By John Walker on February 9th, 2011 at 12:37 am.
Yesterday Fox News asked the headline question, “Is Bulletstorm the Worst Video Game in the World?” Which is spectacular. It’s a quite remarkable piece of writing, worthy of our own Daily Mail. And why is it the WORST GAME IN THE WORRRRLD? Because they’ve named some of the Skill Shots with sexual innuendos. Which, they absolutely astonishingly claim, causes rape.
If it weren’t scaremongering bullshit that will misinform those who do not understand that their news source makes up any old rubbish, it’d be hilarious. And some lines really are. For instance,
“players are rewarded for shooting enemies in the private parts (such as the buttocks).”
First of all, is a parenthetic explanation really necessary for “private parts”? Were they concerned that readers may think they’re talking about a secluded beach house or farm driveway? And secondly, of all the private parts to single out, the bottom is by far the funniest. They wanted to shock their audience, but they don’t want to cause them to faint!
However, while the article is all outlandish nonsense, it very quickly descends into something more appalling. After observing that the game has Skill Shots with names like “gang bang” and “topless”, and literally nothing else, they conclude that it is promoting rape.
It’s an excellent example of letting a loose fact mutate as the story goes on. It begins by saying that the game “ties” violence to sex acts by the use of sex-themed words. Then they quote various medical professionals, the first explaining that,
“If a younger kid experiences Bulletstorm’s explicit language and violence, the damage could be significant.”
Now it has become “explicit language”. That’s cited words like “topless”, in case you’d forgotten. Then the next quote moves things on a stage further.
“Carol Lieberman, a psychologist and book author, told FoxNews.com that sexual situations and acts in video games — highlighted so well in Bulletstorm — have led to real-world sexual violence.”
We’ve gone from a word appearing on-screen that puns something naughty, to highlighting sexual situations. Like a man being topless? Apparently so. And then they hit their mother lode. Lieberman adds,
“The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games.”
And there they have their story: Bulletstorm, and games like it, cause rape. Now they are “sexual scenes”. The mutation is complete. Based on the game’s featuring the words “topless” and “gangbang”. The quote comes from Carol Lieberman – “psychologist and book author” – whose claim that there’s an increase in rapes in the US is peculiar. While we in no way trivialise the severity of sexual crimes, this is purely about investigating the claims made and the related numbers, and they don’t hold up.
The number of rape convictions, and indeed reported rapes, has enormously fallen in the US since the 70s (when gaming made its commercial début). This Washington Post article from 2006 discusses how the 85% drop over the last three decades has been a consistent fall, a clear trend in the numbers going down. UN statistics show that there were fewer rapes in the US in 2009 than there were in 2008. Not significantly fewer, certainly, but no indication of the quoted increase. Let alone an increase that can be attributed to the apparent sexual scenes in video games.
So who is Dr. Carol Lieberman? She’s a TV shrink, her name spelt correctly is Carole Lieberman, and she has no stated expertise or insight into videogames. In the 90s she wrote books with titles like, “Bad Boys: Why We Love Them, How to Live with Them, and When to Leave Them” and “Bad Girls: Why Men Love Them & How Good Girls Can Learn Their Secrets”. Then after the events of 2001 turned to tomes such as, “Coping with Terrorism: Dreams Interrupted”. (Her website promises that in 2009 she’ll be releasing “American Dreams Interrupted: How to Stay Safe and Sane in a Time of Terror”, but that doesn’t seem to have happened.) We have contacted her to ask for evidence for her claims.
The previous two quotes came from Dr. Jerry Weichman, a clinical psychologist at the Hoag Neurosciences Institute in California. He’s a motivational speaker for teens, and his site also bears no suggestion of time spent researching the effects of gaming. We’ve also contacted him to ask him on what his claims are based.
Things return to the amusingly daft as we continue on, with the claim that the game won’t sell well because of this content. The wonderfully named Billy Pidgeon at M2 Research explains to them that games with excessive violence and sexual content “simply don’t sell well.” Well, that’s Fox’s summary of what he said (and one that someone should probably tell Activision). But it seems that Pidgeon may not have been talking about Bulletstorm at all. In fact, I wonder if he knew specifically what he was being asked about, since his quote appears to be completely out of context. Edit: Pidgeon has confirmed for us that his quotes were taken wildly out of context – you can see the full version of his statement to Fox News here.
“Games without sufficient quality of gameplay — games that include highly objectionable violent or sexual content — often pump up the level of this kind of content to gain media attention. This tactic typically fails, as can be seen in the poor sales performance of titles such as BMX XXX and Postal.”
It should probably be pointed out that another explanation of the poor sales of those games is that they were bloody awful. We’ve contacted M2 Research to find out if their quote was in context, and whether they believe the same is true of Bulletstorm as of games like BMX XXX and Postal.
The story then twists off into the ongoing tussle regarding the attempts to make game ratings become legally enforceable in the US. A Ph.D. informs us that “9 year olds are playing games like Bulletstorm”, which is bloody unfair, as we’ve not even got review code yet. And then they explain that the ESRB’s description of the game is “too graphic” for them to print, before printing by far the juiciest bits. The only line they appear too blush-faced to include is the description of the swear words included, despite the delicate flowers at the ESRB having censored them themselves: “Language such as “f**k,” “sh*t,” “p*ssy,” and “c*ck” can be heard in dialogue.”
They throw up their hands in frustration at their being ignored by Epic, People Can Fly, and, er, Microsoft when they approached them for comment. And then, amazingly, they get specifically huffy because Warner Bros., who the story states have nothing to do with the game at all, told them they didn’t have a comment. Marvellous! Perhaps they should also have become indignant when McDonald’s and Exxon didn’t get back to them.
At the very end of the article there’s a quote from Hal Levy of the National Youth Rights Association defending the game, who gets the final word saying, “Plenty of emotionally unstable adults will play the game and they’ll be fine.” But that’s a blip at the end, preceded by the snooty statement, “those who don’t see a problem with Bulletstorm praise the game.”
So there you go. Bulletstorm causes rape. That’s your take-home message. Of course it was always a game that was going to engender some degree of outrage. It’s clearly trying to, in its gleefully naughty way, from its ultra-cartoon-violence to its provocative advertising campaign. But perhaps they weren’t expecting something quite as remarkable and outlandish as the Fox News response.
We will update you if any of the experts get in touch.
09/02/2011 at 00:41 Joe Maley says:
‘After observing that the game has Skill Shots with names like “gang bang” and “topless”, and literally nothing else.’
You forgot that you can pull off a ‘facial’ for 50+ points.
09/02/2011 at 01:17 Beartastic says:
If nothing else, this furore has proven that a word can paint a thousand pictures.
This game’s not really much different from many other shooters out there without the language and the text written all over the screen.
09/02/2011 at 03:31 Joe Maley says:
You obviously haven’t played the demo.
It’s very clear and graphic what the words mean.
For instance, I achieved my ‘gang-bang’ combo (+500 points!) by wrapping my grenade flail around mulitple people causing them to stick together. It was only after the explosion that the shockwave forced the far right enemy to thrust his manhood into the rectum of his closest enemy, and so on and so forth down the line of chained-enemies.
If you thought that was bad, you should have seen me get the ‘double-penetration’ skillshot using both ends of my grenade flail.
09/02/2011 at 06:00 kastanok says:
Well it’s nice to see current developers working to reach out to the LGBT community in their games. >.>
09/02/2011 at 14:47 Joe Maley says:
http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/0/0e/Forever_Alone.png
09/02/2011 at 00:43 geldonyetich says:
Sure, you say that now, but the next killing spree somebody goes on that utilizes gravity bolas and dynamite to fling their victims up in the air for bonus points will most assuredly vindicate the fine journalist-evangelists of Fox News.
09/02/2011 at 00:44 a.nye.123 says:
Oh boy, I’ve been playing games for nearly 20 years. Is there somewhere I can hand myself in?
09/02/2011 at 00:51 patricij says:
Guantamano, maybe…or they’ll send some SpecOps our way to put us out of misery just like they want to send after Assange…*
——
*I think it was on one of the Fox channels as well
09/02/2011 at 09:42 Jacques says:
SpecOps? You must be joking.
I’ve been playing FPS games for a decade, I’m a hardened, trained killer by now.
Pffft. SpecOps.
09/02/2011 at 10:09 Ian says:
Oh lord, but I’ve never raped anybody… am I just a ticking timebomb waiting to go off? :(
09/02/2011 at 11:29 Xercies says:
Yes you are! And what you must do is go towards the nearest church and cleanse yourself of your sin, then you won’t be able to rape anyone.
09/02/2011 at 18:59 Mr_Initials says:
@Xercies Just like the Pope
09/02/2011 at 00:46 Heliocentric says:
I love bullet storm for causing this drama, but for no other reason. Its kinda meh looking.
09/02/2011 at 04:53 Corrupt_Tiki says:
I actually read in the paper that police in Britain are trying to get powers to seize ‘troublemakers’ possessions such as I quote; “iPods, Stereos, and other ‘Bling’ Items” hmm, what the fuck is this world coming to?
P.S: I don’t know how true it is, I am living in Australia atm, and we are all criminals down here anyway, selected by Britain’s best judges :3
09/02/2011 at 06:32 steviesteveo says:
That’s a totally different thing to this post. What’s that got to do with Bulletstorm or Fox News or anything?
The idea behind that is that people are trying to find some sort of deterrent for criminal activity and they’ve suggested “taking your stuff”. It’s an extension to the rules that let you take the proceeds of crime or the tools of crime.
09/02/2011 at 09:43 Corrupt_Tiki says:
I know, but, I am just getting so sick of these rules, there are too many, and I’m always classed as a crim, coz I have a shaved head, and wear hoodies…
09/02/2011 at 11:27 jon_hill987 says:
@Corrupt_Tiki: There is an easy solution to that you know…
09/02/2011 at 12:58 baconismidog says:
I was on the fence about buying this before I read this silliness; It’s a sure-buy for me now.
09/02/2011 at 00:47 CoyoteTheClever says:
I’m sorry to say, but I doubt you Brits have anything on us Americans as far as yellow journalism goes ;). This may seem remarkable, but for Fox, it is just another day.
09/02/2011 at 04:44 DigitalSignalX says:
He’s right. Fox routinely “invents” news of all sorts with this kind of craptastic journalism, then will often go on to invent more news based on people’s reaction to their first invention, hoping that by feeding the cycle enough, it gains legitimacy.
09/02/2011 at 12:39 hjd_uk says:
FoxNews is like the concentrated crystallised vapour that wafts off the incredulous turd that is the DailyMail.
09/02/2011 at 00:47 Brumisator says:
It’s all Obama’s fault!
09/02/2011 at 00:47 Lujo says:
In other news, overexposure to Fox can and will cause stupidity.
09/02/2011 at 00:47 patricij says:
Can someone ask Bill Maher what he thinks of it? I think that could be one hell of an answer!
Also: what a shame…
09/02/2011 at 00:48 Daniel Klein says:
At first I thought this was going to be more of the “casually joking about rape contributes to a rape culture” nonsense that I was exposed to when reading some of the Dickwolves controversy, which I guess would have made sense if the announcer made casual references to you, I don’t know, raping your enemies (“GOD-LIKE! FACE-RAPE! UN-STOP-ABLE!”) But this? Wow. This reads like the attempt of a very slow journalist to imitate a certain kind of outrage story and totally getting it wrong.
09/02/2011 at 00:48 Pardoz says:
Will Bulletstorm your children? Probably not. Fox news and/or its regular viewership? Congresswoman Giffords would probably argue “they’ll give it their best shot” (pun intended).
09/02/2011 at 00:49 Showtime says:
I can see this being a decent marketing tool. How many people who were previously only mildly interested in Bulletstorm could Fox’s condemnation attract? (me, at least, so that’s one) To quote P.T. Barnum, all publicity is good publicity.
09/02/2011 at 01:46 Clovis says:
Yeah, I immediately thought, “Now I’m going to buy this game just to stick it to Fox News!” Then I was like, “Whoah!”
09/02/2011 at 07:01 Triangulon says:
Good point. I really fancy this now.
09/02/2011 at 12:18 AJ says:
OoooOoOOo!! And maybe the good doctor has her fingers in the pie too. I love a good conspiracy theory :)
09/02/2011 at 00:49 Snuffy the Evil says:
But it’s true! After I finished playing Mass Effect for this first time, I had an insatiable urge to enter into a normal, healthy, well-developed relationship with a Na’vi cosplayer.
Anyway, as much as I hate the idea of Bulletstorm right now, the article is, of course, a bunch of bunk. But then again, let’s just say I’ve never gone to Fox to get my filling of Sci/Tech news.
09/02/2011 at 00:49 Delusibeta says:
Fox News is America’s Daily Mail. Actually, that’s an insult to the Daily Mail.
09/02/2011 at 01:38 Navagon says:
You can’t insult the Daily Mail. But you can OUTRAGE them.
09/02/2011 at 00:52 R32Hotel says:
Hide yo’ wife, hide yo’ kids…
How many times are “they” going to pull things like this out? Each violent and new video game is the worst one ever and apparently is furthering our downward spiral. Sigh…
09/02/2011 at 04:26 Jamison Dance says:
Well, to be fair, this actually is the truth. Mainstream AAA games have more graphic violence, more swears, and more sexual content now than before. Whether you think this is a good thing or not is another thing, but it is blatantly wrong to argue that this stuff isn’t becoming more common in games, and more explicit in content.
