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Games As The Mainstream Media's Demon
1up has an editorial up exploring the biased nature of mainstream media gaming coverage, especially in light of the recent Hot Coffee scandal. From the article: "...Are CBS, Donny Deutsch, and Ed Bradley actually informing their viewers--or just inflaming their fears in a culture already on edge? Many, certainly many in the videogame industry, believe it's the latter. There's no shortage of gaming coverage, but it seems that what's out there, outside of enthusiast coverage, focuses disproportionately on certain kinds of games or on partial information that does no justice to the industry's successes. "
In other news: Slashdot has an article covering a gaming site's editorial covering the game coverage in press.
...this is news?
"...Are CBS, Donny Deutsch, and Ed Bradley actually informing their viewers--or just inflaming their fears in a culture already on edge?"
It'd sure be interesting if these dudes would say "Here are games we approve of!", as opposed to just bla bla bla'ing about how games they've never played are evil.
"Derp de derp."
every one has their biases. You would not hear Blizzard saying Wow is evil
As soon as the media conglomerates start buying up game companies, everyone's going to STFU about video game violence.
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Just another form of sensationalism for the media to latch onto. Nothing new, really. Check out the book The Culture of Fear for a better treatment than my half assed drunken post.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Don't believe the hype!
If only more people would subscribe to that, the media would put a whole lot less spin on the "news".
zosxavius photography
What about the real Gaming Demons? The ones that tell me to do bad things and hurt people...you know when you play the game backwards....
OH NO! Seriously, after watching the eleven o'clock news for a month, and seeing FIVE stories about stripperobics, on the same channel, within that period, I lost anything resembling respect for todays news services.
Click on that little "Also by Zonk" link. If that link ever leads to a page without any mention of 1up, then we know that the bot got rewritten and we can celebrate.
Parents need something to blame.
Unfortunately, Satanic Panic is rather old, and nobody plays D&D anymore, so we are left with video games.
I was pretty sick of hearing about how games were corrupting people, so I wrote the following letter to the editor. It ran in the Bergen Rocord a few weeks ago.
"I'm 18 years old, I'm going to college in the fall, I volunteer twice a week, and I play a lot of computer games. I hold in my hands a copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which I received as a present before the pornographic content debacle. In the past few weeks there has been much attention paid to games and their content by the media, and as one who plays a lot of games, I'd just like to share my thoughts on the matter of content and the rating system.
A woman is suing Rockstar Games (the publisher of San Andreas) for misleading her into thinking that the game was an appropriate present for her 14 year-old grandson. I have the game right here, let's see how she was deceived. On the front there is a big black "M" and it says "Mature 17+." On the back, next to another big black "M" there is a more detailed explanation which reads, "Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs" That seems pretty honest and unambiguous to me, not deceptive at all.
According to an article in Computer Gaming World, the Entertainment Software Review Board, ESRB for short, does not actually play the games it rates. ESRB is given videos of a games most extreme content and bases its rating on that. Knowing this, it's easy to see how something like San Andreas' pornographic content slipped by, and how other objectionable content could be slipped by. ESRB needs to start playing games. Until they do, things will slip through, if for no other reason than some people want to push the envelope and test the system - it's the class clown mentality. ESRB needs to play games, and they need to play them more than once. They need to release detailed reports on the content of every game they rate. Until they do things will slip, people will be mad, and they will call for Congress to hold hearings on how the gaming industry is corrupting children.
I think that rating games is a good idea, even if the current system is flawed. I think being able to look at a box and see what kind of content is in a game is a good idea, I think that before parents allow their kids to play games, they need to know what's in the game. If you think that your child is too young to be handle a game's content, don't let them play it. Get involved, teach your kids what's right and what's wrong, what's educational and what's just entertainment. That's what my parents did, and while I play games that turn the stomachs of Joe Lieberman, Jack Thompson, and Hillary Clinton, I've never gotten so much as a parking ticket.
People are outraged, absolutely. But we don't need Congressional hearings over whether games are corrupting our youth. We need parents to teach their kids values and the difference between reality and entertainment, and ESRB needs to be more comprehensive in its ratings. My final thought is this: Without following instructions posted on the Internet, San Andreas still has graphic violence, gangs, drug use, corrupt cops, and crime galore. We knew about that, it's right there on the box. What does it say about our priorities and our values when we allow all that, but are incensed and call for Congressional hearings when we find out somebody hid a little sex in there?"
This sig is false.
People love to watch bad news, dunno why, probably the same reason I like to blow shit up.
Video games, they can easily put a bad spin on because there are so many clueless people.
Iraq, they can easily put a bad spin on because there are so many clueless people. Not saying things aren't bad, but when is the last time the mainstream media ran more than the occasional story of the GOOD our troops do in Iraq? I'm in a privilaged position of working with people who did serve in Iraq. Sure there are stories of ambushed, and other screwed up things, but I get to hear the good things we do and that the Iraqi people do.
I wonder if there was any mainstream press coverage of the Iraqi village who went vigilanti and fucked some terrorists up themselves, nah, too much to hope for.
It happened with comic books. Now it's happening with games. Ultimately, some new form of entertainment will come along that will attract the eyes of moral crusaders, and the game industry will spend less time in the spotlight.
Less time, sure... but it won't escape entirely for quite a while. You could replace every instance of "video game" with "comci book" (and change the examples to match) and you'd still have a largely factual article. Neil Gaiman made a great comment a few weeks ago about how mainstream coverage of comics books alternates between "Wham! Bam! Comics have grown up!" (which is 20-year old news) and "OMG! This comic book not meant for kids has material unsuitable for kids in it!"
