Don’t know how many people saw the rather obvious witch hunt against the current state of the games industry and in particular games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Grand Theft Auto as being the root of all evil when it comes to violence, depression, racial prejudice, rape, murder and basically anything and everything that’s wrong with modern society today.
The clip in question is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryH2W…layer_embedded and for all I think Tim did a sterling job attempting to defend the gaming industry against an audience that were purely there (and I believe told) to boo and hiss at him from the moment he said “Very much so”, it’s just yet another TV witch hunt to shift the blame for the decline of modern society from bad parenting, political correctness and the government onto the latest rising star scapegoat.
As was reported in a number of places, and I’ll let Bahero and Wixi add the additional links to this, the one I read myself was this one http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2…ames_Panic.php which led me to post a comment on that page and the following that I’m about to prattle on with and expand on now.
As I said in my comment, I’m impressed that Tim gave up his time on such a blatant witch hunt as that was and I have to admit to being appalled at the comment relating to Venables and games. I’m guessing that his continued playing of games led him to be in the news again recently, although to be honest I don’t recall ever seeing a game in my 30 years of playing them where you mutilate a small child to the degree that he and his associate did.
What slightly amused me with this show was the almost stereotypical way in which video games were portrayed to be the root of all of the world’s problems. Something I seem to recall Heavy Metal Rock Music being accused of in the 80′s and 90′s with Ozzy Osborne being slated as inciting devil worshipping and suicide among other things.
Strangely enough, all this depression, violence, racial hatred etc. is never the fault of society or the parents but in what kid are subjected to and having lived through almost 4 decades I’ve watched society change for the worse and laughed at the way that given different presentation things are perfectly acceptable.
They commented that kids don’t get to watch movies that are rated higher than their age group, whereas they can gain access to video games but for all “responsible” parents out there they can limit their children to what they can access. How many parents have parental locks on their DVD’s to stop them watching Rambo 4? The body count and level of violence in that film was almost unreal (even though it did depict things that happen in other countries).
I think the likes of Julie should go back to teaching any children she may have songs like Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep (can’t say Black sheep any more it’s racial discrimination) and telling them stories of a wolf savaging an old lady and then a hunter mutilating said wolf, or of an old woman offering kids sweets and then locking them in a cage and fattening them up so that she can eat them. They’re much more family orientated, and yes, they are real, they’re known as Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel & Gretel.
As for films, are you going to tell me that kids don’t act out TV shows? I remember reading an article about a child who accidently hung themselves while pretending to be a super hero from their favourite cartoon tv show. That crappy Power Rangers tells people not to do what they do on TV but they do it anyway, I remember when I was a kid playing cowboys and indians (which included shooting people and pretending to be dead) and later in life being Luke Skywalker or Han Solo fighting Darth Vader and the like. Kids act out what they see on television and in the movies and there’s no difference between what they see in TV and what they play with in computer games and as Tim pointed out, there are 19-1 game titles aimed at lower age ranges. The first console I bought my kids was a Nintendo GameCube because the age ranges on the games and the content therein was all rated for kids and it’s been great entertainment. My eldest son is 13 and I admit that I have let him play Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, but in all honesty, him playing online against his friends and shooting them is no different to when he was 11 years old playing Laser Tag at a friend’s birthday party. That venue was build specifically for kids and the aim of the game was to kill the opposing team. Where’s the difference?
Although that may sound like I’m a typical bad parent, anyone who has read any forum posts by my son or watched any of his you tube videos will agree that he does not sound like your typical 13 year old and that he has a verbal, written and mental maturity of someone almost twice his age. He’s currently 2 years ahead of himself in school in a lot of subjects and for all he has played violent video games, he is not manically depressed, violent, racist, sexist or anything of the sort, in fact, as well as being an actor on stage he spends a lot of his time reading (he read the Harry Potter series when he was 8 and Les Miserables when he was 11) and he totally rocks at Guitar Hero. In fact anyone who checks out his gamer tag will see that he doesn’t spend all his time playing MW2, but also plays Guitar Hero, Lego Batman, Mirrors Edge and a wealth of other games, that do NOT fall into the same category as the gaming industry was slated for in that video segment.
Also, further to this, some countries have soldiers as young as my son carrying REAL guns, shooting at REAL people and they don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Is this because they play COD MW2? I don’t think so. It’s the society they live in. It’s the way they’re brought up and it’s the way they live.
Everything that was said on that show with the exception of what Tim said was complete and utter rubbish.
To end my post here, I’d just like to post up a forum post that my son left in response to a thread on Music in Games.
I’m a big fan of music in Video games, and I think the option to use custom playlists, or to even put into the game pre-existing songs from known artists is a wasted opportunity. Why should games like the Project Gotham Racing series offer naught but tracks from known artists, when things like The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, a lesser played movie tie-in that is extremely underrated, can produce full-blown orchestral scores. Obviously with games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Singstar, Lips, etc. well-known songs are the entire point, as you are playing/singing along with your favourite songs on plastic instruments, but when playing a game, I’d much rather hear the likes of the Super Mario Galaxy, or Final Fantasy tunes. The Gusty Garden theme from SMG is magnificent! In short, I think that if you’re going to do something, you might as well do it properly, and the same goes for music in videogames. Unless you’re deaf, it is not just the cutting-edge graphics that are going to assail your senses, it is also the audio, and a game without proper audio is torture. There are just some games where you would rather turn the sound off completely than listen to it’s caterwauling, but there are others, like Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, where you leave the main menu on for 5-10 minutes, simply to hear it’s beautiful melodies.
Edit: personally that post doesn’t sound like the type of kid that blond woman would have you believe games are turning our kids into but that’s what comes from better parenting.
Furthermore, are we to believe that all joy riders and boy racers are the product of fast action car games like Blur and PGR? I think not, considering the young idiot that lost control of his car, ploughing into a parked car in the car park the other night has never touched a computer game, and as I said earlier about how things are presented, little red riding hood etc, Blur is nothing more than a mature version of Mario Kart, of which the latter would not be looked upon as inciting road rage and speeding!
