Jul 11
The title says it all. All 5 of us discuss the fine points of video game violence, and cut through the political crap and get to the core of the issue. Special thanks to Mike, Obsidian, Brian and Andrew. We even touch a bit on film and how yours truely tries to raise his own kids in a video game world.
- Get the feed here.
- Download the MP3 directly here. (21mb)
Thoughts about the topic? Email a text message or an audio comment to radio@myextralife.com.
Great podcast, except the whole Iron Maiden stuff, which just got a bit creepy.
My two bits on the whole violence in video games: I remember when Mortal Kombat came out. I was probably ten or so. Despite my young age, I could rip spines out of bodies incredibly well. This is becuase my ten year old friend’s parents gave him the game on Genesis.
Even though I must have spent hundreds of my friends dollars on Mortal Kombat, I never ripped any real spines out off any real bodies. I actually don’t even know how. I have tried getting really close to somebody, leaning forward, ducking, leaning forward again and than punching them in the chest, but that didn’t work.
Anyway, I’ve never done anything violent becuase of video games. I have however been in a countless fights because of sports. Video games haven’t really taught me anything about shooting a gun, Boy Scouts however, made my a fairly decent shot. I really wish I could come up with a third and humorous example but I think my point has been made.
The violentest thing I’ve ever done because of a video game was drawing various MK character performing fatalities on Barney, but I blame Barney for that.
Excellent podcast as per normal, thought I would comment though, that none of us really know what would happen if kids grew up killing things in games.
I remember playing Leisure Suit Larry (in the land of the lounge lizards) when I was around 10 or so, and that hasnt helped me get laid, And if I did get laid, Im 100% sure no one would link it to me playing leisure suit larry. Or any other japanese dating sim for that matter. It is ridiculous that people are trying to sew threads between totally unrelated pieces of information.
Then again, smoking does cause lung cancer, *shrug* maybe im wrong.
Oh and my friends go out and blow heads off teadybears with explosives in their spare time, and im at home playing CS:source, day of defeat, GTA, guild wars, etc… Who is more likely to go around killing people? supposedly me = \
When I listened to the cats something came up, CBS News had five interviews with Jeff McAllister, Claude Errera, Scott Ramsoomair, Tim Buckley and Jack Thompson about video game violence.
The interviews can be found here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/tech/gamecore/main676446.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/12/tech/gamecore/main679755.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/05/tech/gamecore/main678332.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/03/tech/gamecore/main677960.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/08/tech/gamecore/main678913.shtml
Now two of these are both Webcomic artists and avid gamers, one is involved with Bungie and one is the webmaster of planetdoom.com. The last one is an attorney that deals mainly with GTA related cases. Needless to say, the lawyer completely bashes GTA and spawns a flood of hatemail along the way.
Anyway, good cast. The subject is always highly controversial and it even seems to change from time to time. I mean, when Eminem started out, we had the whole music thing, here in Europe Slipknot got the short end of the stick because there was this one guy in Germany who shot up his school and he listened to Slipknot (not paying attention at all to the fact that he was crazy about weapons and was denied entry to his school for the final exams which he actually wanted to make). I’m pretty sure that movies will either come up as scapegoat sometime (if that hsn’t already been the case).
Thing is, people just look to scapegoats when something happens that they can’t explain otherwise. I don’t know, but I’d be happier if my kid would shoot or run over (Carmageddon, anyone?) the entire popultion of a small town in a game rather than in real life.
Just my $0.02
-Jordy
The word fat RULES!
The greatest thing about the podcast is that I’m one of the 10 people who listen…. WOOO!
Hey, nobody mentioned Scott’s purple hair
Maybe its fading.
Well, that’s kinda hard to see through the podcast isn’t it?
I should post new pics.
c
fascination,altruism kernels,villainy Freya?blankets Mexico early
habeas!buckling distastefully dewdrop attends .