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GTA IV - Gamers who play it are degenerates!
GreyDancer
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
You don't know me, right? But this morning I was checking over the news before I went to work, and spotted this article about GTA4 - http://www.startribune.com/local/18538584.html - in which the author states things like;
"GTA IV opens with an S&M sex scene."
"Is it supposed to be comforting that millions of grown men get their "entertainment" from pretending to blow away cops and hook up with prostitutes?"
"Games like GTA IV stimulate and glamorize our dark impulses. They create a taste for the psychological thrill that can come from dominating and degrading others."
"The average 32-year-old man who plays violent video games -- and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers -- is likely to be someone's husband and father. What qualities of character will his wife find when she looks to him for love, steadiness and fidelity?"
So... me being the opinionated stubborn loud-mouth that I am, I couldn't let this lie. I wrote her the following email. I'm sharing it because whilst I have read many anti-GTA articles, I don't think I have ever read one that actually states outright that the average person who plays it is one step away committing murder IRL.
I apologise if I posted in the wrong forum, please feel free to move or make me cry with your hate-filled flaming
Dear Ms Kersten
I am writing to you in respect to your recent piece on GTA4, and I'm hoping to correct some obvious errors.
I'm very curious as to where you obtained your impression of the game as it's very clear you didn't get it from actually playing the game, or even watching the beginning of it, as it certainly does NOT start with an S&M sex scene (there is some S&M, but it's certainly not sex) I am also very clear that you don't know any gamers from the assumptions you make about the average gamers character. On behalf of us all, shame on you.
From this article it is blatantly clear that you are committing the journalistic sin of jumping onto a bandwagon without any thought or research. I am astonished that you as a professional allow yourself to release articles of this sort of poor research quality. I personally am very proud of every thing I write, and very aware that the people who read my pieces believe the points I present. Therefore simply for my own personal integrity's sake, I ensure I do thorough first-hand research into issues before writing about them, so that I not only educate people correctly, but also so that I don't receive correspondence like this email I'm sending you. Considering you're sneering at the character of players of GTA4, perhaps you should examine your own if you can release articles like this in good conscience. When you're in the public eye as you are, you have a moral responsibility about what you present as "truth", and you, if this article is anything to judge you by, are failing. (See? Making assumptions without research isn't nice is it?)
Firstly, I'd like to address your ignorant misconceptions about the game, and perhaps educate you on some of the simply amazing content it has. Yes it is a game that involves violence, but is that it? No.
Basically, Rockstar has created a living, breathing fantasy city. Think about that for a moment… a living city. As a player, you can do anything you want… but not without consequences.
The aim of the game is NOT to shoot cops and pick up hookers, in fact, the penalty for even slightly bumping a police car accidentally whilst you drive around is unpleasant. Can you shoot policemen? Yes. Is that something you want to do? Absolutely NOT! The penalties are very severe… just like in real life. As for picking up hookers, whilst it is possible it's not a main feature of the game by any means (they're very hard to find and often won't get in your car if they don't like it) once you do find one and get them into your car, the results are certainly not "graphic sex", you merely see a distance view through the back of a dimly lit car window. And that's as much like graphic sex as jumping up and down on the bed is like hardcore pornography.
Yes, you can behave violently toward ordinary citizens, but just like in real life, it's not something you do with no consequence. Not only will the police be alerted, but the people around you won't react well either. The general game-play itself does not center on violent criminal activities at all. You can even go and work for the police if you want to, or you can just steal a police car and do vigilante work and take down the bad guys that way. You can even have a legitimate job as a cab driver, or various other normal jobs. Most of the criminal activities you get up to actually involve taking down drug dealers, even cleaning up the streets of gang members.
