Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: lostllama on February 01, 2013, 10:28:03 am
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I realize that this is a sensitive subject, and perhaps one that's going to stir up some uncomfortable feelings, considering that most or all of us here are gamers, and also due to certain events that have happened as of late. I was considering making this a post in the recent thread about the Sandy Hook tragedy, so moderators, please feel free to move it there if you deem it appropriate.
Shooters: How Video Games Fund Arms Manufacturers (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-01-shooters-how-video-games-fund-arms-manufacturers)
It's essay-length but very well written. Some parts of it that caught my attention in particular:
While the benefits of using licensed weaponry are clear for the game maker, the benefits to the gun maker - aside from the licence fee - are less obvious. However, just as cigarette companies used confectionery to market their products to children, so gun makers can use video games to increase awareness of their products amongst those too young to buy them. As Vaughn puts it: "Video games expose our brand to a young audience who are considered possible future owners."
But does it work?
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"I have six pellet and BB guns," says Aidin Smith, a 13 year-old resident of Springfield, Illinois. "These include two BB guns, modelled on the M14 rifle and M1911 pistol, and two pellet guns, modelled on the AK-47 and M16. I also own an M14 BB rifle M1911 BB pistol. And I got an AK-47 rifle, M16 rifle.
"My favorite is the M1911. I shot a real M1911 when I lived in the country. I shot with my Grandpa. I love the action on it, it is like a real M1911, it recoils and springs back like a real gun. All of them are ones that are in Call of Duty. I like guns more because of Call of Duty. The M1911 is a pistol in almost in every Call of Duty."
Last year Smith took one of his BB guns to school. A teacher discovered it in his rucksack, along with a bag of ammunition and a folding knife.
"It was a Monday and I was coming [to school] from my grandpa's," Smith says. "We had gone to the target range. I accidentally left a gun in my book bag. I forgot about it and took it to school. I don't know how they found it."
His family doesn't buy the story. They believe he took the weapon in to show off to another classmate, who alerted a teacher. "It was peer pressure," says his grandfather, Mark Smith. Aidin was suspended from school for 30 days and transferred elsewhere after the summer.
"He had been exposed to Call of Duty through church friends of his," says Mark. "We gave into that because he was always playing at a friend's house. I've talked to Aidin about what's real and what's not. Plus, I took him to a gun range and showed him what the real thing can do. I told him never to point a gun at a real person and that no one gets an extra life if you shoot them."
But Aidin's enthusiasm for firearms has not been dulled by the experience. "The M16 has been in several Call of Duties," he says. "I got more interested in these guns from playing Call of Duty, it's fun to play them in a game... It's a lot easier to shoot in a game than in real life. My favourite gun is the MSR. It's a modified sniper rifle made by Remington firearms and it shoots a 338 Lapua round. It's a really nice, accurate, sniper rifle. It rarely misses a shot.
"I think once I get old enough, I'd like to own the real things."
From the last section of the article:
Many of those working on games featuring real-life weapons continue to wrestle with the issue. Only one member of a team working on a blockbuster American war game series agreed to comment, and even then only under condition of anonymity. "I don't have an issue with licensed weapons specifically," he said. "I think there is a bigger problem, which is just that shooting enemies is the core element of a large portion of games. Whether or not the guns are made up or real changes very little about that fact.
"To harp on about gun manufacturers making money off these licences is inconsequential when it comes to the influence that games have on people's purchasing behaviors. There are plenty of games with realistic but not licensed guns that still glamourise the usage of that gun. I'm sure the revenue generated from a culture that glamourises violence in general in all forms of media, including games, out-earns the actual monetary gains from the licensing of the products directly."
Likewise, for this designer, the fact that gun companies use video games to market their products to young people isn't the primary issue. "This is what marketing does and this is a function of our current culture," he says. "This is a problem with how we make products appeal to people, including products that can lead to death.
"Gun companies marketing to young players is a symptom, not the problem. It's more systemically ingrained in our culture. I think to only worry about guns' effects on people is to ignore the real problems, because these are just far more difficult to solve. They involve more than just getting rid of the gun culture in America."
For Martin Hollis, who turned his back on developing violent video games following his departure from Rare in 1998, it's more straightforward. "My moral position is that you are partially complicit with violence as soon as you have a violent narrative," he says.
