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Child's Play-Spawning Game Critic Praises, Apologizes 68

Posted by simoniker from the groveling-retractions-plus-plus dept.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out a HeraldNet editorial praising online comic Penny Arcade for their 'Child's Play' charity effort, in which the author apologizes for having written the original anti-gaming article which helped the Penny Arcade authors to their decision that "the media seems intent on perpetuating the myth that gamers are ticking time bombs just waiting to go off." The controversy eventually spawned the Child's Play charity fundraiser, which ended up raising almost $150,000 worth of toy/game-related donations for the Seattle Children's Hospital, and the HeraldNet columnist praises the "speed and power with which this network of gamers mobilized their effort on behalf of children and Children's Hospital." He also apologizes for his previous views, commenting: "Certainly many gamers read my column as a statement that I believe that they are bad people. For that impression I am sorry. I did not and do not believe that."
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Child's Play-Spawning Game Critic Praises, Apologizes More

Child's Play-Spawning Game Critic Praises, Apologizes

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  • Why write it then? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BladeMelbourne ( 518866 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @03:12AM (#7971311)
    "I did not and do not believe that."

    Then one must ask why did you write that? Bad hair day? Boy-friend dump you? Broke a nail? ;-)
    • Maybe it was just that time of the month. ;)

    • Re:Why write it then? (Score:4, Funny)

      by welshwaterloo ( 740554 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @08:23AM (#7972359)
      heh.. he wants kids to go there: "If your children play video games, and even if they don't for that matter, I encourage you to know about Penny-arcade.com" First paragraph on their site: "Legally, what we need is something mad stringent - something to make those motherfuckers hoof it door to door if they want to talk to me about my dick so bad." Bill France, a father of three, is a child advocate *sigh*
      • Well, you can tell he's not too bright by the way he claims that the original Child's Play challenge was written on Penny Arcade by an "unidentified author", when every single post on that site has either Gabe or Tycho's name and face right next to it.
        • and who exactly are Gabe and Tycho? it's not immediately clear from the site (though you can narrow it down if you look at the bottom of the page for the copyright notices). as a journalist, he might not have felt comfortable identifying the writer only by his pseudonym, although if he were a good journalist, I would think he would have tried to reach Tycho IRL for a comment.

    • Re:Why write it then? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Ayaress ( 662020 )
      I feel like posting to his new article, but I really can't be gracious about his apology. I'd like to be, and I'm pretty sure he learned a hard lesson when he's seen so many gamers spending hundreds of dollars for kids they've never met, in a year when Toys for Tots and Coats for Kids barely register.

      But then, his apology carries too little credibility. He could have retracted his previous statements that gamers were warped and the most dangerous animals, and I'd probably take his word for it. But he has t
    • He's saying he didn't write that. It's just how people interpreted what he wrote.
  • Sounds like its just a lip service apology. Who really know's what his real belief's are. Either way, his credibility is probably gone.

    • We should take what we can get and go for more (Score:4, Insightful)

      by orthancstone ( 665890 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @04:14AM (#7971503)
      It sounds like guy has turned around some (he says he's reading books and is learning about the culture some).

      In the meantime, seeing a positive article, where an author actually admits he was initially wrong, is a BIG step. If we could get more people to admit they are wrong (getting them to learn may be another, more difficult step) in their assumptions, we'd be in the midst of amazing progress.

      I like Penny Arcade's response to the article, though. Especially this:
      The next time someone starts talking about how bad Vice City is, as though it were the only game in existence, as though game consoles were only capable of that single experience and nothing peripheral to it, I really do want the opportunity to ask them - please, name another game. Name one other game that you know about. No, it's not a trick question. Well, it is, if by "trick question" you mean "question designed to make you look like an idiot." I wonder if they even know that far, far from Vice City, past even the Vice suburbs, that the same machine can allow a father and son - separated by three hundred miles and thirty years - the chance to play a round of golf together, for no good reason other than its being Tuesday.

      http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2004-01 -14
      Let's hope the progress continues...

      • Re:We should take what we can get and go for more (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        a father and son - separated by three hundred miles and thirty years - the chance to play a round of golf together
        That's some ping time there...

      • "where an author actually admits he was initially wrong"

        He didn't really apologize though. Sure, he said it was an apology but look at what he said: "Certainly many gamers read my column as a statement that I believe that they are bad people. For that impression I am sorry. I did not and do not believe that." The only thing he is sorry about is that people missed his point. His point wasn't that video game players were bad people but that there was a link between video games and violent behavior and that

    • I think his response sounds sincere but it's notable that he is not necessarily backing off his opinion that the ultraviolent games are bad.