You can take women out on dates to various interactive locations, and afterwards you can try your "luck" – but the resulting alleged sexual encounter is far from graphic, the camera simply pans past the building and you hear "sounds" which quite frankly are about as graphic as watching Oprah (unless you count a woman shouting "Say interesting things! You're special!" as graphic) You can buy clothes, go shopping, visit comedy clubs and cabarets, go bowling, and play darts, shoot pool, have dinner with your friends. In fact, it actually pays to foster friendships with other characters by spending casual time with them doing these fun recreational activities, as the more they like you, the more they will support you through the main storyline. There are many other perfectly legitimate normal things that I could continue writing about for pages, these aren't little parts of the game; they are the heart of it.
The game world itself is extraordinary, the production values and creativity that has gone into creating everything is astounding, easily surpassing most big budget movies. This city has fully functional & dynamic radio shows, TV shows, billboard and poster advertising, custom websites you can access through the "Internet" cafes. They lampoon and satirize modern pop culture both viciously and subtly, from showing how media outlets like MTV make you feel inadequate because you're not a size -0 or bad about your life because you don't have gold on everything. Celebrity culture is torn apart on shows like "I'm RICH!" and the radio talk shows that have self-aggrandized ego's spouting about how virtuous and down-to-earth they are because of all the millions they make, they give a few $'s to charity in-between buying themselves new cars. There's cartoons that pillory republicans and mock history shows that talk about the founding of the USA.
There's even a real-time election campaign going on which parodies the whole Clinton/Obama hair pulling circus very skillfully. On the "Internet" you can find websites that lampoon everything from Myspace to LiveJournal, newspapers talk about a possible serial killer on the loose, and with some digging around you can actually find some suspicious blogs that seem to indicate the killer is online and posting his thoughts. You can visit corporate websites and find out what working at BurgerShot is like, and even get spam email.
I haven't even got to the main storyline yet. Can you see now the wealth of content that this game really is? Or are you still stuck on cop-killing and hookers?
The main character you play, Niko Bellic, is a man who in his own words is "damaged by war". He was an angry young man with dreams and integrity, he joined the army under the banner of idealism and ended up doing terrible things. Broken by what he had been capable of doing during the war, he drifted afterwards through Europe till his optimistic cousin Roman invites him to come to America and find the Dream. What he gets is a country full of empty promise, and soon finds himself getting pushed into situations and choices that he had hoped to escape. You get to watch this likable, intelligent, laconic man descend from hope into bitterness and anger. Whilst this happens, his eloquent commentary on his own life and actions make you the player feel responsible for his anger and hurt, which in turn causes you to examine your own character.
Every single character you meet is rich and full of substance, the script-writing and voice acting are simply Oscar worthy. The story line is gripping, full of unexpected edge-of-your-seat action, laugh-out-loud humor and heart wrenching sadness. The plot is extraordinarily deep in substance and full of insights into what it is to be human in a world where dreams are broken every day, but hope still persists. You often have full control over the outcome of certain scenarios... do you let someone live or die? Either way, you will be the one handling the consequences of your choice. At the end of the day, that's the underlying theme of the game, individual and societal responsibility for the consequences of our choices and behaviour. Which makes it all the more ironic that you complain that it creates a lack of integrity.
To dismiss it as simply a violent video game is to do it a terrible disservice. That would be like dismissing "Fight Club" as just a movie about angry men hitting each other.
All of that is just addressing the content of the game itself; however I feel there's some other issues in your article that need taking up as well.
You state that the game involves adult themes such as violance, criminal activities, sex and "filthy language" – all of this is true. However, as you yourself say, this game has a mature rating. None of the content in the game or it's theme is in any way hidden. It's plainly labeled M. Its M rating means that it should not be played by anyone under 17, it's a game for adults to play just as R rated movies are for adults to watch. What with all the hysteria surrounding GTA4 in the media anyone who has paid even passing attention to the news in the last couple of months will have been aware that it was for adults and not for children. The stores that sell it will ID check you to ensure you're an adult when you buy it. You're absolutely right that it shouldn't be in the hands of children, it's not created for children.
