Slashdot Mirror
The 64% Violent Pacman
DreamWinkle writes "During the recent Senate hearings on video game violence, one expert claimed that the ESRB underrated violent games. They went on to say that Pacman was 64% violent. To some, this means you shouldn't play Pacman; to others, it highlights what's wrong with Senate hearings. Whether a game is violent or not depends on how you classify violence, and the ESRB has the job of doing just that. They're not regulated by the government, they let the game makers recommend their own ratings, and don't play every game they rate. Is the ESRB to be trusted?"
*WARNING* OFF-TOPIC
Speaking of live mice being fed to snakes, my snake would not eat the mouse I threw in there this past weekend, and the mouse ended up committing suicide in the snake's water bowl.
It comes from in a bad edcation, particularly one lacking in how to handle data.
You can't take a (admittedly fuzzy) interval measurement, convert it into and ordinal measurement, and tally them up over a data set to create a rational measurement.
By that method, you'd decide that a three stooges is far worse than a snuff film.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
This is the exact same thing as the MPAA. I prefer industry ratings to government ratings, but the secrecy and lack of accountability of some of these organizations makes me nervous. Go watch "This Film Is Not Yet Rated"
Apparently from a study by a Harvard professor:
q s8.html
http://www.kidsrisk.harvard.edu/mainFrame/news/fa
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
they don't play every game they rate? !??
My understanding is that they don't play any game they rate.
Have things changed? Their description seems a little off. I'll highlight what they seem to get wrong in the quote from the article below.
Instead of having members of the ESRB sit down and play the games in order to decide a rating, developers must submit a written report of everything the game includes. They must also compile a video that is representative of the content a gamer will find in the game when they purchase it at the store. Additionally, the game is played by a number of people who are unaffiliated to the game industry, and who then recommend the game's rating. All three elements, as well as others, are taken into consideration when the rating is assigned.
For the first highlight, it's a little misleading, "representative of the content a gamer will find" makes it sound like a representitive cross-section of the content. So, for a game like Animal Crossing you would expect hours of gathering fruit and catching fish. But actually the footage is of selected acts and elements (there is a list) and of those acts or elements carried out the the greatest degree present anywhere in the game. So, for Animal Crossing you would have footage of the character getting bitten by Tarantulas and Scorpions, showing the greatest degree of violence in the game.
They make a point of saying that they don't care about the context of the event, because a parent glancing over at the screen won't care either.
This system is why Rockstar is liable in the eyes of the ESRB for not disclosing the content on the disc - they shipped those animation paths, models,et al. They provided footage that was supposed to show the greatest degree of sexuality on the disc and it was probably just kissing and a bouncing car. It doesn't matter that it required a hack to access because the ESRB doesn't care how the shipped content is played, they just care about the content.
For the second point, "the game is played by a number of people who are unaffiliated to the game industry" -- maybe I just don't remember the process correctly and maybe it's changed, but I don't think that you ever send the ESRB actual code. After all, a lot of games recieve their ratings before they're complete.
You joke, but they're dead serious. Of the 65 games studied, Super Mario Brothers ranked #5 in the death rate. It earned a whopping 4.8 deaths per minute! This "Mario" guy must be some kind of mass murderer. Read it & weep.
Tetris can cause violence when you get a bad run of pieces in a WiFi game.
Oh yes, there is violence, and cussing. Mostly directed at the DS though.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
pac-man trivia: believe it or not, they aren't actually ghosts. at least they weren't meant to be: they were called "monsters" in the first few versions of pac-man, but on the horrible 2600 port they were flickering so badly (due to technical limitations) that atari started calling them "ghosts"! of course they always were kind of ghost-shaped (whatever that means).
more details on wikipedia
All the power pellets sing:
We ain't got no fingers and no toes
We're just a coupla frozen embryos
We're kinda short on eyes, ears, lips and nose
We're just a coupla frozen embryos
- Three Guys from Hollywood
No wonder the congresscritters are upset about 'em.
KFG
In media reports people constantly say that ESRB ratings aren't given by the government. Well, in the USA, neither are film ratings or television ratings. ALL ratings on entertainment are voluntary. The MPAA is not a government agency any more than the RIAA is.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
"Dr. Kimberly Thompson of Harvard University"... There's your problem.
Did some looking up on Dr. Thompson (site). I especially found this press release amusing. Apparently NHL '99 is only 1.5% violent, so hockey is about 43x less violent than a game with dots and classic sheet-over-the-head ghosts. Amazing.
I am so, so sick of the money being pumped into these frivolous shitty studies at ivy league colleges. These best of the best "social researchers" are so out of touch it's just sad. Jesus Christ, put some money into public schools or feeding the homeless or something that might be of some use to society.
"The study was funded by a private gift from Mitchell Dong and Robin LaFoley Dong to the Harvard School of Public Health." Sucker born every minute.
~end rant~- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
Only a couple, but they'd have to demonstrate that violent media caused violent behaviour, not not just that violent people preferred both violent media and violence.
SFBwian nailed my position in the other response to your post - I'm not disputing there's a correlation there, but us humans have a distinct propensity for confusing correlation with causation.
For example, people often claim cannabis is dangerous because "the majority of heroin addicts start off smoking pot". Therefore, the theory goes, pot's clearly a "gateway" drug, and so should be banned.
The problem is, you can replace "smoking pot" with "drinking breastmilk" and it's still true. Sure, every heroin addict was a pot-smoker, but that says absolutely nothing about how many people smoke pot but never do heroin. You might as well say "wearing shoes" is a gateway activity to heroin addiction.
Likewise, I'd be positively surprised if damaged kids with a propensity for violence didn't start out by absorbing simulated violence, possibly later finding this insufficient release and actually performing it themselves.
However, this doesn't mean that watching violence caused their violent behaviour. Indeed, in this situation watching violence could (conceivably) actually reduce their violent behaviour, as they're getting some of the release through non-destructive means.
To be sure, I make no claims the above point is true, but it illustrates how flawed reasoning like the "gateway" theory can end up doing more harm than good.
All that said, if you can provide evidence that to a normal, well-adjusted child "adult" media can tip them in an antisocial direction I'll shut up and sit down. Just be careful to remember correlation != causation.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself