Why We Fight 135
AsiNisiMasa writes "The Contrarian in this week's The Escapist is a brutally honest and exceptionally disturbing piece entitled 'Why We Fight.' It examines the underlying mentality behind our affinity for violent behavior in games, citing the desire for efficiency at all costs. From the article: 'Your people face famine, plague, poverty and unrest. What policies would you enact to solve these problems? (Fans of Tropico, you know how this works.) My friend's solution? Death camps. Round up the sick, the lame, the infertile, the ignorant, the useless, the unproductive and execute them.'"
Sounds like a classic Star Trek episode (Score:4, Interesting)
C'mon, wrong answer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Free Punch Card (Score:2, Interesting)
Hell, even a free "poking with a pointy stick" card would be nice.. then even the elderly and handicapped could partake.
Satire (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether it's intentional or not, this article is pointing out how shallow and narrow our options for interactivity are. Technically we have a wider spectrum of options available to us in our games today, but it's really just a wider spectrum of violence. Solutions to problems that don't involve gunning down waves of enemies seem novel in action titles now-a-days. Half-Life was a memorable action title because you could actually *talk* to characters, the first 30 minutes of the game didn't even present you with a weapon.
I hope what the author is trying to say, is that we really need to look at other ways to interact in these worlds. I like the occasional action title as much as the next guy, but by *nothing but* killing waves of mindless enemies we're not only dumbing ourselves, but making the gamer demographic look more unappealing and less intelligent from the outside as well.
This is supposed to be a new artform. Play some Katamari, people!
Re:Free Punch Card (Score:3, Interesting)
Car dealership work you over? They get a brick through one of their shiny new showroom models.
Phone company giving you lousy customer service? Take a brick to their equipment out on the roadside. Granted, one brick might not break the equipment but if they make enough people angry, they could get together and all brick it into oblivion. (I'd do it in somone else's neighborhood.)
Did a car shoot in front of you to take a spot you were turning into? I'll bet a brick through the windshield will make them think twice about doing that again.
There would just be a mountain of bricks where mortgage companies once stood.
Re:Free Punch Card -- Then Capitalism Takes Over (Score:3, Interesting)
Rich people could own dozens of punch cards and personally punch the living daylights out of anyone they choose.
Or, better yet, they could hire professional boxers and lend them their punch cards with a contractually signed designated target. Think Mike Tyson as Hit (er Punch) Man. Talk about getting your money's worth.
Also, punch cards could be considered sexism since (on average!) women can not punch as hard as men.
Re:Free Punch Card (Score:2, Interesting)