The Politics of the Video Game

illuminata writes "Can the video game industry keep its mittens out of the political slugfest? According to Kevin Parker's article Free Play, they sure can't. In it, he cites Dreamcatcher's Gore and Sega's Legacy Online and Jet Set Radio Future as main offenders. He even goes on to point out how some people want video games to convey their favorite political message in the future. Are there any particular titles or game companies that you think lay on the politics too thick, or is it all just a bunch of foof?"

Comments

Re:Sorry, you seem to be referring to WMDPAs

[corbettw]

Actually, resolution 1441, the UNSCR which gave the US permission to attack, only said Saddam had to cough up the missing weapons (weapons which had disappeared after he kicked the weapons inspectors out back in '98-'99). The onus wasn't on us to find the weapons, it was on him to produce them, or prove they had been destroyed. He did neither, so we went in to take him out.

Besides, as an anonymous poster pointed out, the article clearly states where we've found actual weapons. Not "starter kits", not "precursors", but actual full blown weapons. Keep ignoring it if you want, but even Sen. Kerry has changed his tune (see this article...the article is published by the GOP, but the quote is from Kerry's recent appearance on Hardball).

If anyone is wondering...

[freeBill]

...how over 50 percent of the American people could possibly believe there is still WMD in Iraq, all they need to do is read the above post.

David Kay (a big supporter of the WMD theory before the war) has made it very clear what the facts on the ground are:

• They polygraphed over 40 people they knew had been involved with WMD research and production in Iraq in the past.
• Every one of those 40 people said there were no WMD, no program to develop them, no infrastructure start such a program, just a few fraudsters bilking money out of an out-of-touch dictator.
• We didn't believe them.
• We spent 100s of millions of dollar checking out their stories.
• All of their stories checked out.
• We continued to throw money at the problem (Bush has a strong motivation to find them as his popularity has slipped 30 percent since they weren't found). We're now approaching the $1 billion mark.
• We still haven't found WMD or the equipment to make them.
• If they had them, they would have been very useful during our invasion. And they would also be very useful in the terrorist insurrection now being led by Ba'athist former intelligence agents.
• Before the war, we not only claimed we knew that Iraq had WMD, we claimed we knew where they were.
• When we went to those locations after the invasion, they were not there. In many cases, the locations themselves did not exist. Ahmad Chalabi's informants told us about storage caches under hospitals filled with WMD. No WMD; no storage areas; solid concrete.

Yes, I am ignoring a few web sites which posted a tiny amount of evidence which has subsequently proven to be wrong. But that is dwarfed by the overwhelming evidence being ignored by a majority of the American people. But don't tell me I'm ignoring the facts because of my certainty: Before the war, I was convinced there was WMD, too.