Slashdot Mirror
Are Game Industry Pros Failing To Fight for Freedom?
Gamasutra's most recent Question of the Week feature deals with the extremely quotable final speech given by Doug Lowenstein at D.I.C.E.. The article queries individuals within the games industry for their opinions on the 'freedom' that the industry allows itself, and its convictions on fighting for that freedom. The article prompted numerous, polarized comments. Many of them followed the gist of this Anonymous submission: "With regards to censorship the biggest worry for me is developers and publishers self-censoring and avoiding any kind of contentious issue or subject matter in case they offend anyone. Video games for me are a powerful medium capable of equaling the emotive and informative weight of cinema if used correctly, but they rarely are. If we refuse to tackle issues and remain purely a thing of fluff and fizz then interactive entertainment will never have the gravitas of its cousins."
Just look at Bush. Whatever else the war on Iraq did, it created freedom for the Iraqi people. As much freedom as there is to be had in the islamic middle east, at least.
And yet he is constantly blasted for it. So is Blair, and to a lesser degree Australian politicians. Yet political and religious mass-muderers like khatami of Iran, are constantly glorified as the voice of reason.
I am amazed at how people here who never fail to blast any attempt at safeguarding freedom, can complain about this. You never fail to point out the least violation of freedom that a muslim suicide terrorist CLAIMS to have experienced (and as we all know they're very reliable people, *cough*) and you act surprised when people don't stand up for freedom ?
If you glorify people who fight and murder innocent people, just to take away freedom, like all the people in guantanamo do, this is what you'll get : censorship, and worse. Like it exists in their countries. Anyone who even talks about a woman gets beheaded in public. That's what these muslims are fighting for. That's what they're murdering innocent people for.
We need a game on abortion, where you can choose to either be a pro-life activist blowing up clinics or a pro-choice activist force aborting fetuses!!
Seriously, people play video games to get away from all the horseshit of real life. No one is censoring controvertial issue from video games, they were never put there to begin with. People plays games to have fun, not digest a hyperbole laden message.
About the closest video games ever get to addressing real world issues is by metaphor and allegory. The Gulliver's Travel's model works well in the game setting, but again the primary purpose of games is to play them, not get a poor mans plot along the way. Developers should stick to addressing real world issues by subsituting aliens and fantasy realms for real world events. The moment some explicit moral message begins flashing on screen to a dramatic score, is the moment I regret the hours of play I've put in.
There is one exception to this. If your game is really, really, really good, and you can integrate the concept without fundamentally altering the setting, then you can start to preach. Just not too much thanks. A game that did this rather well was the original Metal Gear Solid, which had a very clear anti-nuclear proliferation message that fitted smoothly into the entire game.
The real issue of censorship in video games is not the messages they convey, but the actions they still consider taboo. The greatest addition that could be made to a game like GTA would be to put children in as pedestrians, because we've all felt that urge to strangle some screaming brat at least once in our lives. This will never happen because if it did, exaggerated public outrage would quickly follow from people who've never even seen the game.
Let's face it. Taboos still exist in our society and moreover we still do not have the freedom to challenge them. We've let our fear and other people's outrage, continue to keep the status quo.
May the Maths Be with you!
This is a specious argument, and if you believe it... well, let's just say you're not playing with a full deck.
Bush is not being blasted for bringing freedom to the people of Iraq, which is also a highly suspect argument; until we have left it is unclear if they really have achieved freedom or not. Especially while we're involved in keeping them nonfree by our occupation of their country.
Bush is being blasted for his lies and for the deaths of thousands.
Finally, any freedom brought to Iraq is utterly incidental. The goals of this war were entirely financial in nature.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Because this is what the other guy is fighting for :
m
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2966790.st
Killing people because that is "God's will".
Let's contrast your "full deck" with mine, shall we ?
a m_Hussein's_Iraq
This is what the muslim god demands :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Sadd
Let's quote some highlights, shall we ?
"The report spoke of public beheadings of women who were accused of being prostitutes, which took place in front of family members, including children."
This sentence uses the word ACCUSED, in case you can't read, not convicted.
"The report also describes human rights violations directed against children. The report states that children, as young as 5 years old, are recruited into the Ashbal Saddam, or "Saddam's Cubs," and indoctrinated to adulate Saddam Hussein and denounce their own family members. The children are also subjected to military training, which includes cruelty to animals. The report also describes how parents of children are executed if they object to this treatment, and in some cases, the children themselves are imprisoned."
"Iraqi citizens were not allowed to assemble legally unless it was to express support for the government."
Is this the freedom that the US has taken away that you are talking about ? Because I'm mighty confused.
The US is a LOT better than any muslim. And it's a LONG way down before the US arrives at the average islamic level of "freedom". Saddam killed nearly 5% of his population. That is, the killings we know of.
The translation of the arabic word "islam" is "oppression" or "submission" depending on intonation. That's not a coincidence.