By John Walker on January 14th, 2008 at 11:16 am.
Nothing inspires confidence like a politician making a declaration about the content of videogames.
It appears the latest reason to namedrop children’s most dangerous pastime is their incorrigible habit of containing knives, according to our Dear Leader. PM Gordon Brown has declared that as part of his total ban on carrying knives, he wants to see blades disappearing from games too. He explained to The Sun,
“I am very worried about video and computer games. No one wants censorship or an interfering State. But the industry has some responsibility to society and needs to exercise that.”
It’s an interesting logic. I’m fairly sure that bazookas, semi-automatic rifles and Land Shark Guns are all reasonably illegal in boring old real life, but they are being allowed to feature in games unhindered. However, the contents of everyone’s kitchen drawers have got to go.
It is of course a reaction to the tragic series of stabbings that featured heavily in the UK news over the last couple of months. Banning people from carrying knives around with them would seem, and maybe I’m overstepping my editorial privileges here, fairly reasonable. But just once, could someone citing videogames at least know one to reference in relation to their issue?
14/01/2008 at 11:19 Jim Rossignol says:
Jumping on people’s heads is illegal in the UK too, bizarrely.
14/01/2008 at 11:19 cullnean says:
politics is like pokemon “videogames i chose you”
14/01/2008 at 11:24 FaceOmeter says:
Yeah – that’s why Pokémon are now also illegal on the streets. If over two inches long.
Those damned Bradford gang wars. Those damned Video Games.
14/01/2008 at 11:25 Slappeh says:
I totally agree with him, this isn’t a hard blow on games or anything like Jack Thompson but he is just saying that it does affect the youths.
I agree with the knife ban laws an stuff though.
Also, cullnean, that is a great line and is my new msn name =)
14/01/2008 at 11:27 Ryan says:
“No one wants censorship or an interfering State, but if you don’t voluntarily censor yourselves we will have no choice but to interfere.”
14/01/2008 at 11:36 Andrew says:
Thinly veiled threats, eh? What a nice new Prime Minister we have which is fully in tune with todays current trends. Hmmm…
14/01/2008 at 11:38 Link says:
I would hate to see the spy’s knife removed from tf2, that would sadden me greatly!!
14/01/2008 at 11:38 essell says:
“I am very worried about video and computer games. No one wants censorship or an interfering State. But the industry has some responsibility to society and needs to exercise that.”
This quote, in isolation, I totally agree with. He’s not going put any nazi laws into position, so what’s the problem?
14/01/2008 at 11:42 yns88 says:
Am I the only one who sees him holding an invisible tommy gun?
14/01/2008 at 11:44 Jim Rossignol says:
The problem would be that the Blair/Brown Labour government has *already* proven itself to be one of the most interfering governments the UK has ever had. They seem to be under the delusion that a government is a business that produces legislation.
14/01/2008 at 11:48 Philip says:
@yns88 – that’s probably because of years of brainwashing by violent computer games…
But back to the real world. I think it’s fairly obvious, and has been mentioned before in various places, but it seems strange to me that no politician seems to mention the fact that children shouldn’t be getting hold of violent video games in the first place. Probably because it would lay the blame on the
votersparents. Or am I being too cynical?A clampdown on shops who sell inappropriate videogames to minors, and parents who buy them for minors, would be welcomed by all I feel.
14/01/2008 at 11:51 Janek says:
I don’t think there’s such a thing as too cynical, these days.
14/01/2008 at 11:54 WCAYPAHWAT says:
The funniest thing is, as I’m reading this here article, theres a lovely google advertisement for…… some made in china swiss army knife.
14/01/2008 at 12:00 Matu says:
Gladly, this won’t affect any future Riddick games. Because he can use cups and spoons instead, y’know.
14/01/2008 at 12:02 Max says:
You mean it wasn’t already illegal to carry knives…? >.>
14/01/2008 at 12:06 Darren says:
I specialise in bladed weaponry. Any such change as this will leave me at a disadvantage against kobolds.
14/01/2008 at 12:09 Butler says:
Yeah Max. If they made it illegal to carry knives, all them there outdoor types would moan about not being able to defend themselves against overly violent wildlife. Like rabbits.
