“Bottom line is I think there isn’t a person who doesn’t believe that there isn’t too much violence in our society, and games can glorify that,”
Really now? I can only think of four specific titles/franchises that glorify violence against ordinary people; Postal, GTA, Saint's Row, and Prototype. That's 4 titles amongst the millions of games available.
I'm really getting sick of all these naive statements against games. Every time I think we've gotten rid of this sort of crap, people find yet another tragedy to link to gaming. Grow the hell up and get with the times USA! (That last statement is aimed at the ignorant masses in the country, not at all of you, my gaming brethren).
I'll be so glad when the current, more knowledgeable generation is running the big game producing countries instead of the remnants of the 60's peacenik era.
Why is it that they *always* list Company of Heroes for Relic in articles like these, but *never* Dawn of War? Considering that the 40k license was what gave Relic it's first truly massive success, I think that's a little unfair.
Why is such a minuscule difference in sales between the two such big news? So the Wii U sold 15k less than the Wii. So what? That's 15k out of near 500k in both cases, such a small fraction that it's barely worth commenting on. Is the gaming world really so devoid of big stories that this can be considered a big deal?
"Elsewhere in his note to Biden, Greenberg said the IGDA welcomes additional evidence-based research into the effects of violent games on children."
There shouldn't be ANY sort of study like this. The games shouldn't be given to children to play in the first place. They carry an 18 rating for a reason. Which, I might add, also makes it ILLEGAL for the children to be allowed to play them.
"Major corporations, including the video game industry, make billions on marketing and selling violent content to children,"
Uh... no. They market them to adults, with clearly marked age ratings and warnings in all of their adverts, as they are required to by law. Never once have I seen an advert for a game, be it on the web, TV or in a magazine, aimed specifically at children.
I hate this kind of reasoning, trying to blame the easiest target for tragic events like this. Instead of pointing the finger at games and saying "that's what made them do it!", try looking at the overall mental health and free access to weaponry that the offender has. If you want to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future, provide people who need it with psychiatric help and deny them the ability to easily buy guns.
And this, Bioware, is how you transition to free to play. Take notes.
Also, I'm a little annoyed that when people list games that have gone free to play, they never list Champions Online. Why no love for my favourite MMO, world?
Builder here. Civ V, Cities XL, Anno 2070 and Minecraft are all some of my most played games in recent months.
Being a Builder, I'm very surprised not to see the two biggest banes of my type in any of the videos; the Troll, and the Griefer. The first plays games to bug and annoy other people as they try to play, and the second does their absolute best to destroy anything created by other players. The two do overlap somewhat, but both are considered a Builder's worst nightmare.
@Megavideogamer Sony can very much afford to keep having free online on their console. What you and many other seem to think is that Sony is just a console manufacturer, but they are actually a huge electronics manufacturer. That TV in most people's lounge? That's a Sony product. The Hi-Fi system in people's bedrooms? Sony again. And that, my friend, is where all Sony's profits come from, profits that outdo their consoles losses by billions.
The same can be said for MS. They can easily afford to drop the online fees, as they make huge profits from licencing Windows and Office to businesses. Don't forget that they are a software giant first and a console manufacturer a very distant second.
Cyber_Skaarj's comments