlet for their repressed sexual impulses, will resort to violence (as that is acceptable.) - either through violent crime, or as the police force, who enforces your 'tough' laws by committing acts of violence against the criminals.

It's no accident that countries that have a more permissive attitude towards nudity and pornography have a lower crime rate.

Re:More fucking?

[tjw]

The sad thing is that (in the USA at least) graphic violence is apparently more acceptable than graphic sexuality. This appears to be exactly backwards.

While playing Enemy Territory (a first person shooter) a few days ago, another player asked me to refrain from typing swear words because his young son was watching. That's not an isolated incident. Many game servers even have mods for censoring "curse words".

If you ask me, the fact that using certain words in your language is more of a taboo than watching animated violence or graphic sexuality is even more sad. Though, personally, I like all three.