The Gamer’s Quagmire #9: Why The World Needs GTA
The Gamer’s Quagmire: 9th Edition
- Jamison DeLorenzo
Gaming, humor, and insanity in harmony
Ever since Grand Theft Auto: Vice City became a smashing success the media and several special interest groups have started pounding on the franchise in the hopes that they would have an impact and further their cause. Lawyers have tried to make careers out of taking down such a powerhouse gaming franchise. Part of what makes me such an intrinsic video game fan is that video games are viewed so negatively by many of those people who consider themselves to be part of the American mainstream culture. It is this same feeling that enamors fans of comic books and skateboarding to their hobbies that much more. All of the true fans of these activities were drawn to them because they were fun and no other reason. Those who attack these activities only make the bonds to these activities stronger.
What makes my attachment to video games so strong is that as an introverted kid at school, while I did have enough friends, video games were a way for me to entertain myself when I wanted to be alone. Video games were a way for me to use and feed my imagination. Video games allowed me to experience a story, universe, or event when I wanted to see it instead of waiting for it to be scheduled on television or at some location in my hometown (playing tennis whenever I wanted to was a fantastic feeling). The fact that I was a computer geek only heightened my fascination with these games and the technology around them. The Atari 2600 was there for me during some very impressionable years of my life. Once my parents did me the immeasurable favor of purchasing that system and spent time playing games with me I became a lifetime fan of video games (not to mention gaining yet another level of respect for my parents).
For these reasons and more, when people attack video games I tend to take the attacks personally. When people around me state their disdain for them from a distant point of view, usually citing the worst examples of video games, it annoys me. When lawyers attack video games through lawsuits it angers me, aside for the same reason, because they are attempting to take advantage of a tragedy for professional gain. When politicians attack video games it infuriates me because they are doing it to advance their political agenda. It is quite common to hear people whine and rant about video games while being completely removed from what some of the best video games can do for people. It is easy to attack ideas you do not take the time to understand. Disdain born out of ignorance is a major problem.
Of course not everybody wants to do something about video games because it may advance their own career- some people do have pure and strong personal reasons for attacking video games. I was making a gross generalization, so at least I know that. When you have personal accounts that lead to such feelings that’s fine, but attacking an industry as a whole is never justified. If you want to blame GTA, Lineage, Warcraft III, or any other game for causing a personal tragedy then go right ahead. Don’t drag down the whole industry with those thoughts. Go on record for stating that Mario is evil and expect a slew of parents to get upset over this (believe it or not there a plethora of parents that like playing Mario games with their kids because those games are fun and accessible). Go on record and state that DDR is evil and get ready for people attempting to lose weight upset at you (I’m not even kidding- playing that game can help you achieve that).
I do not have the time or the inclination to play every game that people like to attack, but sometimes just being a fan of video games is enough to draw ridicule from some people. I am not asking for a reprieve from these attacks and I am not even asking for the PSP (or even, ugh, cellular phones) to help bring a larger acceptance of video games into society. Just like a sports fan loves to debate and argue over their team and players, which is another one of my fun hobbies, I love to argue about video games with people. Sometimes it is impossible convince another person why they are foolishly ignorant in their dislike or disdain for video games. That’s okay. The fun is in that I know I can go on for hours about all the good things about video games and all the different examples that make certain games something far more than entertainment is enough. This is one of those cases where the value of the journey vastly outweighs the outcome.
By the now the message should be pretty clear- I love video games and always will. Even if two playable games come out in one calendar year I will still play them, love them, and wait for more good games the next year. Even if the industry is bloated, even if the industry is corrupted, and even if the industry is too conservative there are still plenty of games that provide a good amount of entertainment. They are a great source of entertainment, a creative outlet, and a place where I can be myself and ignore the world. It is not as tranquil as fishing but it works.
The reason I bring this up this week is because this past week has provided the perfect opportunity to explain why GTA is good for society. Anyone who has had to deal with car insurance nightmares will understand where I am coming from. After hours of battling with insurance & DMV employees to straighten out a series of issues with driving registration, insurance, payments, companies, and licenses I needed to get away from the universe. After sitting down and meditating over which of my hundreds of video games would bring me the most pleasure I decided on GTA. Why? Easy- it is a fun game, it deals with driving, and I wanted to work out some tension and anger that had built up over the course of the day. A ‘normal’ person may have gone working out, turned up the volume on their favorite CD, played an instrument, watched a tape of a classic sports event, or just relaxed on their favorite park bench.