You then casually brush off parental responsibility as if it's just some nice idea that has no practicality, I should be astonished at this flagrant disregard of integrity and responsibility (especially from someone who dares to compare gamers who enjoy playing a game like this to the people in the 15th century who reveled in watching public executions!). But, as Niko Bellic puts it "Americans don't like to take responsibility for the things in their life. It's easy to blame it on everything but yourself eh?." If you as a parent are not capable of having interest in and responsibility for your children, and you are unable to be able to care about what they're into, understand it and have brought them up with the structure to be able to impose boundaries (such as not playing M rated games or watching R rated movies), then a child getting hold of this game inappropriately is entirely the parents fault. You should be doing all of these things anyway and not need this one example to suddenly inspire you to be vigilant and involved in your child's world.
That's not all. You go on to suggest that adults who play games like GTA4 are, when not playing these games, spending their free time "fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers" and furthermore that these adults are in someway compromising the very moral and ethical qualities of their character. I had to read the last couple of paragraphs of your article a few times to ensure I really understood the shockingly ignorant and offensive commentary you were making. Are you seriously saying that the average adult, who plays and enjoys GTA4, is spending additional free time fantasizing about murder????? If they are, they are certainly not the AVERAGE adult, but very sick individuals who gather fuel for their mental degeneration from other sources, not just one game.
How on earth can you in all seriousness suggest that the average RIGHT-MINDED adult (not the mentally ill people you seem to be talking about) who plays GTA4 is lacking the qualities that make a good husband or father? What about people who read murder-mystery & thriller novels? Or who watch R rated movies? Are they these morally questionable creatures who are bringing down America's social integrity? If so then I am sure you are just as guilty, unless you can with honesty say you have never watched a Bruce Willis movie.
People who glorify violence and depravity will do so in ANY medium, GTA4 is not going to create it or increase it. That's like saying that watching a cooking show that explains how to fillet a fish is going to make it more likely that the average adult who watches it will take those instructions and try it out on a family member. Which is of course still a risk when you're talking about the really mentally ill people who would be encouraged to do that anyway. There was a Jeffrey Dahmer long before there was ever a GTA.
Finally, I would like to introduce myself. I am a gamer who plays GTA4, I'm your average 32 year old… and I'm a woman. I'm white, middle-class, an office professional, and an ex-Montessori teacher.
My husband and I both play GTA4, and we have plenty of love, steadiness and complete fidelity between us in our long relationship. All our married friends play & enjoy GTA4, including all the women. We even network and multiplay it together. Those with children are very clear that the kids are in bed when they play and it's not left within reach of them, funnily enough just like the R rated movies they own/rent.
Although you might want to brush me off as some rarity, I AM your average gamer. 45% of adult gamers are in fact women. And we enjoy playing games like GTA4, we enjoy playing them with our partners and our friends. Doing so does not make us like the people in the 15th century who would enjoy public executions; in fact you will find we're educated and intelligent. More so in most cases than non-gamers as we have a deep appreciation of art, literature and technology. And because of our world-wide networks of online gaming, we're often much more in touch with grass-roots world events and issues, as we don't just play games, we communicate with each other. The gaming community is also an extraordinarily compassionate and civic minded one, I urge you to look at the gamer charity Childs Play as an example of this, it raises over a million dollars every year to buy toys for sick children in hospitals around the world. http://www.childsplaycharity.org/press.php
In closing, I hope this email has gone some way to curing your misconceptions not only of GTA4 which is, after all, only a game. But also of the people who play games like it. We are not basement dwelling thugs acting out vivid fantasies of violence and degradation until finally we take it out on the real world, we are your friends, your neighbors and your family. Instead of talking about us like we're some kind of degenerate group bringing society down, you should start seeing us as equals, because we are.
Yours Truly.
"GTA IV opens with an S&M sex scene."
"Is it supposed to be comforting that millions of grown men get their "entertainment" from pretending to blow away cops and hook up with prostitutes?"
"Games like GTA IV stimulate and glamorize our dark impulses. They create a taste for the psychological thrill that can come from dominating and degrading others."
"The average 32-year-old man who plays violent video games -- and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers -- is likely to be someone's husband and father. What qualities of character will his wife find when she looks to him for love, steadiness and fidelity?"
