Hiding in Plain Sight

So, a press release from Focus on the Family is touting some unintentionally-hilarious sounding contribution to the moral panic over video games, which I'll have to remember to make fun of in due course, but this line caught my eye:

Focus on the Family will soon be offering parents an in-depth look into the seldom-glimpsed underworld of violent video games.

Seldom glimpsed underworld? The video game industry has higher revenues than Hollywood. Last I checked, the games in the Grand Theft Auto series held the top sales records for the Playstation 2. What kind of "underground" is that? By whom is it "seldom glimpsed"? And do you really need Focus on the Family to tell you that a game named after a felony that sports screenshots of mayhem with automatic weapons on the box might be violent?

Comments

Jennifer | January 5, 2006, 11:29am | #

And do you really need Focus on the Family to tell you that a game named after a felony that sports screenshots of mayhem with automatic weapons on the box might be violent?

If you need Focus on the Family to tell you how to live or raise your kids, then yes. You do.

Phil | January 5, 2006, 11:38am | #

Nowadays the other characters talk to you, curse at you and, of course, often try to eliminate you. You can hear the sound of your own footsteps, or, worse yet, your enemies breathing.

"It won't be long before . . . I'll have to decide which games [my boys] can play, and how often. When that day comes, will I tell them that their father has done his fair share of killing?"

This is going to keep me laughing all day. Thanks, Julian!

"Oh noes! They talk to you!"

SR | January 5, 2006, 11:39am | #

Does anyone else find it ironic that an organization that promotes real life military service as virtuous and endorses the war on Iraq would feature the following angst-filled line in regards to video games: "When that day comes, will I tell them that their father has done his fair share of killing?"

gaijin | January 5, 2006, 11:42am | #

FoF is s self referencing system...because video games are a seldom glimpsed (under)world among the docents at FoF, they are, therefore, seldom glimpsed by the only people FoF thinks matter...

either that or it gave staffers there an 'excuse' to play some games they've been itching to try....all in the name of reporting on them ;-)

David | January 5, 2006, 11:45am | #

What kind of "underground" is that? By whom is it "seldom glimpsed"?

By the same people who believe that this is appropriate women's swimwear.

theOneState | January 5, 2006, 11:53am | #

No doubt "Seldom glimpsed" by the parents to whom FotF is offering their in-depth look.

No, I'm not shilling for VChip patent-holders, the evil bastards. And I never worked for Tipper Gore. I'm just saying FotF is correct that many parents are unaware of most of what goes on in the video games they buy their kids, Julian's point about cover art notwithstanding.

Guy Jim | January 5, 2006, 11:54am | #

"By the same people who believe that this is appropriate women's swimwear. "

Are these available with matching neon burkas?

James Dobson | January 5, 2006, 11:59am | #

Why can't today's youth just be happy with NES Roms of "Bible Adventures"? I find great satisfaction in getting 2 of each animal on Noah's Ark and so should you.

David | January 5, 2006, 12:08pm | #

The One State,

Don't you think there's a disconnect between parents who are actively interested in their kid's lives, and simultaneously unaware of the content on the media they give their kids?

linguist | January 5, 2006, 12:13pm | #

I'm just saying FotF is correct that many parents are unaware of most of what goes on in the video games they buy their kids,

Shouldn't an organization calling itself FOCUS on the FAMILY be angry with parents who DON'T pay attention to what their kids play?

I'm surprised they think that enough of their constituency is the lacksadaisical, spoiling type of parent who is clueless as to what their children do. Heh. Apparently FoF isn't doing so well even among their own.

Eddy | January 5, 2006, 12:21pm | #

Is there a game called "Buy a Clue"? I'm starting to feel there should be.

Warren | January 5, 2006, 12:27pm | #

Son: Dad? Did you ever behead zombies.

Faterh: Uhhh wellll... Yeah I did, and it was a dumb thing to do.
But no one ever talked to me about it...

[voice over]Remember, there's no wrong way to talk to your kids about zombies

pigwiggle | January 5, 2006, 12:30pm | #

I guess you can't trust Sony et al. to raise the kids. Well, it's a bitch, but back to being involved with your kid's activities. Sheesh.

theOneState | January 5, 2006, 12:35pm | #

David, linguist, etc., I don't mean to let parents off the hook. I bet most parents are somewhat careful, esp after so much publicity and the ratings system etc., but how many parents actually watch their kids play video games for any length of time? Many put the games in the basement or a t.v. room so they don't have to hear it.