**Cue someone pointing out Duke Nukem 3D**
Yes, there are specific examples of games with explicit content back in the day, but I am talking about the overall trend, and the trend is that it is much more prevalent today.
09/02/2011 at 11:22 axed says:
i dont think the mainstream of gaming is more violent than in the past. i think the technology to perceive it as more violent is here, however. its just more “realistic” than before. there are more games now, and now there actually IS a mainstream, and thus a spotlight. there are fore more… “hippie” games now then i can remember as a kid. maybe it was just me though but it seemed every game was one where the objective was to murder/destroy, just set in a different time period/theme under the guise of historical accuracy or fantasy/sci-fi. i am 25 yrs old.
i suppose the arcade days were a bit different… but not by much. pacman still devoured other equally sized creatures and blowing up asteroids is destructive on a massive scale.
if i made a game about blowing up babies im sure it would hit the news… but it would just be a theme and in a saturated market, a marketing scheme. (note to self… learn programming and modelling, begin baby blowup game development)
09/02/2011 at 13:32 Gonefornow says:
@axed
Too bad Dead Space 2 has baby shooting/stomping already covered.
They didn’t make it into news with that though..
!
Now I understand why they pulled off the mom hates campaign.
Clever basts.
09/02/2011 at 20:58 axed says:
@Gonefornow, i knew there must be a good reason to start playing that game. thank you for the tip
09/02/2011 at 00:54 patricij says:
I accidentally Bulletstorm your wife, is that ok?
You did what?
Your wife.
*shock grimace* NoooOOooo…
/coat
/slam
09/02/2011 at 00:54 daphne says:
I wonder if there’s someone, someone involved in the making of these news that realizes statements like “x causes rape”, do not, funnily enough, help the feminist cause at all? You know, those people who are most invested in the study and the mechanics of rape culture, as opposed to some moneymagnet TV psych figure?
09/02/2011 at 01:48 bob_d says:
This is Fox news we’re talking about; they have absolutely no interest in helping feminism in any way – quite the opposite.
09/02/2011 at 01:49 Colthor says:
@daphne
I don’t think furthering feminism is terribly high on Fox News’s list of priorities.
09/02/2011 at 00:57 Pie21 says:
“Remi Sklar, the vice president of Public Relations at Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, which makes numerous video games (though is unconnected to Bulletstorm), offered the following statement: “We don’t have a comment for that story.””
That is almost too good to be true.
09/02/2011 at 01:03 bob_d says:
Ah, Fox continues to bring the crazy.
“The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [] scenes in video games.”
It’s statements like this that indicate the speaker is completely, hilariously ignorant of the subject on which they’re speaking. I’m not sure what was being implied – that there are sex scenes in American games? Rape scenes? Or are rapes somehow being caused by people re-enacting [shooting aliens with a rocket launcher] or [jumping on the heads of walking mushrooms]? Oh god, that’s it – Super Mario is a rape manual.
09/02/2011 at 01:06 Snuffy the Evil says:
“Hey baby, whaddya say we get out of here so you can jump on my Goomba?”
“Sorry, sweetcheeks, but it looks like your princess is in another castle.”
09/02/2011 at 02:25 CTRL-ALT-DESTROY says:
What a bunch of vultures, preying on the misinformed and easily shocked. It’s just straight up lies. I’ve- MUST RAPE REPUBLICANS- actually played games like Postal (unfortunately) and to say crap like that is just ludicrous.
09/02/2011 at 04:42 FriendlyFire says:
@Snuffy the Evil: Priceless.
09/02/2011 at 01:07 ReV_VAdAUL says:
My my News International owned Fox News creates lots of controversy advertising about a game. News International owned Direct 2 Drive sells game! WHAT COULD BE GOING ON???
09/02/2011 at 13:11 Lacero says:
Deus Ex 2′s coffee shop sub plot is the most insightful analysis of modern society since situationism.
09/02/2011 at 01:09 Jumwa says:
“Games without sufficient quality of gameplay — games that include highly objectionable violent or sexual content — often pump up the level of this kind of content to gain media attention. This tactic typically fails, as can be seen in the poor sales performance of titles such as BMX XXX and Postal.”
It sounds like the poor man WAS trying to say that poor quality games can’t be buoyed to good sales on pure sensationalism, sex and violence alone, but got taken out of context.
09/02/2011 at 02:47 RagingLion says:
This.
09/02/2011 at 01:09 Arathain says:
Sigh.
First, I would like to say that I agree with John that Fox’s treatment of this is typical scaremongering bullshit. It’s the same sort of crap he’s been reporting on from the UK, complete with near-identical sounding phony ‘experts’. I do not, in any way, believe that Bulletstorm will cause anyone to do anything bad.
However, I get uncomfortable whenever there’s a strong association between sex and violence, especially when it’s as clear as it seems to be in Bulletstorm, with tons of sexual language used to underscore the violence. In particular, using it in a humorous context. I really think juxtaposing sex, violence and humour is something that ought to make us uncomfortable.
Look, in our culture in general, and, unfortunately, in our gaming sub-culture in particular, we have a problem with trivialising sexual violence. While it is really wonderful that the levels of sexual violence are on the decline, it’s still a far more common event than most of us realise. Women (and men, but mostly women) often suffer in shame and silence. Chances are, you know someone who’s been a victim well. Chances are, you probably don’t know it. This isn’t something that gets talked about a lot. Our culture, at best, shies away from talking and thinking too much about it, and at worst, trivialises it or engages in victim blaming, which happens all too often. It’s worst when we laugh.
The best thing we can do, individually, to help is to try to do our part to change the culture, little bit by little bit, and one person at a time. Mostly, what this can mean is trying to call out something nasty for what it is when you see it, or to tell someone as tactfully as possible that their attitude could use some adjusting. I was interested in Bulletstorm, because it seemed to fill a niche in shooters that had gone unfilled for a while. But this crap means I won’t touch it with a big stick. Because it makes me uncomfortable. Because it’s not cool. It’s not the way we should be going.
I’m not one to call ‘ban this sick filth!’ I don’t want more laws. I want creative types to be free to choose what they want to make and consumers free to consume what they like. What I want is for us, as awesome, compassionate human beings (many RPSers fall into these categories) to say “this isn’t cool. I’ll give it a miss, and just maybe, I’ll be willing to say why to a friend”.
I know lots of you don’t agree, and think I’m getting worked up over nothing (it’s just a game! It’s just for fun.). It’s just my way of trying to change the culture, the air we breath from the time we learn to talk, into something that’s better, at least a tiny bit.
If you dismiss everything else, just have a think about whether or not it’s OK to casually mix sex, violence and humour.
09/02/2011 at 01:17 ReV_VAdAUL says:
A good point well made. The problem is that the majority of people likely to play or even be interested in this game are young(ish) men who’ve never really had to deal with sexual violence or even consider it affecting them so they can just dismiss it as a non-issue.
09/02/2011 at 01:31 DarkFenix says:
Mixing sex, violence and humour is fine since as you say, if you don’t like it you simply won’t buy it. What isn’t fine is the parents who would let an impressionable enough child near such a mix. I can’t claim to be in a position of experience, but I would no sooner let a child play something like Bulletstorm than I would let them go out to a nightclub or carry a knife around with them.
There isn’t a problem with impressionable kids in society, there’s a problem with fucking idiot parents in society. Same as there always has been, same as there always will be, forever looking to point the blame anywhere but at themselves.
09/02/2011 at 01:39 Towercap says:
Call me a prude, but I won’t be buying Bulletstorm for the reasons Arathain mentioned.
09/02/2011 at 02:03 John Walker says:
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be offended by the game. It’s content IS offensive, deliberately. I’m certainly not criticising anyone for being upset by what it contains.
But, as I think the comments above appreciate, I am against making unevidenced claims of serious issues, and subverting the information about a game to make spurious claims. Which is the focus of my article.
09/02/2011 at 02:03 Zwebbie says:
Arathain: Wait, you were interested in Bulletstorm because it had humorous violence, but now you won’t touch it because it’s sexual humorous violence? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?
09/02/2011 at 02:05 Armante says:
I have zero interest in Bulletstorm, and certainly won’t be playing it. Arathain makes some great points; we can claim the game merely trivialises violence/sex, but at what point do we say a line has been crossed?
Fox however scares the crap out of me, and I wish more people would watch John Stewart and CNN to get a dose of reality.
And DarkFenix, you’ve hit it on the head – the game’s rated for R18 on whatever, so how come kids would play it? Oh, right. Ignorant, careless parents who blame anyone but themselves for what their children are exposed to.
09/02/2011 at 02:06 Grape says:
Gods, how I fucking despise prudes.
09/02/2011 at 02:23 DrGonzo says:
I think that statistically it’s actually really quite unlikely for you to know a rape victim.
09/02/2011 at 02:27 Arathain says:
@Zwebbie: It is a little cognitively dissonant. But not so much as all that.
I’m no good at explaining complicated stuff like this.
It’s all a cultural thing, right? Oddly enough, I think we do culturally OK with violence, even, or perhaps especially as gamers. We all have a keen sense of death and violence being bad (with possible exceptions for controlled, legitimate exercises of military violence). When someone get badly beaten, or murdered we feel this as a bad thing. Leaving aside horrible bigots or sociopaths of various sorts, we all respond as we should, and our culture supports it. It’s not perfect, but it’s not bad. We’re also very good at separating fictional violence in our heads.
Sexual violence is a whole different deal. Culturally, not all of us deal with it all that well. There’s a widespread problem with shame and denial. Victims of sexual violence are often made to feel that they are to blame, either by actual people blaming them, or just from previously absorbed cultural memes. The prevalence of the cultural trivialisation of sexual violence is very widespread and deep rooted; so much so that many, many people have a hard time even seeing that it exists. Once one starts to see it, however, it becomes impossible to unsee. And it really is everywhere. Gamers are particularly bad; the word ‘rape’ gets thrown round a lot, very casually.
Besides, one of the reasons we are a lot more careful about sexual stuff in media of all sorts is that sexual images, language and content of all sorts has a unique property that portrayals of violence or violent language lack. It reaches past our rational brain and tweaks stuff. It affects our hormone levels, and our emotional responses. We can control our reactions to exposure to sexual stuff- indeed we get very good at it, because there sure is a heck of a lot of it. But it’s not something we can entirely prevent. It’s why people act so oddly around issues of controlling access to sexual material- we act because it’s very powerful, but those trying to act can’t help but be affected by it.
09/02/2011 at 02:32 Kulantan says:
@DrGonzo
You might want to actually look at the statistics. More than a quarter of college age women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14 <- from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape#Statistics
09/02/2011 at 02:59 Gabe McGrath says:
I’m with Arathain.
This game just makes me feel uneasy.
If I want cartoon FPS violence, I’ll stick with Serious Sam HD.
Hmm… could write more, but I don’t really want to add to its “buzz”.
09/02/2011 at 03:24 skalpadda says:
Sex and violence are also different in that sexuality is (for most people) associated with closeness, vulnerability and deep emotions which makes sexual violence very unpleasant. I’m not saying Bulletstorm contains sexual violence because from what I’ve seen it certainly doesn’t, but I can understand that some would feel a bit uneasy about using names for sexual acts as names for artful ways of killing people. It doesn’t offend me personally, but it does seem incredibly dumb.
09/02/2011 at 04:28 Consumatopia says:
When I think of the combination of violence, sex, and humor, I think of Abu Gharib. Those monsters thought they were pretty funny. No, Bulletstorm won’t cause people to be raped or prisoners to be tortured. But there’s an idea in our culture that to really dominate someone, you don’t just ridicule them or physically hurt them, you have to sexually violate them. And if you name some of your death achievements after sex acts–that’s the sort of sickness you’re making light of.
09/02/2011 at 05:53 jalf says:
Which seems to miss the point entirely.
If, purely hypothetically speaking, mixing these three things together trivializes rape, then it might one day convince some asshole that what he’s doing is “ok”.
Then his victim doesn’t really benefit much from the fact that “you don’t have to buy the game”.
And it also seems naive to assume that, by definition, “children can’t handle these games, but adults can”. An age warning doesn’t really solve the problem with impressionable *adults* playing the game.
I think @Arathain makes an important point. I’m not sure it’s the mix of sex/violence/humour specifically that is the problem, but in general, video games are *terrible* at trivializing a lot of things that shouldn’t be trivialized., including both violence in general, and sexualized violence in particular.
Too many games, and Bulletstorm proudly takes the lead here, really champion a poisonous culture which I’m not comfortable with. (Which isn’t quite the same thing as saying “gamers become murderers and rapists omfg”, because we all know that isn’t true)
But of course, that’s an entirely different discussion than the rubbish Fox came up with.
I ran across a href=”http://sanitywatchers.tumblr.com/post/3090698963/cause-the-thing-is-you-and-the-guys-you-hang-out”>this little gem a few days ago, when researching the Penny Arcade dickwolves debacle, and I think it sums up why I’m uncomfortable with games like these:
(emphasis mine)
I guess that’s really what worries me. Yes, I get that the game designers are just immature pricks who *still* think it’s fun and cool to go “boobies! Hurhurhur”. And that doesn’t bother me. I don’t really care about their mental age, or whether they’ll ever grow up.
But it bothers me that their seemingly casual attitude towards, well, many forms of offensive behavior, might be seen as acceptance, support or encouragement by others who have a different idea. I don’t like that it silently plays into the culture we’ve already got going (not as gamers, but as people *in general* of trivializing these things (what some would call a “rape culture”, but that might be a too narrow, and much too loaded, term).