That last paragraph in particular strikes a chord with me. There are very few games in my collection that don't feature a violent narrative. Most of those that do aren't FPS-based, but still, be they an FPS or a vehicular combat sim (with either a real-world fictional/historic or fantasy setting) they all have a certain common element - on-screen simulated death/destruction. Yet I consider myself to be non-violent, at least going by my everyday interactions (in my life so far, I fortunately haven't been put into a crisis situation where I've had to use lethal force (if I were even capable of doing so) for self-preservation or to preserve others' lives, so... I don't know exactly what I'd do under such circumstances). But to say that merely playing such games makes you complicit with violence... I guess that, on some level, it is hypocritical of me to play them. It's a thought that has come to mind before, but I tend to counter it with the "I can tell apart reality and fantasy, therefore I'm harmless" justification.
That said, beyond the developer and publisher, I haven't given much thought to where my money goes when I buy games. As for third parties such as arms makers, even if they only had a consultant role in the development - it makes me feel somewhat uneasy.
I'm not that used to posting about controversial issues, and I'm sure that certain parts of the article I linked to have been discussed before here many times, so if I'm opening a sore wound I apologize in advance. If anything, I think it's quite an informative and thought-provoking read.
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Depictions of violence are fun. It is present in EVERY media, from TVs through books to old folk tales, and its not going anywhere. I think the only problem to solve is to learn to live with it and stop pointing fingers at dubious indirect causes of crime. They do not make one morally complicit even if true, IMHO. Besides, violent crime is going down considerably in last decade or two.
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kids who are firing fake guns in games ate too busy to be firing real guns in gangs.
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Certainly interesting, I only had time to read your summary. after a few seconds of pondering, I realized that I did know what certain guns looks like only because I had played call of duty. (The only gun I've shot in real life is some kind old rifle with the boy scouts a long time ago). Reading the part about the kid knowing all that about guns makes me feel ....apprehensive? I am in the camp that video games don't necessarily make people more violent, but that's not really the gist of what you or the article is saying. I had never actually considered that licensing/advertising part of video game production before now.
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The Truth About Guns and Video Games (http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-truth-about-guns-video-games/)
A cracked.com article by Robert Brockway on the subject. Surprisingly, he doesn't say that games are completely innocent in the matter.
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This is the equivalent of declaring that the appearance of Coca-Cola in a game promotes obesity: Possibly true, completely unprovable, of very little interest in solving any problems, probably protected speech.
Cherrypicking a kid who knows his ****, and would be equally likely to know his **** if he were into Star Wars, doesn't prove anything.
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This is the equivalent of declaring that the appearance of Coca-Cola in a game promotes obesity: Possibly true, completely unprovable, of very little interest in solving any problems, probably protected speech.
Cherrypicking a kid who knows his ****, and would be equally likely to know his **** if he were into Star Wars, doesn't prove anything.
^This
Ace Combat games/Flight Sims license fighter aircraft, racing games license cars, fighting games license characters. Why does a weapons manufacturer licensing their intellectual property matter?
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I wonder if the same applies to games that feature swords and shields instead of the one of the first most awesome semi automatic pistols out there...
(I will admit, I am quite fond of the idea of owning a Colt M1911. Not because of games, but the fact you're essentially holding history in your hands. The thing has been around for a hundred years. That's bloody ****ing awesome)
EDIT: On reading that cracked article (so hilarious), I noticed this tidbit
When that asshole in front of you in line at the movie theater starts shoving people around, do you imagine knocking his lights out, or rushing up to tend to the victims? Hey, maybe you fantasize about both -- but what's the order? We're punchers first and healers second.
Funnily enough, when I was involved in a fight a few months ago, my only interest was to not have this fight by putting myself inbetween my coworker and the three people he thought he could take on. Instead of fighting, I chose the opposite
But that seems to be targeted more towards an American audience (see "We're a nation of warriors, and most of us don't have a war" in the article), so what's that saying about the mindset in places OTHER than the States? That's something to consider afterall. The United States isn't the only place where games such as CoD, GTA, what have you, are sold, so why are they treating it like they are?
Other edit...
You hear a 12-year-old trash talking on Call of Duty multiplayer, you report him -- not because he called you a "fagmobile," but because he's too young to be playing that game.
