I remember being in a church one day when I saw the petition for Australia to add the R+18 censorship policy.
I was 18 or nearly 18 at the time. And I thought it was great that churches were backing the R18+ category. It showed that churches understood that the problem was not just banning video games but it was more important to actually address the issues and make sure everything had it's place. Heavens knows that from the time I was 15 and able to play M or MA15+ games I'd seen quite a bit of content in video games that I should not have seen at such a young age but had slipped in because developers either took clever or lazy loophole methods to make sure their games were still released in Australia and passed our Australia. The problem with censorship is not that content exists. It's when inappropriate content falls into the hands and eyes of children. From my primary school teacher experience I've seen the attitude and behaviour effects of age inappropriate content. Not that a violent video game will make a student violent but it does mess with a child's sense of innocent. Children mimic and copy a lot of actions from their parents and homelife and the media they consume because they do not have a fully developed sense of right and wrong or sense of self and agency. Kids can be negatively impacted from what they take in. Where as a well developed human being is less likely to be influenced as much. The R18+ classification was a great step. Because at the time this meant kids would not be able to get their hands on games filled with swearing, or sexual themes and gratuitous visual violence. or so we thought. The Australian R18+ still turned out to be broken. Censoring and blocking ridiculous scape goats. It's ruleset is too vague, it falls over and doesn't specifically understand itself. Things still leak through where they shouldn't and other things that decisive and wisely advised adults should be allowed to play are blocked to the point where developers encourage piracy as a way around it. And still, our parents and grandparents are poorly educated about the rating system. Children still get access to R18+ games either through deceit and bamboozlement or because the parents just don't care, believing their child is "the special" case that is exempt from the rule. **SPOILER ALERT** You child isn't not special and needs age appropriate boundaries, just like every other child. **END OF SPOILERS** It's really frustrating. It's holding back our video games on many fronts. Firstly from being a truely expressive artform. Hideo Kojima has talked multiple times how censorship and being afraid of going to dark places is really holding back the full potential of video games where gameplay is a platform of narrative. And the amount of children still playing content not appropriate also holds us back because it sets broken expectations for what games should be to kids, as well as tars and smears the good name everyone else in the media and press. No wonder the media blame video games every time there is a serial killer. I just hope the Australian government start to realise video games aren't a fringe hobby anymore and they're not just toys. They're a multi-billion dollar industry, that's just as relevant to art and entertainment as film. And they need to support this and actually put into infrastructure that supports the industry and allows it to go. Not cripple it with concrete ceilings any time it tries to grow. References: http://www.classification.gov.au/Industry/Pages/Specific-provisions-and-downloads.aspx
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Licking the disk of a video game does not automatically cause me to trip out and hallucinate. It doesn't alter my brain chemistry driving myself to be locked away in my bedroom for hours gaming. At best I'll get a weird metallic taste and at worst I'll ruin the disk.
So why are people so scared of video game addiction? All research into video game addictions have largely turned back inconclusive results. This is partly because the field of study is so young but also because the evidence so far is that video games in and of themselves are not addictive inherently. The problem lies with what has always been a problem within humans: The Human Condition. As much of a cop out of an answer as that sounds, it treads the grounds of truth. Humans have these voids in them, deep psychological needs and conflicts. Such as anxiety, depression, uncertainty, vulnerability, powerlessness, low self-worth. When these aren't regulated, when they're unbalanced or not being dealt with, the human being has incredible urges to deal with these needs with self-destructive behaviours. So playing video games for long periods of time won't rewrite your personality so that you cannot leave them. Instead, if you are in need of an outlet or some method to fill problems in your being, video games may become the shelter under which you hide, instead of addressing your real problems. There have certainly been days in my life where I've collapsed under the desire to play video games as a hiding refuge instead of dealing with the actual problems causing me stress. This can definitely be negative and appear addictive to people. But it is not inherent to video games. Books, TV, drawing, shopping, sport, any possible form of human interaction that takes quantities of time can be used to replace these voids. People need to be aware if they have these kinds of natures in their personality that video games can become an unhealthy outlet for them certainly. But comparing video games to drugs? That's inaccurate. Video games are not addictive. But Human beings do need to make sure that all things are practised moderation and balance. References: https://teens.drugabuse.gov/blog/post/video-game-addiction-is-it-real http://kotaku.com/5978808/science-isnt-sure-yet-if-gaming-addiction-is-a-real-mental-disorder Gender in gaming has been an extremely controversial topic across game journalism for the last two or so years. With anything to do with social politics there are very extreme divisive sides and heated subjective opinions that have created an intense land field around the topic. As such this week I will not attempt to summarise the entire issue but rather present a few of my personal thoughts on the topic:
-The definition of "Strong Female Characters" is extremely subjective: I have a couple of friends who were heavily into feminism and in my friendship with them I have spent a lot of time researching different feminist theories and spent a lot of time in discussions with them trying to sympathize with their opinion and listen to their wants and ideas about how the video game industry could improve. For a long time based on two particular friends, I thought they wanted to see better written strong female protagonists. Female warriors either wielding a gun or a sword, who could go toe to toe with female counterparts, are not oversexualised and designed with muscle and sensible armour. What these particular friends wanted were female characters that were hardly any different from male characters in terms of role and ability. And for a while I thought this is what all women wanted in games. Then I started dating my girlfriend. My girlfriend was a whole new world and I had to very quickly learn modern day third wave feminism doesn't apply to everyone. My girlfriend loves pink and feminine qualities. She is constantly disappointed when playing games with me that there aren't enough "pretty" female characters, pink clothing and fashion options in the games we play. A very opposite set of ideals to what my feminist friends want out of their variation of "strong" being masculine qualities given to female characters, my girlfriend would be much more attracted to a video game if "strong" was defined by strong feminine qualities given to female characters. This has taught me a lot that gaming needs to be very diverse with the definition of diverse not defined by a single ideology of social politic. -If you want to see something in a game, make it. I am not a fan of retconning culture. It bugs me when changes to established characters or canon take place, especially when minority groups are shouting the loudest and putting a lot of pressure to change someone else's artistic design and choice. As such I don't think game developers should ever have to be bullied to change their characters, or narrative (Unless they promised and sold a product lying about what the end product delivered: I.E. see Mass Effect 3 ending debacle). If people want to see something in a game, they shouldn't call for a change, censorship or retcon of art. They should go out there and start working and talking about the game they want to see. An example of this I am going to use is not specifically related to gaming, but when Marvel Comics heard a call from people wanted more diverse superheroes they could look up to, rather than retcon a pre-existing character (like D.C. Comics are more likely to do), Marvel launched a variety of legacy characters with well written backstories, worldviews and mantras that justified their existence in the world. One of my favourite characters in the Marvel Universe at the moment is Ms. Marvel, A.K.A. Kamala Khan a teenage Muslim girl from New Jersey. She is one the best written diverse characters I've ever seen because she deals with issues of her own culture, she makes her own choices about how to behave as a superhero but she doesn't step on the toes of the previous Captain Marvel, she's not a fill in or a replacement, she's her own character leading the front lines of representative for both female comic book fans and Middle eastern and Islamic comic-book fans. -The last point I wanted to touch on incredible briefly is Gamergate. I do not have the time to get into the whole ordeal of Gamergate. But please check out my links in my references below. Gamergate is an issue that impacted game journalism last year and I think it it is one of the most concerning and important issues that has ever arisen in gaming culture. Basically when Game Journalists were caught out for unethical and inappropriate behaviour (to do with collusion, biased journalism and mistreatment of their own fan base) they turned around blamed the entirety of gamer culture, shifting the blame and responsibility from their own actions and on to radical feminist social justice side issues that all gamers were “privileged white and male” and all gamers were “misogynistic and sexist”. This was a huge abuse of power as the influence of game journalism grasped most of the web warping the narrative away from important discussion of gameplay and how we can make games actually a better place for female gamers. It was a dark time for game journalism as they pushed "gender studies" theories as their means for reviewing a game, rather than the actual gameplay and integrity of game. Games especially indie games could lose points in a review or be refused to be reviewed because game journalism acted on subjective systems of bias and gender politics when reviewing games. I really personally believe after tracking the events of Gamergate for an entire year that the games media behaved disgracefully and really hurt a lot of gamers of all genders and ethnic groups with their forced stereotypes and assumptions that were ultimately about them receiving more money from clickbait articles. References: https://gitgud.io/gamergate/gamergateop/tree/master/Current-Happenings |
AuthorBen Spanos is currently playing Undertale, Uncharted: Among Thieves and Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes. Archives
March 2018
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