I decided to play a game that involved blowing up cars, running people over, shooting innocent bystanders, and breaking traffic laws in numerous ways. What can I say, Carmageddon just felt way too subdued for the frustration that had built up. Smashing traffic lights, beating up other drivers, and blowing up vehicles that cut me off with a rocket launcher has a sense of satisfaction to it. In real life I know that it would be immensely moronic for me to do this in the real world, and I knew that if I was afforded the opportunity to play a game that allowed to work out some vehicular frustration then all would be well. This is one of the many instances where video games are more than just entertainment- they can be stress relief and irony rolled into one. It is entirely possible that on a day when I get hit by some punk on a skateboard that THUG 2 is the game of choice at 6 pm. Before the Super Bowl I just may have to put in NFL2K5 and do a couple seasons in franchise mode. Just as there’s a right time and place for a certain CD, book, or movie there’s right time to play a certain game.
So go ahead, attack video games all you want. Sue as many companies as you can find and try to invent some ratings system that’s more 20 times more detailed and hypocritical than what is in place for movies. You cannot take video games away from me, and you cannot take away the need for games such as Grand Theft Auto. Video game companies do not create the demand for these violent games- the people purchasing and playing them do. Video games can be blown out of proportion but they are never given the credit they are due.
You know what? Maybe that is what makes me enjoy them as much as I do.
This article is written and copyrighted by Jamison DeLorenzo and all thoughts are solely his and do not necessarily represent anyone else’s including anyone else at this site. This is a weekly article which deals with anything and almost everything gaming. Feel free to post comments or e-mail. Thanks for reading.
Post your comments in the Forum!
January 23, 2006
The Gamer’s Quagmire #8: G4’s Obituary
The Gamer’s Quagmire: 8th Edition
- Jamison DeLorenzo
Gaming, humor, and insanity in harmony
Television is probably the invention that has had the most impact on our society in a long time. Certainly there are other inventions that have had dramatic effects- electricity, the integrated circuit, frozen pizza, the cellular phone, the microwave, air conditioning, plastic, the internet, sliced bread, and the kitchen sink. I am not going to sit here and debate which one of these is the most important- let’s just talk about television for a while.
On April 25, 2002, a new cable channel was launched on the G4 channel. No, this channel wasn’t solely devoted to selling Macintosh CPUs but instead devoted to video games. This was a fantastic idea because as big as the gaming industry was getting there was not a whole lot of press on television for it. Considering gamers were mostly restricted to spotlight half-hour shows here or there this was a huge event. The only problem was that you had to have a big cable package to get this channel. Like most interesting ideas it started off being really interesting and then became more stale than a year-old bagel. And for those of you wondering I have seen a year-old bagel. It is a fun experiment- just leave it in your school locker and forget about it.
Part of the overall concept that made this channel interesting was that those in charge of its programming did some innovative things- even if they weren’t smash hits. For its first week on the air G4 showed nothing but the classic game Pong. Two opposite white rectangles represent paddles and a 1×1 white square represent a ball over a black background is hardly highly entertaining viewing, but at least it showed guts and a devotion to gaming.
At the time I found this out I had been quite skeptical of this idea, but the problem is that, aside from being a cynic in general, there are very few people that would watch something like this (and I was right- cynics do love it when negative opinions pay off). For a lark you could have tossed in some sportscasters hyping up a matchup, creating fake rivalries, discussing strategy, or even throwing around fake players’ statistics to add something fresh to the these games of Pong. Sometimes all you need to grab interest in a show is a lot of hype and insane commentators. Look no further at college basketball and Dick Vitale.
Back when the channel launched I didn’t know what the angle was with the Pong marathon and to some degree I still don’t. At least there was some edge to it. Still, watching Pong for more than one day was impossible even for me. This isn’t being egotistical- you are dealing with someone who can watch billiards, golf, or bowling for hours on end, so when you fail to catch my interest with an overall slow-paced event involving a game you are doing something wrong. Then again I am not a marketing genius, so what do I know?
After getting a cable subscription and watching the shows whenever possible I was able to see some definite signs of potential. A lot of the shows weren’t spectacular but they provided hope. Gamers don’t tend to care all that much about script writing or professionalism when it comes to presenting games. We care about one thing- the games. If a show is presenting games and not getting in the way of them then, as far as I see it, the show is a success. Dulling your audience to sleep with a week’s worth of the equivalent of watching an ant push salt across your desk is not the best way to get people to watch your network (hmm, maybe it is time to give this Pong-bashing a rest).
Once the first week passed the shows were decent and they did provide gamers with what they wanted to see. There were reviews and footage of the latest games. There was advice for beating the latest and most popular games. What the channel needed to conquer was how all of this information was presented. Considering that most gamers who could get access to this channel, especially now, already had a relatively fast internet connection this network needed edge and something fresh to draw people in. Gaming in general is good but more was needed to get people to watch. That really is the main problem that the TV network must address. How is the TV programming going to give an advantage over going out and finding the information yourself? I know I’d rather go out on the web and find the information myself when I want to rather than waiting for the timeslot to appear.