      And his praise of Childs Play seems sincere and appropriate.

      Now I must go shoot at traffic.

  • Wow. AN article. Colour me whatever. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @03:21AM (#7971338) Homepage Journal
    So, lets review. 3 articles about Penny Arcade's Child's Play [google.com], 251 about Violent Video Games [google.com]. Hey, and that 3 will go up to 4 when this article on Slashdot gets spidered by news.google.
  • "Child's Play-Spawning Game Critic Praises, Apologizes"

    That makes no english sense unless you replace spawning with spurning.
    • Actually, it does make sense, though "inspiring" might be a better fit than "spawning." The author of the editorial never "spurned" Child's Play, though his article might have provided the impetus that "inspired" the creation of the charity.

  • Violent games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HalfFlat ( 121672 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @03:33AM (#7971388)
    The Child's Play charity run organised by Penny Arcade is simply amazing.

    But the column cited at its inception doesn't really seem to be demonizing video game players, but a class of very violent video games themselves. The column certainly uses language that while not outright stating it, does imply that ultra-violent video games lead children into becoming sociopathic serial killers, and this was unfortunate rhetoric clearly used to increase the impact of the piece. But there are certainly (at least) two valid points being made there.

    Firstly, and most simply, age-restriction ratings on video games are having little actual effect. Either they are not being observed by retailers, or they are circumvented very easily in all the traditional ways. How they could be made more effective, or even if they should, is another question.

    Secondly, and more contentiously, there are indeed some few video games which are incredibly violent in a spectacularly brutal and callous way. Interaction does make for better learning than passive exposure, and it's intuitively the case that a steady diet of this material at young ages is probably having some malign effect on the more marginally sane in the population. This leads to the question: why do game companies and publishers produce such games?

    Video games can certainly be regarded as a form of creative art. And they're fun, too (or ought to be.) But they're also really expensive to produce these days, at least for any major title. I don't think any large publisher is going to pick up a title unless they feel it has a good chance of being a good seller. And so in turn, it must be that violence sells, even really nasty stuff.

    In film, the extreme end of the spectrum is certainly available, but it's not trivially easy to access for minors. Especially for films which are refused cinema release. The creators of such films are almost certainly not doing it for profit motive, because no exposure means few sales. As such, the movie classification systems of (say) major Western countries generally work as a comprimise. They rarely achieve outright censorship, but do for the most part keep the most violent films away from people deemed too young to view them. It also removes the profit motive from exploiting violence as mere titilation.

    So maybe stronger classification and enforcement is the answer after all, if it can be placed on par with film classification?

    • Re:Violent games (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @06:03AM (#7971812) Journal
      >> And so in turn, it must be that violence sells, even really nasty stuff.

      By this token, games like Manhunt oughta be selling better. After all, Manhunt is from the same company as Grand Theft Auto, and is FAR more violent!

      But it's not. And with the exception of Grand Theft Auto and, to a lesser extent, Mortal Kombat, most of the games that received notoriety in cruased against video games have not been best-sellers. Joe Liberman's old pet game, Night Trap, sold about 5 copies. Thrill Kill was yanked off the market, and the underground distribution of leaked beta copies didn't spark must interest, because the game sucked goat balls.

      A lot of violent games, even exceedingly violent games, really pass unnoticed, because they suck. Most attempts to correlate game sales with violence blatently ignores this. Most attempts also come from non-gamers, removing the possibility of judging and classifying games by quality - yet they still feel qualified to try and come up with "the answer".

      • Re:Violent games (Score:3, Insightful)

        by HalfFlat ( 121672 )
        Well, that is a bit of a strawman argument. I never claimed that the appeal is proportional to the degree of violence. On the contrary I was making the claim that even very nasty stuff, which one might think would not sell at all, does sell. More accurate would be the statement: publishers believe it will sell, and it would be surprising if they were consistently wrong in matters like this.

        A lot of perfectly good games use violent action, it's just not extreme. Nearly every RTS is based about combat. First

        • Re:Violent games (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Kwil ( 53679 )
          Two other points: that there are crap very violent games doesn't seem to be particularly pertinent, unless one is arguing that more violence = more sales. The argument instead is that violence, even extreme violence, has appeal. But even if correlation were the argument, one would have to compare extremely violent crap games against generic crap games with similar marketing budgets, and we all know that there are tragically a very large number of crap games.