Hmm, I don’t think it’s about being offended by the game as such (I’m not), but rather just disliking the attitudes it tries to impart on the player, and the culture it is a part of.
@Consumatopia: bingo.
09/02/2011 at 08:11 Tacroy says:
Good thing you’re only speaking hypothetically, because if you were to, say, move to speaking practically (as you so sneakily do in the next sentence), there would be very little evidence to support your position.
09/02/2011 at 08:12 Towercap says:
I heart RPS so much right now.
09/02/2011 at 09:41 -Spooky- says:
*blabla* US / UK hate naked skins and sex .. (woohooo topless womans) *blabla* GER hate the extremly violence of this game (no ragdoll etc.) *blabla* More media around this game (FOX / daily mags n papers), will sell this game .. fo sure.
And no one cares about the fuckin oil in the gulf of mexico right now .. THAT is a problem to write about – but no .. *sigh* Big mad world ;)
09/02/2011 at 09:51 ReV_VAdAUL says:
Anyone getting all righteous and blaming parents for not obeying the age rating system really really should watch this documentary about how advertising works on kids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u8HL3Bjygw
09/02/2011 at 10:50 DarkFenix says:
jalf: Impressionable adults playing the game becomes an entirely new problem. The person is the problem more than the game and you’ll not stop them having such impressions given to them unless you ban all media. After all music, TV, movies; they all trivialise (or even glorify) these things with some regularity.
ReV_VAdAUL: You should really look up the word “no”, it has quite a big effect on kids too. Marketing to kids only works if parents let it.
09/02/2011 at 12:11 ReV_VAdAUL says:
In a world where millions are spent on advertising specifically to children and given companies only spend money on things that’ll make them more money I have to wonder if maybe, just maybe their advertising campaigns that pervade every aspect of our society and are based on the work of numerous psychologists might just work to undermine the power of no?
Its touching you think the majority of average citizens in their role as parents can overcome such substantial actions against them so easily but I’m sad to say maybe you’re being a little naive?
09/02/2011 at 12:24 Zwebbie says:
@Arathain: I’m not sure how that relates exactly to Bulletstorm, though. In a game that encourages you to and rewards you for shooting people in the face, the use of the word “facial” with it is the least offensive thing to me. I haven’t seen the rape suggestions that the game is supposed to have; but I find its glorification of violence offensive enough.
09/02/2011 at 13:22 DarkFenix says:
Perhaps ReV, perhaps. I’m not a parent and don’t know well any parents of kids of the right age to judge based on anything but my own parents. Christ, when they said no (and they said no a lot) it bloody well meant no. No amount of persuasion or whining would get a different answer from them.
You’ve reminded me to stick to what I usually live by. “People are idiots”. So you’re probably quite right, but it doesn’t make the parents any less to blame; it just makes them bad parents.
09/02/2011 at 13:24 Stellar Duck says:
I would argue, to a degree at least, that this game does not mix sex and violence.
It does mix porn and over the top violence however, but that’s a different matter. I don’t know about you lot but facials, DP and what not are not really common things in my sex life.
I don’t frequently see rocket launchers used in the pub-fights I sometimes see when out and about.
Both porn and rocket launchers are fictional and I think that is an important point to make. Had the game been about hitting your spouse or sexually assaulting people I would be opposed to it. It’s not about that. This game depicts violence about as realistic as porn depicts sex. At least I hope porn is unrealistic. Otherwise I’ve failed at sex quite a lot.
From what I understand it takes completely unrealistic violence and mixes it with terminology most common in porn. I think there is an aesthetic point in that.
09/02/2011 at 21:34 torchedEARTH says:
Kids certainly have pester power, but I have the money and it’s my house and I will not flinch at making my kids upset if that’s what it takes to make them have a better understanding that I’m not made of money and no means no. They can learn some respect.
The only thing I can see Bullet Storm raping is my wallet. I’ve played the demo and did not like it. Pretty, but bland.
09/02/2011 at 01:10 rocketman71 says:
Hey, it’s Fox, what did you guys expect?.
And look at the web page of that Carole. OMFG!, Now THAT has to be unhealthy for everybody.
CliffyB must be ecstatic, though.
09/02/2011 at 01:11 Kakrafoon says:
Very entertaining. Still, I don’t know about Bulletstorm. If there is genuine gameplay, it hides it pretty well behind all those kill-kombos. Well, there’ll always be a Steam sale at some point.
09/02/2011 at 01:12 Pijama says:
Honestly, with that attitude, even folks here at RPS will probably get motivated to play this out of spite.
Which is excellent anyway, hehe
09/02/2011 at 01:14 omicron1 says:
Good grief.
Fox, please stop. You make me want to drive up there and demand you hire (and make use of) a properly-informed videogame consultant… and/or box the ears of whomever came up with this one. (Next headline: Videogame violence complaints cause violence.)
09/02/2011 at 01:14 vash47 says:
Bulletstorm has one of the, if not the best gameplay that I’ve seen in the past years. It’s ups is not the over the top violence or the innuendos. It’s about having fun, hence the slogan; “Putting the fun back in gun”
With that said, I raped 15 schoolgirls after playing this game.
09/02/2011 at 01:21 DarioSamo says:
Hi-5!
09/02/2011 at 01:34 DarkFenix says:
Only 15? But you need 25 for the achievement.
09/02/2011 at 01:34 Axyl says:
I’m raping a school girl right now..just from reading about Bulletstorm.
Line me up some vulnerable women….i feel like playing a First Person Shooter…
wait..what?
09/02/2011 at 03:56 RobF says:
Not funny, guys.
09/02/2011 at 06:23 thebigJ_A says:
Yes. It is.
It’s pointing out absurdity, and that is always funny.
09/02/2011 at 11:21 Kieron Gillen says:
Yeah, it’s just being dickish to make a point.
KG
09/02/2011 at 01:21 Vinraith says:
Well crap, now i guess I have to buy it. Anything to piss off/panic Faux News.
09/02/2011 at 01:24 mkultra says:
I’m just glad Bulletstorm is going to be the last game I play before I go to prison.
09/02/2011 at 01:33 DrugCrazed says:
*sigh*
09/02/2011 at 01:33 Voxel_Music_Man says:
I live in New Zealand, and this reminds me of back when Half-life one came out and our newspapers slammed it as a violent game where you ‘got points for killing scientists.’ … WTF!? Like time I checked, you WERE a scientist, and saving the other scientists often lead to getting goodies, etc.
Grr! Arg!
09/02/2011 at 01:49 Sarlix says:
Unless they were talking about Half-life Opposing force – in which case you do get to kill scientists. Well zombie ones anyway.
On a side note, do you think zombie scientists would be any smarter than regular zombies?
09/02/2011 at 02:38 Shadram says:
No, but they are smarter than people who believe what they read/see on Fox News.
09/02/2011 at 01:41 Unaco says:
Is it wrong that I’m gleefully awaiting the Daily Mail article on this game, and the always reliable comments section?
09/02/2011 at 01:45 Navagon says:
They’ll probably just make up some shit about murdering giraffes and pregnant women again and call it a night.
09/02/2011 at 15:52 Primar says:
Don’t forget – video games both cause and prevent cancer, simultaneously.
09/02/2011 at 01:42 Towercap says:
Fox News is secretly a front for a video games marketing company.
But mostly just douchebags.
09/02/2011 at 02:14 Oneironaut says:
No One Lives Forever
Published by Sierra Entertainment and Fox Interactive.
09/02/2011 at 01:44 Navagon says:
I just noticed that I don’t have any kids. Did… did Bulletstorm skillshoot ma kids? :(
09/02/2011 at 01:47 FhnuZoag says:
The cynic in me says that Bulletstorm’s PR crew prompted this article, to generate more publicity for themselves.
09/02/2011 at 08:05 mpk says:
The cynic in me would high five the cynic in you except he’s cynical about perpetuating internet memes in an attempt to look cool.
09/02/2011 at 01:51 Juiceman says:
I always laugh at the sheep calling others sheep when articles like this come out. Why? Because the majority of people didn’t read the original article and don’t know that Fox News didn’t claim anything for which you have accused them of. They actually reported the issue with a a fair amount equality amongst the two major opinions on the subject. The people who claim that the game promotes rape and violence are psychologists they interviewed, not Fox News. By the same logic, you could read further down in the article and claim that Fox News thinks Bulletstorm promotes innovative thinking and that parents and adults should be responsible for making game purchases.
It is true that Fox News reports on video game violence more often than other news outlets, but does that make them anti video games? From everything I’ve read, they always present both sides of the argument fairly well. Maybe John Walker thinks any kind of discussion is the beginnings of persecution.
Bulletstorm may or may not be the worst game ever, that’s always one’s personal opinion. Personally, I tend to agree with an article that was linked to a few days ago. Basically it said video games are starting to experience titles that are simple tasteless, and really bring nothing to the table except for just moronic levels of over the top violence. Whether that makes it a bad game is always subjective. I personally find movies like Saw 1-6 to be pretty boring and not my cup of tea and I imagine Bulletstorm will be much the same way.
09/02/2011 at 02:07 Small Ivory Knight says:
I did read the article, and before I saw the counterpoint here on RPS, Let me just say:
nope.avi
John has the right of it, the fox news article is ridiculous, with terrible out of context quotes and a writing style that I would expect from a high school newspaper. It’s just more preaching to the choir. Do you honestly believe anyone who reads fox news would have gone out and bought Bulletstorm anyway?
09/02/2011 at 02:19 John Walker says:
That simply isn’t the case, Juiceman.
The headline, to start with, makes their agenda extremely clear. But the editorialising in the piece doesn’t leave room for your claims. Passages like:
do not leave room for the ambiguity they claim. It’s either extremely naive or deliberately facetious to suggest that the piece is balanced, or simply led by the quotes they received. Even the (bizarre) caption reads,
So please, none of this pretending I’m twisting the facts. I’ve added in a section acknowledging their closing quote. It clearly doesn’t change the overwhelming tone of the article.
As for your suggestion that I am not tolerant of the discussion, that’s wholly incorrect, as my regular articles on the subject should demonstrate. I have regularly called for proper scrutiny of the issues of game violence and problematic use, and so often said that if such things are a serious risk for gamers, then I want to know about that, and let other gamers know too.
You can see more of my discussion of this subject here and here.
09/02/2011 at 02:23 Juiceman says:
How ironic you bring up preaching to the choir when RPS is doing the exact same thing. I don’t know what is bigger preaching when it comes to the gaming community, anti DRM mantra or Fox News hates video games rhetoric. At least Fox News had counterpoints to the fear monger side of the argument. Counter points which stated their opinions pretty plainly from what I could see. As for out of context quotes I’m not sure what you are speaking to, maybe you could be more specific. And the writing style critique really brings nothing to the discussion and is just nit picking to distract from my over all point.
09/02/2011 at 02:26 DrGonzo says:
Funnily enough, I think a lot of people who read Fox News will buy the game, even more now they have run this story on it.
09/02/2011 at 02:40 Juiceman says:
Yes, John Walker, I read that section as well. But, in my opinion, their purpose for describing the various kill methods was more of a warning aimed at parents, not the promotion of “video games cause violence in youth” agenda. You claim that you are in favor of people making informed decisions when it comes to video games, especially for the parents of underage children. Yet you lambaste a news agency for trying to inform people. Now what are we to take away from that?
09/02/2011 at 02:46 John Walker says:
What we are to take away is that you’re a very silly person. But good try.
09/02/2011 at 02:49 mandrill says:
@juiceman: Fox news is entertainment dressed up as journalism. IT IS NOT JOURNALISM. The fictions it peddles are made all the worse by the fact that they have a grain of truth at their center (this is speaking generally rather than to the article in question) Any ‘news organisation’ that takes human suffering and looks for ways to spin it into ratings and viewer numbers (and they’re all guilty to some degree, Fox simply more blatantly than the rest) is not worth giving the time of day to.
This is once again a demonstration of how bad the MSM are when it comes to covering games, no research, no balance (merely the illusion of it) and a wilful attempt to keep their viewers and readers completely ignorant of any facts whatsoever. The scary thing is not that people write this dross, but that other people swallow every shit-covered word of it and call it chocolate.
09/02/2011 at 03:20 Juiceman says:
Oh I’m sorry John Walker, I thought we were having a legitimate discussion. But I can see you’d rather deflect and insult instead of backing up your opinion. My bad.
09/02/2011 at 03:30 Orvidos says:
I can’t tell if you’re a troll, or the son of a silly person, Juiceman. This saddens me.
That said, while this is hilariously pathetic in a way only FOX News can produce, it’s still not enough to make Bulletstorm interesting.
Though I could go for some murder, right about now. And I do have those left over pork ribs. . .
09/02/2011 at 03:33 Juiceman says:
@mandrill
It is true that almost all news organisation are just commentators and not journalists, they merely differ based on their particular slant. Fox News is mostly conservative and MSNBC mainly liberal, etc. But unless Bulletstorm has some grand message about the human condition or some other cause du jour as the focus of their game, I don’t really see how Fox News painted an inaccurate picture of the game being simply tasteless. Of course it isn’t fair to say if they do or do not have a legitimate message, other than ridiculous violence, unless you play the full game. But unless Epic releases more information, all you can really gleam from the demo was over the top violence and sex jokes. Which is fine if that is your thing.
09/02/2011 at 03:37 Juiceman says:
@Orvidos
I would love to discuss why you think I’m silly if you would produce an argument of your own.
09/02/2011 at 03:44 Muzman says:
Juiceman, the point you don’t seem to get is that they aren’t representing ‘both sides’ of the issue, as you suggest, at all. Nor are they being balanced in the least. They’re providing a platform for one extreme outlier view and then covering themselves with the question mark in the title and a couple of weak and indirect counter points and digressions.
This is the basic methodology of sensationalist journalism Frame the issue as extreme as possible and then wash your hands of it. It’s not as well known as its fire and brimstone slinging cousin with huge headlines and loads of invective, but it’s arguably more insidious. If they were at all honest they would interrogate the claims made by the people whose quotes they got rather than do this pathetic, disingenuous “Hey, we’re just asking questions. Don’t shoot the messenger.” act you seem happy to defend.
But Carole Lieberman’s a celebrity psychaitrist to Hollywood’s finest. They probably owe her a couple of quotes since her PR people bought their ad people lunch that one time.
09/02/2011 at 03:50 Orvidos says:
Juiceman, I can only assume from your bullheaded defense of FOX News that you’ve either not been paying attention in the last few years, or you’re a troll.
From people like Jack Thompson having a spot on FOX whenever he felt the need to rile the populace, to them going to these ‘experts’ for sources, there are two options. Either they hire and publish any idiot who walks in with a journalism degree, or they’re doing this intentionally. Your defense of “it’s not FOX, it’s the experts they’re talking to” is foolish. FOX doesn’t draft people off the street and say “Your opinion on this, as you’re now an expert at it” They have to go to these people and ask for comments. The cynic in me says they’re looking for people who have the credentials, but not the actual knowledge.
They’re not remotely balanced in this sort of issue, they -are- responsible for what they publish, who they let write for them and the sources they use, and nine times out of ten, all of those things are twisted to cause a culture of fear and skepticism, to paraphrase the great Bobby Kotick.
09/02/2011 at 04:24 DJ Phantoon says:
Children, that is how you identify a troll or someone who is not very bright (and for most intents and purposes, certainly ours here, these are the same).
1: Did they make broad, overgeneralizations or specifically wrong points?
2: When you used logic, did they do the equivalent of plugging their ears and going NYAH NYAH NYAH I CAN’T HEAR YOOOU
3: If they tested positive for the previous two things, they are most likely a troll or a zealot. Either is bad, do not feed them. Just prove them completely and shamefully wrong, then move on.
4: If you hate lists, do not read this list.
5: I hear you can ward away trolls by having everyone wear top hats.
09/02/2011 at 04:36 Juiceman says:
@Muzman
It is certainly true they had a meatier argument from those who thinks video games can cause harm to kids, and that argument was only backed up by the statements of the various doctors they interviewed. Despite that I’m less inclined to believe the nefarious journalism you say has taken place here.
1. It’s an online, one page piece, not some in depth report where they would certainly learn every in and out of the various points of view. It’s shoddy journalism for sure, but considering online stories like this are put together faster than a McDonald’s hamburger, I’d say it’s par for the course. I too would like to know what research these doctors have done to reach their conclusions, but, as you pointed out, the article doesn’t tell us.
2. The counter points from Hal Halpin are pretty cut and paste and not nearly as noteworthy as their rivals, I will give you that. But considering Epic refused to comment, is it really fair to say that the pro video game community was inadequately represented when the most relevant party (Epic) refused to represent themselves? If anything you should be mad at Epic’s PR department for not quashing Carol Lieberman. Instead they simply said nothing and let her facts go unopposed.
I think the problem is that the pro video game community doesn’t have someone speak for them as vocally as someone like Jack Thompson or this Carol Lieberman. So when Fox news does a piece on violence in video games we see someone like Lieberman make very strong arguments and then we have a comparatively weak response from people like Hal Haprin, or none at all in the case of Epic Games. This of course translates into people claiming bias on the part of Fox News by those who disagree with the video games promote violence agenda.
09/02/2011 at 04:38 Towercap says:
FOX News . . . inform people? I desperately want to see irony in this statement. http://bit.ly/eLdsjF
09/02/2011 at 04:47 Juiceman says:
@Orvidos
Considering Jack Thompson is probably the most vocal person in the Anti Violence in Video Games movement I’d say using him as a regular go to on the subject is not that out of the ordinary. Would you complain if they interviewed Al Gore every time they did a piece on Global Warming? I think not. Whether he’s an expert or not is certainly up for debate. I’d say he’s very knowledgeable, but not an expert. Much like Al Gore in fact. In the case of Carol Lieberman, I simply do not know. I will have to take her PHD as an indication she is at least qualified to give an opinion. But if you would like to poke holes in her credentials I’m all ears.
There is actually an excellent interview Game Spy did with Jack Thompson from a while back. It changed my opinion of him quite a lot. Whether you believe everything he says is up to you, but an interesting read none the less. http://www.gamespy.com/articles/112/1121508p1.html
09/02/2011 at 04:53 Juiceman says:
@Towercap
What’s more ironic is that you quoted Media Matters. But, for the sake of argument I’ll pretend they aren’t just as biased as you claim fox news is. The bottom line is you can find instances of biased journalism in every news organization. So you simply pointing to one example and saying “SEE SEE!” means nothing. If you like I can do the same for the news outlet of your choice.
09/02/2011 at 05:33 vagabond says:
Actually Juiceman, Towercap linked to a page detailing the 36 biggest examples in the past year, that based on the links within appears to consist of over 100 separate instances of misleading reporting, so he’s hardly “pointing to one example”.
John has already pointed out the language used in the article that makes it abundantly clear to everyone but you that Fox has taken a side in the debate.
Do you have a response that doesn’t amount to “That’s not the way I see it!”, since unless someone else chimes in to say they agree with you, that’s really only a compelling argument that you’re either an idiot or a troll.
Also, unless John cares to correct me, I cannot image it took him more than 15 minutes of what must have been the most grueling fact-checking ever done by man to determine that instances of rape have been going down for some time now and that the quoted Dr is simply lying to further her agenda.
You say this level of shoddy journalism is par for the course on the internet and you seem fine with that. In my opinion, if you can’t even do that basic level of fact checking, you shouldn’t be publishing the article in the first place.
You laud them for informing parents about the existence of this M rated game, but is that even the rating it received? I don’t know. I clearly cannot trust any of the “facts” published on any story on their website to be true, since they don’t care enough to actually check any of them.
09/02/2011 at 06:22 Big Murray says:
It’s 6am, so I’m going to put this as politely as my sleep-deprived mind can. You are either blind, dyslexic, or a blind dyslexic.
Presenting both sides of the argument means presenting both sides of the argument correctly, factually. Stating numerous unsubstantiated comments from “experts” such as “rape cases are rising because of video games” and “Bulletstorm has the potential to seriously harm people”, and then having a paragraph or two of the other side (immediately followed, I might add, by a rebuttal), is not balanced. It’s not even reporting; reporting means having some kind of facts to report. Every time Fox has a discussion on the topic of video-game violence, they flood the arena with anti-videogame rhetoric which has no basis in actual fact, allowing only a small amount of airtime for videogame activists to defend themselves.
Exhibit A:
http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/fox-news-on-mass-effect-sex/163925
09/02/2011 at 09:56 Lilliput King says:
Quoting some ludicrous quack with no analysis or argument is utterly irresponsible and fucking trivializes an argument that deserves serious consideration. You can’t just quote someone, wash your hands of it and call it respectable journalism. That’s especially true when the subject is as serious as sexual violence and the quotee is the author of “Bad Boys: Why We Love Them, How to Live with Them and When to Leave Them” (wish I was making this up).
09/02/2011 at 10:54 golden_worm says:
Those who don’t see a problem with Fox News praise the channel.
09/02/2011 at 11:22 Dozer says:
Juiceman == News International employee?
This just in: Fox News causes rape.
09/02/2011 at 12:05 gulag says:
Did someone order a bag of troll-feed?
09/02/2011 at 19:47 Kadayi says:
@Juiceman
Game is R18 dude. All this talk by Fox about ‘think about the kids’ is utter baloney. If it ends up in a kids hands whose responsible? The parents are.
I’d say guns sold to Civilians are a bigger danger than games, but perhaps I’m just being a radical.
09/02/2011 at 01:52 Muzman says:
You know if some gentle academic wrote about concerns with the tone of the game normalising sexual violence through language and maybe brought up ‘rape culture’ (ala Dickwolves business), the Fox boys and girls would be jumping up and down to call her a pinhead feminazi marxist out to destroy free speech and America through political correctness.
09/02/2011 at 02:19 DrugCrazed says:
One of the things I most look forward to is a law being passed that states “No newspaper may quote a scientist or study without a consultation by the scientist in question and a board of 10 scientific minds”.
The penatly shall be the newspaper in general being shut down for 2 days.
09/02/2011 at 02:20 John P says:
I loathe Fox News, and this story is rubbish. But Bulletstorm is equally rubbish.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game with so much sexual violence. Just because there’s no sex shown doesn’t mean it’s not there. This game absolutely does associate violence with sex. The skill shots are things like gang bang, facial, rear entry, deep penetration, and you achieve these terms while killing people. They’re pornographic terms, used in the worst of mainstream porn.
Now I’m not one to condemn pornography. The more tasteful is fine. But a lot of mainstream porn does encourage a negative, aggressive and humiliating sexual culture. Things like facials, for instance, which is one of the skill shots in this game. Bulletstorm is now playing its part in perpetuating this culture.
The worst thing about it is how Bulletstorm is able to do this because it doesn’t actually show nudity or sex. That allows it to get around the censors (even here in Australia, strict as the censors are), even though the level of sexual violence is WAY beyond GTA3′s sex with a prostitute and her subsequent murder (which got that game into trouble in Australia).
Bulletstorm is able to insinuate its way onto screens, and encourages teenaged boys to treat their girlfriends badly, fuck her aggressively, and then cum on her face. That’s what this game is all about. It’s about acting out aggressive sexual fantasies. That’s the entirely unsubtle subtext. It, like most mainstream porn, contributes to the attitude that that behaviour is perfectly fine.
Before anyone just dismisses me as a prude or a feminist or some shit*, think again. I generally defend games against accusations like this, but the creation of a sexual culture is a very serious thing, not something to be taken lightly. I am not at all comfortable with 15 year old boys playing this game and getting his kicks from performing ‘facials’ on enemies he is killing. I think that’s deeply disturbing. You know what’s more disturbing? Seeing young female gamers say this game looks like great fun and they can’t wait to play it.
So yes, the Fox News story is crap. But there is an issue that needs to be addressed here.
I’ve been very disappointed with how few negative reactions there have been to this game, especially from female game journalists. Perhaps they are afraid of the backlash against them if they complained, and I can’t blame them. But game journalists (the ones who aren’t juvenile trash themselves, anyway) should really be questioning Bulletstorm, not mindlessly defending it. Crap like the Fox News story shouldn’t be seen as an attack on the gaming medium, but an attack on one puerile, tasteless game. And beneath the sensationalism is an issue worth discussing.
Edit:
*As Ryn Taylor notes below, my use of ‘some shit’ here is referring to potential dismissive comments. Given the content of my post, it’s unfair to suggest I’m equating feminism with ‘shit’.
Also note that this post is a general criticism of Bulletstorm, and is not a direct response to RPS or this article. As I said above more than once, I agree the Fox News article is rubbish.
Finally, yes, I have played the console demo, so my comments are not based solely off speculation and screenshots. But I would argue that this kind of criticism is entirely reasonable even without playing the game, because we’re discussing factual information (the skill shots). Richard Clark at Gamasutra has also raised similar concerns about this game.
09/02/2011 at 02:22 DrugCrazed says:
I’d argue that he’s defending video games from shoddy misconceptions.
09/02/2011 at 02:36 Colthor says:
@John P
Don’t worry, I won’t accuse you of being a feminist.
09/02/2011 at 02:38 John Walker says:
Well, you should first be aware that the game isn’t out yet, which may explain why there hasn’t been more negative commentary. It would also suggest that you haven’t played it either, beyond possibly the console demo, which would call into question your absolute statements.
Perhaps when I play the game I’ll be offended by its content. I don’t know yet. Which is rather the point.
However, in response to the points you make here, I’m not sure I can yet see the direct correlation between the violence in the game, and the sex acts you describe. Simply by punning on the names of sex acts does not, to my understanding, mean that one depicts the other, let alone condones or encourages them. When I shoot a man in the face in a game, I very rarely equate that to forcibly ejaculating in a woman’s face. Simply because this game says “facial” when I shoot a mercenary in the face with a cannonball (the requirements for that skill shot), I can’t really imagine my brain getting any closer to associating the two. Any more than I can imagine I’d be thinking about having a facepack and two slices of cucumber put on my face.
I’m not saying that you’re wrong – but I don’t yet understand how you could be right.
By the way, you don’t endear me to your argument by associating feminism with “some shit”.
09/02/2011 at 02:55 DarkFenix says:
Yeah, this kind of language is used in the mainstream porn industry. Y’know where else you’ll hear it all the time? In the average teenager-filled school playground. That and worse.
I’m with John Walker in that I really can’t see how you’re drawing a very direct link between violent sexual acts and Bulletstorm. It’s a bunch of puns to make the skillshot names amusing, albeit in a massively juvenile way. I’d seriously like to know your logic in that comparison though.