The question I had asked myself is that if the programming didn’t eventually become relatively solid, if nobody started watching and the programmers don’t get paid this really isn’t going to work, is it? For a period of over two years I really wanted this network to succeed. Gaming channels do not have a good track record by any means. Those of you that remember the follies of the Sega Channel in the days of the Genesis will probably remember a whole slew of things not to do. For starters, if the platform sucks there’s no reason to give it its own TV channel. It still bothers me that a horrible gaming system was synonymous with a fantastic band (2 things which the system was not). However, despite the past track record I believe that there is a place for a gaming channel on television. If a channel can exist for nothing but game shows then why not can’t there be one for video games as well?
At one point I thought this ideal gaming channel would be G4. Things are vastly different nowadays. Over time I look at how this channel has progressed and it is enough to make a grown gamer cry. And no, I am not upset that many of my initial suggestions never took place. I was never cut out to be in charge of television programming, but at this point this channel, once involved in the gaming business, should start considering some of the following ideas:
- More than 400 hours of original game-related programming in 1 year.
- Run a special every month of a group of people playing through a 30 to 80-hour RPG.
- Don’t let David Arquette appear anywhere on the network. A bag of peanuts can tell me more about a video game (or anything else) than that idiot.
- Horrible Video Game Hour. It will run spots on classics like Daikatana, ET, Michael Jordan in the Windy City, Shaq-Fu, Independence Day, Force Commander, and other timeless classics.
- Random 5 or 10 second clips of the latest Tekken game.
- Rare footage of someone walking into a video game store and asking for an Atari Jaguar title by name.
- No commercials haplessly pimping stupid cars, such one with the ungodly phrase “the minivan with the soul of a sports car” or teenagers hanging outside the trendy box known as a Scion. I can’t believe this garbage gets air time.
- FMV Marathons. There’s almost nothing more enthralling than watching these videos. Fans of Final Fantasy and Metal Gear understand.
- Televised floggings of people responsible for really bad video games. Not only is this fun, it’s a potential deterrent as well!
and finally…
- Monthly Civilization weekend marathons.
G4 has had plenty of time to evolve. Re-working show formats, changing hosts, removing bad shows and bringing in fresh shows are all part of the evolution of a network. At this point G4TV has evolved to a large extent, only it is now no longer a gaming network. It has long since become apparent that those in charge of this network have no concept of how to manage time slots or even figure out what to do with itself. After merging with TechTV, which had some good programming and was mildly entertaining, I started to get nervous. When your ad revenue starts to dwindle it’s always best to merge two different stations right? Once a couple of my favorite shows’ format started to change I started to get nervous. Still, the shows kept coming and the programming kept changing, possibly for the better, so perhaps things were starting to turn around.
Once all of the car shows started hitting I became more nervous. The merge with TechTV wasn’t the death knell for G4 as a gaming network, but it was a harbinger. Despite extensive E4 coverage and great coverage of real video game awards, G4TV had now transformed into the low-budget premium channel knockoff of SpikeTV. G4TV’s new motto should be something like “pushing the (lower) limits of cable programming everywhere.” Thanks G4- I didn’t know that was even possible! The additions of two hit shows in Fastlane and The Man Show are another clear sign of this channel’s clear move away from gaming. Did I forget to mention that these shows are no longer on the air and that the more successful show lasted a whole 3 seasons? Always pay attention to what’s being advertised on your station, which shows are being shuffled, and where your favorite shows get shuffled to. The items indicated above were all big signs that, well, this network is dying.
Look at the similarities between SpikeTV and G4TV if you don’t believe me. Both stations revolve around cars and TNA. Both import failed shows from Fox. Both have now tried to use Star Trek to lure more viewers. Both even show video game awards (what on Earth is Samuel L. Jackson doing hosting those- does he owe someone a ton of money?). Do we really need to homogenize all networks that don’t draw in enough viewers?
At this point G4 has reduced itself to one show that’s worth watching- X-Play. Okay, Versus might be another show worth watching. These are true diamonds in the rough. Those of you that do not know about X-Play should give it a shot and pray it moves to a better station. A recent episode had a review of an extremely violent game wherein they covered up blood spatters with pictures and audio clips of kittens. This show has exactly what gamers want- games, funny commentary, honest opinions, random skits, and an unattainably hot chick.
After looking at what G4 was when it started and what it is now it is, unfortunately, time to state that this gaming network is dead. G4 is now just another garbage network with occasional gaming shows (in order words, back where we were before the network launched). Why write about this now? What was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back? The ultimate sin was committed. Filter was taken off of the air. You might think I have blinders on but hear me out for a bit. Even though this show was not going to win any awards and wasn’t some masterpiece it was still a must-see for gamers. It provided everything a real male gamer wants- a ton of games and a hot Asian woman. Canceling that show, while by no means being an Earth-shattering event, is the clearest sign that the original idea behind G4TV is dead. When you change the format of a good gaming show, thusly running into the ground, and then cancel it your station is not a gaming network.
