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Because the real Opiate of the Asses goes by the name "Ego" now. Fuck you.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Connecticut Game Burning

Alright everybody, prepare for maximum facepalm. Remember that shooting in Connecticut? Well a town not far from there is hosting a protest of violent games and movies, by burning them.

Yes. Burning them
Like a book burning.

Let's go through all the things that are wrong with this situation.
Here's the big one:
There is NO link between violent video games, and violence. This study has been done several times, pretty much after every single school shooting. Every single time, the media hypes and stresses the "effect of video games on today's youth", and every single time, a study is taken out of context to try and support video game violence. This time it's the study conducted by Professor Christopher Ferguson of Texas A&M University. The study concluded with no evidence linking video games to violence. However, if you've ever seen this interview, the information this guy is quoting is basically the information from Ferguson's study, taken out of context. Ferguson was contacted by PC Gamer magazine and told about this improper use of his study. His reply was "they absolutely misused and misrepresented my meta-analysis in that report. My data should, in no way, ever be used to support links between video game violence and aggression. We have done a number of studies of video game violence with both children and adults and find no evidence to support links between video game violence and youth violence. Furthermore, youth violence has declined to 40 year lows, not gone up in recent years".

This story has literally been the same for nearly every shooting, and it hasn't been just video games that have been pinned. It's been movies, to music in the 90s and 80s, to books even before that. Yes, people blamed violent books for violent shootings. We're just repeating this cycle of looking for someone to blame. This is similar to that whole fiasco with the radio DJs that prank called a woman who later committed suicide. Maddox already wrote a whole article about it. While the DJs might more at fault than Maddox would like to admit, this business with blaming game companies is literally the same situation. People want someone to blame, whether it was the shooter's mother, to gun control laws, to fucking video games. The only person you  need to blame is the shooter himself. The one who physically took the gun and slaughtered innocent children. Using this tragedy, like that woman's suicide, to guilt people into taking the blame is cowardly.

Besides, what is burning discs going to accomplish? Video game distribution platforms like Steam, uPlay and Origin (hah, Origin, what a shitpile) render this whole protest futile, because you're destroying discs that no one actually uses. Video games don't come on discs anymore, you're not really accomplishing anything by burning them (unless you're a dirty console gaming peasant). Same thing with movies. People don't go out and buy movies that often anymore, unless they're collectors or something, and even then they're not going to burn their beloved collection. People get movies from Netflix, or they just torrent them or something. Maybe they're just trying to send a message, but what does that message say when you're bribing people 25 dollars to burn their discs. I see no possible way that could backfire.
It's not like someone could burn 25 dollars worth in movies, then just go out and buy another 25 dollars worth in violent movie. That's just crazy.
All these idiots are really doing is polluting the atmosphere and shortening their lifespans inhaling the toxic fumes that are going to be created when they burn those discs. Your message is bad, you're doing it wrong, and you're really not understanding the reality of the situation.

The media is just fueling the misconceptions that all video games are violent, and that gamers are evil, heartless people, and all games are blood fests where the sole purpose is mindless violence. Once again, these misconceptions happened and still happen in the world of music. Metal, by some, is considered "satanic". While this is what it may appear like on the outside, if you dig a little deeper, you can find real art, real meaning, and really understand the falsity of those misconceptions. That's the real problem. People accusing video games of causing violence have only really experienced that shallow layer of games like the over-hyped Call of Duty franchise. Human subcultures are bottomless. This is especially true for huge subjects like gaming, music, wine tasting, movies, and books. There's a great XKCD comics about Joe Biden eating sandwiches and twisty straws that illustrate this concept excellently. Just because you've only experienced the top layer of that culture doesn't mean you know what lies underneath.

As for these disc burners, the ignorant will always shout the loudest and tell you that their way of life is better. I love the way Phil Savage of PC Gamer describes them. "Of course, there’s no mention of books being collected. Only crazy people burn books."

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