09/02/2011 at 03:08 Wolf Hongo says:
“By the way, you don’t endear me to your argument by associating feminism with ‘some shit’.”
You’ve just won an eternity’s worth of hugs, John Walker! Please come to the area in front of my stomach to claim your prize.
09/02/2011 at 03:58 Orvidos says:
Wolf, do you mind if I steal the hell out of that? The stomach bit.
09/02/2011 at 04:48 Ryn Taylor says:
First of all, I pretty much agree with the majority of the opinions posted. Bulletstorm should be allowed to be what it wants. If people don’t want to play it, or they don’t want their children playing it, they can do that.
Secondly, I want to address John P’s post and the replies to it somewhat. I think as gamers, we tend to rush to the defense of games without really considering if we should be. It’s easy to defend exaggerations. Surely saying that a video game could cause rape it as the least a bit drastic.
But while everyone’s talking about the out-of-game implications, no one ever looks at the in-game effects. No one really addresses the sexual harrassment in games (this is going off my own experience here, please someone tell me if you have seen people talk about this).
1 in 4 college women have survived a rape or attempted rape in the U.S. More have survived sexual assault. Few male players stop to think about this while spouting out sexual insults in chat. Do these male players have any idea how realistically helpless and demeaned something like teabagging can make a recently assaulted woman feel?
I could go on, but my point is that while Fox is an easy target, not all who speak out against a game should be so easily dismissed.
Does a game like Bulletstorm reinforce negative sexual culture? I’m sure it doesn’t create it, and at least it’s one of many, many outlets that young, impressionable gamers face. I don’t believe it needs to be censored. For myself, I simply won’t buy it. But maybe it should be allowed to be talked about outside of the black and white “Games are horrible violence inducing crap” and “No! Defend all games!” camps.
Oh, and I believe “some shit,” grammatically speaking, refers back to the implied automatic dismissal, not feminism.
09/02/2011 at 05:57 vagabond says:
I played Counterstrike back in the day, when it was one of the only games of its kind. I gave up on it because the majority of players on-line whenever I had time to play it (or at least the vocal minority) were 13 year olds, and I got sick of the inane/offensive drivel they would spout on chat.
Unless you are about to tell me that time travel will be invented shortly after Bulletstorm is released and that the players it warps emotionally are all going to go back in time and grief my younger self playing CS, I’m left with the fact that, what; almost ten years ago now, teenagers were already telling me “j00 just got raped fag!” and the feeling that me getting shot in the ass and the words “fire in the hole” flashing up on the screen isn’t going to cause the FPS multiplayer landscape to spiral into any more of a pit of hate filled invectives than it already is.
If someone could show me some evidence that people’s online behaviour has improved since then, and that this is going to be a massive set back to that improvement, I might care. But at this stage I’m not buying it.
09/02/2011 at 06:10 jalf says:
And? I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want people to spend the rest of their lives treating people the way they do on a school playground. I don’t think “it happens on the playground too” has *ever* been an excuse for bad behavior. Given the number of nerds on this site, I think quite a lot of people here know just how badly it is possible to be treated on a school playground. ;)
I don’t think the game is “about acting out aggressive sexual fantasies” though. That’s too simple, and as Walker said, it is hard to make the mental connection between any kind of sex, and shooting someone in the face with a cannon.
But it absolutely *is* about making acts of humiliating or dominating others, through violence or through sexualized terms, seem “cool”.
Like @Ryn says just above, isn’t there some middle ground between “it’s a game, as gamers we must defend it”, and “this game will make you a rapist”?
The question isn’t so much what the game *on its own* does or means or implies, but whether it reinforces *existing* negative aspects of our culture, and whether we are ok with that.
Honestly, when taken in isolation, the game is utterly harmless, and it would be ridiculous to worry about it. But it fits into a pattern we see throughout our culture, where, for example, it *is* ok to trivialize sexual violence. As @DarkFenix pointed out, we even learn that on the school playground. It’s not new, it’s not unique to Bulletstorm, and people would be just as immersed in those aspects of our culture even without Bulletstorm. But still, do we want to *further* this culture? Bulletstorm might just be one small step among many, but it’s still a step in the wrong direction.
09/02/2011 at 09:16 StingingVelvet says:
Some women very much like being fucked aggressively and then having a man cum on their face.
Just as an FYI.
09/02/2011 at 09:49 matty_gibbon says:
@John P
We are wandering off-topic here slightly. The article wasn’t making any comment on the game itself, just the terrible reporting of Fox News. Making statements backed up by “experts” with an agenda, without doing basic fact checking is irresponsible at best.
But it is true that such “news” items like this prevent genuine concerns from being expressed, drowned out as they are by hyperbole and scaremongering. So, I’m glad you brought some genuine concerns about the game to the fore.
Whereas I don’t believe that having this language in the game alongside acts of violence directly draws a connection between said sex acts and violence, I don’t entirely disagree with what you’re saying.
I think it’s the ubiquity of the words themselves that may cause a problem. It doesn’t encourage the acts it describes, but it may make them more acceptable. Of course, there is no way to back this up with data as a study like that would be incredibly difficult. You know when people use the word gay to describe something in a negative way? It could be argued that once that becomes ubiquitous it contributes to making flippant derogatory statements about homosexuals okay.
Of course, it should also be noted that none of the acts described are necessarily bad amongst consenting adults (quite the opposite, depending on tastes :-) ). Are there actually any casual references to rape, or acts of actual sexual violence in the point-scoring? That I would have a severe problem with.
The problem with the phrases mentioned is their connotations with the porn industry, as you mentioned, and all the negative baggage that comes with that. It’s an interesting tangle of associations and it’s almost impossible to predict what effect such associations may have. Words don’t exist in a vacuum and I think it’s appropriate and helpful to discuss their use.
09/02/2011 at 11:10 DarkFenix says:
jalf: I’m not so much of the “gamers should defend games” idea as much as “everything should be defended from bigots.” It’s the same blame-game that’s been happening for decades. All forms of entertainment media feature sexual content, violent content, mixes of the two and more besides. All in turn have been blamed for turning kids into murderers or rapists. All because people would much sooner hysterically point at the convenient scapegoat rather than look closer to home.
I personally don’t see the whole glorification of sex, violence or both from games, but then I’ve always drawn the boundary between fantasy and reality more starkly than most. I think if parents make damn sure their kids know the difference between right and wrong as well as fantasy and reality, the problem goes away on its own. Of course, it’ll never happen. The scapegoat will change, but the problem will go unsolved.
09/02/2011 at 14:49 Gonefornow says:
I don’t think John P intended to associate feminism and prudism with “Some shit”. He associated labels like feminist or prude as some shit.
Why? Because being labeled in a conversation is the worst that can happen to you. After that some people think that you only support the cause of the particular party/ideal.
Try it out. Toss an idea “money is (mostly) bad” in a conversation and, presto, someone will probably call you out as a communist.
09/02/2011 at 02:24 Emperor_Jimmu says:
The right wing media do produce some very creative bullshit.
09/02/2011 at 02:24 EC- says:
“We will update you if any of the experts get in touch.”
Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.
Epic will really gain my respect if they put some of these quotes on the box.
09/02/2011 at 02:33 Fox89 says:
I love the fact that they say: “the experts FoxNews.com spoke with were nearly universally worried that video game violence may be reaching a fever pitch”.
Well, they spoke to TWO ‘experts’, and ‘nearly universally’ suggests at least ONE of those two experts agreed with that statement.
It’s a disgraceful article sure, but its FOX News. Is anyone still taking them seriously at this point?
09/02/2011 at 02:34 Colthor says:
John, how can you possibly know Bulletstorm won’t murder children when, by your own admission, you don’t even have review code yet?
09/02/2011 at 02:43 John Walker says:
I’m a disgusting hypocrite.
10/02/2011 at 08:44 mpk says:
Now that you’ve said that itll probably be quoted by Fox…
09/02/2011 at 02:48 dr.castle says:
Most Americans know not to pay any attention to a Fox News story, ever. This is run-of-the mill reporting from them. You could find something to get equally in a huff about every day if you tried. They’re mainly good for a laugh.
09/02/2011 at 02:56 mandrill says:
‘Most Americans?’ you’ve asked them have you?
If we’re going to make sweeping generalisations I could just as easily say that ‘Most Americans’ drive pickups wear mullet hairstyles and believe that Elvis is alive and well and working in a burger bar in Des Moines.
I suspect your ‘Most Americans’ are professionals who have college educations, not the ‘Most Americans’ who don’t even finish high-school, work minimum wage jobs and can barely read let alone discern facts from opinion.
Fox News is never good for a laugh, because the lies they tell are believed by millions without question, the harm they are doing by claiming to be ‘journalists’ is immeasurable.
09/02/2011 at 03:51 ANeM says:
When you make a claim such as “Most Americans do not believe Fox News” I have to wonder, for one thing.. Do you actually live in the United States? Its a big place with a whole bucket-load of people, and of those people, a whole damn lot of them watch Fox News.
So many people watch it that in fact the Fox News channel is the second most watched cable channel in all of the United States. Not cable news channel, this is including channels that are actually upfront about being entertainment. Can you legitimately say that of its millions of viewers, that a majority of those people are watching “ironically”?
So the Tea Party movement, those crazy radical minority of fox news viewers that think Obama is a secret muslim with a fake birth certificate planted in the white house by “All K-duh” to destroy their country with better health care. People who regularly organize and publicize protests in association with Fox News, protests in which regularly see supporters showing up with firearms on their persons…
You’re saying that those people, the crazy minority part of fox viewers, that are large enough to hold events around the country.. are doing it all ironically, and do not represent a larger group that, while they believe fox news and agree with the opinions it feeds them, do not feel that changes to health care call for comparisons with the Nazis and violent revolution.. or simply can’t be bothered to go outside for the rallies.
I would say there is a good chance that the number of people in the United States who actually believe Fox News is “Fair and Balanced” and “News” is probably higher than the entire population of Canada.
09/02/2011 at 04:12 dr.castle says:
Whoa. OK. What I meant was “most of us Americans,” as in “most Americans who read RPS,” but a recent poll showed 46 percent of Americans say they “distrust” Fox News. Maybe that’s not most, but that’s a lot.
But yeah, I agree that’s it’s horribly depressing that they put out things like this. It just seems a bit silly to get worked up about Fox News giving video games a bad rap when they not only put out news stories like this on a daily basis, but when some of them seem much more actively harmful to our society (remember the whole Obama is a Muslim/was raised in a Madrasah business?).
09/02/2011 at 04:49 FriendlyFire says:
“Whoa. OK. What I meant was “most of us Americans,” as in “most Americans who read RPS,” but a recent poll showed 46 percent of Americans say they “distrust” Fox News. Maybe that’s not most, but that’s a lot.”
And that’s distressing! It means 54% of Americans either are indifferent or *trust* Fox News. Even if only 1 in 2 trusts them out of that lot, you’re still at a quarter of the total population, which hovers on the 75M mark.
I’m very often scared of the neighbors down south, to be honest. Not necessarily the individuals, but most definitely the entities.
09/02/2011 at 05:40 johntheemo says:
Having lived in South Louisiana for 24 years, I can assure you, people take FOX News seriously. So seriously, in fact, that I was nearly fired from a job for having turned off Sean Hannity’s news program.
@FriendlyFire: You should be scared. But only if you’re an ethnic minority, Muslim, or in favor of the OBAMA REGIME.
09/02/2011 at 22:44 dr.castle says:
@FriendlyFire
Yeah, I dug up the poll and 42% responded that they trust Fox News. That’s horrifying. Being from the southeast, I’ve met my fair share of people who watch the channel, but I had always assumed they were in the vast minority in the country as a whole. Especially given how frequently Fox News stories have been shown to include absolute, unqualified lies.
09/02/2011 at 02:56 edit says:
You’d almost think Epic’s marketing department paid Fox News to write this, although the sad truth is that they are quite good at writing utterly dishonest, sensationalist, pathetic excuses for articles on their own.
I personally dislike the direction Bulletstorm has taken, but I’m prepared to defend its right to exist. It would be nice if more developers grew up a bit and helped to mature the medium (by mature I mean more subtlety and sophistication, not more QTE sex scenes or whatever) but there is always room for the puerile in the spectrum of art. After all, art is precisely where humanity can and should freely express any and all aspects of itself. I could endlessly watch Fellini’s 8 1\2 but I still have no aversion to watching something like Jackass, because it expresses vastly different aspects of humanity.
09/02/2011 at 03:10 alice says:
John Walker, I love you (in a sort of platonic, not impeding on your recent engagement [and congrats again] sort of way). I really do hope the experts respond with comments of their own.
09/02/2011 at 03:14 Pointless Puppies says:
If the game’s very close to “pornography” as many people like to say, why in the world are children playing it?
Arguing against all these fake studies is pointless (people will just come up with new fake studies to support their baseless claims), but riddle me this, Fox News. If the game is this bad, why are you examining the game’s effects on children?
Children. Aren’t. Supposed. To. Play. This.
So I don’t care if the game “promotes rape”, it’s an extremely poor appeal to pathos to say “the poor innocent children will be forever scarred if they every see this!” anywhere in their “argument’. Children aren’t supposed to be seeing this in the first place, meaning they play no role in the “impact” this game has.
This, of course, goes without mentioning the rest of the incredibly bad arguments they make on the rest of their “story”, as RPS points out (complaining that Warner Bros. has no comment? Really?)
