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Officer's Group Calls for Ban On 25 To Life
Kotaku reports that the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund is calling for a boycott of 25 to Life. From the post: "It is absolutely unconscionable that game makers are enabling young people--or anyone--to dramatize shooting and killing as a form of entertainment while officers and innocent people are dying in real-life on our streets every day. We're encouraging parents, caregivers and everyone who is concerned about both law enforcement officers and children to ensure this game never makes it into the homes or hands of impressionable young people."
When you've got the real thing available online?
- islami-baghdad-sniper/al-jaishul-islami-baghdad-sn iper-70mb.rmvb
http://ia300831.eu.archive.org/3/items/al-jaishul
Seriously, isn't this sort of thing how Arnie got rich...and into office?
Yes! These games are an outrage. In my youth we had good, clean, wholesome fun. We kids ran around outside and played, uh, Cops and Robbers.
My fellow ghosts and I have been protesting Pac-Man for over 25 years, and we're still not safe from being eaten by some random gamer kid on the street.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The FA correctly notes that the call is for a boycott, but the headline there refers to a "ban" instead. Bizarrely, the submitter decided to use the body's correct wording in his body and the headline's error in his header.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
In a related story, flying turtle things the world over are calling for a ban on all Super Mario games.
e2 | LJ
Both the summary and TFA seem to confuse a boycott with a ban. But they're not the same. The NLEOMF only seems to be calling for a boycott, or for what might be called "discretionary purchasing." I didn't see anywhere in their statement where they called for it to be illegal or impossible to buy the game. So TFA's complaint that "they shouldn't be able to dictate what I play. What's next, a ban on all movies depicting violence against police?" and the summary are pretty unfair to the organization, and are probably just flamebait.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Postal really started this genre many years ago and created a stir. This is just the next target from crazy parent groups and surely not the last. If they would spend as much time with their kids, maybe they wouldn't be so messed up!
http://religiousfreaks.com/It looks like the original wire service report included various bits of unpleasant information from the Brandon Vedas incident. That's some astoundingly sloppy reporting.
Move 'sig'. For great justice!
Paging Jack Thompson. Please pick up the white courtesy phone.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Meaning its for older individuals? Not impressionable children? I'm not going to buy the game because it looks like a drole rehash, but keeping it out of the hands of children? The industry already did their duty with its rating. Now Parents need to do theirs and not buy the damn game for their kids. YOu don't give porn to 12 year olds, why would a game be any different. People need to wake up and realize just because its a game doesn't mean its suitable for children. I'm always astounded at what I see parents buying for their children in the games section.
It may be my opinion, but a parent that buys their kids this type of game probably wouldn't blink about giving said child a copy of Mien Komf(sp?: Hitler AutoBio) or a terrorist's manifesto because THEY NEVER READ WHAT IT IS! How damn difficult is it to LOOK at the content you are giving your children. Hell if you want to buy this game and you think your child can handle the adult subject matter and you want to take the time to discuss it with your child, fine by all means that is your right as a parent. It just drives me nuts to see all the irresponsible parents who think its everyone elses job to police their children.
Oh I understand you'll never be able to controll all that they see, but in my mind you should make a damn good effort to make sure they understand what they see and the consequences.
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
Instead of boycotting the game (though reasonable) and seeking to remove it from stores (something of a free speech issue?), why don't they spend more effort on supporting the ESRB rating system and its enforcement? They should do that if they're really focused on keeping it out of the 'hands of impressionable young people'.
I'll certainly be boycotting this cookie-cutter crime game. It's $GameTypeoftheWeek with $Gimmick7654 added in - GTA with a pick-sides dynamic.
This is one gaming fad I've had 100% enough of, and I'm actually beginning to worry about the effect that this saturation marketing of crime games might be having on the many, many kids that are getting these games bought for them.
I hate these "OMG THINK OF THE KIDS" bandwagons, but to be blunt, fuck these game companies with their bullshit megaviolence crime tripe. In a few decades, we'll look back on this crap like we do to all the boring-ass crime investigation dramas from the 70's (which incidentally are having a high-tech renaissance as we speak - fuck that too).
