It's a popular trend among politicians, angry parents, bored news anchors, and bionically-enhanced super-intelligent mecha-chimps with a concern for human society's welfare to bash The Video Game, not only for its content but as a medium itself.
Similarly popular is the trend among gamers to pour their time, thought, and resources into responding like a total nitwit idiot spaz.
Don't get me wrong; you know whose side I'm on, you know where I stand on these issues, and you know plenty of my zealous, militant nature in all of this. I will not, however, turn a blind eye to the epidemic of retardry and moronity that is infecting our ranks. Gamers, when cornered, are apparently abandoning logic in reason in favor of buzzwords and hilarious logical fallacies.
To explain my outlook better, and to educate the masses, I have assembled this convenient list of Do's and Don't's. I will advise you on many common behaviors to avoid, and then put nonsensical 'Do' fluff in between them to satisfy my obsessive-compulsive need for verbal symmetry. Maybe some palindromes, too.
DON'T respond to every claim that games cause violence by shrieking 'games are good for you!' I appreciate your enthusiasm, but when they can't convince me that GTA makes six-year-olds into murderers, you won't convince me that it's making them artful child prodigies either. Yes, there is room for problem-solving skills and coordination to develop in many games. Such things can also arise from sports, socializing, and even gambling. Don't act like gaming is a holy grail of mental innovation for our kids. Our defense is that games do not make us crazy, period. Resorting to mirror-image hyperbole just makes you look like an idiot.
DO cite the vast majority of people out there that ARE harmless despite playing Super Mario Doom 64 Forever Blaster Death Kill 2006. You may find it ineffective at first, but in the end it is the most tangible and REAL evidence in this whole controversy. There are a lot of gamers out there, and the percentage of us that have murdered, robbed, pillaged, gotten high and kicked puppies is considerably lower than that of NFL players who have done the same. Hint, hint.
DON'T get hysterically defensive when media simply BEGINS to mention video games in any context. We all hate the lunatic activist groups that scream boycotts for movies and products that aren't even released, and normal people won't take US seriouly for jumping to conclusions either. Case in point; CNN producer Sarah Fogel asked Dennis McCauley's Gamepolitics to put out request for MMO gamers to discuss their experiences for a piece on the massively-multiplayer phenomenon.
True, CNN doesn't have the best reputation for these things. True, her wording, which included her looking for "people who play all day because it makes them happy," was ignorant and insulting. It is also true that her saying that the negative outlook the press always has towards gamers is our own fault for not hurrying to volunteer for articles like hers was... well, that was just stupid. However, whining letters and insults and boycotts don't get anything done. If gamers that hate negative press all scream at the sight of coverage and then hide in their corners, the only people left to interview will be the ignorant and easily-manipulated ones. An opportunity is an opportunity. Get your foot in the door and keep it there for others to get in. We need intelligent gamers storming the beaches to invade offers like this one, not crouching in little bunkers of self-righteous indignance. We need as many proactive war metaphors for the situation as I can muster.
DO get loud, and get outspoken. Its not enough just to avoid hyperbole when you respond. You need to get OUT there when you respond. Suppose you see an inflammatory article in the paper and you run to your favorite forum to vent your outrage... what are you accomplishing? We all love a good story to be outraged about, obviously. Thousands of readers of Livejournal's Customers_Suck community can't be wrong; we love to be rightfully enraged.
However, just turning that anger into some ego-masturbatory community gripe is not worth anything. Write to that paper, in fact write to that editor immediately. You can tell your friends later. Be informed, cite your resources, and ram it down their throat that we are not going to be demonized by their xenophobic faux-journalism. Don't assume that somebody else is going to take care of it. If you are a gamer, and you honestly believe that interactive entertainment is an art form deserving respect, you are its first line of defense. We are examples of what this industry and this medium REALLY produces, so we need to stand out as such.
DON'T prank-call Jack Thompson. You don't need to provoke him into making an ass of himself. He'll do it entirely on his own, with or without your help. If you want to write or call him under some manner of real intellectual pretense, more power to you. It'll make you that much more vindicated when you threatens you anyways.
