Monday 10 April 2017

Entry 06: Violence in video games.

Fuckin' sweet.



















































Since the dawn of time government, news media and parent groups have always found some scapegoat to blame societies flaws on, there was rock music, then television now video games to name just a few. And these games were filled with abhorrent content, such as violence, sex and mushroom stomping racial stereotypes, and everything you could want in a scapegoat strawman.

Because of this video games were attacked as a medium with violence being the main cause of grievance (before the regressive left got to them). "think of the children" they said, "fuck off and raise them yourself" I said, well not really since this fight started back around the time of the arcade release of Mortal Kombat, as the uberviolent fighting game was one of the key prompts for the creation of the ESRB. The ESRB was created after the US government effectively warned the game industry that they would instate a ratings bored if they did not do it themselves, after concerns raised about the violent game from worried parents, how about hey just take responsibility for their children and know what they are doing, christ.
It didn't take much longer for games to be rated in such a way internationally, over here in Australia it's handled by the same board that rates films, that board evenly represents all demographics and holds games to the exact same standards as films (sarcasm is hard to get a cross in text).

Despite placing these rating systems that clearly label the content there is a fair share of controversies, due to fuck wits being surprised that R rated game they bought for their kid being in appropriate. A recent example was a push for target to remove GTA 5 from their shelves by a mothers group, the details make it pathetic, it was due to a some feminist being upset that you can kill prostitutes. The game is a sandbox, you can kill people and there are hookers, hence you can kill hookers, its not a goal its a choice, not to mention that this was upon the games second release after being ported to the newer consoles.

I'm not even going to go into the studies on the effect on violence in videogames, I'm not going to touch the theory that the docile nature of society conflicting with out primal aggression that draws us to violence, I'm just going to say this. IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUR KIDS TO PLAY THIS DON'T FUCKING LET THEM.

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