Thursday 5 November 2009

Writing about games- this is a little different though... But Mike said it's ok =]

In the 2009 Game Developers Conference (GDC) there has been a huge debate on what should or shouldn’t be accepted in game production; at the moment the games industry have the upper hand from the critics in the “family values” right. They have been routing for the exclusion of violence, sex and drug abuse in games. "We are in a culture war here. We didn't ask for this--we're just trying to entertain people with a product the public seem to want." Lawrence Walters, an attorney from the free speech and constitutional-rights, has identified that “political correctness” is the new enemy of the games industry. “We can debate all day long whether racist stereotypes or derogatory language is even appropriate in video games, but that's for us to debate, and not for the government to decide". I think that this is true; it is like we are losing our freedom, we are being controlled into what we can and can’t watch, say or do, there was a time like that, but it has been and gone.

It seems to me that we can’t just do what we want to do anymore; we have to also say what others should be doing too. If an incident should occur, they use a scapegoat and guilt it on say, a violent game. It is like blaming a film or type of music on someone’s horrific actions. For example, the teenage pupil who opened fire in his high school, killing two and wounding twelve students. Blaming his actions on the music he listened to (Marilyn Manson) is shifting the responsibility onto the artist, as it is such an unheard act, there is no possible way the child could think of this himself, was it because of bullying? Certainly not.

Would we let the government ban movies with profanity, violence or sex? No, because it will be eliminating almost every movie available. This is the same within games, would the stereotypical gamer want to constantly play a happy little pixy game? No, we want a variety of which we can choose ourselves, because we want to and can.



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