Those that are still hopelessly loyal to the station will become a part of G4TV’s continued and tragic quest to become a station in search of an identity. Once this station first came out I was so hopeful that it would succeed. As a gamer you want all-gamer networks to work out. Now it’s becoming some games, some tech, some cars, and some cancelled TNA shows. Fantastic! I hate to be the one to formally state this, but the teenage gamer segment this network seems to be aiming at is not interested in paying for premium cable to watch Bill Bellamy.
Whatever major backers this station once had will soon have to pull out because no good new programming is entering its realm. Fox survived with a Hall of Fame set of shows with The Simpsons, X-Files, and 90210 for about a decade. Whether you liked them or not they were all ratings monsters. Fox did eventually get more good programming. This is NOT happening on G4TV. Ever. This station was once a beacon as a true gaming network. Since then this original foundation is nothing more than rubble.
Whatever G4TV claims to be it is no longer about gaming. As I see it, it is no longer there. It died on the operating table. Fellow gamers, it’s time for me to state something you all need to see:
R.I.P. G4TV, 2002-2005.
This article is written and copyrighted by Jamison DeLorenzo and all thoughts are solely his and do not necessarily represent anyone else’s including anyone else at this site. This is a weekly article which deals with anything and almost everything gaming. Feel free to post comments or e-mail. Thanks for reading.
Post your comments in the Forum!
January 16, 2006
The Gamer’s Quagmire #7: Zombies Have Seizures Too
The Gamer’s Quagmire: 7th Edition
- Jamison DeLorenzo
Gaming, humor, and insanity in harmony
With all of the hoopla about parents knowing what their kids are playing and recent lobbying for stricter ESRB ratings you need to would think that people would starting paying attention. Knee-jerk reactions are quite popular. Still, once again we have another documented case of parents failing to pay attention to their own kids and video games are under attack once more. Only this time we have Resident Evil 4 being the newest game of choice. This had to happen eventually with this game though. I’m honestly surprised it took this long for such a popular and successful horror game to be the victim of another lame attack in the press.
The gist of the article is that an 11 year-old kid suffered a photosensitive epileptic attack as a result of playing this game, at which point the parents, also teachers, claimed that the game did not come with enough warnings about how violent the game is. Folks, this is what really, really irritates me about society. The parents have the gall to state that the dangers of the game were not made clear despite:
The game’s classification as a horror game
- The trigger word “Evil” in the title
- The violent images on the game’s box (including a chainsaw)
- The official rating of 15+ years of age
- The manual stating the game can cause seizures or trigger an epileptic response
Before we even rehash the game warning argument for the 7 billionth time, something needs to be made clear. Violence and photosensitive seizures are not related. I know- I’m asking you to know what photosensitive means even if you can’t understand what a rating a box means. I am not claiming to be a certified medical practitioner, but there are plenty of medical websites that explain all of this in excruciating detail. These types of seizures are caused by specific patterns of colors reacting in a certain way to an individual. Epilepsy existed long before video games, or are we now altering history to attack video games again? It is possible that the violent imagery triggered some minor trauma, but it didn’t trigger epilepsy.
Far be it from the news article to do some medical research and state this fact. Attacking video games in the media is the newest fad, just in case you’ve been hiding under a rock (in a cave, on Mars, with your finger in your ears) for the past five years. Entertainment industries attacking each other is far from out of the ordinary. The movie industry when it first started out was under fire from established entertainment forums such as radio and theater. Following this notion, the article proudly states that prolonged exposure to video games increases the risk of the photosensitive epilepsy. Well, duh! Prolonged exposure to television, movies, laser shows, disco balls, flashlights, streaming confetti, lit airport runways, and sock puppet parades all do the same thing too.
What’s funny is that scientists are given money to link video games and violence… and now medical conditions too. You can administer all the studies you want that show that video games can trigger this response. Your eyes and brain don’t care what the source of all the colors they are interpreting is. Different people react to patterns of light differently than others- it is no accident that warnings use the phrasing “may cause seizure.” You can raise the volume of your speakers and blow out a patient’s eardrums to the sounds of machine gun fire and blood spatter all you want. Aside from obvious legal repercussions you cannot prove anything more than that a high volume of sound wave destroyed someone’s ability to hear.
Do you want to know how I’m such an expert in this area? Here is my startling secret- I spent 15 minutes reading about the disorder. I even had a relatively quick conversation with a friend who works as a physician. Teams of professional journalists and editors at trusted news sources, however, are far too busy to deal with such complicated tasks as research. Again, nobody is asking for a full 200 page report based on months of studying sacred scrolls locked away in a vault. At least the article manages to point out that, via an expert at the National Society for Epilepsy, that age has nothing to do with this type of epileptic response. Still, misleading readers with your version of the truth is nothing more than yellow journalism, even it may come from somewhere outside the United States.
Which reminds me- my hamster cage needs some fresh newspaper.