There's an advocacy organization, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, that works to raise awareness and raise funds to help defend comic book authors, artists, retailers etc. from attacks against freedom of expression. Retailers have been arrested for selling adult comics to adults. Artists and publishers get sued for parodies. It doesn't get as much covereage as video games anymore, but what coverage it gets is still as biased as it was in the 1950s.
Media bias is probably only rooted in ignorance and a desire to "make news" rather than report the facts, but have you considered that console videogames are in direct competition with broadcast and cable television? For people that only have one set, they can either watch TV or little Billy can play his videogames. I cannot claim that this is why the media likes to demonize games (it's not--they aren't that smart), but it is an interesting way of looking at the situation.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
I've personally never found the media's reaction to video games to be suprising at all. Video Games are basically in direct competition with Television for the time and attention of people. The Info-tainment industry wants to play up video games as being bad because they don't want people to grow up getting their daily dose of sex and violence from GTA 237: Let's Kill Some People; they want them to get it from Channel $X News and The $City Times.
Media companies are no more going to sing the praises of video games than Coca Cola is going to come out and say "You know, we like coke, and a lot of other people like coke, but if you like pepsi then that's A-OK with us".
Of course, the reason why this isn't going to work in the long run is that overly dramatic FUD is only entertaining if you don't realize that it's overly dramatic FUD (at least in the case of info-tainment). Most people I think, or at least most of the Gen-X and Gen-Yers have played enough video games to realize that this is FUD, and so they get bored with it- so they stop with the news and pick up video games instead.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
"Videogames can teach you all kinds of ways to kill. You can pick someone off with a high-powered rifle, reach into a human chest and rip out a beating heart, or turn someone into a chicken." --Cleveland Plain Dealer
Because god knows, I see a lot of stuff on the news about how punks have turned a old lady into a chicken and how the latest school violence involved a child reaching into a teacher's chest and ripping out a beating heart.
There are two sides to every story and neither the Mainstream Media nor the Gaming Advocates really represent the true situation.
The facts are that gaming media, like most other forms of media, has contraversial games which push the limits of what is generally acceptable; these contraversial games are then demonized by 'crusaders' and by the media. The reality of the situation is that there is a type of symbiotic relationship between the crusaders and the developers.
If you compare the average quality, and quantity of high quality, 'Mature' games to 'Everyone' and 'Teen' games you will notice that there are far less good 'Mature' games and in general they're of lower quality at a similar sales level. Now what certain game developers are doing is taking a pretty crappy game and pushing the boundries with their content to sell more units (think Manhunt); this content then enrages crusaders who then get the media involved and since the game is 'Uber-Mature' it sells really well to insecure 14 year olds (and 14 year olds at heart). If the crusaders (and the Media) ignored this games, the games wouldn't sell well on their own merit, and for the most part the 'Plague of Damaging videogames' would dry up.
Now, I personally suspect that this will only continue for a short period of time longer. Much like with Rap Music and Horror movies, Violent Videogames will only continue to be press worthy for a short period of time longer (probably less than 5 years). After that it won't matter if you produce a game a where you're a 5 year old, with a passion for guns, that shoots cops it won't make the news. Thus the contraversial game will no longer have the free press to cover up for it's poor game mechanics.
Some people are trying to show that there is a postive side to gaming as well = http://www.videogamesarenotevil.com/
In other words, a select few game companies are really trolling for attention. They actually _like_ to generate a good scandal, because of the free publicity. You can get hours and hours and all TV channels, without paying a cent.
E.g., see the recent scandal about shooting cops in games, and how every channel conveniently had side-by-side screenshots and photos of dead police officer. Long before the game was even released. Sorry, that kind of thing almost screams "PR stunt".
That's what PR companies do: get something published as if it was news, rather than a paid ad. They won't run an ad campaign, say, telling you to buy a new suit, they conveninently slip some article or pseudo-interview to 1000 newspapers about how, you know, suits are way cool again and all self-respecting managers demand one. (That's an actual PR campaign revealed, that was linked to by Slashdot, btw.)
On the whole of the media, currently about 50% of articles are straight PR releases. Of course, that's an average on the whole. Some newspapers/stations have less, some have more. But on the whole, if you picked a random newspaper and a random article, chances are it would be a pseudo-article doctored to promote some point of view or product. I just have to wonder how many of those gaming scandals are among those.
Even when it's not directly _creating_ the scandal via a PR release, a lot of ads are basically just immature trolling. They single-out and highlight some aspect (violence, sex, bad language, whatever) of a game that's pretty much supposed to shock/disgust/whatever some people, and appeal to a few immature "rebels" in the process.
A lot of those ads actually deliberately create a false image of the game, in that quest to be shocking or match some clueless marketroids target demographic. In a lot of cases, seeing some of those ads it's not even hard to see why non-gamers are left with an impression that gaming is for losers or insane (violent/sex-crazed/etc) people or whatnot.
And then we act surprised when a lot of people actually _are_ reacting in the predictable way. Well, what did anyone expect?
So basically I'll condemn the crusaders more wholeheartedly, when the game companies themselves start acting more mature. I'll be more convinced it's the media picking on innocent little them, when they won't go to hell and back to riles the media.
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*Cough*Evils of Dungeons & Dragons *cough8 http://members.tripod.com/~limsk/pulling.htm [The Pulling report, about 80's D&D hysteria> No matter what, something will always be society's villain. Jazz music, comic books, rock music, D&D, video games. I suggest wait, and the blame will pass to... Golf?
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