14/01/2008 at 12:17 Dude says:
What is amasing is that it is always the fault of the industry. Yes the industry has it responsability but parents do as well. Around christmas I walked in a gaming shop, just shoping around with my wife and I saw 2 kids maybe 8 to 10 years hold playing CoD4… And after that obviously they took the game and the parents bought it without even looking at the box. How dumb is that, I would never give a game like that to a kid, way to violent.
I think it the shops selling the games have more responsability than the devs because they won’t turn down a sale by saying “Is that for the 2 fellows there? Ya know they are way to young to play this game?”
But well, everyone knows gamers a clearly sociopath…
14/01/2008 at 12:20 Meat Circus says:
No one wants censorship or an interfering State
Oh, Gordon, you naughty little tinker. You love a bit of interference up your state-hole. That’s been your entire MO for the last decade. That and destroying the UK through unserviceable levels of debt and making everybody hate you.
14/01/2008 at 12:21 cullnean says:
jim said = The problem would be that the Blair/Brown Labour government has *already* proven itself to be one of the most interfering governments the UK has ever had. They seem to be under the delusion that a government is a business that produces legislation.
oh so you would like a return to the dark days of the conservatives?
no thanks
14/01/2008 at 12:23 cullnean says:
also before bashing labour so a real alternative.
14/01/2008 at 12:25 Seniath says:
Tbh, the last few times I’ve been in Game they’ve been good with the ol’ age rating thing, be it asking clearly under aged kids for id, or asking doting parents if the intended recipient of the game was the young’n who scampered up to the counter, game in hand and grin on face, dragging said parent with them.
14/01/2008 at 12:28 John Walker says:
Cullnean – While the last thing we need is for this thread to be a debate over the merits of Labour and Conservative, I think it’s fair to say that observing the rather terrifying behaviour of New Labour does not directly translate to an appeal to vote Tory.
14/01/2008 at 12:29 Meat Circus says:
@Cullnean:
“Dark days of the Conservatives”? What, as opposed to the utopia of squinty Scotch bliss that Gordon has blessed us with?
Pffft.
Gordon is a power-hungry, angry, malicious and intellectually bankrupt control freak, and people like you voted for him. When he does try to legislate gaming violence out of existence, I’ll be sure to thank you for saving us from the Dark Days.
14/01/2008 at 12:31 cullnean says:
just replying to jim really my bad
on topic = stricter control of sales is necasery or some kind of awarness campaign for the ill informed
14/01/2008 at 12:39 Phil says:
yns88:
Brown looks more like he’s giving Jack Griffin a rather lacklustre session of manual relief.
This is unlikely to come to pass; banning knives in games in would be perceived to be a knee jerk, faintly pathetic thing to do considering the scale of problem in London and its widely agreed on root causes, namely disaffection, deprivation and a steadily spinning cycle of violence.
14/01/2008 at 12:40 mb says:
As much as I loathe New Labour’s focus group crowd-pleasing & erosion of civil liberties, I’d welcome german-style censorship or restrictions on violent game content in the hope that it’d stimulate some creativity in game design. Although that’s not likely to be effectual unless the US did it, & there was a real market effect that the devs/publishers had to respond to.
14/01/2008 at 12:40 Jonathan Burroughs says:
Can’t we ban idiot children instead?
14/01/2008 at 12:42 Lu-Tze says:
I think there’s a need to see what he’s attacking here. If he’s going after games like Manhunt 2 then the key thing to address is the sale of these games to minors.
Alternatively though, a moment of inspection will show that a LOT of games featured bladed weapons (Zelda, Soul Calibur, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4) and some of these are rated at a level that makes it acceptable to kids. Weapons like swords, knives and a whole variety of other melee equipment make hitting someone into a cheap cartoon like attack, something that might stun them, knock them down, or just cause them to respawn. Does this engender the idea that they do not inflict real and serious injuries? Soul Calibur for example has people with weapons that would in real life be incredibly deadly having great fun causing fireworks to go off when they hit each other, and this could send the wrong message to people about the kind of damage an attack of this kind could cause.
I’m playing Devil’s Advocate here, but I can think of no other media that enforces the idea that after slicing someone with a sword 30 times they are merely winded. Even something that takes it with a pinch of salt like Itchy and Scratchy shows that when you stab someone THEY GET STABBED. Scratchy may live on (in serious pain/multiple pieces), but the damage is representative.
Just a thought.
14/01/2008 at 12:46 Iain says:
@Link: Actually, I would very much like to see the Spy’s knife disappear from Team Fortress 2… Dastard, chuffing Spies. My back has more holes in it than a cubic kilometre of Edam cheese. (My fault for being rubbish, I know)
As for this government being a legislation-producing business, does the phrase “Self-perpetuating bureaucracy” mean anything to you? If they don’t create stupid laws now, they won’t have anything to fix later… Politics has always been a silly merry-go-round of short-term, populist bandwagon jumping. I don’t see why anyone would think this statement is anything other than the norm.
It’s far easier for politicians to point fingers at an “industry”, rather than parents for not taking responsibility for knowing what their kids are doing. It makes them seem tough without actually alienating that many people, gaining them more votes than they lose. Videogames are just this decade’s expedient political target – especially now that they’re far more mainstream (not to mention graphic and realistic) than they used to be ten years ago.
14/01/2008 at 12:55 Thiefsie says:
No cricket bats either? The poms might play better that way? *hides*
14/01/2008 at 12:57 Wholly Schmidt says:
I miss the interference of State.
…and in the game!
14/01/2008 at 13:07 Ging says:
I know that Game enforces the age restrictions quite harshly and not only for BBFC rated games. I assume that Gamestation will follow suit once that acquisition is complete (if they don’t already – I’ve not been in one in ages). At this point, I think it does come down to education of the parents as to what ratings mean in regards to games.
When it comes to Mr Brown, I can see where he’s coming from – as was said earlier, games often show bladed weapons doing no damage at all. But at the same time, pound shops and the like sell plastic swords for kids to hit each other with that also don’t (generally) cause any major damage – does that mean we should see those be taken off shelves?
14/01/2008 at 13:10 Iain says:
I think this is less about games not being realistic as it is about the inability of a player to distinguish between fantasy and reality. I’d say any five year old who’s seen their parents chop up vegetables as they make dinner knows that knives are sharp and dangerous and that you shouldn’t play with them… The real difficulty in this whole debate is not one of censorship being the answer, but keeping graphic games out of the hands of people who aren’t mature enough to experience them in the correct context; where people could make the kind of erroneous associations suggested above.
I would like to see much firmer enforcement of sales, to make sure that the retailers actually have the legal power to withhold sales of games if they suspect it will be played by someone too young. I’ve seen people buy Grand Theft Auto 3 for 10 year olds, and the retailer hasn’t been able to do a thing, because it’s the parent buying it, not the child. But they both know that it’s not the parent who’s going to be playing it.
Of course, in the short term it’s not in the retailer’s interests to withhold a sale (and controls on the High Street can be easily circumvented online), but introducing legally-binding restrictions at the point of sale would be a better first step than wholesale censorship, which would ultimately be far more damaging to the industry.
In the end, though – it’s the parent who has to take responsibility to vet what they let their kids play. I don’t think we, as gamers, should let people’s ignorance be any defence any more. You wouldn’t get parents buying their 12 year old kids a bottle of vodka for Christmas, so why let them have something like Gears of War?
14/01/2008 at 13:14 MisterBritish says:
Hang on, there are people that stab other people? Like, thrust a pointy object into someone else? WTF?
14/01/2008 at 13:14 Vaughn says:
Yep, ban knives in games. Instead of knives, we can go about bludgeoning enemies to death with puppies. Much more society friendly that. I’m always reminded of the simpson’s episode where all guns are banned and then the aliens take over.
14/01/2008 at 13:27 Gulag says:
So, more crowbars then…
14/01/2008 at 13:33 Theory says:
Well, yeah. They’re readily-available everyday items.
One of the issues with the debate itself is that none of us are in the kinds of social groups who commit knife crimes. We have no idea how they think and so can only apply the policy decisions to ourselves – unsuccessfully.
14/01/2008 at 13:40 Radiant says:
He’s right.
14/01/2008 at 13:40 FaceOmeter says:
Actually I think knives in Videogames are a good thing.
Because they’re always the worst weapon.
“If you’re gonna kill someone on the street, you got no chance with just a blade, kids! The others are gonna have BFGs. You need glock, minimum.”
Video gaming: a positive message
14/01/2008 at 13:42 Seniath says:
I doubt our sneaky sneaky spy friends would agree with you FaceOmeter :p
14/01/2008 at 13:56 Jon says:
I too see our PM holding a gun, I saw the Heavy’s Sasha instead of a tommy gun though…
Time and again this comes up that videogames are the death of our civilisation as we know it, and yet, using hindsight we can laugh at those who thought rock and roll and Elvis’ swinging hips would be the death of civilisation as we know it. Oh and we laugh at those who thought trains going over 30mph would make your brain melt…. Ah, hindsight, what a wonderful thing.
