Hay Dudes.
Today i will sharing my thoughts on Video Game violence.
I am not trying to offend anyone here, i'm just sharing a true point.
Violence in video games has to be one of the most controversial, debated, and yes, perhaps, proportionally irrelevant social subjects in the past decade. As I write this, civilian heads are being cracked on one side of the street in America while in a fancy hotel not two blocks down, George W. Bush and his industrialist cronies from the host nation are taking photo ops and talking about making a "brave new world."
But I digress, the point that I'm trying to make about violence and video games is that the problem (if you want to call it that) can hardly be considered exclusive to the video game industry. It would, of course, be ridiculous to think so, and yet it seems we have to point this fact out over and over again.
The social and political issue with the use of violence, strong language and otherwise "anti-social phenomenon" in works of art (and I consider games; as much as movies, books and comics; as works of art) has been the cause of some of the very first cases of censorship in modern human history; it's the same problem that Leonardo Da Vinci had with the establishment if he didn't play by the book and Michelangelo had with the Pope when he was painting naked people on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
The real problem arises when these works that serve no other purpose than to act as tools for their authors to feed their egos or line their pockets with cash, become fuel for the fire for those who sit on the opposite side of the social spectrum. Those who are ironically, ideologically very close to the ones they are "fighting against." I am speaking about the "Jack Thompsons" of the world.
It is my belief that the gaming industry would never find itself under such scrutiny if more people, or rather more people IMPORTANT to the industry, would publicly condemn shameless attempts at making us look like fools; shows like the Spike TV Video Game Awards, games like Postal and stunts like the "Hot Coffee" mod that Rockstar pulled. (I am not generalizing Rockstar's opus here, nor do I want to go into that particular discussion. For the record, I believe that some of Rockstar's games have genuine artistic value.) This is not a matter of self-regulation by legal or corporate means. This is not a matter for the ESRB, but a form of public expression that will single out the examples of vulgar opportunism from the honest attempts at creativity.
Our "community" needs to show that it has the maturity and most importantly the intelligence to realize when someone is trying to shaft us with shock tactics, and more importantly to be vocal enough about it to reach the ears of the mass media. (Or to speak with their pocketbooks. That usually gets their attention. -Ed.)
Maybe then, attention junkies with their own shameless agenda like Jack Thompson, people whose antics belong on the "Jerry Springer Show," would be exposed for what they really are - ideological buddies of the shock jocks within our own ranks.
So that is my humble opinion and i do not intend to offend anyone, i think some people take fictional violence a bit to much if you ask me.
So what do you dudes think??
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