These aren't just "bad" parents who are uninvolved in their children's lives. Let's say you buy your kid a football game that the young clerk at KB Toys says is the latest rage. It has a "V" for violence, but it's football, so hey. You wouldn't know it contains coke snorting and whore-slapping and bar fights unless you watched your kid play enough of it.

I think of it this way: if James Dobson doesn't do it, the government will.

methodman | January 5, 2006, 12:37pm | #

How long do we have to wait before someone creates a mod with Jim Dobson, Hillary Clinton, et al as GTA characters? The possibilities are endless...."disrupted" congressional hearings...or you could actually be Jim Dobson and whack people with Bibles...maybe take homosexuals and women who cook while menstruating out and stone them like the bible says you're supposed to...I'd buy a playstation for that.

methodman | January 5, 2006, 12:39pm | #

That sounded bad. I don't particularly have any desire to stone homosexuals, animatedly or otherwise.

joe | January 5, 2006, 12:47pm | #

Warren, you never forget the people you hurt while you were a zombie.

Jeff P. | January 5, 2006, 12:49pm | #

I await the day when organized crime complains about the way they are portrayed in videogames.

How 'bout a game called Calvary Centurian, where you're a roman during the occupation of Israel and you get to beat and spear prisoners en route to crucifiction.
We'll call it a "first person stabber."

Jennifer | January 5, 2006, 12:50pm | #

I bet most parents are somewhat careful, esp after so much publicity and the ratings system etc., but how many parents actually watch their kids play video games for any length of time? Many put the games in the basement or a t.v. room so they don't have to hear it.

If your kids are watching TV or playing games in the basement so you don't have to hear it, then you're not being careful about what they are watching or playing.

David | January 5, 2006, 12:51pm | #

I think of it this way: if James Dobson doesn't do it, the government will.

Ah, but there's the rub. Dobson does it to whip up support to have the government do it. Apparently, there is nothing that should be intended for adults, becuase kids might use it.

Native NYer | January 5, 2006, 1:00pm | #

Methodman, I think tht's actually a good idea. A game which imposes bible (and koran/book of mormon/etc) laws by an avenging god!!

It would sell in some parts of the US and world as a sick ironic novelty, and in other parts as living out the fantasies of your faith!

Maybe if you can kill heretics virtually you wouldn't need to do it in the real world anymore?

Douglas Fletcher | January 5, 2006, 1:02pm | #

seldom glimpsed underworld

You ever try to get a kid to explain what the hell is going on in that video game they're playing right in front of you? I have, once in a while with my nephews or niece, and I'd say the reaction I get is at best benign contempt for my amazing ignorance.

I couldn't give a rat's ass about most of what worries James Dobson & his gang, but I suppose I can understand the alarm in people who are intent on programming their kids to be good little religious bots seeing someone else interrupting that process with something like modern video games, which are a chore at best to keep track of.

Yogi | January 5, 2006, 1:07pm | #

I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

Gary | January 5, 2006, 1:09pm | #

Shouldn't an organization calling itself FOCUS on the FAMILY be angry with parents who DON'T pay attention to what their kids play?

That's way too difficult when you could just inject baseless opinions and alleged "facts" into the overall discourse. One wouldn't want to bite the hand that feeds it, right? So, why not make everyone else look like the bad guy, instead?

As a videogamer since the age of three (go, Pong!) this PR disappoints me greatly. My in-laws are pretty hardcore Christian, but at least they check out the games their kids play before allowing them on the PS2.

thoreau | January 5, 2006, 1:11pm | #

Like some others said, I'm actually kind of surprised that we don't have "first person smiter" games, where you get to smite the wicked. The Christian version would probably do pretty well in the US. The Muslim version would probably be banned in the US.

And surely somebody must be working on a video game based on the "Left Behind" novels. You can be a resistance member, fighting the global government of the Antichrist. There can be a Christian rock sound track. And your mission is to rescue a modestly dressed Christian woman being held prisoner. If you do really well on your mission, you might get to hold hands with her.

Seriously, has nobody made such a game?

Gary | January 5, 2006, 1:13pm | #

If your kids are watching TV or playing games in the basement so you don't have to hear it, then you're not being careful about what they are watching or playing.

