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Just back from a pint with the old fella, The pint was good but the real treat was stumbling across a Sky News broadcast. Which had a poll running; the poll? well here it is plain and simple:
“Ban all Violent Videogames!?”
Hehe I sniggered as I saw this, an all too frequent image of the Media Frenxy in full swing.
“hang on” I shouted at the old man as we were leaving the pub.
“I wanna see the outcome”For the banning of all Violent Videogames: 54%
Against the ban of all Violent Videogames: 48%But wiat my dear friends the best is yet to come, Sky had on hand(oh how convinient) a distraught mother how said and I quote:
” I didn’t realize the game had adult content, I was aware of the rating but I thought this was part of the Promotion, you know to make kids think its kool”
Don’t worry, I threw a nicely sized Dragon Punch her way. Anyways thought you might be interested in the poll, of which to the best of my Knowledge is running for the rest of the week. One more thing though, I had a slightly more respectable view of the Sky news team before this Fiasco. Next thing you know they’ll be tryiong to burn Molyneux at the cross(*Omegas ponders is that actually such a bad thing?*)
Oh well happy Christmas!
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People just cant seem to understand the point that they are trying to make. These mothers kak on about how violent these games are and then sit down on the saturday afternoon to watch predator with the kids.
A good example. I was in game two weeks ago and there was a mother in there with her child who could not have been older than 12 (he couldnt even reach the counter!!!). The mother was clueless so she asked the kid what game he wanted for christmas. Naturally the child said GTA: San Andreas. The guy working behind the counter looked strangely at her and said “You do know that this game is 18’s, dont you?”. She just looked at him and said, “I dont care, i wont be playing it, its for my son”.Does the word Duh mean anything to these people.
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Yeah, I saw that poll and I laughed, I laughed heartily.
I think it just shows the majority of the people who are Sky News regulars(ie: the ones that actually bother to vote) probably fall into one of two categories:1. Conservative idiots
or
2. Ignorant parentsSure why not hand over power to these people and we can ban violent videogames, controversial music, harsh language, scary movies, opposition parties, the right to vote…….then they can install a dictator named Betty and she will rule the world with a silk gloved fist whilst smelling of rose petals. The world would be such a better place…….
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Oh no.
But then how on earth would we ever relesase our violent tendencies. Not that all of us have them, cough cough. -
I reckon we should go one further and hire Christian Bale to do another ‘Equilibrium on our asses’, hell if were gonna get him we might aswell rope in Johnny fucking no brains aswell!
Christ, I hope some parent stumbles across the following albiet if they are one of the Numbskulls who always complain about violence in videogames:
” READ THE FUCKING SIGN”
18’s doen’t mean Barbies horse riding challange 6 (winks to Xero) It means Holy shit I just blew someone’s head off with a 9mm baretta! Honestly, it’s like educated a shower of ducks or something.
*Omegas scutters off into the corner, oddly enough he can’t ever remember not *
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Calm down there Omega………… ;)
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It’s now 77% in favour of not banning violent games.
What defines a violent game to these folk anyway? How about Mickey Mouse hitting people over the head with his oversized key in Kingdom Hearts? ;)
The fuss should blow over soon. It always rises up around this time of year.
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Quiz a mother about the topic Ronny and you’ll quicky discover that there is no definition…
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The fuss should blow over soon. It always rises up around this time of year.[/quote:20dc615eb4]
I don’t agree. This isn’t jsut a christmas thing. Its popping up in the media more and more often these days. If its in the media its on the public’s minds. If its on the public’s, governments aren’t likely to be backing it and giving out grants easily. This is a growing concern for me at the moment.
Will the government be as likely to help startups who say they want to make video games when the government see joe public thinking they are evil? Yes its ignorant people who are saying these things, but they are also the loudest people and for the media, anything they can class as evil sells papers. And the more common place it gets, either A) its gets so bad, a clamp down is to be imposed, B) people pay more attention to the games and start to understand what the rating is actually for and treat them in the same way as films and everyone’s happy. Could easily swing either way. -
Definitely. I was actually going to edit my post earlier. To be more precise what I meant was that while it’s always a issue it seems to become big in the media for a while then go back into the background, as most topics do. A case of being flavour of the month. You may be right, this is popping up more and more regularly.