Seriously, he'll threaten you immediately. You'd have to claim you're a columnist for Christian People Weekly just to get him to respond without profanities. The man is crazy. Not just weird-opinions crazy, but unable-to-control-his-public-outbursts crazy. There is no real reason to take the man seriously or even be offended by him. Their are real threats to the industry out there, and he isn't one of them. Let him hurl feces at his zookeepers all he wants, and instead focus your attention on the chimps that are throwing senate bills at your home state.
DO recognize and understand people that are NOT our opponents in this. Its still trendy to hate the NIMF for its conservative moral outlook and its ties to Jack Thompson. Look at it rationally, however; they sent Jack a cease-and-desist and declared him persona non grata to their organization. He's badmouthed them ever since. David Walsh, president of te organization, has repeatedly said that their aims are not for censorship or bans, but awareness.
The NIMF judges ethical content, rather harshly at that, but they do NOT demonize or vilify gamers, and they have not pushed the censorship and anti-speech agendas that so many politicans are encouraging. People like David Walsh are certainly not our best friends in this, but its important to acknowledge people like him as rational human beings that are willing to communicate with us with maturity and open minds. Unless they have proven themselves ignorant, xenophobic, or entirely irrational, people in this debate should always be worth speaking to.
DON'T assume this industry can do no wrong. Hot coffee is not the oh-god-think-of-the-children sex-scandal that Hillary Clinton wants middle-aged America to think it is, but it certainly isn't a forgettable piece of content either. Leaving that content on the disc, especially in the easily-modded PC version, was poor thinking on the part of Rockstar.
Take Two interactive claiming that the whole affair was fabricated from the ground up by hackers was an outright lie. It was this lie that sparked the anti-ESRB craze we're seeing in the media now, with senators like Leeland Yee claiming the ratings system is deceptive and encouraging parents to succumb to ignorance and hysteria.
T2 did wrong. They did quite wrong, and we have to accept it. Defending their poor judgement is poor judgement on OUR part. This doesn't mean conceding a point or admitting some kind of defeat, it simply means maintaining our own stance as rational people who can intellectualize these proplems without excessive zeal.
We aren't supposed to defend the individual judgements of industry figures, especially not blindly so. The role of an activist gamer should be to defend the potency and artistic value of this medium, and to speak against censorship, frivelous litigation, and anti-youth bias.
DO stay informed. Gamepolitics is a very accessible site for the grittier side of video game debacles, but you can start anywhere. Read the editorials in Game Informer, not just the reviews and release dates. Keep an eye on those Gamespot headlines. Know what companies, developers, and publishers are saying about the issues. Know what's going on in your state, with your representatives, and what influence you can have.
Again, its a very militant outlook. It's preachy, it's wordy, and it's a bit melodramatic. Still, if I don't say it here, somebody elsewhere will have to. Gamers who want to be loud and opinionated about the issues at hand need to put their money where their mouth is and legitimize themselves. More often than not, we're poor college students with a lot to do, but I encourage you to keep an eye on how this progresses. We're inheriting a country of moral dominionism and legislated speech, and video games are just the anathema du jour.
Start here, with this medium and this industry, and you'll be defending more than an art form. You'll be standing up for our generation against the corrupt and senile masses that only understand legislation and intolerance. This hobby is just one more thing about our generation that is under attack by the baby-boomer generation's self-indulgent nanny-state ethic.
Just please, please don't be an idiot spaz about it.
Excellent article, George.
This is the main reason I try not to get all militant and strident when complaining about video games and the way women are portrayed in them and the lack of good games being developed for female gamers. I realize that, while I may FEEL better by acting like that, I'm not exactly doing anything to change the way things are done.
If we want to change the negative, we have to make positive changes ... its as simple as that. In other words, don't be part of the problem (and prove their point), be part of the solution (and make THEM look like idiots).
Well said. Getting back to the whole media thing, I still think the only reason TV media either goof or demonize games and gamers is because there are more people playing games now than are watching their crappy shows. They're losing ratings, so they are trying their hardest to get simple minded parents to not let their kids play games. It may sound a little paranoid, but would you really put it past them to do that?
*Clap Clap Clap* Bravo! That was an extrodianry and well-thought out article George!