It is absolutely unconscionable that game makers are enabling young people--or anyone--to dramatize shooting and killing as a form of entertainment while officers and innocent people are dying in real-life on our streets every day
So, I assume you'll get right onto boycotting the show COPS, right? Because it dramatizes pursuit and police brutality as a form of entertainment while civilians and innocent people are being arrested in real-life on our streets every day.
If those crazy gamer kids didn't have easy access to (power) pills, you would be much safer.
It would be impossible to even consider trying to quantify the number of media titles (games, movies, etc.) where killing has taken place. Of course I don't condone any type of real life murder, including the killing of peace/police officers. I do, however, wish to retain my right to play whatever the hell I want to play.
One thing that groups like this don't know or don't consider, is that the people who commit these heinous crimes are not the normal average everyday kids. If they have any type of mental instability that allows the line between reality and fantasy to blur enough to think that committing the crimes they see in these games is okay, then there is a word for that. Its called predisposition. Its not the games that is causing these violent crimes. I was playing GTA: San Andreas last night, where one of the missions I had to do was to rob a bank and a betting store. I successfully completed both missions, and guess what? This morning I woke up, ate my breakfast, took my kids to their babysitter, came to work, and so far have had a very productive day. Not once did the idea of robbing a bank or a betting store enter my mind, because I know the difference between real and fantasy. Those people who commit these crimes then blame video games or movies for them are either mentally ill, or they are just trying to find a scapegoat. Personally I feel that anyone that has the "mental" capability to actually take another person's life in cold blood has a mental defect, regardless of what the courts say. I'm not saying that these people should not go to prison, but I'm saying that thats not normal behavior.
I respect police officers and the dangerous job they do. I have several in my family, and have gone along on ridealongs with quite a few. I know all about the training they have, and the day-to-day dangers they can endure. However I do not feel that anyone has the right to tell me what I should and should not be able to play. One might say "Where can the line be drawn"... However given the history of 'cops and robbers', 'cowboys and indians', etc that I was bombarded with growing up, I don't think this is really any different, AS LONG AS the person playing these games is mentally fit to differentiate reality from fantasy. Do I feel that people should undergo mental testing to purchase a game? No. However I do feel that people need to stop blaming the games and movies and start putting the blame where it probably lies the most: On the parents. Parents need to teach their kids right and wrong, they need to teach their kids whats real and "make-believe". If they can see that their kid can't tell the difference between tv and real life, they need to seek professional help. I'm sick and tired of people blaming the game companies when its usually the parent's fault.
Children aren't born with an inherent understanding of good, evil, right,or wrong. They need to be taught these ideas. This is way before school, and rests entirely on the shoulders of the parents.
And they said zombies weren't real!
That said, this game just represents the view of one group of people. Probably not even that. Art (in a broad sense) has always tried to provoke us, to try our morals, feelings and values. A Clockwork Orange is probably the most famous piece of art that depicts violence in a non-judgemental way. The outrage it created at launch is, a thing of the past. Today we think of it as nothing more than a provocative addition to the debate.
Is 25 to life a piece of art? It does provoke some thought. It probably wasn't made for the cultural elite (to say the least!), but it still caught their attention. It doesn't encourage violence (real violence, that is). So it doesn't qualify to be anything other than art. It isn't a political statement, not a call to arms or religious propaganda. It's just entertainment.
All i'm saying is that this is nothing new. The game is nothing new. The reaction to it is nothing new either. And i'll say to the policemen: Get over it; it doesn't represent the view of the majority of the population. And it won't have an effect on the violence on the streets.
The images are wrong. The messages are wrong. And stocking it in U.S. stores is wrong.
And perhaps banning it is also wrong.
What's so different about violence in video games as opposed to violence in books, movies, TV, etc.? And what about all those shootout games kids play with toy guns? Why not ban those?
Millions of kids watch/participate in entertainment that contains violent content and millions grow up to be law abiding citizens. These guys don't have any evidence of a connection with games and real life. They just don't like the content and want to enforce their preferences on everyone else. Shameful.