So... me being the opinionated stubborn loud-mouth that I am, I couldn't let this lie. I wrote her the following email. I'm sharing it because whilst I have read many anti-GTA articles, I don't think I have ever read one that actually states outright that the average person who plays it is one step away committing murder IRL.
I apologise if I posted in the wrong forum, please feel free to move or make me cry with your hate-filled flaming
Dear Ms Kersten
I am writing to you in respect to your recent piece on GTA4, and I'm hoping to correct some obvious errors.
I'm very curious as to where you obtained your impression of the game as it's very clear you didn't get it from actually playing the game, or even watching the beginning of it, as it certainly does NOT start with an S&M sex scene (there is some S&M, but it's certainly not sex) I am also very clear that you don't know any gamers from the assumptions you make about the average gamers character. On behalf of us all, shame on you.
From this article it is blatantly clear that you are committing the journalistic sin of jumping onto a bandwagon without any thought or research. I am astonished that you as a professional allow yourself to release articles of this sort of poor research quality. I personally am very proud of every thing I write, and very aware that the people who read my pieces believe the points I present. Therefore simply for my own personal integrity's sake, I ensure I do thorough first-hand research into issues before writing about them, so that I not only educate people correctly, but also so that I don't receive correspondence like this email I'm sending you. Considering you're sneering at the character of players of GTA4, perhaps you should examine your own if you can release articles like this in good conscience. When you're in the public eye as you are, you have a moral responsibility about what you present as "truth", and you, if this article is anything to judge you by, are failing. (See? Making assumptions without research isn't nice is it?)
Firstly, I'd like to address your ignorant misconceptions about the game, and perhaps educate you on some of the simply amazing content it has. Yes it is a game that involves violence, but is that it? No.
Basically, Rockstar has created a living, breathing fantasy city. Think about that for a moment… a living city. As a player, you can do anything you want… but not without consequences.
The aim of the game is NOT to shoot cops and pick up hookers, in fact, the penalty for even slightly bumping a police car accidentally whilst you drive around is unpleasant. Can you shoot policemen? Yes. Is that something you want to do? Absolutely NOT! The penalties are very severe… just like in real life. As for picking up hookers, whilst it is possible it's not a main feature of the game by any means (they're very hard to find and often won't get in your car if they don't like it) once you do find one and get them into your car, the results are certainly not "graphic sex", you merely see a distance view through the back of a dimly lit car window. And that's as much like graphic sex as jumping up and down on the bed is like hardcore pornography.
Yes, you can behave violently toward ordinary citizens, but just like in real life, it's not something you do with no consequence. Not only will the police be alerted, but the people around you won't react well either. The general game-play itself does not center on violent criminal activities at all. You can even go and work for the police if you want to, or you can just steal a police car and do vigilante work and take down the bad guys that way. You can even have a legitimate job as a cab driver, or various other normal jobs. Most of the criminal activities you get up to actually involve taking down drug dealers, even cleaning up the streets of gang members.
You can take women out on dates to various interactive locations, and afterwards you can try your "luck" – but the resulting alleged sexual encounter is far from graphic, the camera simply pans past the building and you hear "sounds" which quite frankly are about as graphic as watching Oprah (unless you count a woman shouting "Say interesting things! You're special!" as graphic) You can buy clothes, go shopping, visit comedy clubs and cabarets, go bowling, and play darts, shoot pool, have dinner with your friends. In fact, it actually pays to foster friendships with other characters by spending casual time with them doing these fun recreational activities, as the more they like you, the more they will support you through the main storyline. There are many other perfectly legitimate normal things that I could continue writing about for pages, these aren't little parts of the game; they are the heart of it.
The game world itself is extraordinary, the production values and creativity that has gone into creating everything is astounding, easily surpassing most big budget movies. This city has fully functional & dynamic radio shows, TV shows, billboard and poster advertising, custom websites you can access through the "Internet" cafes. They lampoon and satirize modern pop culture both viciously and subtly, from showing how media outlets like MTV make you feel inadequate because you're not a size -0 or bad about your life because you don't have gold on everything. Celebrity culture is torn apart on shows like "I'm RICH!" and the radio talk shows that have self-aggrandized ego's spouting about how virtuous and down-to-earth they are because of all the millions they make, they give a few $'s to charity in-between buying themselves new cars. There's cartoons that pillory republicans and mock history shows that talk about the founding of the USA.