Not if you've previewed the game first. ;) Parental controls over the cable on said TV and taking part in the selection process for buying games (by reading the rating, perhaps a review or two, and watching/playing the game for 5-10 minutes) would take care of everything.

The parental controls on the new upcoming generation of consoles should theoretically end all the hoohah over this, except, like television programming and the V-chip, I somehow doubt they'll use it and instead continue calls for government intervention against the industry.

zeiner | January 5, 2006, 1:16pm | #

I have no problem with FotF educated parents about video games. I am worried that FotF is going to try to push legislation that would regulate the video game industry. I’m also worried that FotF is going to use these parents to sway congressmen to vote for regulation of the video game industry.

dhex | January 5, 2006, 1:20pm | #

thoreau: there's a "left behind" game that's like a real-time strategy/rpg joint.

http://news.gaminghorizon.com/media2/1122928560.1800.html

theOneState | January 5, 2006, 1:21pm | #

David, that's a very good point. He's a letter-writing campaign type, isn't he?

Timothy | January 5, 2006, 1:24pm | #

It won't be long before . . . I'll have to decide which games [my boys] can play, and how often.

Back in the 80s & 90s when I was a kid, we called this "parenting".

James Feldman | January 5, 2006, 1:25pm | #

thoreau - the popular "Black & White" game series allows you to be the God of a particular people - and gives you the power of being an angry, smiting God. I do know that a British-based company marketing games to the Arab world has made video games where you can throw rocks and grenades at Israeli soldiers. I'm unaware of any "Left Behind" type games availible in the US.

Pro Libertate | January 5, 2006, 1:27pm | #

Say, I used the Force to influence two bad guys to jump into a chasm in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II (playing a Dark Side character, obviously). Should I be concerned about how this might affect my future behavior? Oh, God, I feel the urge to use the Force to manipulate my weak-minded co-workers! Egad.

Jennifer | January 5, 2006, 1:37pm | #

I saw a headline on Fark a few days ago about a Christian video game that lets you smite the wicked, but I didn't bother reading the article.

Karen Cox | January 5, 2006, 1:41pm | #

David, the swimwear picture was hilarious. My husband thinks my Land's End tankini is too old-ladyish. What would he think of those things?

I have a small issue with this, though. Being a woman with a job, I think FoF is made up of a bunch of lunatics and this particular one is just absurd. I have the tiniest kernal of sympathy, however, for the broader point that modern culture is no friend to childhood. The cult of "cool" celebrates the worst sorts of trash and derides most everything that makes civilization possible. "Grand Theft Auto" is a perfect example. Is there any remotely redeeming quality is this dreck? Why would any self-respecting company market a product that encourages its users to be thugs? I know there will be argument against the proposition that this piece of dung "encourages" thuggishness. Anything that puts the user in the position of being a thug and makes winning the game contingent on behaving thuggishly encourages that kind of behavior. Yuck.

Having vented a bit on this, let me state that the problem with the FoF approach, and that of government content regulation in general, is that it almost always backfires. (Well, besides that "prior restraint" problem with the Constitution. I'm trying to be pragmatic.) If FoF says it's bad, then it must be really cool and fun. The better approach is the one we've taken as a society toward the Klan: it's perfectly legal to be a member, but anyone with a brain will assume its members are dimwits with very few teeth and bad personal hygiene. The argument here would be stronger if there are a more concerted effort to state that while it shouldn't be illegal, this stuff is horrible and anyone who plays it is presumed to be a violent moron.

Jennifer | January 5, 2006, 1:45pm | #

I have the tiniest kernal of sympathy, however, for the broader point that modern culture is no friend to childhood. The cult of "cool" celebrates the worst sorts of trash and derides most everything that makes civilization possible.

Yet in the 1950s, the supposed Golden Age of Childhood and the American Family, "modern culture" consisted of Sinatra and the Rat Pack gambling in Vegas while waxing poetic about booze and broads, Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe were not exactly promoting chastity, and saying "I'd kill my daughter before I'd let her marry a nigger" was considered perfectly respectable.

When has there EVER been a time when everything marketed to adults was also appropriate for children?

Mr. Nice Guy | January 5, 2006, 1:48pm | #

Rockstar Games, the scourge of the innocents who came up with the "Grand Theft" series just released a video game adaptation of the immortal movie "The Warriors". Basically, you play different characters of a street gang in the filthy streets of 1970's New York City.

