un-official VGC editorial: Ignorace outside looking in

ssj12

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ssj12 on 08 April 2011

Ignorace outside looking in

Disclaimer: This piece is opinion and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the VGChartz staff. It is also an unedited editorial that was never approved for official release. Enjoy.

Recently, revitalized ignorance towards gaming as a whole has increased dramatically after the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This is mainly due to the scene depicting a terrorist attack on an airport. In this scene the player has the option to kill innocent people or just sit on the sidelines waiting for it to be over. While this is not the only violent game released during the 2009 winter months, it's caught the most flak.

After COD:MW2's release there was a massive spike in news, TV, and even radio discussion about video games and their "damaging effects" on children. Every one of these discussions end up being one-sided with one know-it-all child advocate that hates violence but seems to ignore how movies have depicted much higher levels of grotesque violence than any video game to date. There are a few people sitting in on the discussion trying to squeeze in a word of reason and real facts about the industry with very little or zero success. This makes it so that whoever is defending gaming should never have bothered debating the topic in the first place.

The general public in this instance is given a very limited view of the content available for children and adults to enjoy. Only one out of every twenty games released are rated for mature audiences. Whenever there is some controversial moment in one of these adult-oriented games, the media jumps through hoops trying to tear it to pieces. They raise such important questions as "is this to violent for kids?," "should these games be sold to kids?," and most importantly "wont anyone think of the children when making these games." Now for most of us these questions are easy to answer. Yes, but it's not rated for kids. These games shouldn't be sold to kids since they are normally rated for people 17 or 18 depending on what country you live in (other than Australia, Germany, and recently Switzerland). Finally yes, hence the reason the ESRB and other international ratings boards set specific guidelines retailers are supposed to follow to prevent sales of mature rated games to minors.

What do we get after all this? Misinformative propaganda spread about causing nothing but headaches for anyone involved with the game industry that knows what the truth is. What is the trust you might ask? Its rather elementary my dear Watson, video games are as bad as those dreaded COMIC BOOKS and MOVIES! That's right. It's nothing but fear over a medium that an older generation has no understanding of. There is no better proof that the older generation is scared of what they don't understand than watching massive bursts of ignorance spew forth in the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryH2WemA ... r_embedded

This was actually a very balanced debate. The only issue was the woman in the middle. Her outburst of "I'm against violence as entertainment" at the end brings up many red flags and questions on its own. If she is so ignorant to blackball all violent media out of her life, does she read books that aren't by Dr. Suess? Watch the news? Or even go to the movies? Every one of these can contain violence in some form and are normally used for entertainment to boost ratings.

Violence in video games is always the key to all the ignorance. Show the ignorant people Super Mario or LittleBigPlanet, they will state something along the lines of "those are some of the few non-violent games sold." I know this because I work retail, and this quote comes straight from the mouth of one of my customers. Still everything seems to fall to the children that shouldn't have the violent games anyways. Parents, the PTA, and so many other organizations seem to spew the same last ditch effort to protect their cause: they resort to the children. This of course is answered back with the ratings systems, retail policies, and actual advertising of content found in games in an attempt to prevent parents from purchasing something that isn't right for their kid.

As expected, an article on video game ignorance can't be done without mentioning Mr. Jack Thompson. While he was disbarred as a lawyer, his legacy is practically legendary. He is the lawyer that has sued Rock Star Games and Take Two Entertainment quite a few times in the name of God and children alike. He motives and words are quite distasteful. After the Virginia Tech shootings he went on Fox News and blamed Valve's Counter Strike as the basis for the motive. He ignored any other reason that it happened. Every time a kid did something stupid like killing someone or stealing a car, it was Grand Theft Auto's fault. As most gamers know, whenever Jack spoke, we laughed at him and then predicted another failed lawsuit from him.

Taking aim at Fox News, we see sensationalist right-wing media. They successfully got all Grand Theft Auto 4 ads pulled from Chicago transit system after somehow linking the non-offensive ads of main character Niko with a string of murders and arson. They twist nothing into an anti-gaming newscast. It's actually quite impressive to think about. They're on par with The Onion for the best source of forged news you could ever read. Check out this very balanced clip of a debate the held over Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE-nOCy7 ... r_embedded

That was so balanced. Couldn't you tell both the news anchor and Jim from Common Sense were willing to discuss the events in broad detail? Yes, obviously this is sarcasm. There was no balanced debate here. John from Slash Gamer was facing two people who were ready to just jump all over the game without understanding or caring what the content was actually displaying. This frankly was quite pathetic. Especially at the end when John stated it's fantasy violence, it's not real, and he was just steamrolled. It was stated that it's not meant for kids, it's rated for 17 and up. Retailers are stopping the purchase of the game by minors. If it does get purchased for a kid, it's the parents' purchasing at fault.

Back in 2006 on Comedy Central - a cable TV channel in the USA - during a regular airing of news parody show The Daily Show with Jon Stewart there was a rather large segment on video game legislation debates going through the US House of Representatives. There was a clip of an apparently helpless father named Lee Terry pleading to the hearing that "as a father of three young boys... who are avid gamers, I am very concerned about the content included in the games. And as I stand there, watching them play these violent games, helpless to do anything about it, I can't help but wonder where the system has failed".

This is frankly quite sad. This ignorance towards the newest form of entertainment media has no conclusive evidence these games being nailed to the cross have any negative affect on the human mind at any age. After researching to find any form of legitimate research on this issue, the best argument I could find was that gamers can get slightly aggressive during intense moments. Last time I checked, that type of reaction can happen to people who have their noses glued to a suspenseful book. Should we burn books while we crucify game developers who refuse to make games like Hello Kitty Island Adventure? Oh wait, there were some comic book burnings in the 1940s due to fears that children were going to be scared by stories of Superman in a similar fashion as people believe video games will scar our youth today. That came to a complete stop once everyone realized that comic books didn't warp kids minds into becoming The Joker or Green Goblin.

What makes this all so much worse is these people act like they speak for the majority when they don't. Some are elected officials, most are the older generations looking for something to take every one's eyes off real issues. They parade video games as vulgar, ignorant to the parallels in comic books and movies. If so many people are worried about our children and future generations, shouldn't the main focus be stopping future bank meltdowns and preparing the world financially so there's an economy for our children to have?

So I ask this ignorance be put aside. Quit fighting some unproven moral issue for children. No study has shown a permanent link between violent entertainment and behavior and probably never will. The only proven facts about behavior stem from the environment kids grow up in and medical defects that formed when they were born. Let's put all this worthless worrying about a general form of entertainment away and focus on real issues that will determine the fates of these children. Video games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 aren't what are damaging our children's futures. It's poor decisions made by financial institutions and neglectful parenting.