- GameJunkieJim
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- Exalted Mythic Member
All media has been criticized at one point or another, Huckleberry Finn when it was written was benign, and, taken in the context that the author wrote it in, it's still benign. In fact, the character "-blam!- Jim" was probably the only reason the book got banned previously, and it was ironic in that he was a friend of Huck, and if anything would have been used to express the authors tolerance. A rare thing in that time. The only reason it's moved on to videogames, is because the technology of the world has advanced.
People love finding things they percieve as "wrong" in media formats. In the time of the printing press it was books.From the late 70's to the mid 80's it was RPG's like Dungeons and Dragons. In the 80's to the early 90's it was music, and from the 90's to the current time, the digital entertainment industry falls prey. One thing these forms of media have in common? Answer at the end of this post.
Part of the blame goes to news media. Until the mid 90's, the various newscasts around the world were the #1 form of digital media. Currently, the video game industry is the #1 industry in the United States, and as such, news media jumps on a story to discredit the industry or portray it in a bad light. Columbine for instance -- did they focus on the emotional problems those children suffered? Did they go into the psychiatric files of any of them? No -- the focused on a video the teenagers made, citing Doom. Was it fair? No, but the masses won't pay attention to the details, the story is answered in a way that they've been trained to understand, and the News media still gets the ratings. To quote another example just this year, down in Florida, 3 people were beaten and murdered in their home. Before the whole story had even begun to be investigated fully by police, the news media jumped on a line out of context from one of the suspects. Thus an XBox was blamed for the slayings. (It was later found that the incident was drug and money related, and the XBox was simply to be part of the payment).
Thus have things gone for years upon years, and will continue to do so as long as some form of media takes over another in profitability.
As far as the ideas fostered by the media, remember this cliche' : Ignorance is Bliss.
I interpret it in this way for this particular thread - Mainstream Ignorance is Bliss for those that stand to gain from the negative views of the Gaming Industry.
So spreading the word and educating people about all sides of the issue is the key. It won't stop ignorance, but it will, eventually, shift the focus of it.
The answer to "What do all these have in common?" ? They make you think. Rather than listening to what others think.
-Jim