There's even a real-time election campaign going on which parodies the whole Clinton/Obama hair pulling circus very skillfully. On the "Internet" you can find websites that lampoon everything from Myspace to LiveJournal, newspapers talk about a possible serial killer on the loose, and with some digging around you can actually find some suspicious blogs that seem to indicate the killer is online and posting his thoughts. You can visit corporate websites and find out what working at BurgerShot is like, and even get spam email.
I haven't even got to the main storyline yet. Can you see now the wealth of content that this game really is? Or are you still stuck on cop-killing and hookers?
The main character you play, Niko Bellic, is a man who in his own words is "damaged by war". He was an angry young man with dreams and integrity, he joined the army under the banner of idealism and ended up doing terrible things. Broken by what he had been capable of doing during the war, he drifted afterwards through Europe till his optimistic cousin Roman invites him to come to America and find the Dream. What he gets is a country full of empty promise, and soon finds himself getting pushed into situations and choices that he had hoped to escape. You get to watch this likable, intelligent, laconic man descend from hope into bitterness and anger. Whilst this happens, his eloquent commentary on his own life and actions make you the player feel responsible for his anger and hurt, which in turn causes you to examine your own character.
Every single character you meet is rich and full of substance, the script-writing and voice acting are simply Oscar worthy. The story line is gripping, full of unexpected edge-of-your-seat action, laugh-out-loud humor and heart wrenching sadness. The plot is extraordinarily deep in substance and full of insights into what it is to be human in a world where dreams are broken every day, but hope still persists. You often have full control over the outcome of certain scenarios... do you let someone live or die? Either way, you will be the one handling the consequences of your choice. At the end of the day, that's the underlying theme of the game, individual and societal responsibility for the consequences of our choices and behaviour. Which makes it all the more ironic that you complain that it creates a lack of integrity.
To dismiss it as simply a violent video game is to do it a terrible disservice. That would be like dismissing "Fight Club" as just a movie about angry men hitting each other.
All of that is just addressing the content of the game itself; however I feel there's some other issues in your article that need taking up as well.
You state that the game involves adult themes such as violance, criminal activities, sex and "filthy language" – all of this is true. However, as you yourself say, this game has a mature rating. None of the content in the game or it's theme is in any way hidden. It's plainly labeled M. Its M rating means that it should not be played by anyone under 17, it's a game for adults to play just as R rated movies are for adults to watch. What with all the hysteria surrounding GTA4 in the media anyone who has paid even passing attention to the news in the last couple of months will have been aware that it was for adults and not for children. The stores that sell it will ID check you to ensure you're an adult when you buy it. You're absolutely right that it shouldn't be in the hands of children, it's not created for children.
You then casually brush off parental responsibility as if it's just some nice idea that has no practicality, I should be astonished at this flagrant disregard of integrity and responsibility (especially from someone who dares to compare gamers who enjoy playing a game like this to the people in the 15th century who reveled in watching public executions!). But, as Niko Bellic puts it "Americans don't like to take responsibility for the things in their life. It's easy to blame it on everything but yourself eh?." If you as a parent are not capable of having interest in and responsibility for your children, and you are unable to be able to care about what they're into, understand it and have brought them up with the structure to be able to impose boundaries (such as not playing M rated games or watching R rated movies), then a child getting hold of this game inappropriately is entirely the parents fault. You should be doing all of these things anyway and not need this one example to suddenly inspire you to be vigilant and involved in your child's world.