09/02/2011 at 04:51 FriendlyFire says:
Apparently if the ESRB says it’s Mature, it doesn’t matter. It has to be written into law and be illegal for it to work.
Or so they say anyway, all the while speeding to work and giving alcohol to their teens.
09/02/2011 at 03:40 Spacewalk says:
Well, with the amount of dudes you can shoot in the testes (in Bulletstorm) I don’t think that there will be much raping going on afterwards.
09/02/2011 at 03:44 Jason Moyer says:
Fox News: We think it’s ok to slaughter people and act like vulgar hillbilles as long as it’s not in a videogame.
09/02/2011 at 03:56 KillahMate says:
I’m pretty sure Epic and People Can Fly are high-fiving each other right now. This is basically the best thing that could have possibly happened to the game. In fact they may have (anonymously of course) tipped off Fox News themselves.
Each time one of these pathetic moral outrages breaks out (or should I say happens, since I doubt it will have any staying power) I get less and less worried and more and more amused.
PS I would like to apologize for unthinkingly clicking on the link to the Fox News article, thus contributing to their hit total. Should have at least turned on AdBlock first. John, could you take the link out? They have enough page views as it is.
09/02/2011 at 07:57 Kadayi says:
I look forward to the Onion News network spin on the matter..
09/02/2011 at 04:08 FRIENDLYUNIT says:
To Carol Lieberman I say this: “Physician heal thyself”
09/02/2011 at 04:20 Urthman says:
And there they have their story: Bulletstorm, and games like it, cause rape.
You say this as if it isn’t true. Maybe it’s just that you’re always playing PC games, but if you’d spent any time on XBox live, you’d read and hear every day literally hundreds of accounts of players having been “raped” by playing a video game.
If you do a Google search for “I got raped” and “Modern Warfare 2″ you get over 66,000 hits!
09/02/2011 at 11:59 Dozer says:
66,000 hits? Is that from just under the search box after you’ve done a search? Google routinely makes those numbers up. http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/04/trochee-chart/
09/02/2011 at 13:46 Urthman says:
Well even if the numbers are a bit off, the rest of my point was completely serious.
09/02/2011 at 17:23 GameOverMan says:
Getting raped by a straight up beast = bestiality?
09/02/2011 at 04:47 Corrupt_Tiki says:
So that’s why I have that bottle of chloroform in my cupboard, I wondered where that was used for..
And btw, my KDR is currently at 1.4; They might pay two Swedish women to accuse me of sexual assault, woops looks like they already did that with Assange…
09/02/2011 at 14:31 Outsider says:
Awesome, two women have complaints of sexual assault and you immediately don’t believe them because it goes against your politics. Pretty loathsome stuff.. But, good for Assange, he can do anything he wants now and people will just say he was setup. I hope he enjoys his new criminal immunity.
Enough of that tripe though. On the topic:
Shoddy reporting, but regardless not my type of game. I’ve thought the humor bad from the start, so this isn’t exactly making me to buy the game out of spite or anything (and really, do people buy games out of SPITE? Odd.)
09/02/2011 at 05:00 Nick says:
This is small potatos when the WHOLE OF EUROPE IS ON FIRE
09/02/2011 at 05:15 ManaTree says:
Sigh. Fox News. I wish they’d simply go away. I agree with much of what has been said here already (including the article, of course). Fox News is just…disgusting. Exploiting sensationalism for the sake of hits (or at least that’s my guess).
I can’t comment on Bulletstorm (I’m rather indifferent about it right now), but hey, a game should be presented as it is, not some “funhouse mirror” version of it (to quote Jon Stewart).
Sigh.
Don’t ever leave me, RPS! I pay good money (okay it’s just the sub, but my heart matters, RIGHT?) for the genuine journalism you actually do. And of course, VIDEO GAMES. But seriously, fine work here, Mr. Walker (and congrats!).
09/02/2011 at 08:29 Kadayi says:
Without FEAR to peddle (and I don’t mean the game), what else have Fox got to sell as news and opinion exactly? Every day is about convincing their audience that the sky is falling somehow, and unfortunately a lot of people seem to lap that up.
09/02/2011 at 05:32 Misnomer says:
I wish RPS would leave stories like this alone. You already had a piece about Bulletstorm’s lewdness linked in the Sunday Papers where you came down on the side of the developer against a person saying that it was disgusting (yes other things were said in the comments, but you emphasized the developers over the original opinion piece in your summary). It seems like RPS wants in on this non-scandal so they can be ideological again.
The whole appeal of this story is so that we can all be “yay free speech” and “our hobby does no harm to society.” All you really end up doing is advertising the game to people who think they are rebelling against society by playing this crap.
I hope this blog gives the game the treatment it deserves (though better would be ignoring it completely) when it comes out and has these crude things in it (and no the option to turn it off does not make it all better).
If you don’t want to comment before you can play the entire game, then don’t comment…even on the little things you see about the game. If you did not report this I doubt anyone here would question your editorial skills.Film critics don’t get into a tizzy every time a news channel reports on some group offended by a movie. The game isn’t being banned, nor is there anything noteworthy in this story besides two “experts “with sound bites. I am getting sick of the stories that pop up every time someone can be quoted saying games have an influence on behavior.
While it is unlikely Bulletstorm will have any influence on their real life actions, I have a hunch that I will likely be banning at least one young punk from my clan’s BC2 server when he decides to use Bulletstorm lingo to remark on his last kill. Not a rapist, but quite the nuisance to communities that are trying to prevent normalized Xbox Live behaviors from taking over a mature environment.
09/02/2011 at 08:38 Kadayi says:
Sounds like you’re just looking for an excuse to ban him anyway. Maybe trying talking to him instead?
09/02/2011 at 05:33 therighttoarmbears says:
This seems like as good a place as any to work through this a bit, though it’s only tangentially related to this article (which is absolutely hilarious, by the way). We talk about how terrible the ‘experts’ they quote in these articles are, and they are terrible, but because it’s all opinion. There’s no true evidence. So, how would you actually study this, really? It’d be a tough subject to study, right? This isn’t exactly my forte, but here are my unsolicited thoughts on the subject.
Any time you ever want to do research about risk factors, causes, whether interventions are effective etc you start with the lowly case report. Accordingly, the first study target you’d shoot for (pun intended?) would be a case report of a person who’s done heinously bad things who happened to have put in a lot of video game time. ABSOLUTELY does not have anything to do with causation, but it’s the starting point, and more importantly, it’s how you get peoples’ attention. Next up, case series, which could be summarized as (assuming you get the data and it is true) ‘hey look, all these heinous, evil people all tended to play a lot of video games.’ You do that, and you might even convince somebody to fund you for something actually real (because maybe you’d actually be on to something). Next up is something called a case-control study – it’s cheap and still pretty easy and good for suggesting further avenues of inquiry into the root causes of rare things. You take people known to have the bad outcome of interest (in our case violent behavior – you could use your serial killers with a love of violent games from the case series) and compare their exposure to video games to ‘normal’ age and sex and everything else matched controls. You show difference and you’ve got something somebody legitimate might publish! Not just sensationalist media, mind you, but refereed, peer-reviewed, legitimate, academic literature stuff. You’re still NOWHERE NEAR showing causation (it’s a retrospective study design), or even a real correlation, but now you’ve got peoples’ attention. This is likely the furthest you’d ever get, as the next steps are insanely expensive and hard to do, because they’re the real deal. What you really want is called a prospective cohort study. You take a group of people in the population at large and follow them. You follow how much they game, and you follow how violent they are over time. There are an absolute ton of fine points in there, but that’s the brief overview (the fine points being ridiculously complicated and too many to even bother thinking about on an internet post). It’d be really tough – that’s why people dedicate their lives to designing studies. If you did it right, you’d have a true correlation. To do true causation, you’d need a randomized controlled trial, but you can’t do RCT’s for making bad things happen, it’s unethical.
So – that’s how I would do it, and that’s why it’s difficult to do right. But if we’re all honestly interested in this subject (and as gamers we really ought to be), that’s what I would be on the lookout for. If someone someday shows a prospective cohort study about games and violence, then you ought to pay attention and scrutinize! If it’s just some mouthy psychiatrist shooting their opinion off, feel free to turn off the TV.
09/02/2011 at 05:58 bill says:
I don’t think the bulletstorm devs need RPS to defend them. Lots of RPS readers think bulletstorm is a juvenile attempt at gaining just this kind of attention – and have said so in numerous comments before now.
Fox’s reporting is terrible and they are wrong about many facts. But that’s nothing new.
Game is dumb juvenile and violent to gain attention. That’s nothing new.
But why do we, as gamers, have to support idiot developers and their dumb products just because they are games? I’ll defend mass effect against Fox’s headline grabbing fearmongering. I won’t defend bulletstorm because (a) they’re asking for it, and (b) they’ve managed to make all gamers look like dumb violent morons. Thanks for that guys!
09/02/2011 at 06:27 vagabond says:
And if the only story out there that represents Bulletstorm is the Fox news one that says “The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games”, is the only information about this sort of thing that the supreme court gets and it backs the California law, it makes it just that much more likely that places like Wal-Mart wont stock M rated games, and then you don’t get stuff like Mass Effect 3 because it can’t turn a profit without the major chain retailers.
Someone needs to call them on their shit. I already live in a country where I can’t play Risen, or a decent version of Left 4 Dead 2, because there are politicians and political lobby groups whose view of what computer games are is shaped by reporting like this. The laws aren’t going to change if games that I might not care for because they’re a bit immature are instead made out to be ultra-violent rape simulators.
09/02/2011 at 06:46 Corrupt_Tiki says:
Yes, Thank you Vagabond!!!
As much as I don’t really give a flying fuck, I think I have to,. As I live in Australia, where there isn’t even an R18 classification for videogames which is utter bullshit, and the games that do get through are often heavily modified, to the point they ruin the game(see L4D2)
I find this unacceptable, I’m supposed to be a free citizen, not restrained by some draconian police-state style laws..
Urgh, I would go on, but I fear my rage will twist my words into an illegible paragraph of swears and threats to the ignorant fools that make these ‘informed’ decisions… it’s starting oh god..
09/02/2011 at 07:22 heretic says:
Cliffy did it again…
09/02/2011 at 07:35 TheTourist314 says:
This article made my day. I was going to say there should be a tally chart made of the times people debunk or even just simply and logically dethrone the bullshit that Fox News spits out, but then I realized that the tally would become astronomic in size in a matter of days. Alternatively, maybe a tally where they get something right? Of course, you’d then just have an empty tally sitting there, all alone with no friends to talk to.
09/02/2011 at 07:35 Rond says:
As much as Bulletstorm is stupid and all the “sexual references” are out of place, journalists continue their fine work of putting together some vaguely proven crap and feeding it to the masses.
09/02/2011 at 07:56 Baboonanza says:
How ironic, considering that Fox News is literally THE WORST NEWS SOURCE IN THE WORLD.
09/02/2011 at 07:56 Tei says:
I think the point of Bulletstorm is bad taste. Thats why CliffyB was hired to, to make a game that withouth him will be another Borderlands, into a rampage of poop jokes.
So whos the first to get scared for it? another source of bad taste. Fox News and Bulletstorm deserve each another. Maybe Bulletstorm deserve more respect because is tryiing to make a poop joke in a medium where poop jokes are almost non existant. While Fox News is a poop joke, but sould be something else, Journalism. The people of Fox News sould be ashamed of thenselves.
But I can’t be harsh here, on this economic climate you are lucky if you can find a job, even if is working on Fox News creative inventing news to scare a conservative ignorant audience with yellow journalism.
09/02/2011 at 07:58 killmachine says:
im so glad i dont live in the us to experience this brainwashing satan news station called “fox”.
what i do know though from watching various documentaries such as “fahrenheit 9/11″ and some other not related 9/11 documentaries, is that fox has its own truth and that it probably is too influential in the us (and probably uk, i dont know if uk has fox too).
but i have faith in the people and think that most of them are not stupid enough to believe everything they hear and see. especially not the bullsh*t that comes from fox.
but for me as a german i think its funny. the german version of bulletstorm is highly censored. no ragdolls, no limbs to be shot off and stuff like that. well, i think thats ok, kids buy in austria then or pirate the game.
in the us its like. eh, some dirty words in there. and the conservatives go like, “nah, we dont like that too much, let use our fox news thingi to make a story about it”. there could be all the blood and limbs in the virtual world and no one would care in the us. but let there be some dirty words or a bare tit and everyone goes crazy. (i know there are no bare tits in bulletstorm, but you get what i mean)
09/02/2011 at 11:39 7rigger says:
“i dont know if uk has fox too”
Sky television are owned by the the same corporation as Fox, or they own them, I can’t exactly remember which.
Our Fox News is Sky News.
*Edit*
deejayem has said it far better than me, further down.
09/02/2011 at 14:44 Outsider says:
[[im so glad i dont live in the us to experience this brainwashing satan news station called “fox”.
what i do know though from watching various documentaries such as “fahrenheit 9/11″ and some other not related 9/11 documentaries, is that fox has its own truth]]
First of all, it’s not brainwashing if it is 100% choice to watch or not. We have more than 7 channels here, you know.
And second, LOL, speaking of “own truths” and you reference noted liar Michael Moore?
The end of the day, you don’t like Fox, don’t watch / read it. You don’t like the Green Lantern, don’t watch it, you don’t like Fallout 3, don’t play it, etc. etc. etc. We have choice, and getting your panties in a twist over having choices is ridiculous and frankly, has no place in a free society.