I’ve always wondered how age restrictions on films seem to work in the cinema but never do with games… Maybe we should start with enforcing those little red circle rather than blaming the gaming industry.
14/01/2008 at 14:10 Link says:
Seniath “I doubt our sneaky sneaky spy friends would agree with you FaceOmeter :p”
hehe this is oh so true, i cant ever remember a game where ive enjoyed a knife so much as tf2.
would gordo want to ban them entirely – or only include them in games for over 18′s?
14/01/2008 at 14:55 ianwest says:
OK, fine, take knives out of games. But you try and take my AK away from me in Grand Theft Auto and I’m gonna pop a cap in yo ass, beeyutch…
14/01/2008 at 15:01 Nick says:
I agree that some games are almost tastelessly violent, and shouldn’t be sold to under 18s but we shouldn’t be naive about the people responsible for these stabbings. They know perfectly well what they’re doing, that knives can do serious often fatal damage even if they claim their use isn’t necessarily to kill.
I wonder, have the government actually done any research with knife carrying youths to see if they play computer games with knives in, or if any other media they regularly watch shows the use of knives for that matter? In fact have they done any research on the social and family backgrounds of these people? Or is it just a knee jerk reaction to scapegoat a medium that is seen as alien and weird by middle aged middle Englanders?
Anyway, as long as the knife ban nerfs rogues I’m happy to go with it.
14/01/2008 at 15:22 Lady Thief Of Pearls says:
As someone who has had to deal with age-restricted sales through working in a supermarket, I have to say that it already is illegal to sell games (or any other age-restricted product) if you believe that it will be passed on to someone under-age. This quite often got me a torrent of abuse from customers, but the fine for breaking this law can be up to £5000. For the cashier, not the shop. And Trading Standards does regular undercover checks; our local charity shop recently got caught out and charged by one. So I’d say there are already quite strict measures in place. The problem is inadequate staff training leading to shop-front staff who are ignorant of the consequences, and mouthy customers who intimidate them into bending the rules to avoid causing a scene.
14/01/2008 at 15:26 Dude says:
so I guess this story is what it’s all about:
TF2 knife violence
14/01/2008 at 15:32 Mr.Brand says:
Better ban dinners, because they contain knives. And forks.
14/01/2008 at 15:35 Dan R says:
I agree with him generally, but not for the same reason. I doubt videogames are much of a cause of the knife-crime epidemic, I think there’s a larger problem with a teenage gang culture.
On the flipside, I reckon the games industry is pretty obsessed with violence. Looking at the quantity of games that contain a violence, and comparing them to any other kind of media, my opinion is that there’s far more violence in video games. It pretty much makes the industry an easy target.
In addition to this, most of the violence is free of any emotional baggage, or contains very little moral reasoning, and often occurs in worlds that not particularly abstract.
As much as I like playing FPS games, they do get a bit boring and repetetive after a while, I’d really love it if the industry could come up with more intelligent groundbreaking games where you don’t have to kill people. Or at least something with the intrigue and thought-provoking nature of Deus Ex. Well done to the few developers that actually do this.
14/01/2008 at 15:48 Jocho says:
Not having read the entire thread, I just got thinking about melee-combat. Knives are quite usual there, today. But, if you want to keep it, would TWO-HANDED SWORDS be ok?
After all, what youngster 1) finds a two-handed sword, 2) picks it up and carries it without getting extremely noticed?
14/01/2008 at 15:49 Velt says:
Hrm..
So…
Knives in games – bad
Killing with knives in real life – good..way to get knives out of video those darned murder simulators?
So…
Ridiculous logic – Bad
Politicians – Good… at using ridiculous logic to achieve abstract objectives that leave them tons of real issues to never fix?
Politicians need job security too?
14/01/2008 at 15:50 Ewan Aiton says:
Last year I was prompted to write an article on this by the renewing tendency to blame games for all society’s ills. At the time there was debate in Germany about prison sentences for those that make games containing “cruel violence”.
What the government fails to look at is actual scientific research. I have consulted a friend of mine who is a prominent psychological researcher in the field of mental illness and he confirms that whilst violent games do raise adrenaline they do not casue violent behaviour.