That's not all. You go on to suggest that adults who play games like GTA4 are, when not playing these games, spending their free time "fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers" and furthermore that these adults are in someway compromising the very moral and ethical qualities of their character. I had to read the last couple of paragraphs of your article a few times to ensure I really understood the shockingly ignorant and offensive commentary you were making. Are you seriously saying that the average adult, who plays and enjoys GTA4, is spending additional free time fantasizing about murder????? If they are, they are certainly not the AVERAGE adult, but very sick individuals who gather fuel for their mental degeneration from other sources, not just one game.
How on earth can you in all seriousness suggest that the average RIGHT-MINDED adult (not the mentally ill people you seem to be talking about) who plays GTA4 is lacking the qualities that make a good husband or father? What about people who read murder-mystery & thriller novels? Or who watch R rated movies? Are they these morally questionable creatures who are bringing down America's social integrity? If so then I am sure you are just as guilty, unless you can with honesty say you have never watched a Bruce Willis movie.
People who glorify violence and depravity will do so in ANY medium, GTA4 is not going to create it or increase it. That's like saying that watching a cooking show that explains how to fillet a fish is going to make it more likely that the average adult who watches it will take those instructions and try it out on a family member. Which is of course still a risk when you're talking about the really mentally ill people who would be encouraged to do that anyway. There was a Jeffrey Dahmer long before there was ever a GTA.
Finally, I would like to introduce myself. I am a gamer who plays GTA4, I'm your average 32 year old… and I'm a woman. I'm white, middle-class, an office professional, and an ex-Montessori teacher.
My husband and I both play GTA4, and we have plenty of love, steadiness and complete fidelity between us in our long relationship. All our married friends play & enjoy GTA4, including all the women. We even network and multiplay it together. Those with children are very clear that the kids are in bed when they play and it's not left within reach of them, funnily enough just like the R rated movies they own/rent.
Although you might want to brush me off as some rarity, I AM your average gamer. 45% of adult gamers are in fact women. And we enjoy playing games like GTA4, we enjoy playing them with our partners and our friends. Doing so does not make us like the people in the 15th century who would enjoy public executions; in fact you will find we're educated and intelligent. More so in most cases than non-gamers as we have a deep appreciation of art, literature and technology. And because of our world-wide networks of online gaming, we're often much more in touch with grass-roots world events and issues, as we don't just play games, we communicate with each other. The gaming community is also an extraordinarily compassionate and civic minded one, I urge you to look at the gamer charity Childs Play as an example of this, it raises over a million dollars every year to buy toys for sick children in hospitals around the world. http://www.childsplaycharity.org/press.php
In closing, I hope this email has gone some way to curing your misconceptions not only of GTA4 which is, after all, only a game. But also of the people who play games like it. We are not basement dwelling thugs acting out vivid fantasies of violence and degradation until finally we take it out on the real world, we are your friends, your neighbors and your family. Instead of talking about us like we're some kind of degenerate group bringing society down, you should start seeing us as equals, because we are.
Yours Truly.
GreyDancer on
0
Posts
...if she were the kind of person to whom a reasoned argument would sway her views she wouldn't have written the article.
But still, there's nothing wrong with trying.
I swear to god, I read this exact quote except replace GTA IV with Gothic Novels. Almost the exact fucking same quote.
Sometimes I Stream Games: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/italax-plays-video-games
Besides, look at it this way, she is someone's wife.
:winky:
The poor sucker, he sure took a bullet for the rest of us.
It's a spoiler-laden [game on] thread.
Wooh, wooh, WOOH!
Stop right there, i'm an equal opportunities killer. I will equally kill both cops and hookers.
---
I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
Are you an equal opportunities hooker too? You'd go out with the cops, right?
Destiny Profile : http://www.bungie.net/en/Profile/254/7028016
Also, the hooker sex is kind of graphic. Go pick up a hooker in GTAIV and get the full service.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
I think the point is that you don't get bonus points for killing people, you get chased by the police. It has a negative impact to kill anyone because then you'll be shot or jailed. If you want to be technical, the manners in which the wanted level works aren't similar to real life, but the fact that wanted level exist is.
EDIT: Graphic? She doesn't even remove her clothes. I see more sex in PG-rated movies.