I just played one scenario where you are stuck in the middle of a blackout riot, with no police in sight. Your objective is to smash and grab storefronts, fight fellow rioters, destroy property, and mug X amount of people. Oh yeah, you use the money you steal to buy spraypaint (for tagging) and heroine to snort (this somehow heals your wounds).

Not since Grant Theft Auto has the First Amendment been this fun. I consider the money I spend on these games as a political contribution.

bigbigslacker | January 5, 2006, 1:49pm | #

Two weeks ago I bought GTA San Andreas and the Battlefield 2 expansion pack at the same time. I was doing the self-checkout thing and the evil wal-mart clerk had to come over to verify I was over 17 in order to buy the Grand Theft Auto. There was no problem with the Battlefield 2 game - anyone can buy that one. Blowing people up with tanks, rocket launchers, machine guns, grenades, etc is wholesome, but shoooting cops, drug dealers, and other A-holes is bad.

(Sorry, I have a temporary hatred for fat, balding, dickless cops like the one that gave me a speeding ticket on Christmas Eve. Er, Holiday Eve)

Mr. Nice Guy | January 5, 2006, 2:07pm | #

"this stuff is horrible and anyone who plays it is presumed to be a violent moron."

I've got news for you. Men, save the Alan Aldas of the world, are basically aggressive creatures. That's just the way we're built. Some of us channel that aggression by watching and/or playing sports. Others, like me, channel it by playing stupid video games. It's just harmless fun for us.

On the same token, I can't understand why people would waste their time watching "chick flicks". They're poorly written, they're manipulative, highly predictable, mawkish, and a total waste of time. Ergo, I presume those who watch chick flicks are morons.

wingnutx | January 5, 2006, 2:25pm | #

But we're not talking about Super Mario anymore... Nowadays the other characters talk to you, curse at you and, of course, often try to eliminate you.


IIRC, characters in Super Mario Brothers tried to eliminate you constantly. They also talked to you via speech bubbles at various points.

No cursing, but then again Nintendo is teh gay.

MP | January 5, 2006, 2:31pm | #

Like some others said, I'm actually kind of surprised that we don't have "first person smiter" games, where you get to smite the wicked.

Shout out for Populous! Back in the day, I used to play it on my roommate's Amiga. Now there was some serious smiting.

wingnutx | January 5, 2006, 2:32pm | #

How long do we have to wait before someone creates a mod with Jim Dobson, Hillary Clinton, et al as GTA characters?

Already done :)

http://www.livejournal.com/users/gamepolitics/107741.html?thread=3117533

JD | January 5, 2006, 2:43pm | #

Karen Cox - I agree somewhat with your point about modern culture not necessarily being friendly to childhood, but I think you're partly falling into the same trap that FoF is. Games like GTA aren't for children. They're rated M, and I believe the average age of GTA players is surprisingly high (well, depending on who you are). There's still plenty of child-friendly culture out there if you look for it.

Oh, and if GTA "encourages" thuggishness, I think it does only in the same sense that Risk encourages being a megalomaniacal warlord: in the game.

wingnutx | January 5, 2006, 3:11pm | #

I believe the average age of GTA players is surprisingly high

So is the average player.

David | January 5, 2006, 3:18pm | #

I think you're partly falling into the same trap that FoF is. Games like GTA aren't for children.

Valid point, JD. But for Focus on the Family, I don't think it's a trap. They don't think adults should be allowed access to material they find objectionable, but know they'd have limited success with that argument. So the shift the focus to the corruption of our youth, which is difficult to challenge.

If there is a trap they fall into, it would be "The world would be just like Davey & Goliath if we could just get rid off X."

Shawn Smith | January 5, 2006, 3:27pm | #

I know someone who plays The Sims, and does fun things like puts sims in the pool without any ladders so they can't get out and drown, or have a husband cook something in the kitchen, get burned, die, and have the wife cry every time she enters that kitchen. So what, we now need to ban The Sims? Anyone can play any of the Civilization series with a Genghis-Khan style, and in some cases it's the only way to win.

These are not-too-realistic pictures on a TV (or maybe computer) screen. Are there any socially redeeming qualities in Roadrunner/Coyote cartoons? I don't think so, but I will watch them, and sometimes laugh myself hoarse. I would be sad if they were no longer available, along with The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead, and South Park.