For those here trying to conflate this bullshit reporting with some big international evil – that’s laughable and pathetic. We’ve got real worries in this world and a news organization isn’t really one of them.
09/02/2011 at 08:32 Pemptus says:
Fox’s “WORST GAME” wording reminds me of something I once read on Yahoo Answers or somesuch similar question-answer site. The question was along the lines of “which games do you consider the worst?”, clearly expecting specific titles as answers. The first reply was “War games. They are violent and cause harm to the children.” and the rest of the replies followed suit in the voice of concerned housewives.
09/02/2011 at 08:37 Mister_Inveigler says:
9 year olds play games like Bulletstorm?
Where are their parents might I ask?
Dangerous game? How about dangerous parents who refuse to raise their children properly and monitor the content they access?
Seriously, there’s just no acceptance of responsibility any more. People just expect companies and governments to do all the work for them.
It’s sick.
09/02/2011 at 08:55 Risingson says:
BRILLIANT, RPS. THIS is what journalism is about!
And what you investigated is what journalism is today: it doesn’t matter what you say, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, or if it’s reasonable enough or not: you must shock the people and sell newspapers. Anyone that reads those statements, switching on their brain, see the holes in all the “investigation”, but maybe those readers don’t want to think. They just read all those “news” as a matter of faith. Happens everywhere around the world.
09/02/2011 at 09:07 Dlarit says:
I was looking forward to this game but I do not want to become a rapist so I’m going to have to give it a miss…
09/02/2011 at 09:14 StingingVelvet says:
More articles like this please.
09/02/2011 at 09:17 Davie says:
OH BUGGER ME SIDEWAYS. I thought we were done with this utter nonsense…
Bulletstorm is not exactly a game I look forward to playing, but I had really hoped that the days of media companies using sensationalist phrases and citing heavily biased sources with no background information on the topic at hand were over. Once again, I am embarrassed to be American.
Oh well. I guess the game was basically hand-tailored to create controversy, so the magnificent trolls at Epic and PCF deserve a round of applause.
09/02/2011 at 09:39 The Sombrero Kid says:
News Corps Futile struggling against the irresistible forces which put them on top in the first place now bringing about their demise.
09/02/2011 at 09:46 matty_gibbon says:
Comment moved as stupid site made me sign in twice, then didn’t put my comment as a reply like I asked
09/02/2011 at 09:47 Jachap says:
“Games without sufficient quality of gameplay — games that include highly objectionable violent or sexual content — often pump up the level of this kind of content to gain media attention. This tactic typically fails, as can be seen in the poor sales performance of titles such as BMX XXX and Postal.
It should probably be pointed out that another explanation of the poor sales of those games is that they were bloody awful.”
I think that’s moot, John. My reading of the quotation is that he’s saying exactly that.
I’ve played the demo of Bulletstorm on the 360. It differs from the template set by Postal in one crucial aspect. The core gameplay is solid. The demo is pretty much the smallest slice of the game they could have given you and still viably used the term demo – a replayable five minute section where literally the only goal is racking up points.
There’s a real, old school purity to it. The learning curve, when you replay it and start experimenting with combos and score multipliers, is a nice one – and pretty unique in my experience. There’s invention, certainly, but perhaps not quite as much as you’d hope. It’s basically The Club but less dull. It’s important to mention that if you play it as a straight forward shooter (certainly in this game mode and presumably others, though how the story integrates the scoring dynamic is anyone’s guess) without using the skillshots, your score will be laughable. At every point, the game actively encourages you to kill people as sadistically as possible.
The cartoonish feel, the sheer assault of colour, the blinding pace and the way the extreme violence provides crucial visual feedback on the kills and score is more satisfying and more dynamic than The Club or, say, COD’s multiplayer.
That said – every single moment of the game is permeated by relentless, unnecessary puerility. Even if it is mainly puns, it felt too much, like every kill in UT2003 being accompanied by the announcer yelling, “Holy shit!”
Maybe some people will feel a frisson of naughty excitement every time they shoot an enemy in the crotch and the game flashes up “BILATERAL FUCKING ORCHIECTOMY!” or some such. I’m a bit too long in the tooth for that.
Epic have ramped the “objectionable content” up beyond what was essential for the core game and I think it has to be purely to gain this sort of media attention. I mean, if you take GTA as a prime example of controversial violence tied with gameplay that was actually, you know, good, the sales figures speak for themselves.
Personally, I wasn’t offended by the content but I am sick to death of publishers transparently setting out to provoke exactly this sort of discussion, in this case at the detriment of the game itself. It’s this that Epic should be condemned for, not whatever nonsense Fox is babbling today.
11/02/2011 at 15:47 RegisteredUser says:
nm.
09/02/2011 at 09:59 Dreamhacker says:
This piece “fair and balanced” TV-journalism takes the meaning of “fair and balanced” to a whole new level.
09/02/2011 at 11:42 7rigger says:
That’s really what I object to most. They can spout any sensationalist rubbish they want and blatantly take sides – I don’t care.
Just don’t call yourself “Fair and Balanced.”
09/02/2011 at 10:34 deejayem says:
Christ, this kind of thing annoys me. Personally I think the average hyper-macho manshoot audience needs more exaggerated quasi-sexual frat-house humour about as much as David Cameron needs more silver spoons. But on the other hand poorly constructed sensationalist witch-hunt reporting aimed at people who will probably never even think of buying the game does nothing to address any legitimate concerns of the actual gaming audience.
UK readers who think of Fox News as a uniquely US phenomenon might want to look at Murdoch’s plans to buy out the remaining shares in BSkyB, giving him complete editorial control of what would become the largest media outlet in the UK. Our esteemed Hulture Secretary is attempting to pass this through government scrutiny behind closed doors, after Vince Cable spectacularly shot himself in the foot. Anyone interested in diversity of opinion and representation in the UK media should probably take a look at this and consider registering a protest with their MP.
09/02/2011 at 10:36 deejayem says:
Sorry, politics. I will go and say some Hail Horaces.
09/02/2011 at 12:11 Dozer says:
Vince Cable didn’t shoot himself in the foot. Those two Daily Telegraph reporters shot him in the foot when they breached his trust and the expectation that an MP’s conversation with his constituents is confidential. The reporters also shot themselves in the feet, because by exposing Cable’s opposition to Murdoch, and causing him to be removed from influence over the BSkyB bid process, they’ve greatly smoothed the way for Murdoch to achieve his aims. Which upsets their bosses, who are rivals to Murdoch.
Murdoch == bad. Rupert Murdoch has a long history of buggering democracies (in Australia, the UK, and the US) by overtly giving political support to whichever party will support the expansion of his media hegemony.
09/02/2011 at 14:09 deejayem says:
Fair enough – Cable was set up, although arguably he shunna said what he said anyway (“war on Murdoch” is not a wise phrase, even with your own constituents).
I think the Telegraph leak was a tactical play – chances are Murdoch will have to divest some assets if the Sky takeover goes ahead, to keep the competition commission happy, meaning he’ll probably get rid of the Times, which he currently subsidises massively. If the Times goes to a less wealthy concern, that can only benefit the Telegraph, since they’re now competing for largely the same readership.
09/02/2011 at 10:55 Christian Dannie Storgaard says:
Side note, Carole Lieberman is not a psychologist, but (surprisingly – the standards must have dropped in the states) a psychiatrist – you know, the kind of head doctor who’s actually a doctor.
She is also, according to her website, “a formidable activist against media violence, having stopped the launch of a NASA rocket that would have touted an advertisement for a Hollywood action movie on its exterior”- apparently science is bad if it’s sponsored, but not if it’s by media she likes.
Oh well, guess that’s okay if you’re an enlightened, new-age universe guru (“Dr. Carole combines her traditional psychiatric training and experience with a spiritual perspective – going beyond “The Secret” to the far reaches of the Amazon jungle where she learned the timeless ‘secrets’ of the universe from shamans.” – drcarole.com)
Jerry Weichman on the other hand is a psychologist, and apparently only a doctor in the “not that kind of doctor” kind of way (read: not an M.D. but he once wrote a paper on something that helped him play “football” with one foot).
09/02/2011 at 10:59 oceanclub says:
Fox is the station which produces this rubbish so I wouldn’t worry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH7GPPpsw6g
(Skip to 9’18″ and he writing about Islamist riots in Ireland. That is, completely making shit up.
P.
09/02/2011 at 11:39 plasmaman says:
I would say I’m surprised, but given the ridiculous drivel that Fox spews on a daily basis, it’s more of the same. Which isn’t great. *Le sigh*
It’s just another example of people who don’t seem to understand that you don’t have to play the game just because you can buy it, and that there is a ratings system to stop young people from playing it. If a kid plays it, it’s the parents fault.
09/02/2011 at 11:56 wrath says:
“The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games.”
Clearly someone does not understand the subtle nuances of the word surprise.
09/02/2011 at 11:56 MadTinkerer says:
My favorite part: “A Ph.D. informs us that “9 year olds are playing games like Bulletstorm”, which is bloody unfair, as we’ve not even got review code yet.”
That made me chuckle, but seriously, it reminds me of the much bigger problem that is never mentioned in these articles and is the only reason such articles can exist in the first place: IDIOT PARENTS. Why is that sentence even remotely plausible to someone who is ignorant of the fact that the game isn’t out yet? Because nine year olds can’t buy the game themselves, but there are plenty of parents who would rather just buy their kids whatever the latest game is to shut them up and not bother to think about whether or not their nine year old kid should be playing a game called Bulletstorm.
So the real danger here is not the game itself, but idiot parents.
Incidentally: when I went to see Watchmen? Oh yeah, there were kids in the theater. It was so incredibly long that there weren’t any kids by the end, but there were plenty at the start.
(Come to think of it, this is exactly like that old Simpsons episode, isn’t it? The game was even called Bonestorm in the show! This is just ripe for memetic mutation…)
09/02/2011 at 11:58 Radiant says:
What’s got eight legs and makes women scream?
09/02/2011 at 11:59 Radiant says:
A gang bang.
09/02/2011 at 13:51 Stellar Duck says:
I’ve seen some with more legs than that.
09/02/2011 at 14:31 Radiant says:
True.
But what’s numbers?
Statistically speaking 4 out of 5 people enjoy a good gang bang.
11/02/2011 at 15:43 RegisteredUser says:
I’m sure the real answer lies somewhere in Urotsukidoji or related Hentai.
09/02/2011 at 12:02 Teddy Leach says:
Innuendo causes rape. Someone had better get the Carry On films banned.
09/02/2011 at 12:06 Jakkar says:
Remind me to play this with my ladyfriends and see if it causes them to do anything interesting to me =)
09/02/2011 at 12:06 Radiant says:
Also more importantly; the demo for Bulletstorm was pretty shit.
09/02/2011 at 12:20 tomnullpointer says:
game devs – please stop making as many stupid teenage nob-gag ultraviolent games (sexism optional)
media – please stop going on about stupid teenage nob-gag ultraviolent games (sexism optional)
im getting really tired of both tbh,
09/02/2011 at 12:36 djbriandamage says:
Topless? TOOOPLEEEESSS?!!!? NYYEAARRRRGGGHHHH.
Pardon me whilst I rape. BBL.
11/02/2011 at 15:42 RegisteredUser says:
Does that have co-op?
09/02/2011 at 12:43 Anton says:
Fox News is incredibly conservative…. so I usually ignore them. I usually picture them with pitchforks burning “witches” at the stake for selling scented candles. =P
09/02/2011 at 13:00 hjd_uk says:
The ‘controversy’ is laughable ( if its 18 rated i don’t give one) but I won’t be buying Bulletstorm. Mainly because it is deliberaly vying for the immature “lulz” market, “haha I shot ur anus” kind of schtick. I know CliffyB’s games aren’t exactly cerebral but this takes the biscuit. Its purposfully purile and low-brow and if you enjoy that, well great, go have fun. I think this game deserves to exist as much as any other, I just know I personally have zero interest in buying it.
09/02/2011 at 13:21 Soon says:
You shot out his brain! He’s blown up out of proportion spewing faecal matter everywhere!
FOX NEWS + 200 points.
09/02/2011 at 13:22 Hephastion says:
Remember this?
http://kotaku.com/#!5664172/the-official-bulletstorm-breast-size-debate
Wasn’t this supposed to be the most progressive game in a long while for its realistic depiction of breasts. Were Tanya Jessen’s efforts to persuade her colleagues for nothing?
09/02/2011 at 13:22 LieutLaww says:
Dear Fox News, please shut down and do humanity a favour thank you. :D
09/02/2011 at 13:34 Lacero says:
I thought “gang bang” in the US meant “people in gangs grouping up”. And they call people in gangs “gang bangers”.
Has all my watching american TV been in vain?
09/02/2011 at 14:11 My2CENTS says:
Well don’t forget they made Duty Calls and by all it seems this is an Activision fighting back against them.
10/02/2011 at 00:26 Dances to Podcasts says:
I wish FOX would call me to not comment on things I have no reason to comment on.
I’m very good at not commenting.
10/02/2011 at 20:20 godgoo says:
What strikes me the most every time any controversial media is released is how quickly and predictably it becomes a channel for many an individual’s personal grievances.
It’s striking how quickly someone’s initial reaction to an individual product descends into a personally skewered tirade encompassing far wider reaching issues.
I refer not to the Fox News article but many of the comments on this page.
