Video Born Killers (... and HOD2 for Dreamcast)
Myles Lucien
Having a slow day for once at work, I wanted to take the opportunity to
express my outrage at the abominably slanted “current affairs” expose that
was “Video Game Killers” on 60 Minutes last night. Now I almost never watch
60 Minutes but upon channel surfing caught the start of the ponderous
defamation of Doom and other violent games and was hooked for the whole
sordid 15 minutes.
I guess my thoughts could be summed up in a few short dot points.
(1) Why did Australia see the need to syndicate the American Ed(?) Bradley
program as if the issue of video violence breeding child killers was
directly translatable. The issue is not directly translatable in as much
as: (a) America has had a whole ream of school shootings and not any other
country (including Australia), (b) America has had a culture of violence for
the last 40 years which has not been emulated to anywhere the same degree by
the rest of the Western world and (c) America has vastly different gun
control laws from most other countries
(2) The show was massively slanted in air-time towards those opposing
violent video games (and movies). Those trying to defend video games were
given extremely short shrift.
(3) The litigants featured came across as greedy manipulated fools.
Inspired by their lawyers to attack particular deep-pocketed targets.
(4) Doom (the main feature) itself has been around for a number of years,
while school shootings in America have only really raised its ugly head in
the last year and a half. As a corollary, perverse sexual and violent
material has been around for centuries – any child can buy the Marquis de
Sade’s literary works of the late 18th Century should they have an intrinsic
interest.
(5) Violent video games have been equally available in Japan and Western
Europe without producing the same effects. Nor indeed have they produced
the same effects in millions of other American children.
(6) Beatles music was a significant inspiration to Charles Manson, The Bible
to John Jones and David Koresh and yet somehow we never hear calls for the
banning of these literary and musical mediums.
(7) America always seems to be politically driven by ultra-conservative
forces – who would prefer to blame nebulous easy targets rather than the
real problems of poor parental control, relatively easy access to weapons of
mass destruction and a communal culture of killing. These same rednecks who
blame video games probably took their kids on hunting trips and subscribe to
the old Testament view of “an eye for an eye”.
(8) There is never one causal factor in why a child acts in a sociologically
unacceptable manner, but the root cause is in the nature of the child itself
and the way in which he/she was brought up rather than fleeting cultural
mediums.
Now I have all that venom out of my chest I’d like to ask a games question.
Does anyone here own House of the Dead 2 for the Dreamcast? If so, could
anyone tell me if the rumour is true that HOD1 is locked away as a bonus if
you complete the game on normal/hard/very hard … I’m struggling on easy.
For all those who have a Dreamcast and don’t own the game – GET IT before it
gets banned (due to these right-wing twits). It’s a fantastic game, even if
you ordinarily don’t much like light-gun shooters.
Cheerio,
Myles
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
---------Please remove this footer when replying. Thank you.---------------
* To post, subscribe first <http://www.netspace.org/cgi-bin/lwgate/GAMES-L/>
* Unsubscribe, mail <list...@brownvm.brown.edu> with body "SIGNOFF GAMES-L"
* Usage Guide and Games-L Web <http://www.netspace.org/users/dwb/games-l/>.
* List problems and questions to <games-l...@brownvm.brown.edu>
Kirk Lemke
> Morning all,
>
> Having a slow day for once at work, I wanted to take the opportunity to
> express my outrage at the abominably slanted “current affairs” expose that
> was “Video Game Killers” on 60 Minutes last night. Now I almost never watch
> 60 Minutes but upon channel surfing caught the start of the ponderous
> defamation of Doom and other violent games and was hooked for the whole
> sordid 15 minutes.
>
> I guess my thoughts could be summed up in a few short dot points.
...
> (7) America always seems to be politically driven by ultra-conservative
> forces – who would prefer to blame nebulous easy targets rather than the
> real problems of poor parental control, relatively easy access to weapons of
> mass destruction and a communal culture of killing. These same rednecks who
> blame video games probably took their kids on hunting trips and subscribe to
> the old Testament view of “an eye for an eye”.
The Democrats are usually leading the call, and they are not considered
"ultra-conservative" typically. The Democrats and Liberals do tend to be
more into feelings rather than fact though, so this makes them be able to
appeal to that side of people and tell the people what to do. The
Liberals have also been in control for the vast majority of the past 30
years, and guess when we started having these kinds of problems? The
problem is lack of morality and sense of responsibility, not the Liberals
vs. the Conservatives.
