GTA V, The Last of Us, Ryse, God of War. What do these games have in common? Well, CONTROVERSY. For around 20 years games, gamers and gaming have faced controversy frequently regarding the depictions of sexual, violent or adult themed content found in them.
Before video games there were moral panics over, comics, rock and roll, rap and even theater productions in the time of Shakespeare and before that the ancient Greeks, but let me ask you now, do these subjects garnish controversy anymore? No? Why because they have become normalized. I will prove to you why Video games (in particular) are the global moral panic and to do this I will be giving international examples.
1.)
Movies and Video games of similar nature are usually given out different ratings across the globe even when they containt content of the same impact. Here are some examples:
300: Rise of An Empire recived a 12+ rating in france, it contained graphic sex scenes including frontal nudity as well as suggestive rape of children. There is also excessive amounts of gore and violence (Huge gashes of blood, heads and arms slice off, faces getting smashed, torture and rape) and again this is a 12+ game. Now let's compare this for instance with the PEGI game ratings which is the official rating system used in France (however not legally enforceable). Assassins Creed 4 received an 18+ rating, the worst violence this game contains is small sword fights contain minimal amounts of blood (no limb severing or deceptions ever occur within the game). The game features almost NO sexual elements whatsoever.
Another example is South Park: The Stick of Truth, all seasons/episodes of South Park in Australia have received an MA15+ rating (which means OK for 15 yrs and older), however the video game not only received an R18+ rating but was also censored. Now this can be argued that it was because of the anal probe but that WAS featured in the TV shows and yet was not censored and only received an MA15 rating.
2.)
News outlets automatically blame video games. For example, in the 2011 Norway shootings. Anders Behring Breivik makes 1 reference to using the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to supposedly 'Train' yet this game does not feature realistic bullet physics, recoil and actual life feelings (and no other video game does), it does not teach him how to reload a gun or produce explosives. Yet this game gets the blame, where we can CLEARLY see this man was physcologically deranged and would have performed these actions WITHOUT the game. Yet he makes 1,000's of refernces to the Bible and nobody is even willing to blink an eye to that.
The NRA are using violence in video games to distract societies attentions to what is actually helping crime. Is a video game really more dangerous than a gun? I believe personally the dangerous levels go as follows:
The persons physiological state>>>>>>& amp; gt;>>>>>>> ; >>>>>>gun> ; >video games.
The media also do this to STOP people from playing video games and rather watch the news or films (because usually news crews are owned by larger company's which have other forms of media.) This is because video games are taking away much of their storm. Whenever a mass shooting or crime happens somewhere in the world there will be a similar one just days after the media expose it because media is creating anti-heroes which people want to be (they describe the persons clothing, interests, how many people they killed,etc,etc.) Yet notice how the media never talks about this. If you were watching the news everyone would be all chilled but as soon as you pick up a controller your automatically a psycho killer.
3.)
People use logic as little as possible. This is a common expression used by anti-gamers "A kid sees a man kill another man in a brutal fashion this is bound not to be good!" but let me ask you this is that person just an animal that will copy anything that they see? No! They have morals and sophisticated minds. Sure the game might inspire a person who is already psychologically unstable but that person (as we know) was already a ticking time bomb bound to explode.
Thanks for reading! This idea to write a blog came to my head after hearing about the 20 kids mass stabbed in the US and I'm suspecting they blame that on video games to. Write your opinions below I would love to read them.
I remember doing a report on the Columbine shootings and the fact that the video game Doom was largely to blame for the carnage. I wrote how the boys had little to no parental supervision, were social outcasts and had access to guns and even bombs long before they ever shot up the school. These boys were mentally screwed, they were essentially crazy. And no one reached out to them. They could not distinguish fantasy from reality. Video games had nothing to do with it. society did.
"For example, in the 2011 Norway shootings. Anders Behring Breivik makes 1 reference to using the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to supposedly 'Train' yet this game does not feature realistic bullet physics, recoil and actual life feelings (and no other video game does), it does not teach him how to reload a gun or produce explosives."
I don't think you've examined the context in which he credited MW2 as being part of his so-called "training."
I honesty question the physiological state of some of some of the fanboys who pm me noob..