11/02/2011 at 02:04 champagneivy says:
Okay, I think at this point in the discourse no one is going to be listening anymore but here goes. This has nothing to do with Fox News, who are obviously morons, but handwaving away the Bulletstorm trivializing rape stuff disappoints me because Rock Paper Shotgun is usually a lot more perceptive than that.
I’m a girl. I played the demo for Bulletstorm and I loved the gameplay. I love the setting and the violence and the general stupidly over the top attitude. But the constant homophobia and misogyny REALLY BOTHERS ME. And I am not what anyone would consider a prude. I like gory movies full of nudity but there’s something different about this to me.
Here’s the full list of skillshot titles that I would consider sexualized:
Gang Bang
Gag Reflex
Bad Touch
Facial
Deep Penetration
Rear Entry
Topless (this is kind of on the fence but when you put it with the others)
Playing the demo, the gangbang one came up a lot, and this isn’t something I can avoid like a cutscene I could skip and it really left a bad taste in my mouth. The game wears ‘no girls or queers allowed’ on its sleeve like a sign over a clubhouse. Because the thing is? None of those titles would be considered ‘funny’ enough to use without the social context that being on the receiving end of sex is inherently shameful, whether you’re a girl or a gay or a goddamn rape victim. And so yeah, using those titles does in fact support that sentiment and it does support misogyny and homophobia and trivializing rape.
And the players who are going to be laughing hardest at this stuff are the ones who think that gay men deserve to be dragged behind cars, that porn where women perform oral so violently that they vomit is hilarious, and that girls who get a little too drunk at parties are fair game. And it is going to confirm their personal world view. And I do think that there’s a real possibility that guys on the edge of that are going to get nudged more in that direction with this sort of confirmation that sexual violence is totally lulz.
I am still on the fence about this game, because I REALLY DO LIKE IT OTHERWISE, but I don’t think I can take the constant misogyny and homophobia without getting depressed. I don’t want that getting shoved down my throat when I’m trying to relax. And as a special bonus, I used to work with a lot of other gamers who would stand around their cubes and chat about headshots and sapping sentries and imagining being in that situation again, overhearing them talking about achieving gang bangs and facials instead is completely disgusting.
11/02/2011 at 02:31 Enigmatic Gray says:
I didn’t really like hearing about Bulletstorm, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. This is exactly why, thank you.
It seems to me that they are really courting the stereotypical “drunken fratboy” demographic, the very people who would hold those kinds of attitudes, and would find this kind of humor to be hilarious. I realize that it is trying to be ironic, but at some point it ceases to be funny and simply becomes poor taste.
Fox news is still ridiculous though.
11/02/2011 at 10:34 deejayem says:
Nice post, champagneivy. The fact is that, tongue in cheek or not, Bulletstorm does feed into the casual misogyny that makes parts of the gaming community pretty unpleasant. The sad fact is a lot of people are going to suffer irony failure and take it seriously. Part of what makes this Fox article so annoying is that all this witch-hunting hyperbole makes it harder to express these genuine concerns.
Edit: Balls, and I can’t even spell misogyny.
11/02/2011 at 15:33 RegisteredUser says:
“using those titles does in fact support that sentiment and it does support misogyny and homophobia and trivializing rape”
I’m sorry, what?
So reading the story of O (or for a bit more hyperbole, the Decameron?) is going to make people go out and rape women as well? Any erotic story becomes an instant trip to rapeville?
Only because YOUR perception of things instantly associates certain things with certain people does not mean they are in any way found in reality.
-
Oh, and just because I love doing this, let me go off the rails for a second and say that I absolutely find throatf*cking not hilarious, but highly arousing, and will love doing it in real life as well.
I used to love jacking off to it(moved on past that and focusing more on double penetration now, np), and for a good while definitely was after “as rough as possible”.
And you know what was the most important part there? That it was a great FANTASY.
Because here comes part 2:
When I do this throatf*cking stuff with one of my partners and she gags and gets tears in her eyes, I have an emotional reflex of worry, because I actually care for her and how she feels. Because real people cause real emotions and exist in the real world.
I am 100% aware that the people in porn are real and real human beings as well, but the whole market is centered around creating a world of fantasy and pay _WILLING_ participants well enough so that they can “live the life” even without as much as a high-school education. This is pretty much parallel to what the world of gaming does: offer a world of fantasy with ideally a lot of immersion to live out what you enjoy yourself with.
I am aware that there is a metric ton of abuse in the porn industry and whatnot; but if I approach the world in a everything-is-worry way, then I would not stop crying, because every second a baby dies of starvation, a whale gets slaughtered, a species goes extinct and poison gets dumped into our water supply.
l choose to instead try best I can to get on with my life and not be an anal holier-than-thou and know-you-better-than-you nag.
I took care of elderly people when they were stationary and could no longer go to the toilet on their own.
I watch rough sex pornography and practice sex that simulates rape like situations – just in a consensual context with my partners. It is mindblowing and she loves me for it.
If this does not line up with your perception of the world or moral system then that’s too bad for you, but I myself have the opinion that the violent, dark side of sexuality is strong and within all of us and love to celebrate it.
And I don’t pee my pants when a virtual game in a virtual world says gangbang.
Oh and know what? Just to top it off.
I am as much annoyed by all this “Oh the poor gays/victims/whatevers” blahblah as you are by your so-perceived assault on these groups.
By poor-you-ing them you are essentially singling them out much stronger than any kind of ill-intentioned slander itself could. Because those vile enough to actively hate on anyone else will; exaggeratedly carrying on about it just encourages the reflexive antagonism.
If being gay is natural and normal, then overemphasizing this will just do the opposite.
I also feel that if I have the right to be annoyed by heterosexual people behaving in a way I find disgusting or inappropriate or simply unsympathetic, then so do I have the right to be annoyed at homosexual people and behavior I don’t like there.
I love watching Will&Grace (Jack and Karen are the best) and I recently saw “I love you Phillip Morris”, but I feel completely fine hating an over-affectionated(not sure of the english word here..behavior where you just carry on so much it’s akin to the blonde cheerleader on speed stuff) gay youth in public.
So, yea. Oh dear and all that.
Purely my opinion, which I will freely admit to may be extreme, possibly stupid and completely missing any and all points.
P.S. Wow, I got through the entire reply without calling the OP sexually frustrated/locked down/any other sexually related ad-hominem.
P.P.S. “I don’t want that getting shoved down my throat when I’m trying to relax” – someone, PLEASE, pick it up and run with it. Fratboy out(I don’t drink alcohol or do drugs, so I can’t add the drunken part *sadface*)!
PPPS: Seems Bulletstorm’s own Tanya has mastered her skillset already and proudly put it up.
http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/tanya-jessen.jpg
11/02/2011 at 17:17 deejayem says:
“So reading the story of O (or for a bit more hyperbole, the Decameron?) is going to make people go out and rape women as well?”
Hang on, RU – I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick here (oo-er). In fact, you’re doing exactly what I was warning against in the post just above yours – conflating the Fox argument with more moderate concerns about the use of language. Of course it’s absurd to suggest that innuendo automatically leads to rape – that’s the Fox argument, it’s not champagneivy’s argument (as I read it, anyway) or mine.
The point here is not to tell you what kind of sex you should enjoy, or what kind of fantasies should turn you on. Rough sex between consenting adults is not the issue here. What is a concern is that large sections of the gaming community seem to be dominated by crude misogyny, which terminology like this is likely to encourage. This is a worry about social rather than sexual behaviour – this is not about how you treat your lover, it’s about how you treat people around you.
11/02/2011 at 23:12 RegisteredUser says:
@deejayem
Well my point also was that it’s perfectly fine to have something dominated by “crude misogyny”(if it’s an online forum or “tough talk” with your “buddies” as your outlet for example), as long as this doesn’t result in you actually beating women in real life in turn..
So essentially as you say, not treating the people around you in that way outside of the bounds of the kind of respect every human being should get.
I would argue that II can still hold to some deeply terrifying convictions about women and sexuality and troll myself to death in various online communities, while still saying politely yes and please to a waitress and don’t ask her where I should slip her the fiver so she can get on with showing me her tits.
I would NOT say we should do our best to repress all our urges, opinions; smoothe down everything to flat, sand off all edges, mainstream and PC-ify our languages, thoughts, ideas..
11/02/2011 at 23:16 champagneivy says:
Uh… what, Registered User? The fact that I’m willing to say that it’s annoying for women and gay men to have to listen to a constant stream of gender-based insults means I’m singling them out for more abuse? This isn’t an individual we’re talking about. This is the writers of a game company. And I don’t really believe that they hate queers and women, I think they’re just trying to be ‘edgy’. Look, the game wants to call me ‘dicktits’, fine, that’s silly but it doesn’t hurt anyone. But talking about taking it up the ass and being a pussy is like trying to play a fun game while a sexist redneck shouts in your ear.
That aside, you completely missed my point and made dramatic assumptions about me and my personal life, so well done there. I’m not going to subject you to any intimate details but I have no problem with consenting adults practicing BDSM and rape fantasies. And I don’t know why you decided to go on the defensive because I described the kind of person I think this is going to have an effect on and this clearly isn’t about you. You probably don’t call women sluts and bitches, you probably don’t think raping a prostitute is just like stealing money and think that’s funny and when you see a girl in a short skirt you don’t think she’s asking for it. But those people do exist, and there are a lot of them, and there are a lot of teenage boys in the process of transitioning into either people like you or people like them and I think this kind of thing really can nudge them in one direction. And unlike extreme pornography, I think part of the problem is how CASUAL this is, just thrown into the mix like it’s no big deal.
I don’t think everyone who says nigger when they’re playing a multiplayer shooter is really a racist. But some of them are, or harbor racist sentiments, and I think it does encourage them to be an environment where they can say that shit with impunity. But according to you pointing that out just encourages the racists to be more aggressive and I should shut up about that too.
I am not for censorship of any kind. I’m not saying ‘ban this sick filth.’ But really, what does that extra frosting of homophobia/misogyny do for the game? Do you actually find it to be hilarious to be able to shoot someone in the face and have it called a facial? Or does it just alienate people like me who would be totally down for Captain Swear Word’s Big Fucking Adventure without the constant reminders that the devs didn’t actually want me to play it because I have two X chromosomes to rub together.
12/02/2011 at 10:45 RegisteredUser says:
I have an ultra-firm conviction that spending more than 2 minutes a day with your children will do over 9000 more healing, helpful guiding, than an infinity of bad taste and poorly done media can destroy.
I believe we have all turned into lazy, blame-shifting f*cks who find it much easier to blame everything and everyone around us, instead of actually man-ing/woman-ing up and stepping up to the challenges that not just having kids, but living with kids and other human beings around us present.
If we see something wrong happening, we should speak up and act in a manner that should be representative for all. We should lead with example and create change via communication, not by oversimplification of “the media done gone did it” and so on and so forth.
And to address that last bit:
“But really, what does that extra frosting of homophobia/misogyny do for the game?”
This is your perception laid into the terminology.
I much rather think about women taking it up the bum than men, so that practice is not automatically homosexual let alone homophobic to me..if it makes you feel better, pretend the facial is a day at the spa facial instead of the common porn practice.
There are some within the black community that would argue that not forbidding use of “the N word”, but the actual overuse and trivialization are exactly what was needed to disassociate it from the spite- and hate filled ancestry of slaveship, being “sub-human” and so on. That you can literally take the power and impact from words, if you just take away their chance of creating negative emotional affection. Disarm them.
By winding everything up into a fight of the chromosomes, you yourself are charging all of their words and behavior into weapons and just helping that mechanism along, if you follow that line of thought.
And I would agree. The more serious you take it, the more serious it is(Thomas Theorem: a perceived reality becomes reality).
If however you take it as however well or badly done humor, then it has no teeth, it has no sting, and it sure as heck won’t make a boy or a girl a homo-hater just because they shot a cyberdude up the ass and got a combo-label for it.
Especially as we don’t value associate without being told HOW and WHAT to value-associate with terms. And full circle to role models, society and parenting there.
And I DO find it to be hilarious to be able to shoot someone in the face, whether it will then pop up “facial” or “well done” is just a small detail. It’s why I play FPS to begin with, to shoot stuff.
So, in short: if you are alienated, then it is because your belief and perception system works that way.
If you feel that this alone is so powerful as to change how people feel about one another, much rather than how we people act and treat other people, then I firmly believe you are prioritizing impact and meaningfulness completely wrong.
Jack Thomson wrong.
IMHO you SHOULD be totally down with Captain Swear Word’s Big Fucking Adventure, because imho they DO want girls and men, homos and heteros alike to play their game.
Because they have made it abundantly clear to me that they are only after sale figures anyhow..
(Or: I will/would boycott it for PCF being console gamepad sellouts, not for BS being a hateful, mysogynistic homophobefest)
–
Two vaguely related comments elsewhere:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/10/the-fox-news-debacle-techsavvy-update/comment-page-1/#comment-618437
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/10/the-fox-news-debacle-techsavvy-update/comment-page-1/#comment-618672
11/02/2011 at 15:14 RegisteredUser says:
I would love to comment on this article, but I have my 5 ‘o clock rape appointment now.
11/05/2011 at 08:02 kennycrown says:
I achieved my ‘gang-bang’ combo (+500 points!) by wrapping my grenade flail around mulitple people causing them to stick together. It was only after the explosion that the shockwave forced the far right enemy to thrust his manhood into the rectum of his closest enemy,