Karen Cox | January 5, 2006, 3:27pm | #

Thanks for the comments. I am, quite seriously, impressed by how respectful everyone on this site always is.

Jennifer: you're right about the fact that even, and in many was especially, the 50's was a lousy time for childhood. I grew up in a small East Texas town in the 70's. Civil rights hadn't quite sunk it yet. Certainly many of the people I knew had lovely table manners while being in other ways quite despicable.

I also agree that humans in general have strong aggressive instincts. If you're alive, your ancestors had to beat off something big, hairy, and hungry at one point or another. I think, though, that there are better or worse ways to express that aggression. My problem with the video game people is that they seem to celebrate the absolute worst of the worst ways to express aggression. Sports at least has health benefits as a side effect.

I also agree strongly with the distinction between appropriate for kids and appropriate for adults. I have beer in the 'fridge, after all, and my small sons don't ever get close to it. I also think we don't make enough of this distinction as a society. This summer, Burger King gave away "Fantastic Four" toys with kids' meals tied to the PG-13 movie. Kids meals are only sold to people 12 and under. Also, as another post noted, the games rating system, like the one for movies, is extraordinarily subjective and flexibly enforced by marketers.

It is because of this flexible enforcement, and because other people are lousy parents who let their kids play those horrible games, that creates the sympathy for prior restraint. Unless those questions are addressed, and unless lots of people are willing to use social pressure to make people feel bad for allowing kids access to the bad stuff, there will be many receptive ears for FoF's arguments. The danger is that once someone is attracted to their ideas because of their position on bad video games, that person is much more likely to listen to arguments for banning more useful and important things. Just because something is dreck is no reason to ban it, but there's no reason not to call it dreck, either.

Evan | January 5, 2006, 3:41pm | #

Unless those questions are addressed, and unless lots of people are willing to use social pressure to make people feel bad for allowing kids access to the bad stuff, there will be many receptive ears for FoF's arguments.

And those receptive ears are attached to empty skulls. As much bitching and whining as FoF might do, the simple, un-fucking-avoidable fact here is that, while video games have become more and more violent over the past 20 years, violent juvenile crime rates have fallen.

Social pressure or not, there's no excuse for being receptive to puritanistic fear mongors like FoF, when reality flies in the face of their claims.

jenl1625 | January 5, 2006, 3:47pm | #

"Why would any self-respecting company market a product that encourages its users to be thugs? I know there will be argument against the proposition that this piece of dung 'encourages' thuggishness."

Because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that this is what lots of consumers will pay big bucks for.

Jennifer | January 5, 2006, 3:54pm | #

Why would any self-respecting company market a product that encourages its users to be thugs?

When I was a little kid playing Cops and Robbers, everybody thought being the Robber was more fun that being the Cop. A couple of years later, we all fought over who got to be Darth Vader when we played Star Wars. It is not at all unusual for people who are generally good to find that being the bad guy is more fun, when you're playing a game.

Evan | January 5, 2006, 3:59pm | #

Why would any self-respecting company market a product that encourages its users to be thugs? I know there will be argument against the proposition that this piece of dung "encourages" thuggishness. Anything that puts the user in the position of being a thug and makes winning the game contingent on behaving thuggishly encourages that kind of behavior.

Karen,

Yes, there will be an argument against the proposition that video games "encourage" X. From me.

There are various games that have various goals. Some require you to do good things, others bad, in order to progress in the game. The only thing it "encourages" you to do, as JD said, is engage in said behavior inside the game. You give us humans too little credit. Even an 8-year-old knows the difference between virtual worlds where there are no real consequences, and the real world, where there are.

Yes, it "encourages" you to be a "thug", but only in the constructs of the virtual world. Since being a "thug" in most folks' real lives will yield no positive results (and more likely, negative results), there is no encouragement to engage in said behavior outside of the game.

When I steal a Harrier jet from the Aircraft Carrier, and use it to engage in a missile attack on downtown Los Santos, does that "encourage" me to go out in real life and do the same? Of course not.

Making winning the game contingent on X does not encourage X, except in the game itself. If you are unable to draw a distinction between virtual and real, then you shouldn't be playing video games. Even my little cousin knows the difference. He's been playing Pokemon on his gameboy for years, and he still has yet to change into some kind of japanese monster and go around fighting other monsters. Imagine that.

