Slashdot Mirror
Feeding Frenzy Over Violent Game
25 to Life isn't even out yet, and already it is under fire by everyone from NY Senator Charles Schumer to CNN host Nancy Grace. Commentary on the illogical feeding frenzy is available at Gamasutra, Press the Buttons, and Game Girl Advance. From the Press the Buttons article: "As you read this transcript, pay attention to how Grace and her guests frame their sentences. Although this plays out like an off-the-cuff debate, each and every spoken word is primed to invoke outrage. There are plenty of loaded words and phrases in there: 'murder simulators', 'rewire the brain', an attack on Bill Gates for personally allowing this game to exist (as if he himself is out there coding it), and so forth. The program also showed photos of real police officers who were killed in the line of duty at the same time the game's preview trailer was on screen."
Who needs a murder-simulator when you can join the police force and experience the real thing?
+ Shoot a young unarmed black man to death with 41 shots!
+ Kill a young woman by shooting a "non-lethal" pepper-spray projectile into her eyeball!
+ Needlessly taser young children, women and elderly people with 50,000 volts as you see fit!
+ Beat up, shove to the ground, handcuff and arrest blind elderly women in their own home!
Yes, order POLICE-FORCE today from your local videogame retailer and you too can be a civic-minded hero!
And by the way:
"This is what your kids will be digesting if you buy this," Grace said as game footage was shown. "One law officer after the next gunned down in the line of duty."
Kids will only be digesting it if adults buy it for them. Presumably most kids too young to be (theoretically) impressionable enough to go out and kill cops becuase they played a videogame about it don't have the $70 for an Xbox game.
"Here's a philanthropist and a powerful man, the richest man in the world, and yet he's making available to children around the world on Xbox a cop-killing game."
How much of the game centers around killing cops? For all we know, killing cops is just a small incidental portion of the game that they're focusing on because they're sick fucking perverts trying to exploit the public by making it an issue. And how is it a cop-killing game? I assure you, the cops in the game are not real. They are rendered animations displayed on the television. Kind of like a cartoon. No real cops are harmed.
Well, if you want those kids to be susceptible to your recruiters in a couple of years, you better start breaking down their inhibitions now so they'll be blood thirsty killing machines when you want them to be.
The gaming industry deliberately invokes this kind of "negative" publicity to move product. The same kind of thing happened when Take Two made Manhunt.
I had a look at Manhunt and yeah, the murder in the game is pretty gruesome (stabbing people rather vividly, suffocations with plastic bags, etc). The game itself was pretty godawful though. Gameplay was repetitive, nothing outstanding in the game to set it apart except for the violence.
I guarantee that sales will be higher for the game as a result of CNN's free publicity. Won't make the game any better though.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Sigh... the usual suspects start up with the usual rhetoric. How boring. No doubt we'll get the usual "Ban Video Games!" cries from the ambulance chasing lobby. If I'm remembering my ancient history correctly, in 5th Century BC Athens, bringing an unconstitutional proposal was a crime, which carried the possibility of the death penalty. Perhaps we need the same thing today. Of course, 5th Century Athens also had all kinds of nasty stuff we definitely don't want today, so I guess I won't press that one too far.
On the other hand, I can't help but be slightly disappointed that Eidos have put this game out, judging by what I've seen on the trailers. It's not that I don't defend their right to do so; believe me, I would. It's more that... well... it feels like they're letting the side down a bit. This is a debate that is ultimately going to have to be fought and won in the court of public opinion, like it or not. The other side has some very persuasive people and just because the constitution is on our side here, we shouldn't feel that victory is assured. It would have been *nice* if Eidos could have exercised a little restraint for the next year or two, given we're probably at a critical juncture right now. Like I say, I feel I have a duty to side with Eidos on this one, but come on guys, grow up a little.
What kind of sick fuck would use such images for the purpose of defaming a game? It is completely out or proportion and demeaning to the officers. Whether it's relevant or not is not important, it just shows an incredibly bad taste and lack of empathy for the people victimized by these killings.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
There's also this little quote:
THOMPSON: Children don`t have a 1st Amendment...
Is this actually true?
Yeah, pretty much. You'd be hard pressed to find a court in this land that would rule in favor of a minor-aged child having the legal right to play GTA or go see Faces of Death 9 or whatever if their parents had told them they could not.
the fact that you can play either side of the war in this game. In fact, I typed "25 to life" into google and got this link: Choose your side You can play as gangsters or cops, but I suppose it isn't as morally satisfying to these asshats to: A) Report on the whole story or B) Complain about a game where cops kill gangsters.
I hate it when people think that it is the games that do this kind of stuff. Like certain people can't "tell" when a game real or fake. They think that gamers go into this waking state when playing games and just start going on murderous rampages.
It all started with Doom. Nothing happened with that (though people still blame it for outbreaks of violence).
Then it went to Duke Nukem 3D. Nothing. Then Carmageddon (so bad that the UK version has "zombies" instead of pedestrians). Nothing.
Up to today's games where Grand Theft Auto is now the focus of so much scrutiny. Give it up people. No one is responsible for your actions except for you. Games aren't going to send anyone on a murderous rampage who wasn't going to already go on it any way.
I will tell you this though: If all games do indeed go to the next-gen consoles don't be surprised if we see a signifigant reduction in video-game violence. Due ot the closed and controlled nature of the console market and consoles themselves, government officials can regulate that a lot easier than anything they could on the PC. That was what made the PC so popular in the first place: all of the violent games were there (Wolf 3D anyone?).
You know what else is good? Put the console/computer in the living room, where everyone can see what the child is playing, instead of having it holed up in their room where no one has any idea what they're doing.
I agree. My mother had no idea what she was getting into when she had me. She was 17 when I was born. As a result, I grew up with some pretty lousy parenting. She never questioned any game she bought me, she never monitored the music I listened to, and she never said I wasn't allowed to watch certain movies. I've been exposed to more than my fair share of violent movies and games, and I turned out just fine. (If that's what you would call being an engineer...)
But, what you have to realize, is that these people believe this crap. They really do think that games are going to make kids kill. What does that mean for you and I? It means the "stop forcing your morals on us" argument is not going to work. It is the same way the Constitution works. It provides us with rights as long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others. If a kid starts shooting people, it is having an impact on other people. So, in their twisted vision of reality, the advocates of censorship in video games are not really enforcing their morals. What they are trying to do is protect themselves. I can hardly blame them for that.
But that doesn't mean I won't blame them for being complete morons.
-KD
So it's a bad game, so what, does that mean it should be banned? You may not like it, I know I won't play it but that doesn't mean I think it should be banned. Let the game sink or float on it's own merits.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Because children are not full citizens until they're adults. They don't have the right to vote, work, marry, drive, sign a mortgage, sue someone in court, drink, smoke, etc.
Children have some basic rights, but they are still essentially the property of their parents until they're either adults or emancipated.
I suspect that this is true; because the military has other techniques for breaking down a soldier's reluctance to kill, and has been using them for years. It's actually quite difficult, and it is a big part of combat training.
I think it's probably telling that they don't use video games to make recruits more willing to kill; it implies that it isn't very effective for that purpose.
demi