Glenn Beck Criticizes Watch Dogs for Promoting Hacking -- "What the Heck is Wrong with Us?"

Popular American conservative TV and radio host Glenn Beck has spoken out to criticize Ubisoft's recently released open-world Watch Dogs, the fastest selling game in Ubisoft's history. During a recent episode of his show, The Blaze (via Polygon), Beck first called out the game's protagonist Aiden Pearce for being an anti-hero and not a traditional hero like Superman.

"Why must everyone be an anti-hero? Why must everyone break the law? Why can't we have a Superman? Why can't we have somebody who is doing the right thing, does the hard thing? Instead, everybody is an anti-hero," Beck said.

Beck also took issue with the way in which, he believes, Watch Dogs promotes hacking.

"The idea here is they are teaching you to hack and then become the ultimate voyeur in other people's lives--including their bedrooms--by hacking into their phones and everything," Beck said. "This game is teaching people to hack into whatever is docked in your bedroom. What the heck is wrong with us? What are we thinking? We are inviting this into our home and our lives. We are teaching our kids [hacking] for entertainment purposes."

We have reached out to a Ubisoft representative for a response to Beck's comments.

"Yes, it's really hard to avoid [video games] … and then once you start, it's hard to put them down. Yeah, so is crack cocaine" -- Glenn Beck

Also during the segment, Beck said because video games are such a relatively new medium, we don't yet fully understand how they affect our brains, though he said he's sure they must do so in some way. "These games re-wire your brain; we don't even know what they do yet. This is brand new stuff," Beck said.

So if video games are capable of being such a negative force on our brains, why not just stop playing altogether? Beck said it's not that simple. "Everybody wants to talk about guns; everybody wants to talk about Hollywood movies; everybody wants to talk about the guys who made these video games. It's not their fault. Yes, it's really hard to avoid [video games] … and then once you start, it's hard to put them down. Yeah, so is crack cocaine."

It's not just video games that we have a difficult time detaching ourselves from, Beck said. He said people would be more likely to give up smoking or coffee than their smartphones or Facebook. "We're addicted, and we're so fearful that we think we can't [stop]," he said.