All the World's Wrongs: Games At Fault!

[huxley]

Lol that's a good read. I love the bit where the games writer for the same paper calls the story utter bollocks.

[randombs]

That writer is pretty naive if he thinks they're going to run a front-page nonse-fest like that past him.

I doubt anything will change until that generation retires and people with at least a passing knowledge of gaming take the reins but I'm not sure how effective these sorts of scare stories are in the grand scheme of things.

Do they affect legislation and such these days?

[Cassius_Smoke]

Stories like this carried some weight in the 90s, but there have been so many stories now with little evidence of mankind going completely off the rails, that I think they are largely ignored by governments and academics.

[Zen Monkey]

There are negative effects to gaming though:

1) They're addictive - which can lead to all kinds of unhappiness from lack of sleep, lack of fresh air, lack of daylight and lack of socialising. Even lack of money to buy proper food if you spend too much on games!
2) They're unhealthy (sittin' down staring at a screen for hours ain't good for your body) and over time can cause arthritis, tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, poor eyesight and headaches.
3) They're too easy to play. I don't mean games themselves are too easy, I mean the act of gaming is too easy. It requires little effort to sit down and play a game and so you end up playing games instead of doing something that requires more effort, like reading a book or walking the dog or restoring an old lamp or drawing or playing guitar - which might be more life-enhancing, which might make you happier. Ultimately, I don't think many people look back on their life and regard the time sat in front of a TV as highlights in their life.

Haha, reading that it sounds like I hate games. I don't. I love em. But I'm increasingly aware they come with drawbacks.

[randombs]

Most of those effects can be applied to a whole range of activities which aren't singled out by the mass media.

[Dogg Thang]

Yep, definitely 2 and 3 can apply to a lot of things. 1 bothers me because there are people literally working their hardest to make this happen and that's not the case with a whole lot of other stuff. Except maybe whoever made Pringles. Nobody sets out to make a movie that you'll watch endlessly forever and it will send you notifications if you haven't watched it in a day and also will sell you things so you can get to the end quicker.

[randombs]

Imagine DLC audio tracks that explain the plot to you if you’re not getting it.

[Neon Ignition]

The addiction one is hard to gauge as well it feels like. Many of the press stories about it revolve around extreme cases and often gloss over other aspects of the individuals lives that often sound like much more likely contributing factors. Accusations around gaming are often too focused as well, I'd imagine most cases of obsessive over spending on gaming takes place on mobile games yet single example console games will get the focus.

It's not so much to rule it out from ever happening but the media has a very 1980's Video Nasties relationship with gaming when it suits them

[Dogg Thang]

Games will often market themselves as addictive. And like I say, they have people working to make it so. You don't get to do both of these things and then distance yourself from the word.

[Neon Ignition]

Well timed return as usual Jeremy Vine has a mother and son on at the moment where the son likes gaming but the mother bans them as they're EVIL.

The son's breakdown of what he plays is a bit simple but pretty straight forward, the mother... it's depressing how ill informed she is.

[Dogg Thang]

Games will often market themselves as EVIL. And like I say, they have people working to make it so. You don't get to do both of these things and then distance yourself from the word.

[Neon Ignition]

It's pretty similar to movies and music though, it's more a publisher/developer issue than the medium as a whole. They're still talking at the moment and as is usual conversation is moved on as soon as conversation stops focusing on GTA etc. To try and blanket address 'evil' practices from consistent violence and 'gambling' focused game makers (like the GTA's, BF's, CoD's etc of the world) is fine but when addressing it as the entire medium that means developers and titles like Rock Band, Animal Crossing etc get caught up in that criticism.

Gaming needs to move passed the point where the wider masses are so poorly informed about gaming as it'll help them to be not only better considered for what they actually are but also the criticism would then hopefully be more focused against the things that need addressing rather than such things seemingly being mostly down to the big companies themselves.

To be fair, it's Radio 2 as well and they hardly pick the best guests. It just ended with the exchange:

'It's a boy issue, women tend to be into other things'
'Why don't you play a game with your son?'
'Well, I mean, do they do games that are for women?'
'I'm sure they do'
'Hmm, maybe. Things like shopping and cleaning and cooking, things I can enjoy'

Sigh.

[Dogg Thang]

(my last post was a joke - not many games market themselves as evil... maybe Doom? I don't know)

[Neon Ignition]

Resident Evil
The Evil Within
MediEvil
Evil Twin
Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick
err... Jersey dEVIL

Evil is strong in gaming

[Dogg Thang]

Oh... you're right! Down with this sort of thing. BAN JERSEY DEVIL NOW!