Standard deviant | January 5, 2006, 4:15pm | #

What I don't understand is there's been a pretty constant downward trend in crime for 15 years, which is almost a perfect inverse of the penetration of video games into people's homes in the past 15 years.

I haven't seen as good a correlation since the pirate/global warming one!

Jennifer | January 5, 2006, 4:29pm | #

What I don't understand is there's been a pretty constant downward trend in crime for 15 years, which is almost a perfect inverse of the penetration of video games into people's homes in the past 15 years.

Because of the obesity epidemic. Ever seen a fat mugger? I didn't think so.

Native NYer | January 5, 2006, 4:55pm | #

Maybe they're virtually mugging people?

Some say video games are a waste of time, but type in World of Warcraft into ebay and see how much people are willing to pay in real money for game money, or for a really good video game sword.

Some 13 year old kid is probably making 250 bucks off the 500 hours he's put into this game!

Jennifer | January 5, 2006, 5:14pm | #

Some say video games are a waste of time

Some say anything other that the direct production of food, shelter or clothing is a waste of time. God forbid we rise above the lower animals and do things purely for pleasure.

JD | January 5, 2006, 5:21pm | #

Some 13 year old kid is probably making 250 bucks off the 500 hours he's put into this game!

For 50 cents an hour?! To hell with the game content - ain't no child of mine gonna play no game for less than $1.25 an hour. Back to the Sim Salt Mines with you, boy! (Although now I have this image of a Southeast Asian sweatshop where workers have to sit there playing WoW all day until they've got that +40 Mace of Bashing that can be sold on Ebay...)

Jamie Kelly | January 5, 2006, 5:55pm | #

I just read, on a Christian Web site, a review of "Halo 2" for the Xbox, a game in which you incinerate and blow up all sorts of God-made creatures.

The reviewer gives it a thumbs-up, but warns:
"Your fellow Marines curse colorfully, but it is restricted to mostly d-words, a-words, and h-words. However, the Lord's name is taken in vain in many lines of dialogue."

D-words like dumbfuck and dickhead? A-words like assblaster, anal intrusion? H-words like hog humper?
I love this shit. Kill all you want, enjoy your bloodfest, but goddamn it, don't swear!

Number 6 | January 5, 2006, 5:58pm | #

JD-There actually are such places, although I think the game in question is Everquest.

Evan | January 5, 2006, 6:18pm | #

Jamie:

Which is precisely what made so little sense about the whole GTA:SA "Hot Coffee" brouhaha. You can steal a military tank, take it on a murderous rampage through the streets of virtual Los-Angeles-land, killing countless innocent civilians and police; you can purposely start a gang war in order to take over various blocks from rival gangs. You can screw a hooker, pay her, then chop of her head, stomp her corpse for awhile, then take your money back; you can steal a massive jet and slam it into a skyscraper. All that's ok. But when you have a blurry scene of pixelated sex, that's where the gubmint has to put their foot down.

BTW, isn't Halo2 all about killing "aliens"? So, wouldn't that be okay with the puritans cons, given that so many of them are anti-immigration too? It's not too much of a leap between not objecting to killing space aliens and not objecting to "defending our borders" with various firearms...at leat not in their minds.

Lazlo | January 5, 2006, 6:48pm | #

You ever try to get a kid to explain what the hell is going on in that video game they're playing right in front of you? I have, once in a while with my nephews or niece, and I'd say the reaction I get is at best benign contempt for my amazing ignorance.

I suppose it depends on the game, since some are easier to explain than others. Occasionally you can sum then up in a single sentence ("roll up everything you see to make the biggest ball of stuff you can") but my wife asked me what I was doing on my new DS the other night and I had to stop and think for a while to figure out how to explain it. "Well, see, it's kind of a turn-based strategy roleplaying game where you play two plumbers who go back and forth in time and meet themselves as babies and need to rescue a princess from purple mushroom aliens by exploring different worlds and fighting enemies by hitting them with hammers or kicking turtle shells into them and you collect gold coins and different pairs of magic pants that affect the attributes that determine your attack/defense abilities and there's a statistic called moustache points that determines your luck and the babies can get through smaller holes and swallow lots of water to spit on things and they can spiral down into the ground to collect beans for some reason I haven't figured out yet, and..."