No, I won't let my kids play it - at 3 and 5 yo, they're still working through the "Clifford the Big Red Dog" games. When they're closer to 18, I'm sure we'll discuss the VR headsets to augment the latest round of violent video games, but for now, nope.
I used to play Lazer Tag with my friends at night around our high school. It was fun and sometimes a huge adrenaline rush. It made it very clear to me that I never want to be in a firefight - I lost way too often, which in RL is defined as "more than once".
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
Nice missleading headline though.
No one in the article mentions banning the game, other than the author who apprently postulates that the next logical step is banning all movies that depict violence against police, showing that he profoundly missed the difference between ban and boycott.
I'm going to be boycotting this game as well, not because I think virtual depictions of killing cops and the innocent are wrong, but because I think that like most games relying soley on offensive and gruesome content, this game will be terrible to play.
If you want to not buy the game based on 'moral' grounds, good for you. Don't take the Jack Thompson road to raving lunacy and I really can't take issue with this kind of protest; other than to say I think it defeats its own purpose. Controversy, and complaint is a substitute for the marketing budget in these kinds of games. This is a fairly small, niche (Adults only rating if I'm not mistaken), low quality, no class game; and leaving to flounder in obscurity would do more harm than a nationally publicized boycott.
"The officers suggest a list of Healthy Titles for players to enjoy. The list includes titles such as 'Whack-A-Coon', 'Which Towelhead Is The Terrorist' (the answer is all of them) and the highly controversial 'MLK Assassination Simulator.'"
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
..dramatizing something helps PREVENT it in the real world. Their boycott is more likely to do harm than good.
When will people wake up and pay attention to the fact that freedom of speech is a good thing. The more prevalent the bad things are in media, the more they are thought about and the logical end of that thought is that they are bad things and we shouldn't do them. These people think of the general public as thoughtless automatons who do whatever they see. Thats simply not how humans work. Video games didn't invent violence and overall, as a society we are playing them more than ever before and yet we are living with less violent crime than ever before. This isn't a fluke an it isn't "despite" violent games it is *because* of violent games.
These people need to crawl back into their zone of stupidity and shut up.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
It's a boycott, so... ...the boycott amounts to not buying that which the boycotters would not have bought anyway.
M'kay,
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Why not boycott the game just because it's completely terrible? http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbx/25to life
Seems like that would be more effective.
I know that the posting said 'ban' and the article actually discusses a boycott, but even the NLEG's language is pretty unreasonable:
How is it unconscionable to dramatize this when we have critically acclaimed films which do the same thing (for example, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs). Do we hold video games and movies to different standards? Why? Is there real data which shows that video games actually make people more violent than movies do? If that data exists, do they account for the huge decreases in violent crime in the US?
-Turkey
http://urlx.org/archive.org/9382
This downloads a 60MB video. No idea what it is yet.
I was thinking the same thing. In the old kids game, you ran around saying, "Bang!" and "missing" a lot. The good guys were the only ones allowed to shoot and win, and the bad guys played out losing with child-like melodrama. Only the cops would win, and then you'd switch sides so that you could be the good guys and win.
This game's a little nastier with no clear morality, actual graphic death, and a glorification of the "thug life." I'm not sure that I'd support a ban on it, but no one can really sanely offer that this is good, clean, kid-friendly fun.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
This sort of rhetoric is found to be dressed up in The Emperor's New Clothes in light of the "recruitment tool" America's Army.
the best thing the police officer's group can do about this game is to ignore it and not give it free advertising. With the atrocious reviews it's been getting http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbx/25to life it would stand to reason that this game won't have a very long shelf life without heavy promotion.
-- "I'm open to falling from grace"
A ban and a boycott are worlds apart. No wonder people are up in arms about stuff like this when our favorite editors can't even make sure that a story isn't misrepresented in the title.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
... movies and rap music?