Well done, I've ranted in other venues along those lines. The saddest thing about Hot Coffee is that it was such a self-inflicted wound, and helps to make GTA the public face of gaming to the non-gaming community. That's just not very helpful, aside from not even being accurate.
Interesting and awesome article George!
It just goes to show people just need to use common sence to make it through.
I still fail to see how leaving the hot coffee thing in GTA was bad on Rockstar's part. I mean maybe I'm missing something, but it can only be accessed if the game was "hacked" right?!? So then what's the big deal? Had no one went through the game it would've never been found. Programmers do this kind've stuff all the time, leave in bits and pieces of code and never end up using it.
Great article George! You were right on the money with everything you said! Jack Thompson is a notoriously idiotic human being that is meant to be ignored (although his inane antics do sometimes provide good entertainment), staying informed is always a good idea which I myself do, and I never look at video game content or the people who make it in a purely black and white arguement. The games can be wrong for the things that they display and their possible effects on the much more mentally unstable gamer crowd (we aren't all sane) and the companies that put out some of the more controversial material aren't always the most righteous of people. The violent or sexual content can affect you, don't deny it. But the real question is to how it actually effects us, whether in a positive or negative manner, and to what degree they effect us. However, all of this shouldn't be an excuse for numerous politicians, religious groups, or any other group to make the game industry, in order to gain favor or votes, look like the evil demon spawn of Satan himself that is meant to corrupt all of the nations' children and turn them all into a new generation of serial killers and sex offenders. I hate to sound all harsh like that but that unfortunately is the picture that is painted for video games and a lot of people that play them by the mainstream media. What really disgusts me is even though various politicians and activist groups try to cite or conduct studies it's always to find as many negative effects as possible and with many gamers or game industry officials or lobbyists it's just the inverse. What we need in that case is a non-partisan study group of some kind to find the real results, because I think that when it's funded by certain groups the results might just be swayed their own way. Both sides of this fence do it and it's quite frankly disgusting and greedy. As an average joe, I wouldn't know how to do that whether directly or indirectly, through someone else or not. I'm just uncertain about how it should be done, but I just know it should.
It's also a huge generational gap of a bunch of older folks who didn't grow up with video games or at least the kinds we have now. Before it was with television, rock and roll, and comic books with their parents. Before that it was the radio. So on and so forth. Every generation condemns the entertainment of their offspring without learning what it's all about. That's lazy and hateful. So even though they may not understand the medium of interactive entertainment doesn't automatically make their opinion the be-all and end-all of what should go down for that art form. It's really sad when they take 25 to Life or Grand Theft Auto as the forefront of gamer representation, which they are only a small part of, and try to condemn all of them based off of just that. I think it's because of their refusal to see positive aspects of it and focusing on the negative. But enough of my complaining. Like SharonO just said "Don't be part of the problem (and prove their point), be part of the solution (and make THEM look like idiots)."
Being part of the problem and knowing it is one thing but actually coming upon a solution and executing it is another. My suggestion is not lawsuits, bitching on a forum, or sending petty letters and e-mails (because they'll either ignore them or delete them) but boycotting their programs or movies. They're the media, they won't change a damn thing or even care what you think until you hit them where it hurts, their wallet. If it makes money then they don't care as long as the cash keeps flowing in. With boycotts you'll be able to both voice your complaints and actually have a pro-active change happen. You or may not be successful at it, but it's worth a try. I mean if Rosa Parks hadn't of refused to give up the seat on that bus to a white man and not start the Montgomery Bus Boycott to end discrimination in bus seating against the African-American community then do you think they would have done anything? No, they wouldn't. We need to do the same. I already have myself. When I was a young boy I refused to watch shows like Saved By the Bell and in increasing disgust even Family Matters (Steve Urkel) and on numerous occasions even Comedy Central because of their biased, unfair, oppressive, way-too-over-the-top stereotypical displays of so-called "nerds", "geeks", "dorks", "dweebs", and "spazzes". It totally disgusted me and I refused to watch them and support this level of appeal, through insulting displays against certain groups that are considered undesirable, to the lowest common denominator of idiots. We gamers can do the same and refuse to watch any shows or movies that give unfair or innaccurate displays of who we are. If you just sit there and do nothing, then the rule of survival-of-the-fittest kicks in and everybody will pounce on the opportunity of an easy target and take cheap shots at you. Do something about it. Viva la video games!
