Games As The Mainstream Media's Demon 39
1up has an editorial up exploring the biased nature of mainstream media gaming coverage, especially in light of the recent Hot Coffee scandal. From the article: "...Are CBS, Donny Deutsch, and Ed Bradley actually informing their viewers--or just inflaming their fears in a culture already on edge? Many, certainly many in the videogame industry, believe it's the latter. There's no shortage of gaming coverage, but it seems that what's out there, outside of enthusiast coverage, focuses disproportionately on certain kinds of games or on partial information that does no justice to the industry's successes. "
In other news: (Score:4, Funny)
Mmm Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
It'd sure be interesting if these dudes would say "Here are games we approve of!", as opposed to just bla bla bla'ing about how games they've never played are evil.
Re:Mmm Hmm (Score:2)
Isn't that what they do about everything? Very little news is actually "eyewitness" any more. If you put it in a court of law it'd be labeled as hearsay. But then again, we get what we deserve. When was the last time most people contacted their local news organizations when they know that something is false? I'll send an email, but I suspect that I'm in the minority.
Re:Mmm Hmm (Score:2)
IF I did so, I'd not be able to do anything else. I see articles about aquantances who I know are drug dealers and they describes as "innocent
Re:Mmm Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
I have no idea how to deal with these clearly irrational people. It's generally impossible to reason with them, and even if you do manage to get through to one of them, there's always another crackpot willing to take up the torch in f
Re:everyone one has a bias (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference between Blizzard and the media reporting on videogames. Blizzard, as a company, doesn't actually think WoW (or any other videogame, ASFAIK) is evil. The media, on the other hand, has no idea whether video games are evil, but that doesn't stop them from claiming just that in order to create some kind of 'story' they feel their consumers will watch.
TFA's point is that the media isn't reporting on actual problems, they're just (*gasp*) sensationalizing.
Whether the above point is actually worth reading about, I have my doubts. I just thought your post needed a response...
Just watch... (Score:5, Insightful)
One big Duh (Score:2)
Just another form of sensationalism for the media to latch onto. Nothing new, really. Check out the book The Culture of Fear [amazon.com] for a better treatment than my half assed drunken post.
Public Enemy said it best.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If only more people would subscribe to that, the media would put a whole lot less spin on the "news".
Play the Game backwards for a hidden message (Score:5, Funny)
ObBilly and the Boingers (Score:1)
Saaayyyy your prayers!"
TV news nothing more than a tabloid! more at 11 (Score:1)
Obviously... (Score:2)
Parents need something to blame.
Unfortunately, Satanic Panic is rather old, and nobody plays D&D anymore, so we are left with video games.
Re:Obviously... (Score:3, Interesting)
I was at a well off neighborhood mall with this Italian friend with fairly tanned dark skin. He's got a beard, mustache, and a mario nose.
The mall was tight on parking space, we pulled into this space right before this other family did. The father of that family was obviously pissed that we got to the space first.
He got out of the car, banged on our car window while holding these 5 year old kids in his hands. To my Italian friend, he yelle
Letter to The Editor (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'm 18 years old, I'm going to college in the fall, I volunteer twice a week, and I play a lot of computer games. I hold in my hands a copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which I received as a present before the pornographic content debacle. In the past few weeks there has been much attention paid to games and their content by the media, and as one who plays a lot of games, I'd just like to share my thoughts on the matter of content and the rating system.
A woman is suing Rockstar Games (the publisher of San Andreas) for misleading her into thinking that the game was an appropriate present for her 14 year-old grandson. I have the game right here, let's see how she was deceived. On the front there is a big black "M" and it says "Mature 17+." On the back, next to another big black "M" there is a more detailed explanation which reads, "Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs" That seems pretty honest and unambiguous to me, not deceptive at all.
According to an article in Computer Gaming World, the Entertainment Software Review Board, ESRB for short, does not actually play the games it rates. ESRB is given videos of a games most extreme content and bases its rating on that. Knowing this, it's easy to see how something like San Andreas' pornographic content slipped by, and how other objectionable content could be slipped by. ESRB needs to start playing games. Until they do, things will slip through, if for no other reason than some people want to push the envelope and test the system - it's the class clown mentality. ESRB needs to play games, and they need to play them more than once. They need to release detailed reports on the content of every game they rate. Until they do things will slip, people will be mad, and they will call for Congress to hold hearings on how the gaming industry is corrupting children.
I think that rating games is a good idea, even if the current system is flawed. I think being able to look at a box and see what kind of content is in a game is a good idea, I think that before parents allow their kids to play games, they need to know what's in the game. If you think that your child is too young to be handle a game's content, don't let them play it. Get involved, teach your kids what's right and what's wrong, what's educational and what's just entertainment. That's what my parents did, and while I play games that turn the stomachs of Joe Lieberman, Jack Thompson, and Hillary Clinton, I've never gotten so much as a parking ticket.
People are outraged, absolutely. But we don't need Congressional hearings over whether games are corrupting our youth. We need parents to teach their kids values and the difference between reality and entertainment, and ESRB needs to be more comprehensive in its ratings. My final thought is this: Without following instructions posted on the Internet, San Andreas still has graphic violence, gangs, drug use, corrupt cops, and crime galore. We knew about that, it's right there on the box. What does it say about our priorities and our values when we allow all that, but are incensed and call for Congressional hearings when we find out somebody hid a little sex in there?"
Re:Letter to The Editor (Score:1, Troll)
I finished the game and I didn't see any "hot coffee" in the whole game. Granted, I didn't install the patch to enable it (which was released after the game was rated and released).