They just don’t understand that a game that has an 18 certificate from the BBFC is NOT FOR KIDS.
Certain sectors of society are all to ready to point the finger in ignorance, happier to have a scapegoat than a workable solution. Banning video nasties in the eighties didn’t stop people being crap to each other then and doing the same to violent games won’t help now.
And that is what grinds my gears…
14/01/2008 at 16:10 Velt says:
I really just fail to see why everyone blames video games. Are we so frail of a race that we allow media to change our perspectives on right vs wrong? Hrm I answer my own question.
Then again who wants the government telling parents what kinds of standards to use while raising their kids.
So it’s either blame whoever raised the person, or blame the next easiest target, media. Well, there are an awful lot of parents, and parents are scary .. so forget that.
Or we could just actually blame the person who did whatever they did and not anyone else. Whatever the motive or reasoning, they still did what they did. Why would media even be an issue here? You don’t blame someone else when you get a speeding ticket for driving too fast..
People need to just own up to what they do, it’s really that simple.
14/01/2008 at 16:11 Evo says:
Seems a student can’t get away from politics in this day and age…though that may have something to do with me studying it at Uni…hmmm
Anyway blogged my brief thoughts here.
14/01/2008 at 16:41 Jives says:
I think rather than age ratings we should have some kind of inteligence rating system. i’ve disliked the current system ever since i was stopped from buying the mighty boosh because i didnt have an ID card (we dont have fucking ID cards)
14/01/2008 at 16:45 dhex says:
eskrima fighter…it’d be interesting. the winner goes to the hospital!
Then again who wants the government telling parents what kinds of standards to use while raising their kids.
naw, that’s not how it works. they want the government to tell other parents – the irresponsible ones – how to behave. besides if it weren’t for this stuff people would realize that politicians actually have a tremendous lack of control over daily life and would probably be busy stringing them up by their own guts.
anecdote: i did watch a woman in a game store buy gta: san andreas for her 10 year old son when that dropped. the game clerk said several times “uh this is really violent you know theft of autos and carjackings and whatnot” and she was “oh it’s what he wants.”
14/01/2008 at 16:51 Lady Thief Of Pearls says:
Jives: Passport? Driving Licence? Student Card? Just about anything else with your DOB and photo on it? Most people have something appropriate in their wallet.
How else are you supposed to certify someone’s age? The 16-21 age group is the most difficult to judge by eye. I’m 20 and get offered half-fares on buses, and my barely 18 year old brother is almost never asked for ID because he looks well over 21.
14/01/2008 at 16:57 Thomas Lawrence says:
Sorry, Mr. Walker, but why are you linking to The Sun on this? Were other papers insufficiently alarmist?
I doubt anything will come of this. All he actually said was that he was worried about games and called for them to show responsibility. It’s cheap political point scoring and probably nothing more. Wake me when there’s actual legislation, or when the BBFC announce new policies or something.
14/01/2008 at 17:01 Abe says:
If we’re going to take knives out of games, we should replace them with loaves of salami.
14/01/2008 at 17:10 Frandroid says:
Actually, you might be surprised. I used to work at a club in Glasgow that catered to the metal/goth crowd. One night, a young guy in a black leather trenchcoat, after passing through security, turned back to one of the doormen and said, “Oh, I suppose you’ll want this, won’t you?” He then proceeded to pull a full size, double handed sword from beneath his coat.
I can only assume (hope) that he’d been involved in some kind of LARP or battle recreation….
14/01/2008 at 17:24 Schadenfreude says:
Yeah.
Well.
Glasgow. :D
14/01/2008 at 18:48 Scandalon says:
Being a yank from across the pond, I don’t understand all this talk of “Labour” vs. “Conservative”, however, I would like to suggest to all that felt enough motivation to post a comment to largely like minded people to actually write those in power that claim to represent you.
P.S. The guy that tried to mug me in Dublin used a broken bottle…how would banning knives have helped me? Although, now that I think about, he probably did play videogames, as he (fortunately) couldn’t throw a punch worth a damn…
14/01/2008 at 19:14 Nick says:
Double Dragon didn’t cause gang wars in London.
14/01/2008 at 19:53 Mike says:
The quote is entirely correct, though, the industry does have a responsibility to some extent. Whether it’s the one Gordon describes is another matter.