Remember people, knowledge will set you free and ignorance will have you stuck in your own little world of misinformation. This applies to both gamers and non-gamers viewing this!
Excellent. A person with similar views as myself about gaming in general.
In the area of Gaming Politics, if it's Federal, then it'll affect me. Mississippi really hasn't gotten the game law train running yet. The only proposed game bill failed before even being seen. It's sad.
Badmouthing fought with more badmouthing will just leave us with a bunch of badmouthing. Nothing worthwhile. State the facts, defend your side, and keep from the flames. Eventually the point will be put through and all the falsities will be smothered.
I think that was excelently put. In fact I wish this topic was more widely circulated. Too many people overcompensating on both sides.
Correct. Both sides seem to really be overcompensating and not admitting to their own fault and are too busy try to shift all of the blame off of themselves and onto others so they don't have to take the responsisibility. It's quite sad.
Absolutely; it's one of my biggest pet peeves, but its also an impenetrable social defect for all of us; we have to respond to absolutism with more absolutism, because ceding points will make us seem weak.
My biggest worry is the question, are we making a real difference by being reasonable, even compromising, or are we just setting ourselves up for failure by taking a moral high ground?
You have a good point George. We do need to both come upon some sort of defined rules and to not sit there and take crap from other people, but my question is as to how do we accomplish that without offending the, as we see it, other side of the fence? We all know that there is such a thing as going too damn far when trying to fight back against anyone over any issue. I don't think the idea of abandoning a peaceful solution in favor of one that is aggressive in regards to what we think should go down, will do much good. Let's admit it: people, in this case being the anti-game pundits, don't like to change their views beyond what they're at right now and I really don't see too many of them in the near future about to do just that. Even if we try to change their POV they'll obviously resist. But why is this? We may see ourselves sort of as being Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, trying to rob from the oppressors and give to the oppressed as we see ourselves in our own cause and trying to get our pleas heard, but to others, conservatives included, we are the evil Sherriffs of Nottingham trying to oppress them. We may see ourselves as the good guys but to others we are the bad guys. It's all a matter of perception and if someone else absolutely does not want to change then that is their choice, we should respect that and let them change, if they so choose, at their own pace because that is what they would do anyways. It's all tied into a little phrase I created that I sometimes tell myself, "You can't lead a horse to water if the horse doesn't want to drink". If you try in any way through any kind of direct force to tell them to do something they truly don't want to do, then you're wasting your breath. It's unfortunate but the way it is.
But don't see this as being a passive approach where we sit, down take shit from others and just start to see the savage and underthought destruction of copies of video games just like Hitler had books burned. That's not it at all. We should do something and even though, George, you pose the question of whether or not a peaceful approach to change is really going to work, then I say yes but it's going to be hard work. This is as versus to an aggressive approach with trying to push your own view on things over others which will be harder work and be nowhere near as justified as doing things less aggressively. Don't be forceful or you're going to censor THEM off and we would better no better off than them. Don't stoop to their level and don't try to put yourself on the moral high ground like they are.
But enough of the complaining, what balance in our approach to this subject should we take? I'd say something inbetween peacefulness and aggression. We can't go all peaceful about the approach because either we won't get heard or we'll get stepped on as easy targets, but if we attempt an aggressive approach we'll be the censorship-loving ban-happy people they are and they won't like us even more. What we should do is be forceful (to show we mean business) in trying to come upon a solution that works well enough for both sides of the fence. Just look at how Joseph H. Lieberman helped get the game industry to found the ESRB to judge the content in games. He may have been against violence and sex in games but was willing to compromise with us instead of declaring us and what we do as evil. He wanted to protect the children from harmful content so they don't copy what see in the games as at that point, at least from what I heard, kids were already copying from cartoons such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, and even the 90's Spider-Man cartoon. But he wasn't going to completely condemn us and tried the peaceful, compromising approach with us but at the same time refused to let the game industry have the upper hand (which if they had the chance they would probably have taken). He mixed relatively peaceful negotiation with sticking-by-your-guns attitude and that is what we need to do. Any of you feel free to correct me on that one.