I haven't even heard of this game before this media-stunt. Better go tell my mom I want it for my birthday
Sigs are bad for your health
Just because you're shooting 15 000 polygons on a screen doesn't mean you're a cop killer. I respect the police, but I bust a good number of Counter-Terrorists everyday playing CSS. I guess by that logic I'm a cop-killer AND I hate mexicans (if you could call the new T models mexicans... No offence meant to anybody of that descent.)
Heck. I don't even LIKE the concept or the incessantly annoying ads for the game. I'll never play it. It looks more or less ridiculous, but It's the principle of the thing.
"Ban" means proscribing the game by law so that noone could obtain it. This would be a patent and offensive violation of the constitutional right to free speech. As such it makes for a noticable headline.
"Boycott" means that people who agree with them shouldn't buy it for themselves or others. It is a) legal, b) more likely, c) unsurprising, and d) less likely to generate pagehits.
It is baffling that adults are so self-righteous about artificial violence in video games while in real life they are doing a damned good job of teaching their children that violence is a great way to solve your problems.
... here I was thinking a police organization was against a certain length of sentence...
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Games are a form of free speech dammit, and you should be able to make whatever kind of game you want.
Jack hurriedly finishes up at the Globo-Christian donut shop, his fourth visit of the day, and runs out to his squad car. Another 1776 in progress, the unlawful playing or purchase of a videogame protected by the first ammendment. When will these DAMN hippy liberals learn there will BE no free speech, NO entertainment that isn't some Brokeback Veggietales galavanting on Noah's ship alone with all the other male versions of animals.
Same shit, different day. Where was this 'Officer's Union' on GTA, what about State of Emergency, or that horrible GTA knock off? What about 'Streets of Rage', you could choose to join the bad guy at the end! Oh horror of horrors! These political action groups are simply put: retarded. It's stemming from rightist agendas. By their own rote we have freewill, can be please play what we will??? Why don't they spend less time fishing news for something to protest and get their ass on the streets and bust some crackheads??
All the world's a stage, all the people but players.
is because it fucking sucks ass. One of the worst games to come out in the last 5 years. Its like max payne without the fun.
Thought I would give it a shot this weekend. Was thinking it was going to be fairly open ended where you can choose between being the law or breaking it. That was pretty much too much to hope for, each time one of these urban crime games come out I hope the people making it take more from GTA:SA then just gangstas bustin caps instead of gameplay and other elements that make the GTA series so good. But of course in 25 to lifes case its just a crappy game with thugs.
One day we might see some developers wake up and instead of copying the theme of a game, they go for the actual gameplay elements. Otherwise we are going to keep getting shitty game after shitty game that tries to cash in on the popularity of GTA:SA
Personally I want to see a GOOD game in the GTA style where you take the role of the police officer (True Crime doesnt count because its a piece of crap)
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
The difference is that games like this aren't intended for kids. They are intended for young adults like myself who grew up on video games and who still play them semi-regularly. Why villify this game and not similar movies like Get Rich Or Die Tryin?
I really wish people would get over this misconception that video games are only for kids.
I also wish groups like this would get over theirself and stop trampelling all over people's free speech rights.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Thank you for putting into words what I've thought for as long as I've been old enough to understand the concept.
It should be added, that parents need to have the balls to do their job and say no. When the child asks, "Why not?" understand that, "Because I said so," is not a response that teaches anything. The only thing that accomplishes is the child thinking, 'It's fun and Mom/Dad doesn't want me to have any fun.' resulting in a child that has no understanding of logic or reason.
Math is like sex. People who get it are popular in class, people who don't are not.
I bet the kids that are out on the streets everyday in their gangs, stealing and dealing drugs, aren't going home at night and getting their kicks by playing these games. The people who play these games are the ones with time on their hands and money in their pockets. Those copkilling gangs are out doing crap, not sitting on their couches playing the newest game.
I would like to see the stats on how many people (say 13-25) who play violent video games actually try to recreate the scenarios IRL.
It is absolutely unconscionable that restaurants are enabling young people--or anyone--to dramatize eating as a form of entertainment while poor and innocent people are starving in real-life in african villages every day. We're encouraging parents, caregivers and everyone who is concerned about both the third and first world to ensure this concept of "cuisine" or "tasty food, yum yum" never makes it into the homes, mouths or stomachs of impressionable young people.