Why would any self-respecting company market a product that encourages its users to be thugs?

Because Grand Theft Auto: Pick Up Your Room And Brush your Teeth probably wouldn't sell as well?

mediageek | January 5, 2006, 6:55pm | #

"Some say anything other that the direct production of food, shelter or clothing is a waste of time. God forbid we rise above the lower animals and do things purely for pleasure."

There's a joke about fundies and sex in there somewheres.

Jamie Kelly | January 5, 2006, 6:55pm | #

"I believe the average age of GTA players is surprisingly high"

The average age of video gamers is 27 and rising. I'm 37 and hooked. BTW, nearly 40 percent of gamers, regular and occasional, are women.

gamebouncer | January 5, 2006, 7:43pm | #

This is an interesting topic for me. I'm not so much of a gamer as I am a gamer cultural analyst. I hear all the time from teachers that gaming is destroying our youth, blah blah blah. Same arguments probably could be heard about TV long ago. Anyway don't fight the inevitable but roll with it and use the medium to work for you. good economist article on morality and gaming: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id =4246109

Hakluyt | January 5, 2006, 8:24pm | #

They'll take Call of Duty 2 out of my cold dead hands. :)

Jamie Kelly | January 5, 2006, 10:41pm | #

Hakluyt,
Call of Duty 2 is the best goddamned game ever. Oh my God. Oh. My. God.
I'm sure the Christianists would hate it, especially on the levels you're fighting alongside the godless commies.

grylliade | January 5, 2006, 11:55pm | #

Anything that puts the user in the position of being a thug and makes winning the game contingent on behaving thuggishly encourages that kind of behavior.

Oddly enough, you don't have to do a whole lot of thuggish stuff to win San Andreas. I only felt like one mission was really thuggish. A lot of the things you do are forced on you by cops who hold the threat of jail and prison for your brother over you, or by a CIA agent whose morality is . . . questionable. Is it all sweetness and light? Hell no. It's violent, and CJ isn't completely innocent. But it's not exactly promoting thuggishness.

This coming from someone who plays lightside characters in every Star Wars game he plays, because he likes doing good. Quest for Glory IV was one of the best games for that; you play through as a paladin and help just about everyone in the game. I know it's only a game, but it just feels good. And I've never understood how people can play the dark side in Star Wars, at least not just because it's "more powerful"; isn't that the point? That it's quick and easy, but ultimately destructive? I play through the dark side, but just for completeness; I feel badly about some of the things I do to finish the game, especially since they don't allow a subtly evil choice — it's all bullying and cruelty. So I don't think that video games mean nothing; but it's not hard to separate fantasy from reality.

Wild Pegasus | January 6, 2006, 3:40am | #

Focus on the Family News Flash: College kids drink! Shit!

- Josh

Mr. Nice Guy | January 6, 2006, 8:53am | #

grylliade:

I'm with you, man! In all games where moral choices directly affect your character's stats, I play "light". I actually enjoy creating and perpetuating positive karma with the good and the innocent, and still beat the crap out of the bad guys. And "light" powers are usually strongly defensive, which is the type of strategy I prefer.

On the same token, I really like games like "Grand Theft", because the violence is so over the top and cartoonish, that I see it as being much more slap-stick then cruel. And I think it's interesting to note that in all the vast cities you can explore/rampage in these games, there isn't a single child character.

"I believe the average age of GTA players is surprisingly high

So is the average player."

Put a heavy check mark in both boxes for me :)

chris | January 6, 2006, 9:24am | #

How can anyone be unaware about the violence in video games? They only drag this one under the bus everytime a teen does a high school schooting. This has not been recent news for a long time.

Larry A | January 6, 2006, 12:51pm | #

Jennifer: When has there EVER been a time when everything marketed to adults was also appropriate for children?

Well, there was the Tower of London era, when parents took their kids to see someone hung, drawn, and quartered to teach them to be good Catholics/Protestants. (Depending on which queen was in charge.)

Videogames? My generation was ruined by flattop haircuts and dancing to Swing orchestras.

Jujucat | January 6, 2006, 1:55pm | #

By the same people who believe that this is appropriate women's swimwear.

David: That's hilarious!!!!

dhex | January 6, 2006, 3:28pm | #

COD2 really shines during the stalingrad levels. everything else is a bit of a letdown afterwards. definitely hotter than the medal of honor series.