What’s perplexing is that game manuals do have the epileptic response warning- even for non-violent games (such as racing games). And they aren’t some hidden little message in 4-point font either. This is nowhere near being the first incident involving video games and this type of reaction. These warnings don’t find their ways into game manuals for no reason, so if people missed the warning then it is high time to actually (it needs to be said again) pay attention to what your kids are doing… even if it means reading. This makes you wonder if anybody reads anything at all. Do people have any idea what the 200 different signatures you have to give for buying a house or car are even for? You could probably slip in a clause about handing over your first-born child and nobody would even notice.
Look, I am not some unsympathetic cynic despite how this sounds. There are plenty of instances where game store employees lie about the content of a game to get a sale, such as pimping GTA to an 8 year-old kid and his father and stating that it’s about the same as Simpsons Hit & Run (no, that is not a made-up story). There is, however, a point where you need to sit down and read something. I know it’s inconvenient and it takes away from valuable TV and cellular phone conversation time but it does need to be done. These are the same people that whine about their mechanic ripping them off for years. If you don’t read once in a while your ability to comprehend basic English, whatever skill level you had when you graduated school (if you even were able to graduate) goes downhill really fast.
Nobody is asking you to read the unabridged IRS tax code and file your income tax return without a computer here. This concept of reading about a game is in no way more complicated than studying an itemized bill at a restaurant. If you can’t figure out the age rating of a game (it is written in number form in case you are confused), if you can’t read warning messages, and if you can’t decipher graphics that all point to a game being violent then you failed the genetic fitness test and it’s time to turn yourself into the local gene pool.
That’s not too harsh, is it?
Aside from parents not being able to decode the ancient hieroglyphics on the box or even being involved in the son’s life we have a math teacher that managed to state on record that the game needs to come with more warnings. For the record we have a math teacher stating that the “for ages 15+” on the box was not clear. How does a professional math teacher with an inability to decipher numbers hold a job? Does this mean that math teachers have the most secure jobs in the planet? If a math teacher can’t figure out that 11 < 15 (eleven is less than fifteen) then what, prae tell, education can a math teacher provide?
Perhaps it isn’t a matter of education or reading ability but a matter of grabbing a person’s attention. So the question is how much warning is needed? If a game with the word evil in the title, the front cover showing a man holding a gun, the 15+ age restriction label, the horror classification and the violent imagery on the back of the box all aren’t enough then what is needed? One idea is that the bottom half of the front of the box is nothing more than a giant number displaying the minimum age required to play the game. Game boxes could come with something you press which causes a speaker to state the age requirements. Perhaps we need boxes that when you pick them up, perhaps based on a fingerprint, displays on an electronic screen a creative message stating whether you are allowed to buy the game (something along the lines of “put the box down, you already tried to sue our company- you negligent monster).
Whatever happens with the warnings one thing is for certain- my patience only goes so far. This time, for the first time, we have an article that prints out the profession of the parents. When teachers fail to notice numerous warning sign, whether they knew that this has been the most successful game in the horror genre for months on end or not, then perhaps it is time for a different brand of justice- let’s call it Darwinian. All of their educational degrees need to be revoked, their right to raise children needs to be removed, and are henceforth put back into 9th grade until they are able to pass high school English.
Baseless claims like the ones these parents made are akin to claiming that the movie Saw was too scary and you had no notice before watching it on DVD. This is 31 flavors of ridiculous. Do you need neon signs flashing in front of your face to get the message? I have an important message, and despite how strongly I feel I’m still going to resist putting it in blinking HTML format (which is almost the only thing warnings on boxes do not provide)- <strong>learn how to read</strong>.
Oh yeah, and after all of this rambling I perhaps failed to mention the most important thing: Resident Evil 4 is a great game. And just like any other game, the odds that it will give you a seizure about the same as any other moving scene that you happen to, um, look at.
This article is written and copyrighted by Jamison DeLorenzo and all thoughts are solely his and do not necessarily represent anyone else’s including anyone else at this site. This is a weekly article which deals with anything and almost everything gaming. Feel free to post comments or e-mail. Thanks for reading.
Post your comments in the Forum!
January 9, 2006
The Gamer’s Quagmire #6: Love of Legislation & Lemmings
The Gamer’s Quagmire: 6th Edition
- Jamison DeLorenzo
Gaming, humor, and insanity in harmony
As gamers we all have to accept that we live in a world where video game companies can be sued based on almost any violent incident. I mention this because the Grand Theft Auto series no longer holds the torch for game being attacked by the media and moronic parents. After Jack Thompson’s consistent failed attempts to sue game manufacturers and the subsequent suspension of his legal right to practice law in Alabama you would think some other lawyers would catch on to a few things. The ride was interesting, but overall it was like watching the entirety of Matrix Revolutions for the final fight between Neo and Smith. Game manufacturers, even if they do have some moral responsibilities to consumers, do not have a proven legal responsibility when people act on fantasies that reside in video games. Another point is that courts do not seem to respond favorably to bullying.