I'll just keep tabs on this one I guess.
The only solution is to hunt down and kill Rasputin.
This. At least the article wasn't written by JT though. He'd dismiss it outright. This woman might at least glance at it, feel a little bit guilty, and then start writing about how all GTAIV players are involved (or wish to be involved) in both the drug trade and the seal-clubbing trade.
However, I didn't neccesarily write my blahblahblah for GTA specifically. I really found it astonishing that she could imply that adults who play games with violence in them are THAT degenerate, to the point that their bad husbands and fathers (she doesn't mention women tho, probably since we don't play games *rolls eyes* If we did, we'd probably be crack whores or kitten kickers in her eyes).
To reply to a couple of other posters, yes I know it's probably a hiding to nothing writing to her. But hope springs eternal... I'm the kind of stubborn idiot who will try and kill the lvl 45 lich king when I'm only lvl 3. So stubborn indeed, that even if I'm only doing 1hp damage before I die, I'll keep returning for 9 hours till I've succeded, even if in the result I've lost so much experience I'm actually lvl -27.
Burn the witch.
Sometimes I Stream Games: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/italax-plays-video-games
Hey, you. Stop abandoning your Deus Ex thread.
On topic, it's a very well-written letter and I hope she at least reads it. Keep us posted if you get a response, please.
No problem, really. Every time a controversial game comes out there's a predictable outcry from all media, and then there's an even more predictable outcry about that outcry here on this forum.
My post above wasn't really directed at you, but at the people who think this thread is "doomed". The news media are often ignorant, and we want to badmouth them, so this kind of thread is going to show up. Anybody who doesn't like it doesn't have to post in it, but I'm not going to close or move it.
At least your response to this reporter was incredibly cogent. We could start this thread with much worse.
My wha-
Oh shit. Fuck where's my headset >_>
Sometimes I Stream Games: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/italax-plays-video-games
Its a stress relief. Its escapism. Despite claims that it has a "living breathing city", its not real life, and that's what makes it entertaining. Same as FPS and pretty much every other game out there.
I'd have to agree with this. Trying to proclaim that "there are consequences, just like real life!" really just puts you back into their argument, that the game is like real life, and so people who like doing it in the game must like doing it in real life, etc etc. No, it's not like real life. The consequences are not like real life, at all, and that's the point. Every 'day' in GTA IV I walk outside and shoot that stupid street preacher in the head with a shotgun. Would I ever even consider something even close to this in real life? Fuck no. None of us can do these things out in the real world, and that's why the game gets sales. It doesn't get sales, though, because we're all degenerates and want to shoot people with shotguns, either. It gets sales because walking up to someone with a shotgun and shooting them in the head is so far removed from reality that it's entertaining. It's unreal, and we all know it. I doubt any actual psycho would have that much fun with GTA, too, for this very reason. It wouldn't be removed from reality for them. If they wanted to they'd go grenade some innocent civilians, well then they would.
Hey DigDug, I totally agree with you on how YOU play the game, I generally play it on a totally different level however (not better, just different
And my dirty secret to confess is that some days... when everyone at work took the stupid bus in, I like to get home and just make cars explode on the highway if they cut me off. Like I said... it's those little things that make it great
EDIT: Although your response was a bit long winded, it was well written.
The politicians trying to create legislation restricting content in video games definitely care. As long as the misguided public perception about video games continues, legislators will use it to appear like they're doing something about one of the blights to society. The end result is that brainless politicians that are too scared to tackle a real issue get re-elected, while gamers are stuck with neutered content. Bad publicity that leads to censorship of the whole industry is definitely bad publicity, even if it does increase the sales of certain games in the short run.
Actually, the worst outcome out of what you said isn't the industry, but the brainless politicians being in government flailing around looking like they're doing something when they're doing shit all with a smile.
However, sending this to the writer is not quite the step I am looking for. What are the chances that she is going to send in your letter as her next column and make herself look like a tool? Drop paragraphs 6 and 7 and send the whole thing directly to the editorial board. Who knows, they might even run part of it.