The saddest 'irony' about the complaints about Hatred and offensiveness?

CM30

CM30

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It's true isn't it?

Video games are actually the nicest, least offensive medium ever made.

For one thing, no game is 'character' driven enough to go as far off the edge as say, later episodes of Family Guy or Allan Gregory. You don't have morals like 'if you don't stay in domestic abuse, your family will fall apart without a scapegoat' or 'hey, isn't it interesting that someone was bullied into becoming gay against their will?'

And compared to Brickleberry or Mr Pickles? Yeesh. Video games are kind of tame, even Hatred:


People freak about a guy randomly killing innocents. Yet you've got media where people are killed by the hundred every episode, by a demonically possessed dog that uses their remains in some sort of satanic sacrifice dungeon made of bodies and blood and the media still focuses on the less 'offensive' concept?

And it goes on and on. The world is packed with 'offensive' or 'over the top' media in every medium. There are books that make Hatred and Manhunt and all those look like Barney. You've got comics where the main characters are responsible for real world terrorist attacks (in universe) and end up wanting to kill everything in sight for 'coolness'. There are everything from tabletop games to films to TV shows to websites and webseries which are far worse than anything even conceived of for a video game.

Just also seems hypocritical to me...
 
I dunno, I still feel like there IS some difference between active and inactive media. With TV shows, you're simply watching the action. With video games, you are controlling the main character. If you load up Hatred and don't touch the controller, the character will do nothing- to an extent, you are the one who decides to go out and murder every screaming and terrified man, woman, and child you come across. That may be the point of the game, but it's still you making the choice to do it.

So I can see why people are more up in arms about video games over traditional read/watched media. It's generally proven that taking a more proactive role in things will lead to greater brain involvement (I.E. Higher test scores for students who took the time to full write out their notes, over those who just highlighted pages in a book). There is still absolutely no correlation that video games cause or contribute to violent behavior though, at least for the vast and sweeping majority of the mentally sound.
 
Brunn said:
So I can see why people are more up in arms about video games over traditional read/watched media. It's generally proven that taking a more proactive role in things will lead to greater brain involvement (I.E. Higher test scores for students who took the time to full write out their notes, over those who just highlighted pages in a book). There is still absolutely no correlation that video games cause or contribute to violent behavior though, at least for the vast and sweeping majority of the mentally sound.
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Meanwhile it has been proven that books and written text are the most graphic way of promoting violence because the reader's own interpretation can be much more graphic. It has also been proven that books influence people more than any other form of media, but no one ever seems to hop on THAT band wagon, do they? Nick Carter are very graphic, violent, and sexually descriptive James Bond style books, for example. Been around for years.
 
That's an interesting point right there. Of course, people won't bring it up, because books have been around for so long that people rightly laugh off those who attack them.

Well, now anyway. Go back a few thousand years and I bet you anything a bunch of 'moral guardians' are complaining about the immorality of written literature and its influence on society...
 
Aensland said:
Meanwhile it has been proven that books and written text are the most graphic way of promoting violence because the reader's own interpretation can be much more graphic. It has also been proven that books influence people more than any other form of media, but no one ever seems to hop on THAT band wagon, do they? Nick Carter are very graphic, violent, and sexually descriptive James Bond style books, for example. Been around for years.
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I'm sure in past times there were plenty of people who freaked out about books and other text based medias too. But still, how do you react when you're reading a book? I've read a lot of books and stories and I've never raged at them the way I've raged at a video games. I've hurled controllers across the room and slammed mouses against my desk with all my strength in fits of pure frustration and anger- I've never thrown a book. It still suggests that the more active your participation in the media, the more of a physical and psychological response you will get, and the more concerned someone would naturally be over the implications.

You've also got to think too that if you're only reading a story that has violence, you wouldn't have any frame of reference. They can describe a battle, but your only going to make it as bloody in your mind as you really have a reference for, and the written is by nature not going to cause as visceral a reaction as something visual will. With a violent video game, the frame of reference is already there, it's as bloody as it actually IS on the screen, and then on top of that, you're the one choosing what to do- not just along for the ride as an outside observer. It's just the same as having the holocaust described to you, versus seeing pictures of piles of emaciated corpses- it tends to cause more of a reaction. As I said, it's not something I agree with, but I can understand people's fears over it, however misplaced they are.

The same sort of arguments used to be made about comic books weren't they? Suddenly we went from just reading the text that "He punched the man, breaking his jaw" to a visual image of someone punching a man, and his jaw shattering. I don't really follow comic books, but haven't they been subject to the same sorts of problems with censorship and outcry in the past that video games are now? And now they're just as much an everyday thing as books are. I can't think of the last time anyone freaked out over there being a particularly violent scene in a graphic novel (Granted I don't follow them either, so maybe I just don't know?).

I actually have some fairly violent and sexually explicit comics myself and they don't even have warnings on them. After the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie came out, I went out and picked up the graphic novels. Keep in mind, it released in 2003, I was only 15 years old then (I can't believe that was 12 years ago O.O). No warnings at all that Captain Nemo would pull out a automatic harpoon gun and mow down dozens of people, that Alan Quatermaine would be found naked in an opium den, Mr. Hyde would rip people in half and tear their limbs off, or that the invisible man would be running around an all girls school and raping girls. It doesn't seem like people bother about graphic novels at all anymore. The Pride of Baghdad features animals being blown to bloody bits by bombs.

So maybe this is something we just have to wait out until the next big media invention releases?It's already been proven that the VR stuff gets a more physical and psychological reaction out of people then regular screen based video games do. Maybe once those are more common place, the heat will move to there. Just think of the censorship and outcry we're going to have to deal with when we finally get holodecks! X.x;;
 
So Hatred released- and I think the saddest irony about the whole controversy is that for how much the media freaked out about it, it's apparently boring and repetitive, with lack luster graphics, subpar controls, ineffective writing, and just leaves one vaguely sickened, disappointed, and bored. At least according to what I've read about it online so far- one of those games that wants to be far more controversial then it actually is. It most likely would have been a game that no one bothered to notice had the news media not caused a huge crap storm about it. LOL!
 
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