14/01/2008 at 20:02 sh33333p says:
Not only is Mr. Brown’s idea completely fucktarded, but it is extremely bizarre. The questions I have for those of you living in the UK are:
How does such a person gain such prominence in one of the richest nations on earth?
Are the elections completely fixed like they are here in the US?
I know I know, look at our guy. I’m going to go stab somebody now to vent my frustrations…
14/01/2008 at 20:14 Nick says:
By being in the party that was elected, then taking over the job of the previous guy whilst the party is still in power – changing the manifesto upon which they were elected and refusing to hold a new election because he knows he’d lose. Then claiming it’s because he’d win – great logic.
14/01/2008 at 20:48 Kim says:
Ugh.
The Sun?
14/01/2008 at 21:29 dhex says:
just for shits and giggles:
i’m fundamentally puzzled by the idea of game companies taking moral responsibility for making violent games. we would not expect the same of someone who writes nothing but murder mysteries (even those in which the evil killer escapes rather than facing punishment), and i was under the impression that “natural born killers = obscenity/incitement” died in the 90s.
(i don’t know if i’d call even your generic fps amoral but that’s another story for another day. crysis is most certainly about human relationships at its end, if during your relationship to most people is watching them being snatched and/or throwing them off of buildings/cliffs.)
14/01/2008 at 21:36 malkav11 says:
Just to point out – German-style censorship results in the same games with slight reskinning, and/or removal or recoloring of visual effects. It does not promote creative development of less violent game designs.
Personally I feel that violence in media should be *more* graphic. If game/movie/tv violence showed the real consequences of, e.g., shooting someone in the face, I think some people would be significantly less likely to do it.
14/01/2008 at 21:56 dhex says:
i think the presumption that people murder each other because of games – or any kind of entertainment – is deeply misguided. or rather, based on a hope that violence could be curbed via changing the entertainment landscape than something that runs far deeper and is based on basic human incentives – mates, status, reputation, revenge – that can’t be engineered out of the monkey, as it were.
14/01/2008 at 22:09 Garth says:
Ok, I’m not from the UK so I probably missed what this is exactly about, but what I’m getting from this is:
1) Gangs are stabbing eachother to death.
2) Video games are popular.
3) Video games have knives.
4) Children play video games.
Now, if 1 is true, I doubt 4 is a directly related problem. If kids ARE stabbing eachother, a game sure as fuck isn’t prompting them all. People need to understand that playing a game about something isn’t going to force kids to do it. In fact, I’m sure the percentage is exactly spot on, if not lower, than kids who watch violent movies/read violent books/etc.
As to kids getting games they shouldn’t, that’s both the fault of morons selling games to kids that they shouldn’t, and moron parents buying games they shouldn’t because they’re too lazy to read the labels.
My girlfriend has four kids; one almost seven, triplet three year olds. I play games with the eldest all the time — attentive and watchful parenting is the key to making sure they arent seeing shit they shouldn’t. I even played Team Fortress 2 with him in the room, but i explained what was happening, and talked with him about how you can’t do that stuff in real life.
Kids aren’t stupid, they just need people to talk with them, to understand what they’re thinking, and what they see going on.
14/01/2008 at 22:13 Xagarath says:
I’m not exactly happy about Brown’s comments here, but they’re still not as bad as the alarmist “games are responsible for all crime” stuff that Cameron trotted out on the issue last autumn.
14/01/2008 at 23:50 matte_k says:
slightly altered, but no less relevant, i quote Stuck Mojo on this: “A knife can not be held responsible for killing a person, no more than a shovel can be held responsible for digging a ditch. Both are only tools, and have no will of their own”. The point being, make a big fuss and ban knives, fine. Then a different weapon is selected, and the killing continues. How about the government has a crack at fixing the source of all the killing, which as we all know is not videogame culture, rock music, drugs, (insert scapegoat here), etc. but rather apathetic, frustrated, ignored, marginalised and ignorant generations that have been bred and brainwashed into believing the concept that killing each other over minor perceived insults, pride, frustration or just plain clan warfareis the right thing to do,when really it is no more civilised than it is in developing countries where it is called genocide, and yet still nothing is done about it. Why? Because there’s no profit in it.
Whew. Rant over. It just vexes me that yet again the powers that be completely miss the point and look for someone to blame, rather than looking for a solution.
15/01/2008 at 03:54 dhex says:
so how does one blunt an honor culture?