>
> (8) There is never one causal factor in why a child acts in a sociologically
> unacceptable manner, but the root cause is in the nature of the child itself
> and the way in which he/she was brought up rather than fleeting cultural
> mediums.
>
The parents of Eric Harris were very strict and moral, but they can't
fight society - What would you do if you were picked on every day of
school for 12 years? What if a popular group of students told you that
they
were going to hurt you any time they wanted to - Parental nature can't
reverse that type of thing.
Video games, guns, D&D, etc. do not make people bad; lack of societal
morality does.
_ _ _
| | // | |
_| |//__| |_______________________________________________________
/ __ _______________________________________________________
/ /| |\ \ | |___ Kirk Lemke
/ / |_| \_\|_____|
/ / kle...@nyx.net
Lynn Moncrief
I wholeheartedly agree with Kirk. Those shrieking the loudest here in the
U.S. about the Columbine H.S. atrocity are not those who take their kids on
hunting trips (and teach them responsible gun ownership). They are those
who are doing their best to make guns the Forbidden Fruit by demonizing
them and criminalizing their ownership--i.e., the left-wing liberals.
(Being this is an international list, the term shouldn't be confused with
classical liberals as the term is used in Europe and perhaps Australia.
Classical liberals believe in government leaving everyone the heck alone
unless they harm others. :-D)
Being too busy playing games last night, I didn't see 60 Minutes, but I
have seen a few newscasts and analyses (if they could be dignified by that
term) where videogames were unfairly blamed for the Columbine HS atrocity.
As an indicator of how ignorant these journalists and pundits are, I've
seen Doom shown as an example on other "news" shows as well. As many of us
here know, Doom isn't even about killing humans, but monsters and imps from
Hell. OK, there are some "humanoid" looking monsters in the game, but
they're obviously not human. Not that this makes a difference, BTW, as to
whether any type of videogame should be regulated So, these folks that want
to regulate (a known leftist tendency) games--the same crowd that wants to
regulate the Internet, guns, and anything that stands still long
enough--don't even know anything about what they want to regulate. (Not
that these social engineers would have the right to regulate these things
even if they did know anything about them.) This is simply yet another
shameless attempt to use a horrible tragedy to further their agenda of
total social control, under the guise of preventing it from ever happening
again, of course.
The connection between guns and games here is not the obvious one--that
many games are about guns (regardless of how realistic or not they are
depicted). The true connection is that it's simply the same old thing of
blaming inanimate objects for what is actually the lack of morality and
sense of responsibility that Kirk cited. People are the problem, not games
or guns.
Lynn
***********************************
Lynn Moncrief
(tech...@pacbell.net)
“Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.” -unknown
***********************************
Dan Bigman
Morning all,
Having a slow day for once at work, I wanted to take the opportunity to
express my outrage at the abominably slanted "current affairs" expose that
was "Video Game Killers" on 60 Minutes last night. Now I almost never watch
60 Minutes but upon channel surfing caught the start of the ponderous
defamation of Doom and other violent games and was hooked for the whole
sordid 15 minutes.
*** bla bla bla ***
Well said Myles!
Dan
phil frankenberg
been into pc games for the last two years or so. My favorites are fps with
style, such as quake, tomb raider, half-life,doom and a few others more
obscure. I don't think games, by themselves,cause anyone to be criminal ,
but I think they can help. I am greatly appalled by games such as
carmagedden, postal etc. and I boycott games by Interplay. I wonder if their
next project will be a game called "littleton" where of course the player
tries to kill all his/her classmates and blow up the school before the swat
team kills you. Sound like great fun to you? I'm sure it does to some people
(ie the popularity of postal)As a society we are in trouble and we don't
need cultural icons to suggest playing homicidal maniac is not only
acceptable, but harmless fun and guaranteed by our rights as citizens. I
don't like censorship but I also don't like leaveing impressionable children
at the mercy of right or left wingers. Perhaps everything will work itself
out naturally and art that promotes hate will cancel itself out in the end.
I don't know. Oh and one last thing to get off my chest: Curses on nintendo
for their lastest promotion of old game characters, once fairly benign,who
have now become cool by getting violent. Aimed at the 10year olds and under.
