Gameology: Commentary and Resources for the Game Studies Community

I agree with you completely. The combat undertones in this only serve to further propagate the idea of video gamers as adolescent males with anger issues. Video games are nothing more, in my opinion than another medium by which meaningful communication can occur (and by far my favorite medium!). Take, for example, novels, which were indeed shunned as wasteful, corrupt, and irrelevant; novels have formed some of the greatest works of the English language, and indeed, of other languages. I think regulating video game content is as detrimental to free speech as regulating book content, or freedom of the press. The fact that Manhunt, for example, can turn the heads of critics around the world, while an equally sadistic, violent, and downright insane film, or even book (there are some -disgusting- books out there) seems to me hypocritical.

In works of film, we can stray into blatant, outright depictions of human fornication, simulated rape, murder, genocide, racial profiling, and beyond; very few people will bat a lash, with the exception of some gung-ho super-liberals who want to censor everything and anything that could potentially offend anyone. Furthermore, there is no limitation to the violence or sadism a human mind can create given a good violent novel to read - then, why so much attention on video games?

I think the root of this problem comes both from the misconception that the largest portion of people playing video games that have violent or sexual content are children, and from the patronizing attitude we as a society still hold over our children themselves. This all branches out to individual accountability, and common sense. A parent who is going to let a 5-year-old boy play "The Darkness" (Great great game) and eat human hearts, hear dialogue about oral sex with prostitutes, and devastate human skulls with shotguns is the same parent who would let their child see "Scream" or "Debbie does Dallas" in theatre - it's not the responsibility of the government to regulate video games at all.

Also, in reference to your political comment - I have mixed feelings. While you are correct that it certainly can have a political edge (denoted perhaps by the staunch conservatism displayed in my message... haha), I think the medium itself is without politics, or a predominant political presence - the players are the true political element of video games, and I think they can be as diverse as the video games themselves.

-- One last quick sidenote: Being a staunch loyalist Canadian, I also don't feel that the "Britain as the Opressor" Red-Coat reference was really all that fair (but that's a long debate) - furthermore, I would like to do more reading on how this regulatory issue pans out globally.

Cheers,

Matthew M. White

Thanks for the comment, a few responses:

I agree, but let me re-emphasize that we make this argument best by informing skeptics about the best examples of video game "speech." We can't simply assert that game producers have an inherent right to produce whatever they want (though you may believe that). That's why I'm looking forward to reading Ian Bogost's new book, if we can better understand how video games can communicate important ideas, then we can make a better case for their being equivalent to protected speech -- not so we can make it easier for anyone to play Manhunt 2, but so we can make this a better world to live in through the power of this new medium.

I actually have to disagree with you here. I think there are still plenty of lashes batted over violent movies and TV, and I see it more from the right than the left. I'm thinking of groups like Focus on the Family who campaign against current movies and TV. To their credit, I can't think of a specific example when Dobson et al. specifically advocated censorship, but the assumption in their educational materials is clearly that these games, films, TV shows should not under any circumstances be watched by anyone except sinners. It's also worth asking whether a call for boycott sponsors is as equally chilling on speech as government regulation or censorship might be. I don't know the answer, but it's worth asking in this context.

I disagree with you here too, but perhaps I should just clarify that I do agree with you that the political beliefs of those who play games is a separate question from whether or not games themselves are political. In the latter case, I mean "political" in the sense that they communicate an idea about how the world should be, and because games are unique in that their fundamental mechanics are based on relationships of power among constituent parts (think managing units in an RTS or just playing to a particular team strategy in Call of Duty), games are uniquely and profoundly political -- at least, in their potential.

There was some discussion of this topic (international regulation) in the similarly critical comment thread at Kotaku, where a commenter brought up the much more restrictive situation in Germany. Some (apparently English) participants also objected to the Revolutionary War imagery.

In general, the ideas of media censorship and protecting children from the bad stuff make for a strange political arena. It's really pretty hard to reconcile the fact that you've got Jack Thompson and (recently) Mitt Romney on the right talking about violent games in the context of a culture war, while Hilary Clinton has also spoken out on games as part of a culture of violence. Then you have the whole gun control thing, which I think must be related. So you have some politicians who say you should have guns, but not games, and others who say you should have neither. Maybe this is why Libertarianism is an attractive alternative to some gamers?

Interesting comments, Ed. As you point out, the ad is supposed to be funny--whether it succeeds is debatable.

I don't think it's intended to make an complete coherent argument about the debates over video game legislation; rather, it's to do just enough to get you to click over to the web site, where the issue is framed more coherently. And the more people that see it and talk about it, the better. In fact, in doing viral campaigns, it always helps to tick a few people off, since that leads to argument, more views, etc--it keeps the campaign going.

Sorry, I meant "Zach". I'm not sure where "Ed" came from...