(it just struck me the gta games, at least the 3d ones, have all been set within honor cultures. it makes for good drama.)
15/01/2008 at 04:26 WCAYPAHWAT says:
Even IF they could manage to stop the sale of these murder simulators…. theres always mods and other free sources of killing happy times. Hell, I’ve been killing stuff for sport for I cant remember how long, and I’m yet to murder someone (its too much trouble to deal with to be honest. hiding bodies, investigations and all that. geez.)
The Germans are gonna have a hell of a time in 20 years or so when every family has a robot, and their youth think its ok to blow up/dismember/fire plasma rifles at them….because they can do it in their games :)
15/01/2008 at 09:11 Iain says:
@malkav11:
I tend to agree, but with a slight caveat. An “anything goes” approach can work (Scandinavia is a good example), but even then, some people are going to watch or play graphic media and think “Yeah, that’s cool, I should try that.” because that’s just the way some people are wired in the head. It’s a tiny minority of people, sure, but that doesn’t stop them from screwing up everything for everyone else…
Though to be honest, I think we’re a long way from having videogames truly represent violence and killing in an emotionally realistic way. Has there ever been a videogame where the game has tried to make you feel guilty or remorseful over killing someone? I’m struggling to find an example.
[HUUUGE SPOILER] Planescape is the closest I can come – I felt pretty guilty about spending all that time with your party, only to get them all killed at the end of the game. [/HUUUGE SPOILER]
But their deaths weren’t through an active choice of the player to kill them – it was an inadvertent consequence of those characters’ choice to accompany you, so I’m not sure it’s really comparable…
15/01/2008 at 09:18 malkav11 says:
People who really deep down want to kill people are probably going to, whatever their media influences. But having realistically graphic violence might, for example, dissuade horsing around with dangerous items in ways that risk getting someone injured or killed by accident.
I dunno. I just find the reaction of making violence *less* consequential by removing the gore et al to be a little odd.
15/01/2008 at 09:41 Pace says:
Mind if I ask what you mean by this Iain? I’m not doubting you, it’s just I never got that impression about their attitudes towards violence. More liberal towards nudity/sex perhaps, but violence? (Maybe I’m just used to my Norwegian mother complaining about violence on American TV. I suppose things may have changed..)
15/01/2008 at 11:29 Nick says:
Ah, but they’ll have the upper hand during the zombie apocalypse.
15/01/2008 at 13:36 Iain says:
@Pace:
If I recall correctly, Sweden was one of the first countries to pass Manhunt 2 for sale. Totally uncut, didn’t bat an eyelid. I think the rest of Scandinavia followed suit on that one, too.
Scandinavia has the reputation (at least in the UK) of being far more socially progressive than the rest of Europe – kind of veering a little off topic here, but it is illustrative of my point; I’ve seen documentaries about how they deal with violent crime in Sweden, the one I most remember being about child killers (that being children that kill other children, not adults that kill children). After the Jamie Bulger incident in the UK a few years ago, the two child killers were carefully hidden away and had their identities changed to protect them from being exposed by the tabloids and being torn apart by an angry mob – and they’ve got to live in fear of being exposed for the rest of their lives. The approach for similar crimes in Sweden? Don’t chuck them into a children’s institution – completely reintegrate them with society and make them face up to their crime and the effect it has had on the community. In the long run it does less damage, because everyone can see how this kind of tragedy can devastate communities. Seems like a much more sensible way of doing things to me.
There was also this story about a prison in Norway that does such a good job rehabilitating offenders that they don’t want to leave. The complete opposite of the UK’s “chuck away the key and let ‘em rot” mentality to criminal justice.
The problem with violent crime in the UK isn’t anything to do with the games we may or may not play – it’s about attitudes – about wanting to blame other people for bad things, instead of taking some responsibility for themselves.
This is why I want to move to Scandinavia. Even if the beer is nearly £7 a pint…
15/01/2008 at 18:24 realmenhuntinpacks says:
gordon brown, texture like sun
that is all
15/01/2008 at 19:54 Pace says:
Indeed. Another fancy Scandinavian perk? Paternity leave! On the downside? Byzantine drunk driving laws. And, as you say, absurd alcohol tax. (And there is that odd obsession with trolls..)
16/01/2008 at 00:06 Alex McLarty says:
Why does Mr. Brown look as if he’s cocking an ‘air shotgun’?