Gaming addiction is the latest major fake epidemic that is striking the populace across the globe. This type of psychological pandering boggles the mind. I am not going to harp on this point, but it suffices to say for now that somehow people’s inabilities to exude self control and thus succumbing to natural selection costs our country billions of dollars in legislation. Several lawsuits have been brought against Rockstar because of derelict behavior yet none have been upheld. And just like lemmings they keep on coming. What they do not expect is the lord and master of the world to become irritated and use his power to detonate a few more lemmings.
If you have a sudden urge to fire that game up I do not blame you. Tell you what- I have the same craving so let’s meet back here in 30 minutes. Sound good?
China is now home to another incident surrounding gaming addiction. Not all that long ago I was writing about the man who stabbed another man to death over online property he allegedly stole in an online game. This definitely qualified as an extreme case. What is funny is the solution that some are using to curb gaming addiction. Okay, maybe funny isn’t the right word. Let’s use preposterous instead. Regardless, prepare yourself for this one as the solution is definitely worse than the symptoms. In China, with over 1.5 million citizens alone playing World of Warcraft, online game plays are receiving a limit to the number of hours that they are allowed to spend online. The dollar amount spent (after translated into US currency, mind you) for online play in China last year is over $500 million, so the government is obviously concerned that too many citizens are going to be absorbed into a fantasy world (because it always holds that a fringe case is something that everyone is susceptible to). It’s true that China does not have the same background in human rights that America does, but the solution sets precedent and the gaming industry spreads across many boundaries. In related news paranoia is spreading like wildfire.
Gamers’ characters in online games are given handicaps once the gamer has been online for a certain amount of time. After the 5 hour/day line is reached the player is no longer allowed to be online until some time has passed. This is simply ludicrous. Let’s look at this from a rebellious standpoint for kicks. In today’s age how hard is it for one gamer to own a subscription to more than one online game? How many gamers own more than one game? How many gamers have multiple accounts for the same game? Are gamers everywhere going to suddenly figure out that they shouldn’t play more than 5 hours of games in one day? I know I set that alarm every time I sit down in front of my PC.
*cough*
There are plenty of people in my generation that have played games way more than five hours a day for years on end that do not enter any kind of legal trouble at all. How is this possible? W know that there are other things that people do than play games. We understand the legal ramifications for a lot of certain actions. We have plenty of other activities that occupy and entertain our minds. Who knows- without encouragement maybe I would have done nothing but play video games for weeks on end and have no interest in doing anything else. Luckily my parents were kind enough to, um, be parents. Anybody who becomes addicted to anything simply has not been supported into thinking that there are more things to do besides that one thing. Whether that addiction is a chemical dependency or not doesn’t matter.
Bold statement for certain, but I feel it’s accurate (of course, it is easy to claim this without facts or research but because this is satire I can get away with these things). Here’s another bold statement: you can play games for two days straight and walk away without being influenced by it in the slightest way. How do I know this? I have done this several times over the course of my life. Without sleep and little to negative amounts of nourishment I have played games for 2+ days straight (with my peak at 4) without sleep simply because it was summer and nothing else interesting was happening. Heck, that’s practically a vacation for me even to this day.
Here are some specifics. Two years ago I had a week off from work because a new game was coming out and that seemed like a good time to spend many, many hours away from the office vegetating on my highly comfy couch and enjoying my gaming library. By the third day I switched over into full blown Vice City mode. Over a span of five days I played that game all the way through and totaled about 18 hours of sleep. I literally collected every hidden package, every rampage and every mission. Did I start running around outside looking for spinning icons for rockets and flame throwers? Did I start slamming my car into light posts and other cars? Did I start beating up hookers and stealing cash? Did I try to ride a motorcycle through several office buildings and jump off of rooftops? I hate to disappoint you dear readers, but I simply went to sleep and woke up in time for work on Monday.
Aside from where the magic number of five hours a day came from, why do people consistently feel the need to regulate supposed addictions from a tails perspective? Just as alcoholics don’t care about the legal drinking limits gamers won’t care about limits on gaming. Look, there are far worse things that people can do besides play an excessive amount of games. When these people do not want to do anything else that is their choice and perhaps one should look at why they made this choice. I play games because they are entertainment and they are easily accessible. Choosing to be completely unproductive is my responsibility. You have every right to wonder why I would do such a thing and I have no right to blame you for my choice. Combating anxiety and stress promotes overall better health, even if only emotional health. At some point a girlfriend would be a good idea, but we don’t always have time for rational solutions. Speaking of which, perhaps it is time to dwell on why some people believe that Chinese citizens are becoming overly addicted to gaming.
