Cruel Doubt on the Net Again: Assault on Video Games Continues
Yes believe it or not I had begun work on an AA #15, but after the rather disgraceful attacks on behalf of a couple certain people for the last newsletter I did not get motivated enough to do a full AA. But here's something I did complete in it, and it's something that needs to be shared due to how stupid the events described in the piece are.It seems that after I composed my manifesto in AA #14 against all of those people who have been driving to make video games the de facto cause of the downward spiral of society, the bombardment has been pushed to extremitites. But for those who have joined us late in the discussion, a quick explanation about the series. To review, "Cruel Doubt" is the true story of teenagers playing "Dungeons and Dragons" who took their role-playing to the real world and commit murder. Segue to electronic entertainment and role-playing, where video games have been blamed for the massacre at Columbine, drug use, deliquency, alcoholism, brain rot, and violent behavior in people. Family members see you playing MUD and think you are traveling toward activity with a satanic cult. Politicians tried to keep kids from buying or playing the games by passing laws that later get overturned by the courts. Shrinks psychoanalyze the behavior and measure the brain activity of guiena pigs playing the polar opposites of game genres, the most violent and the non-violent games. The author carefully notes the evolution of the older crowd's pelting of the video game industry for the past twenty years, seeing that the game-haters have changed very little over the years. The bottom line is, video games are fun, they are a lot of fun, they are a heck of a lot of fun, and if you're not good at them or enjoying them as much as you should, you need to keep practicing until you get better at them.
Over the past couple of months, a few outrageous incidents have taken place. First, the nation of Greece passed a law in an effort to wipe out illegal gambling effectively saying the government cannot tell the difference between Video Poker and the Super Mario Bros. Second, at an internet cafe in a South Korean neighborhood, one person playing Counter-Strike jumped up from his computer and savagely attacked another person in the room who admitted to fragging him. Other similar incidents ended up in murder. We've had a few people die from playing video games on the computer for more than 24 hours straight. A teenager blames the game "Grand Theft Auto 3" for his string of one hundred car break-ins. Lastly, an Everquest player commits suicide and his mother blames the game itself for it.
In one of the most ridicious assaults against video gaming not seen since the likes of Ferdinand Macros of the Philippines in the early 1980s, the nation of Greece passed a ban on all forms of electronic interactive entertainment. These include, video games on your cell phone, Game Boys, Nintendos, Playstations, X-Boxes, games on your PC, the Internet, games on your wristwatch, battery-operated LCD games, and many more. Anyone, Greek citizen, or traveling tourist caught playing anything considered fun on a electronic device was rounded up and hauled off to jail. Reported penalities for playing these games have varied greatly. One source says the fines would be up to $150,000 but others have claimed its only about $7500. The jail time would be up to one year in jail. Why did they pass this anti-gaming law? The bastard politicians out there were trying desperately to stamp out illegal gambling, which apparently is a rampant problem in their country. At one time, they banned decks of playing cards and dice, which did nothing to get rid of the problem. They see people playing video poker, blackjack, and slot machines at bars. They also see people playing in internet casinos at internet cafes alongside people playing Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 and others. And yes, anyone who plays MUD will also go to jail. But there are others playing the same games for fun and are not gambling or winning anything. In a vein of twisted logic, the dimwits stated that they could not tell the difference between gambling machines and video arcade games so if we ban all forms of electronic entertainment, it will be much easier to get rid of the gambling. The idiots did not even consult the general public on what it thinks of this move. After the first arrests were made, and internet cafes closed down, the protests and picketing began. The initial test cases where prosecutors tried to have owners of an internet cafe sentenced to prison, were thankfully, declared unconstitutional by the judges hearing the cases. Thank goodness, though it should have NEVER gotten to this point. You don't pass a law that's unconstitutional, cause the judges half the time ignore the constitution and uphold the law, effectively amending the constitution without a vote from anyone else. The lawmaking morons despite the defeat, haven't given up their quest to stop gambling, and are making another attempt to write an anti-gambling law that can be applied to computers. The Crimefighter says, if anyone DARES try to pass a law here like Greece did, that WILL BE THE VERY LAST bill you will ever vote on cause I'll be at the doorstep of the idiot politician making life very miserable for them.