How could the ESRB make their ratings more comprehesive? Do the need to include graphical examples of what they mean with "Intense
Re:Letter to The Editor (Score:2)
The greatest flaw is that the ESRB isn't as trustable as it should be - while GTA:SA content can still slip through even when the rating system is fixed, most people think that the rating is based on the number of red pixels.
I have a copy of Descent Freespace - rated 'E'. I also have a copy of Descent 2 and Descent 3 - both rated 'T'. They're both just as violent - there's no reason for these two games to have a rating descrepancy.
Nex
Re:Letter to The Editor (Score:4, Interesting)
The retailer could have a small kiosk that could allow parents to walk up and scan a game and see a video of the content in the game to help them decide if it is or is not appropriate for their children.
It really seems like a somewhat simple and elegant solution to helping parents know what's in a game. It would also probably work in the favor of game companies as well. I know more than a few 17-18 year olds who would be more likely to buy a game if they could scan it and see the extreme amount of gore/sex in the games.
Re:Letter to The Editor (Score:1, Interesting)
It says we are a society that thinks corruption of justice, excessive drug use, every crime a human can commit, prostitution, and mass murder are acceptable topics for a fourteen year old (as per the woman in your letter) to consider an
Re:Letter to The Editor (Score:1)
Bad news is good news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Video games, they can easily put a bad spin on because there are so many clueless people.
Iraq, they can easily put a bad spin on because there are so many clueless people. Not saying things aren't bad, but when is the last time the mainstream media ran more than the occasional story of the GOOD our troops do in Iraq? I'm in a privilaged position of working with people who did serve in Iraq. Sure there are stories of ambushed, and other screwed up things, but I get to hear the good things we do and that the Iraqi people do.
I wonder if there was any mainstream press coverage of the Iraqi village who went vigilanti and fucked some terrorists up themselves, nah, too much to hope for.
The next big thing (Score:5, Informative)
Less time, sure... but it won't escape entirely for quite a while. You could replace every instance of "video game" with "comci book" (and change the examples to match) and you'd still have a largely factual article. Neil Gaiman [neilgaiman.com] made a great comment a few weeks ago about how mainstream coverage of comics books alternates between "Wham! Bam! Comics have grown up!" (which is 20-year old news) and "OMG! This comic book not meant for kids has material unsuitable for kids in it!"
There's an advocacy organization, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund [cbldf.org], that works to raise awareness and raise funds to help defend comic book authors, artists, retailers etc. from attacks against freedom of expression. Retailers have been arrested for selling adult comics to adults. Artists and publishers get sued for parodies. It doesn't get as much covereage as video games anymore, but what coverage it gets is still as biased as it was in the 1950s.
Anticompetitive practices (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Anticompetitive practices (Score:1, Insightful)
For example saw a story on Bush visiting huricane victims. He was walking around shaking hands handing out food. Walking up to people and saying 'hey you get anything to eat yet?'. Yet some people spin this as an ignorant boob, other spin this exact same story as a great leader. Yet it was neither. It was a dude walking around saying 'hey go get something to eat its free!'.
Re:Anticompetitive practices (Score:2)
Re:Anticompetitive practices (Score:2)
You also have to realize that game companies themselves use the bad publicity. I remember an interview with American Mcgee a while ago in which he mentioned he used the controversial themes because young adults (teens) were naturally attracted to censored and taboo themes and that was their target market, of course he didnt use
Re:Anticompetitive practices (Score:1)
Not Suprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Media companies are no more going to sing the praises of video games than Coca Cola is going to come out and say "You know, we like coke, and a lot of other people like coke, but if you like pepsi then that's A-OK with us".
Of course, the reason why this isn't going to work in the long run is that overly dramatic FUD is only entertaining if you don't realize that it's overly dramatic FUD (at least in the case of info-tainment). Most people I think, or at least most of the Gen-X and Gen-Yers have played enough video games to realize that this is FUD, and so they get bored with it- so they stop with the news and pick up video games instead.
TURN PEOPLE INTO CHICKENS!?!?! (Score:2, Funny)
Because god knows, I see a lot of stuff on the news about how punks have turned a old lady into a chicken and how the latest school violence involved a child reaching into a teacher's chest and ripping out a beating heart.
There are 2 sides to evey story ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The facts are that gaming media, like most other forms of media, has contraversial games which push the limits of what is generally acceptable; these contraversial games are then demonized by 'crusaders' and by the media. The reality of the situation is that there is a type of symbiotic relationship between the crusaders and the developers.
If you compare the average quality, and quantity of high quality, 'Mature' games to 'Everyone' and 'Teen' games you will notice that there are far less good 'Mature' games and in general they're of lower quality at a similar sales level. Now what certain game developers are doing is taking a pretty crappy game and pushing the boundries with their content to sell more units (think Manhunt); this content then enrages crusaders who then get the media involved and since the game is 'Uber-Mature' it sells really well to insecure 14 year olds (and 14 year olds at heart). If the crusaders (and the Media) ignored this games, the games wouldn't sell well on their own merit, and for the most part the 'Plague of Damaging videogames' would dry up.
Now, I personally suspect that this will only continue for a short period of time longer. Much like with Rap Music and Horror movies, Violent Videogames will only continue to be press worthy for a short period of time longer (probably less than 5 years). After that it won't matter if you produce a game a where you're a 5 year old, with a passion for guns, that shoots cops it won't make the news. Thus the contraversial game will no longer have the free press to cover up for it's poor game mechanics.
In other words, PR-trolling the media (Score:3, Insightful)
E.g., see the recent scandal about shooting cops in games, and how every channel conveniently had side-by-side screenshots and photos of dead police officer. Long before the game was even released. Sorry, that kind of thing almost screams "PR stunt".
That's what PR companies do: get
The other side (Score:2)
Aaah! Video games attack! (Score:2, Insightful)