This magic number is just another place where we can start setting some ridiculous restrictions on our lives. Now is the time for the inevitable invoking of Orwell’s 1984 where the government has complete control over everyone’s lives and minds. Anybody that thinks restrictions on what people can do is insane. If people telling you how much coffee you are allowed to drink, how long you can be on the phone, how much television you may watch, how many pages in a book you can read, how many miles you can travel, how many pieces of chicken are allowed for dinner, and so on then be my guest. Sure, this sounds ridiculous to you. You would be correct because it is patently ridiculous. What you have to consider is that legalized restrictions started sounding ridiculous at gaming to me and plenty of other gamers.
Once Grand Theft Auto games started selling at record rates it became news how much money was being made off of its production. Not soon afterwards did people start trying to sue Rockstar. Isn’t it amazing how gaming companies do not get sued until they start making a lot of money? The same thing happened ages ago near the beginning of the first big gaming boom when people where suing the makers of Pac-Man. Imagine it- a little round yellow orb doing nothing more than eating square dots and avoiding ghosts was being sued by actual human beings. I am pretty sure nobody tried to equate it to a drug addict getting high and trying to escape the police. Back then video games were new and nobody seemed to be able to handle this new fad. Evolution is not always able to work its magic.
Twenty years later people still have an inability to handle it, and now we are the point where Blizzard has been sued because somebody committed suicide after playing a lot of World of Warcraft. Somehow some gamer took the mission of killing their avatar to talk to a ghost a little too seriously.
Okay, bad joke. I do contend that the worse joke is that parents are blaming Blizzard for this incident. Maybe the Chinese version of the game has overpowering subliminal messages to jump off of tall buildings. The claim is that jumping off of a building was a re-enactment of a scene in the game. How one can tie together an online game involving killing orcs, elves, undead, and humans into jumping off of tall buildings is a mystery. Wouldn’t it make more sense to pick City of Heroes? After all that is a game where your avatar can jump off of anything and not die. In some cases the avatars can even fly. In World of Warcraft if your character falls too great a distance they die, so after some further research it came out that the game in question was Warcraft III. Apparently the parents were so interested in their child’s life they couldn’t even read the game box when making the claim at the lawyer’s office.
Sorry- that was another bad joke. I do realize, believe it or not, that all of these comments have to sound harsh. I do have some sympathy here for the parents. They did lose a child and that hurts a lot, but the sympathy train derails at the first mention of a lawsuit against a gaming company. It was only a matter of time before a new game became the new major cash cow, and then it was only a matter of time before someone tried to take advantage of it the cheapest way possible. Still, inevitable stupidity is not a good form of stupidity.
Once again the gaming industry is going to get plenty of free press. To a certain extend it could hurt more than it could help as I am not sure how many people willing to give gaming a shot have not heard of World of Warcraft by now. Odds are good that, considering this game is starting to set subscription records, there are not that many people unaware of its existence let alone its virtual stranglehold on the online gaming industry (phew- it’s been a challenge to get virtual and online gaming in the same sentence for a while now and frankly I am very happy to force another joke). For now let’s let some more clueless parents try and sue the gaming industry. The lawsuit will probably fail (and if writing this jinxes the outcome then, umm, err, can I hit a reset button somewhere?), those of you on my side of the river on this will all get a good laugh, and then we will wait for the next major gaming lawsuit to find its way into the headlines. Anybody prepared for the inevitable carpal-tunnel lawsuit against Nintendo for their new Revolution controller?
Unfortunately this lawsuit against Blizzard does set precedent for many jumpers’ families to blame games for death. I do have to be honest here- how did an online game get picked for this lawsuit? I am unable to deal this hurdle. The first game that comes to my mind for blaming on a person’s decision to jump to their death would be any platform game. Crash Bandicoot, Ratchet & Clank, Oddworld, Earthworm Jim, Jak & Dexter, Mario, Castlevania, and a host of others make excellent candidates. Stabbing victims could always use a game like Devil May Cry or Blood Rayne. Let’s see how far I can take this insanity. Who wants to blame Burnout for an excessive crash that ended in a series of lethal injuries? Anybody want to count the number of ways to drop dead in Spy vs. Spy? Who’s up for blaming GTA on behalf of a drowning victim? Want to try and point the finger at Castlevania the next time a candelabra gets knocked over and burns a house down? How about some creative lawsuits in response to Soul Calibur where you can be stabbed 20 times with a katana and still be alive? Plumbers could even claim that Mario convinced them to smash their head into a pipe.
Gamers need not fear this new lawsuit. In time, just as the previous lawsuits against GTA subsided, this one will subside too. Almost every World of Warcraft subscription will be renewed, new subscriptions will be sold, next year’s expansion will fly off the shelves if the gamers don’t pry the boxes out of the shipper’s hands, and Blizzard will continue to make money hand over fist. Perhaps the best thought I can take away from this is that I can still enjoy World of Warcraft happenings months after stopping my subscription.
This article is written and copyrighted by Jamison DeLorenzo and all thoughts are solely his and do not necessarily represent anyone else’s including anyone else at this site. This is a weekly article which deals with anything and almost everything gaming. Feel free to post comments or e-mail. Thanks for reading.