          What a non-argument that is.
          Everything has an ap

        • Nearly every RTS is based about combat. First person shooters are naturally going to involve shooting. Even most computer RPGs have a large combat element. This doesn't make them evil or bad, I'm just noting that violence is quite common.

          OK, but are you going to apply the same scrutiny to every other entertainment medium? Looking at games in this light is akin to looking at Lord of the Rings as a "violent movie". It's missing the point, and giving undue focus to the wrong thing.

          The argument that publ

    • Re:Violent games (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dickiedoodles ( 728410 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @06:13AM (#7971835)
      I think some of the responsibility has to rest with the parents in this matter. A normal child of 10 can understand the difference between real life and video games and knows that similar violence in real life is unacceptable, if they don't it needs explaining by a responsible adult. If that doesn't seem to work then the kid has problems and needs to be kept away from violent games/movies/sharp objects.

      The problem is it's easier for parents to blame video games for all our problems and fight that instead of trying to figure out why people really go into a school and shoot half their class. maybe video games did inspire it somewhat but lets face it happy well-balanced people don't do that, people with serious issues do that and the cause of these issues isn't playing a few hours of doom.

      As a side note it was mentioned on penny-arcade a few days ago that a local news show actually reported the donations were made by a local catholic school, no real point in me mentioning that, just seemed to kind of suck.

      • Re:Violent games (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The problem is it's easier for parents to blame video games for all our problems and fight that instead of trying to figure out why people really go into a school and shoot half their class. maybe video games did inspire it somewhat but lets face it happy well-balanced people don't do that, people with serious issues do that and the cause of these issues isn't playing a few hours of doom.

        I never understood why people could not figure this out in about 2 seconds. Imagine this.

        You are a kid. In school. You h

      • Re:Violent games (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Well yes kids can tell video game violence is fake, but how about after watching Cops and then WWE wrestling while his father and mother are laughing the whole time. Then after they send him to bed he sneaks out to see them checking out the newest action/thriller on DVD.

        Might this be confusing? Is anyone to blame? The parents, the media, the kid's curiosity (which will later be treated with Prozac), the school bully?
    • Firstly, and most simply, age-restriction ratings on video games are having little actual effect. Either they are not being observed by retailers, or they are circumvented very easily in all the traditional ways. How they could be made more effective, or even if they should, is another question.

      Well, the real question is should the ratings enforcement be increased through government action or community pressures on local retailers? Government action would put video games on a level that is reserved for po
    • Firstly, and most simply, age-restriction ratings on video games are having little actual effect. Either they are not being observed by retailers, or they are circumvented very easily in all the traditional ways. How they could be made more effective, or even if they should, is another question.

      Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought videogame ratings were supposed to be for informational purposes only- they weren't meant to be enforced, just to let parents know what they were buying for their kids.

  • Anyone find it funny... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bskin ( 35954 ) <.bentomb. .at. .gmail.com.> on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @04:05AM (#7971477)
    The author gives a detailed description about the child's play project, telling about how touching the effort was, etc. And they mention penny-arcade.com many times. Yet they don't seem to have any clue about the content of the site, even saying that the readers of the site are 'apparantly gamers.' Perhaps they should've checked out the site a little more...I suspect that the content of certain strips [penny-arcade.com] could possibly offend people who would regularly read a column written by a 'child advocate.'
    • lol, for the lack of mod points i am with at the moment, haha. But seriously, what owuld this be classified as?

      Insightful or funny? I find the fact that the didnt bother to peruse the sight in the least highly ammusing, but also it shows how the lack of research done in his article points to just how superficial and narrow the original article aws.

      haha, screwt, i woudl give a +1 funny just cause its too good.

    • Re:Anyone find it funny... (Score:4, Informative)

      by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @07:45AM (#7972105)
      Or maybe this one:

      "I did punch a baby once... in anger. In my defence, the baby was being kind of a dick." [penny-arcade.com] :)
      • Yes. And if people who are writing condemning articles about violent videogames come out having a problem about strips like that, it not only goes to show they don't understand gaming, or sociology and psychology, but that they have no fucking idea about sarcasm.
    • Yeah, I was thinking the same thing... I worry about when some of these people "contact" penny arcade while the artists are in a mood, and are presented with four letter words, decapitations (probably in a homoerotic setting) and the whole "vibe" that Penny Arcade gives off.