Unfortunately, another nation months later passed a ban on all violent video games. The central American country of Honduras did the deed even though it's a well known fact that most of the nation is incredibly poor and couldn't afford a gaming system even if they wanted one. Also, the country is infamous for all the drug running that goes on there, and most of the violence stems from that. Yet, once again, scapegoating is so much easier than dealing with the real problem.
What is with the South Korean gamers? There have been a few incidents where at internet cafes one guy murders another as an act of an ultimate sore-loser when they are losing at their favorite game that they think they should be dominating everyone else. Others run on these MMOGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games) as a gang and pretty much act as the Bloods and the Crips attacking people at random for fun. Yahoo! magazine covered this in depth in the August 2002 issue, though I doubt the games themselves caused these people to become violent criminals, they were already violent in general and would have attacked someone if they didn't get their way in any other activity, including hopscotch and tiddlywinks.
From the violent to the obsessed, another South Korean plays on the computer at an internet cafe for 86 straight hours and DIES. How does one play on a computer for 86 straight hours or three and a half days? This cafe stays open for 24 hours, no minors allowed after 10pm. Are you kidding? Why would a net cafe stay open 24 hours a day? Who's coming over there at night? Doesn't anyone sleep out there? The man was 24 years old and unemployed. He began playing on a Friday, didn't sleep nor eat, and when he was done, he collasped in front of a counter, got up and went to the restroom then died. I KNOW I couldn't play 24 hours straight, much less a couple of hours without having to get up and move around. I suspect this guy suffered the same condition as someone riding in an airplane seat for too long and not getting up once in a while to get the circulation going in your body. Another man in Taiwan died from playing video games at a cyber cafe for 32 straight hours, pausing only to use the restroom. When he died, he was bleeding from the nose and foaming at the mouth. Now I've never heard of someone getting these conditions from playing games, have they tested this guy for drug use? It's amazing that cafe owners do not notice that certain people have been there for such a long time. Isn't there a time limit?
Out of southwest Florida, a hispanic teenager broke at least five knives stabbing and killing his friend in a dispute about a video game on football. The killer stabbed the victim in the chest and the rest of his body, going back to the kitchen to get another knife after each blade broke. The incident triggered when the victim punched the killer in the mouth when he got angry over a game. Okay, I don't see anyone running around wanting to ban football yet, I didn't know football caused knife fights, cause there's no knives in football! He's been charged with 1st-degree murder.
In Wisconsin, a teenager was arrested for a string of one hundred automobile break-ins. His reason for committing this many crimes? I was influenced by the game "Grand Theft Auto 3". GTA3 of course, is a game where you steal cars and act like a one-man crime wave. It's rated M, but it should really be rated AO for Adults Only due to the subject matter. What in the world were his parents doing during his crime-spree? Why did they allow him to play this game? Did they not know what it was about? A lot of parents buy this game for their kids, not notice that it's rated M, see their kids play it then take it back to the store screaming at the sales clerk about the content of the game and not telling them of it. My solution to this problem is enrolling these dumb parents in a class called Video Games 101, with me as the teacher.
Here's a story I missed, and this one comes out of Russia. Six teenagers commit suicide in the same city, due to what authorities claim was their fatal passion for the video game "Final Fantasy". Three of them hung themselves, the other three jumped off a high building. Investigators think the psychology of the game itself, or code signals on the CD-ROM made these guys kill themselves. Oh please! This game has been out for a couple of years! And this is the only place where kids committed suicide over this game in the entire world! Something else is going on here, and the video game is all too easy to scapegoat.
Lastly, a 48 Hours report on addictions caught my eye. They took a look at the most popular of the MMOGs, Everquest. They interview a couple of current players who are playing the game excessively, and their excuse is, the game never ends. I've never played Everquest, especially because it's pay-to-play, but at some point you reach a point where you've hit the highest level and explored everything there is to explore. Surely there's a wizhood status in the game? Doesn't the game ever get boring after playing it for so long and repeating a number of sequences over time? They zero in on someone with a history of mental problems that committed suicide while the Everquest game was running on the computer. The mother of the deceased blames the game itself for her son's death, and that if he didn't play it, he might be alive. So this mother who formed the group "Everquest Widows" plans to file a lawsuit against Sony. As noted, this kid had a lot of mental problems throughout his life, and once again, the video game is scapegoated instead of the harder to find root causes.
Posted by abermud
at 8:30 AM CDT