But in the case of the ESRB and the Hot Coffee scandal or "Coffeegate" as I hear it so sarcastically called on some sites, this form of regulation to keep the industry a little more under control is an example of how people can see the ratings system as being a bit incomplete in certain areas. I keep hearing on various parts on the web that people don't see what the big fat fuss was all about anyways because the content descriptors already say "Strong Sexual Content" to begin with. Now you may say, well the sex minigame had nudity in it and that should have been included. Not in a boxed copy it didn't! The sex minigame itself was embedded in the game, which was wrong to begin with, but had characters having fully clothed sex. So in a boxed copy of the game the "Strong Sexual Content" does, if you ask me, encompasses the controversial mini game. The nudity on the characters from what I understand wasn't put in there by Rockstar themselves but by third party modifiers in Hot Coffee V2, so a nudity content descriptor wouldn't apply as it wasn't already there, it was added afterwards. I believe I seen this change between certain version numbers for the mod in a posted document on front page of GTAgarage.com just a few days before the whole thing blew out of proportion. Feel free, once again, to correct me on this if there is a need to. Don't get me wrong though, the ESRB is a very reliable system and is even more specific about individual content than the MPAA system is for movies. The content descriptors get much more specific than rated-EC for Early Childhood, rated-E for Everyone, rated-T for Teen, rated-M for Mature, or rated-AO for Adults Only. It gives numerous reason as to why it got that rating but some people think the individual descriptors aren't specific enough and the game could probably encompass more than one type of "Strong Language", "Strong Violence", or "Strong Sexual Content". I for one have had two experiences where I not only have had some confusion over a games' content where I play the game and look at the rating and descriptors and I'm thinking that the game wasn't as bad as the label made it look. For one, take the No One Lives Forever games. Ever played those? Both the first and second game in the series were rated M for Mature for Blood and Violence. I played the games and the level of blood and violence in them is enough to keep them from being rated T for Teen but I didn't think there was enough in them to have them classified as being rated M for Mature. Another example would be the three most recent Prince of Persia titles (still need to get the Two Thrones though). I played The Sands of Time, which was supposed to be rated T for Teen because of Blood, Suggestive Themes, and Violence. The violence in the game is indeed nothing for the kiddies becuase of all the moves that you can do to your literally bloodless sand creature opponents to either slice them in half with your sword down the middle, decapitate them, stab them with your time dagger, etc. as well as the majority of the "blood" that was in there was in the first level of the game and didn't reappear until the final level where you fight the Vizier and when you defeat him a small video shows up where he bends down coughing up a little blood which if you ask me is a little too out of league for rated-T for Teen but nowhere near rated M for Mature when we're comparing it against any GTA or Soldier of Fortune title. Warrior Within and The Two Thrones have more blood, sexual themes, and intense violence than others but my point still stands. The last two titles added in more blood but still not enough for an M rating IMHO. My suggestion is that the ESRB create yet another ratings label inbetween T and M for the games that doesn't really look like they fully belong in either one. We need to come upon at least (and hopefully enough) one more label to keep things from being a little too vague because that is what it is starting to turn into. Games these days are becoming more advanced and thus more diverse in what they show and the current system is good but could use some additions so as to better describe game content to parents nowadays. The NOLF and POP titles might just land in that category.
So in conclusion, I have three questions:
1) How should we judge what is being too peaceful and what is too aggressive in our approach to get heard and at least halfway respected?
2) What kind of solution in this case, are we talking about? Give suggestions if you will.
3) How can we make the rules more crystal clear for those who don't understand them or are confused by them?
P.S. Sorry for the long rant. You can turn delete it if you want or you have my permission to turn into it's own article/topic on this site. You don't have to, but if you do, please inform me first. It would be pretty neat to suggestion that we could get.
Ya know, I replied to that CNN woman in an email, said I'd love to be interviewed, hell I even apoligized for the assumptions of my peers. Didn't hear shit back. I think its fair to conclude at this point she was looking for addicts to make them look like stupid junkies.
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