      I think that Gabe and gang did an excellent thing, and I love the comic. I do however doubt they are the *best* group to try to distract people from the negative images of gaming when they are the type of comic that my (no very easily o
    • Not only that, but he refers to Tycho as "an unamed author." It's not that difficult to call him Tycho, or look up his real name which I'm sure is on the site somewhere... both their last names are at the bottom of the page. "1998-2003 Krahulik/ Holkins."

      So yeah, looks like this guy didn't do anything more than glance at the site.

      And on the subject of video game violence, their very third comic [penny-arcade.com] touched on the issue. Interesting to note how much Gabe's hair has grown. That spike goes down almost t

  • Let's introduce PA to kids! (Score:5, Funny)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @05:50AM (#7971751) Journal
    Quote the article: If your children play video games, and even if they don't for that matter, I encourage you to know about Penny-arcade.com.

    Great recommendation. Now next Christmas, every kid will want a Fruit Fucker 2000 [penny-arcade.com]

    Wow, this broad just likes writing articles that she has to apologize for, eh?

    • Um, the author of the article is named Bill. Why do you just assume that it was written by a "broad"?

  • Unidentified? (Score:4, Informative)

    by arb ( 452787 ) <amosba&gmail,com> on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @07:27AM (#7972046) Homepage
    From the article:
    An unidentified writer wrote, "If you are like me, [...]

    Unidentified? Gabe's name is right there [penny-arcade.com] - smack bang on top of the bit of text this guy quotes. Can't he even acknowledge the people behind the Child's Play effort by using their names? Even the smallest amount of research would have revealed the "unidentified writer". After all the Penny-Arcade guys have done, only 3 news reports on their efforts, and one of them attributes the effort to an "unidentified writer." Sheesh! Adding insult to injury or what?

    • Tycho made the comment.

      • No, Gabe did. (Score:3, Informative)

        by Jammer@CMH ( 117977 )
        From Penny Arcade 2003-11-24 [penny-arcade.com] (hint: scroll down the page):

        Child's Play

        Mon, November 24 2003 - 11:50 PM
        by: Gabe [mailto]

        If you are like me, every time you see an article like this one [heraldnet.com], where the author claims that video games are training our nations youth to kill you get angry. The media seems intent on perpetuating the myth that gamers are ticking time bombs just waiting to go off. I know for a fact that gamers are good people. I have had the opportunity on multiple occasions to meet hundreds of you at conven

      • Tycho made the comment.

        Did he? I thought seeing how it was in a box with Gabe's avatar and email address at the top with "by: Gabe" that Gabe wrote that piece. I guess I was mistaken... (Hint, click the link I gave and scroll down to the last item...)

        • Since when does Gabe ever make top-posts in the news? Except for the time Tycho was on vacation, this is the only time. I just see the top news post, and I figure, "Oh, Tycho wrote this."
    • I think the reason he says Unidentified is that he probably didn't have explicit permission at the time of writing the article to use the names. He probably hadn't contacted PA to ask.
      • He probably hadn't contacted PA to ask.

        Which would have been such a difficult task... He needn't have said "unidentified writer" and could have said something along the lones of: "A message posted on Penny-Arcade..." The fact is, the author of the message was identified, even if that identification was by way of a nickname. Attributing the quote as "unidentified"is not only sloppy reporting, but somewhat insulting.
        • Something about journalism for you:

          Typically you have a deadline sometime in the early evening for the next day's paper. I'm going to assume he didn't have the time to try and get permission by email before the article was due at the editor's desk. Furthermore, for all we know, the editor may have changed it to say this.

          Sure, he could've but it a better way...but the way it is now sure as hell is not as insulting to PA as you put it.

  • More than $150k (Score:2, Informative)

    by totalnubee ( 223194 )
    The controversy eventually spawned the Child's Play charity fundraiser, which ended up raising almost $150,000 worth of toy/game-related donations for the Seattle Children's Hospital

    Almost $150,000? Try over $200,00. Significantly over. I guess nobody here actually reads the Penny Arcade comments [penny-arcade.com]:

    'The first time the news dumbshits came out to talk about Child's Play, though they were clearly told who was responsible for it they excised one of the people behind it. I consider this a fairly minor issue
  • What would it take to make the liberal media aware of Gamer's in a good light? For that matter do gamer's want recognition in the first place? Unfortunatly the media has the ability to twist minds regaurdless of the facts because the majority of the world trusts the media. Penny-Arcade is a comic strip and that is probably how the media saw it. A comic, not to be taken seriously and something that little boys look at. In any case there is a serious problem here and it needs to be addressed in a positive man
    • <sarcasm>Maybe violence would work?</sarcasm>

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