Parents need to be educated on the ratings system. In the past we had great ignorance and they didn’t pay any attention to the system. At least now they’re paying attention to the subject. The next step is for them to become educated and understand how it works.
Hopefully this will just be a necessary evil to go through in order to get to a time where games are accepted as movies. Or maybe that’s just a tired opinion at 2 in the morning.
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It’ll blow over, just like how the whole “Violent Movies are bad” thing blew over in the mid-late ninties just as videogames were beginning to take the brunt.
Before movies, it was music, before music…..er I don’t know…..public beheadings, whatever. The point remains:
There always has been, and always will be some sort of “entertainment media” to take the blame for other peoples mistakes and even more peoples ignorance. -
I’m a little worried that nobody who play videogames ever seems to wonder that maybe they ARE too violent.
You know what I mean; A news story appears about the latest installment of GTA being hyper violent and immediately games forums are alight with people condeming the media as being stupid and biased. Unquestioning disagreement, usually based on the reasoning that “Well I play GTA and I’m not a raving loony”. Well I play GTA and I enjoy beating people to death in it. I do not think about morality. Theres just a worrying lack of thought here in the snap reflex response from gamers that doesn’t reflect my experience..
Lets be honest. GTA and the like are marketed to kids who want to smack people up with a baseball bat. Actually I’m too tired from editing video showreel 04-05 to expand upon this. I’ll do it tomorrow.
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Some games are violent for the sake of being violent, some games go a bit to far. But this is the world we live in, people deserve the right to express themselves as they see fit. Freedom of speech expression and all that jazz.
To be honest the problem is not the media, the problem is the parents. My gf works as a montessori teacher and one of her young kids from the class told her what daddy got him for his birthday. Blade and Blade2, now come on the kid wasnt even 4 years old, and here the kid is watching BLade. Maybe a spelling book so the kid could actually string more than 3 words together.
No matter how you look at it and no matter how you wrap things up, the problem isnt the government, the movie industry, the games industry, the music industry. The problem is the family, the parents, the unit as a whole. Family values have been pissed out the window for the sake of a quick fix, or a better holiday. Most parents turn a blind eye to their little timmy going to school and beating the shit out of poor little billy, because they saw it on TV. Instead of teaching the kids right and wrong, make believe and all that. Parents just give in. I work part-time in a Music store and I would say 1 out of every 100 parents who are told about parental advisory and age certs, say no to the kids, and refuse to buy the CD. The rest simply say I wont be listening to it or watching it OR other moronic statements.
Games and Movies can be as violent as they want, they are not the problem. The problem is society and how we view these materials. If we want to fix this bad image in the media, perhaps we should point out how ignorant most parents are. Its always the poor un-suspecting parent that complains. The one that feels outraged that they were conned into buying GTA for their child. But rewind a bit and you will more often than not see an ignorant, stupid woman standing in a shop, Asking.
[Mam]”Do you have … Whats the game Timmy”
[Timmy]”San Andreas”
[Staff]”Yes we do, now there is parental advisory on that, its 18’s”
[Mam]”Ohhh” *looks completely mistified*
[Timmy]”Please mam, please, I’ve played it before”
[Mam]”Go on I wont be playing it”
[Timmy]”Yes!”
[Staff]”59.99″
[Mam]”What!!!”Most parents show more uprage with the price than the fact that its 18’s. You want to solve this problem, either we educate the parents which is near impossible because they always believe they are right, they are teh ones always hard-done by and so on. Or we proove them to be the bunch of ignorant fools they are.
Seriously stand outside game with a dictafone and ask to interview parents in what they bought and why. Send that into the papers, and watch what they say. Especially when you stand their pointing out to them what the game really contains.
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I don’t think GTA is marketed at kids, its developed by people of our ages for people of our age. Most games today are aimed at the 20 – 30 age group, because thats the age groupl of the developers and its easier to make something that attracts your own age group than to try think what a kid would like.