It really bothers me , but maybe I'm just not cool anymore.
phil frankenberg
-----Original Message-----
From: Lynn Moncrief <tech...@PACBELL.NET>
To: Multiple recipients of list GAMES-L <GAM...@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Date: Monday, May 03, 1999 1:11 PM
Subject: Re: Video Born Killers (... and HOD2 for Dreamcast)
At 11:20 AM 05/03/1999 -0600, Kirk Lemke wrote:
>On Sun, 2 May 1999, Myles Lucien wrote:
>
>> Morning all,
>>
>> Having a slow day for once at work, I wanted to take the opportunity to
>> express my outrage at the abominably slanted “current affairs” expose
that
>> was “Video Game Killers” on 60 Minutes last night. Now I almost never
watch
>> 60 Minutes but upon channel surfing caught the start of the ponderous
>> defamation of Doom and other violent games and was hooked for the whole
>> sordid 15 minutes.
>>
Lynn
---------Please remove this footer when replying. Thank you.---------------
Lynn Moncrief
>I' d like to put my 2cents in on this subject. I'm 52 years old and have
>been into pc games for the last two years or so. My favorites are fps with
>style, such as quake, tomb raider, half-life,doom and a few others more
>obscure. I don't think games, by themselves,cause anyone to be criminal ,
>but I think they can help. I am greatly appalled by games such as
>carmagedden, postal etc. and I boycott games by Interplay. I wonder if their
>next project will be a game called "littleton" where of course the player
>tries to kill all his/her classmates and blow up the school before the swat
>team kills you. Sound like great fun to you? I'm sure it does to some people
>(ie the popularity of postal)As a society we are in trouble and we don't
>need cultural icons to suggest playing homicidal maniac is not only
>acceptable, but harmless fun and guaranteed by our rights as citizens. I
>don't like censorship but I also don't like leaveing impressionable children
>at the mercy of right or left wingers. Perhaps everything will work itself
>out naturally and art that promotes hate will cancel itself out in the end.
>I don't know. Oh and one last thing to get off my chest: Curses on nintendo
>for their lastest promotion of old game characters, once fairly benign,who
>have now become cool by getting violent. Aimed at the 10year olds and under.
>It really bothers me , but maybe I'm just not cool anymore.
Hi Phil,
Oh, I wouldn't say that (about not being cool anymore). I'm pushing 50
myself and we Baby Boomers are the essence of "cool". ;-D Like you, I'm
disturbed by games like Carmageddon, Postal, etc. and personally avoid
them. However, I think the marketplace (including via parental control when
it comes to kids) should determine whether game publishers continue to
produce such games.
I don't think that games, in themselves, can trigger someone to become
violent. I really agree with what PunkRock (sorry, PR, I don't remember
your exact capitalization style ;-D) said about this. If someone is
predisposed toward violence, IMHO, they don't need something in popular
culture (games, movies, etc.) to trigger them to commit their crimes. After
all, Hitler, Jack the Ripper, et al didn't play Doom (or even Postal, for
that matter). I'm afraid that the "logical conclusion" of all of this about
violent videogames would have been our seeing the perpetrators of the
Columbine Atrocity using the "Doom" defense (a la the Twinkie defense) in
their court trials had they lived to be brought to justice. The news media
is certainly doing everything in its power to set up such a scenario for
the future. "Doom made me do it." I don't think so.
Ganesha
> violent. I really agree with what PunkRock (sorry, PR, I don't remember
> your exact capitalization style ;-D) said about this. If someone is
> predisposed toward violence, IMHO, they don't need something in popular
> culture (games, movies, etc.)
Yes, I agree totally with that. I've asked myself frequently why so many
people would blame things like games or movies for extremely violent
behavior among children. Maybe people are always searching for simple
answers to difficult questions. I don't think there is a single cause for
what happened in Columbine. But it's probably a characteristic of human
nature that we need something to blame, something tangible. Once we have
something to blame (it doesn't matter if it's the real cause or not), we can
'DO' something about it (ie ban violent video games). Just to put our minds
at rest.
I'm glad to hear that people on this list have a more subtle and realistic
opinion on this....
-Ganesha
Patrick Ballenger
I believe someone can be driven over the edge by a videogame, but that person is
so unstable, he/she would have been driven over the edge by something, if the
game had not been there. Rock music, an injury, a divorce...we have to live
with the fact that some humans are unstable, and can't handle reality. Those
people will lose it eventually.....just try to catch them before they do.
I'd go crazy WITHOUT the freedom to play, listen to , or read what I like.
Pat B.
ej...@multiweb.nl on 05/05/99 04:10:19 PM
Please respond to ej...@multiweb.nl
To: GAM...@brownvm.brown.edu
cc: (bcc: Patrick Ballenger/CT/Vencor)
Subject: Re: Video Born Killers (... and HOD2 for Dreamcast)