Free as in mason.
My parents are joining in with the local PTA to ban The Sims and The Sims 2. Allowing children to kill their parents in the pool, starve them to death, etc, is just way beyond what we have come to expect from a decent game maker.
My Xbox Live Gamer Card
Judging by the reviews and scores of the game I wouldn't worry about too many people playing it anyway. (3.1/10 on IGN).
The Good Life
Personally, my bad attitude toward cops comes from having been inexplicably whacked by their nightsticks in Santa Monica, California. Having brown skin was my crime. But your point about them having to enforce bulls**t laws is well taken. I might not like the fire dept. so much if they went from bar to bar ticketing people who smoke too close to the entrance, and fined me for not replacing my smoke detector battery. The cops, on the other hand, waste their time and my money protecting me from myself (drug laws, seat belt laws!). What useless busywork.
I think hunting should also be banned, because little kids may get a hold of guns or knives and decide that Chief Wiggam looks a lot like a doe.
On that note, sex should also be banned, because impressionable kids who find out that one has a hole and the other has a pole may do it, permanently scarring themselves...
Think of the children, for God's sake!
For anybody wondering before downloading, it's 15 minutes of RealPlayer footage of US soldiers (presumably in Iraq) getting shot by snipers, backed by chanting in Arabic and interspersed with occasional stills of Arabic writing.
That game also features bad guys running around shooting cops and civillians and generally being bad.
Mod Parent up +5 Truthfull.
Ordinarily a boycott is for a situation like the Nike sneaker thing. "You need to buy shoes. You're going to buy shoes from someone, but this company is doing bad things. So don't buy shoes from them."
Telling people to not buy a product because it is bad does not mean you're boycotting that product. It means you're warning people about the product. Very different.
"Boycott: withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest. refuse to buy or handle (goods) as a punishment or protest. refuse to cooperate with or participate in (a policy or event)."
It's a punitive tactic to artificially apply market forces to a situation which otherwise would not be subject to them.
A boycott in this situation would be not buying any games from that publisher.
Teach your stupid young people to be less impressionable.
Why is the national US IQ getting lower every year?
Altavista came up with "The Slashdot is a giant wheel, but it is not a diversion park". That does not look right :-)
What's it mean - what did you intend? Just curious...
Redundancy is good; triple redundancy is twice as good! - Me.
... Edios Interactive hired ex-N.W.A front man Dr. Dre as their new head of PR. Dr. Dre issued a release on the current "25 to life" boycott; "Fuck the police." Dr. Dre was expected to speak at a Washington DC rally on Freedom of Speech, but his plane was delayed in Texas...
That is really a bad example. What happens if someone that is acting like a total idiot on the road loses it and stoves into your car? You might not walk away if you arent wearing your seatbelt.
Well that would be just my goddamn problem then, wouldn't it? It's nobody else's business whether I get myself killed or not.
The only possible justification for seatbelt usage is if somebody could prove that, in the event I drive my car into somebody else's car, that my unrestrained body somehow increases the risk of somebody else getting hurt. And although I don't know the statistics, I'm going to bet that the risk of bystander-hit-by-unrestrained-passenger-in-MVA injuries is pretty low.
I think it's fair that the government mandate that automakers install seatbelts, so that they're available for people to use. Personally, I would use a seatbelt whether they were mandated or not, because I value my life, and even though I'm a safe driver, there are a lot of crazy, stupid people out there. But that doesn't mean I have a right to tell anyone else whether or not to use one, and if I were to drive into somebody else's car, I'd be responsible for their injuries regardless of whether or not they were wearing one (just like I'd be responsible for a person's injuries if I hit them in a crosswalk, regardless of whether they were 95 pounds or 345 pounds and wearing impact-absorbing body armor).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Of course it is totally conscionable that anyone can buy enough REAL LIFE full-auto rifles and matching ammo to wipe out entire highschool population. We surely wouldn't want to ban that!
You never enjoyed playing robber and shooting up the cops?