I do agree that games shouldn’t be restricted in what they do. If I was playing a game I thought was too violent, I wouldn’t keep playing it, I’d just stop, same as if I was watching a too distrurbing movie. Parents sit down with their kids when they play a game and they should judge whether its suitable for the child or not. Buying an 18s game means, I definitelly need to check it what the game is.
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They show these parents footage from games like GTA without giving them any grasp of the story, just what you can do in the game. [/quote:ae1676e351]
Shouldn’t they first warn the parents that what they’re about to show them is 18-rated?
(+ did they show extracts on the news piece? It’s be good & fun to name & shame Sky and/or ITV to the TV Ombudsman / Watchdog for breaching rating certs with news footage… and get the point across to the perps themselves ):D
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I think they did warn the parents but the usual response was “i didn’t know it was an 18” or “it’s meant to be a game”
They did indeed show excerpts from the game, how do you get in touch with ITC then? LOL
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The problem here is that the parental equation is wrong…
For example:
[Movie]
18+ = sex = swaring = violence = bad for my child![Game]
18+ = its a game = it can’t be for adults!That for many parents is the problem – they just can’t get their heads around the fact that Games can be for Adults only!
Also some parents have the following equation:
[Game]
18+ = Little Johnny wants it = little Johnny gets it = I get some peace.Again I think if parents really realised that games were not just for kids. That just because ‘they’ can not operate a Playstation etc. that then no one in their right mind over the age of 12 would be bothered with computer games. If this message was accepted by parents then I think it would go a long way towards sorting this problem out.
Also its a hell of a lot easier for a parent to say ‘we did not know!’ than it is to say – we knew but we:
1) did not care
2) OR are incapable of saying NO to our childMike.
To quote a point I made last week on NewsTalk – it is a lot more difficult to control cider drinking amongst kids – who can drink it at the bottom of a field, than it is to avoid parental responsibility in the consumption of computer games, which require a console, an electrical outlet, and a living room or bedroom – all usually already under the supervision of adults!
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Best maths equations I’ve seen in a long time!
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Best maths equations I’ve seen in a long time! [/quote:4ed713c292]
amen, brother. -
I think it’s also a case that parents think that a games console is some sort of baby sitter, i.e if the kid is sitting playing games they don’t have to worry about what they’re up to.
Someone i was talking to a while ago made the point that it’s not the kids that are playing gta that are out stealing cars.
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No, but… If one joyrider/carjacker invoked that GTA ‘made him’ or ‘inspired him’ to do so nowadays (well, around ‘now’), you can imagine the titles and actually see them from here!
“Ban this filth that is corrupting our fine young minds”
“Playstations blamed for 90% of crime increase figures”
“I’ve watched Scarface 5,000 times but Pikachu made me cleave her!”
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Since you’re never likely to achieve anything with educating the buyers,
(as distinct from the ‘prescribers’ – kids who know better than to tell their parents that it’s 18-rated etc) -short of printing & mailing millions of fact-explaining leaflets for parents, most of which will be vertically filed anyway as just more letterbox bumf-
BUT you’re likely to always get bad press so long as the problem persist and incidents of the ‘ManHunt-made-me-do-it’ style persist (and that’s only lilely to increase),
an idea would be to sell games in opaque “plastic wrapper” packaging (just like “exotic” readings ;) ) with just the title and a big 18 cert on front and explicit in-game screenshots on back (severed head, blood fountain and the like).
Nice packaging underneatch (for the discerning collector),
Unambiguous ‘signs’ of unsuitability displayed clearly for the parents (presumably),
Little or no loss of sales (given growing trend of pre-selling games and educated buying public for such games anyway).Whattayathink?
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an idea would be to sell games in opaque “plastic wrapper” packaging (just like “exotic” readings ;) ) with just the title and a big 18 cert on front and explicit in-game screenshots on back (severed head, blood fountain and the like).
[/quote:895e9ebeeb]GTA already had this as far as I could see. Anywhere it was being sold has a big card holder for the game, with a man sitting on his car, gun in hand and the girl. What parents would buy a movie from a stand like that for their son?
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