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January 2, 2006
The Gamer’s Quagmire #5: How To Dismantle A New Year
The Gamer’s Quagmire: 5th Edition
- Jamison DeLorenzo
Gaming, humor, and insanity in harmony
Last year I decided to put together an article talking about the problems of the Xbox 360, and in retrospect it seemed like a hasty decision. Almost every console has some form of problem. The PlayStation consoles suffered from various hardware problems. Even Nintendo’s consoles suffer from problems time to time. It was entertaining that there was a lot of commotion over the overheating issues that some people were having. Still, the launch of the console has been a relative success here in the United States. Japan, on the other hand, seems to be a lot more reluctant in accepting the console. Only a small fraction of people have stepped up there for this Microsoft console compared to its first one. Those of you not having been through some economics classes should know that declining sales numbers are what’s known in the business as “bad.”
Aside from heating issues there are other amusing issues that sites are tossing around now. Perhaps some news sites are trying to be a little too sensationalist (shocker, right?), but when you start talking about people being charged for returning scratched games that means you have absolutely nothing interesting to say. This is not some magical new policy- people have been charged for returning scratched media way long ago when stores started renting DVD’s. Why this is now becoming news is extremely odd. That isn’t news.
Okay, maybe you have something when you talk about not being able to back up the game. Not every issue needs to walk down the road of copy protection. Sometimes a scratched disc is just a scratched disc. Sometimes negligence is just plain negligence. Do we have to get into a discussion about the DMCA every time music, movies, or games comes up? Look, sometimes freshly packaged movies are no good. Just today in fact I realized that one of my Law & Order Season 4 DVD’s was unplayable. Now I could just go download the disc, risk getting caught in spreading copyrighted material, and call it a day. Believe me- this solution is tempting.
This new year is providing us with some great entertainment already. You may recall that when the PS2 was launched that there were legal problems with shipping it to some foreign countries such as Iraq because the console had impressive enough computing power to somehow be a party to controlling weapons. We now live in a world where Microsoft’s latest offering caused airport security in MacArthur Airport to raise a bomb alert. I wish I was making this up. Hold on a second- no I don’t. It is incidents like these that make me so thankful I live in America. Where else would a popular console released in time for the holiday season be mistaken for a bomb? Okay, I do realize that I live in a universe where it’s inconceivable that someone I know at least hasn’t heard of the Xbox 360. This is not normal, but considering that this new console was probably the most sought after item as a gift for the holiday season how could an airport in New York not be aware of what it was?
And a part of me was hoping that I could make a joke about a MacArthur Airport security checkpoint melting. Donna Summer would have been proud.
To make things even better, the situation was not resolved until an entire section of the airport was evacuated and senior officers came by and determined that it wasn’t a threat. A part of me wishes I was the next person go through the security checkpoint with U2’s How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. Yes, this what our tax dollars are going towards- security guards getting worked up over a gaming console. The next story about an Xbox in an airport better be a security guard confiscating one as a result of a security alert.
What’s sad is that it we will have to sit through a couple more months of unchecked bashing of Microsoft until the PS3 is launched. Every time a console is launched there are going to be issues, so when a few popped up here or there for the 360 nobody should have been surprised. It would have been surprising if there were no issues. Look, I have played with the console. There are no amazing games out for it but there are a couple really good ones. The 360 will not be saved by Halo 3 because one game cannot save a console. Even 2,000,000 different Mario games have not been enough to make Nintendo be a huge force in the console wars (yes, they still dominate hand-held devices but that is hardly news). My experiences with the 360 so far have been good enough where purchasing one is not outside the realm of possibilities.
This is 2006, and this will be one of the bigger years in gaming in awhile. We have two new consoles due out and one that is just barely on the shelves. Last year was a landmark year for video game legislation. As a gamer I would like to move past that and stick to just plain gaming. I want a ton of new games that will put video games in the news in a good way. I want Rockstar to make a popular game that politicians won’t make a hissy fit over (such as a good Midnight Club sequel). I want the PS3 and the Revolution to be great consoles. Hey, it would be even cooler if Square released a video game.
Still, if there are no major news stories in the gaming world then that leaves people like me with almost nothing to write about. I guess I was looking for one positive story to write about during the holiday season. If nothing else you can take the incident at the airport as a lesson that no matter how much money some companies toss around to hype a machine, even Microsoft, there are plenty of people unaware of their existence. Considering that my Gameboy Advance was swiped at a security checkpoint I’m glad I’m not the only gamer to suffer a setback before a flight.
This article is written and copyrighted by Jamison DeLorenzo and all thoughts are solely his and do not necessarily represent anyone else’s including anyone else at this site. This is a weekly article which deals with anything and almost everything gaming. Feel free to post comments or e-mail. Thanks for reading.
Post your comments in the Forum!
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