...is that something we ought to be doing? What do you folks think
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But that seems to be targeted more towards an American audience (see "We're a nation of warriors, and most of us don't have a war" in the article), so what's that saying about the mindset in places OTHER than the States? That's something to consider afterall. The United States isn't the only place where games such as CoD, GTA, what have you, are sold, so why are they treating it like they are?
[/oneliner] Because the US has in fact become suddenly interested in this issue, and we're frankly not too interested in how other countries may be affected.
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I think the line deathfun quoted from the Cracked article is something a lot of people overlook...just what the hell are 12 and 13-year-olds doing playing these games in the first place? I'm not saying there aren't any individuals in that age group capable of handling this sort of entertainment maturely, and clearly distinguishing between fantasy and reality, but as a rule, they're definitely not. That's the whole reason we have the M/18+/whatever rating, to indicate that these titles aren't appropriate for individuals in that age group, and it's something that seems to be completely overlooked whenever "violent games" come up as a topic of public conversation. Parents who allow younger children to play these games unsupervised, or without first establishing through frequent communication that they're mature enough to handle them, are either woefully ignorant of what the ratings system means, or else horrifically negligent. That's definitely an area where we need to focus more attention.
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Agreed. Nobody except the shopkeepers pays attention to age rating these days.
This is the equivalent of declaring that the appearance of Coca-Cola in a game promotes obesity: Possibly true, completely unprovable, of very little interest in solving any problems, probably protected speech.
Appearance =/= significance. A Coca-Cola bottle lying on a shelf doesn't really matter, since few would notice it. A game (or a movie or TV show) focused on drinking Cola could be accused of promoting obesity, and not without reason (ignoring the fact that such a game/show/movie would have to be so utterly bizarre that kids would be unlikely to like it, or a kids cartoon noone would take seriously).
I think that the problem with video games is that they glorify violence. Same deal as with action movies, violent actions are made to seem manly and cool. Exactly something kids want and thus will buy. Violence sells, and unlike sex, it doesn't cause such a drastic rating jump (it always stuck me as odd, BTW. You can have people gruesomely ripping each other apart murdering innocents and getting away with it, but if you dare to show a nude person from waist down, even in a completely non-sexual context, that's an NR rating for you). A lot of pretty explosions, manly guys doing manly things, etc. This is always fun to watch (and thus sells), but kids have problems telling fiction from reality.
Games that focus on guns but don't glorify violence are either variations of some sort (SpecOps: The Line and SWAT series, each in a different way), rather niche tactical shooters (early Rainbow 6, new Operation Flashpoint and first Ghost Recon) or straight-out simulators (early Operation Flashpoint and ArmA). There isn't much market for games in which you crawl in the mud for 15 minutes only to get shot from an unknown direction, and that's how ArmA and first Ghost Recon play, especially for newcomers. Movies face similar difficulties, it's hard to make an action movie which doesn't glorify violence, and even if the first one doesn't do it, the inevitable sequel probably will.
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It's not a matter of glorifying and denouncing violence--it's the simple fact that media depictions of violence have been around since ancient times, and that we can't pick on one particular instance of it that happens to be popular and declare it as the one source of it that should not exist (especially when your reasons seem to imply that it's the only source of violence).
I remember as a kid hearing many zealots around here (note: I'm in the Bible Belt) talk about how Harry Potter series of books and movies would corrupt your children and turn them from God, because it depicts the use of witchcraft, and that failure to shelter your children from it could lead to their experimentation in such things. It's the exact same damn logic.
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violent actions are made to seem manly and cool.
Post hoc ergo prompter hoc called. You're assuming front-end when you can't assign which end it came in.
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was there a point in making your statement that complex? I also don't see how that applies. It seems the same as commercials that have attractive women in them (car, beer commercials). In that do this and you will be cool or get chicks etc manner.
EDIT: an example of this. first advertisement is for old spice. women, wealth, sophistication.
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(I will admit, I am quite fond of the idea of owning a Colt M1911. Not because of games, but the fact you're essentially holding history in your hands. The thing has been around for a hundred years. That's bloody ****ing awesome)
Actual Colt or a derivative?
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Ace Combat games
Hey, I always liked those Sukhois in those games, where can I buy one?
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It's not a matter of glorifying and denouncing violence--it's the simple fact that media depictions of violence have been around since ancient times, and that we can't pick on one particular instance of it that happens to be popular and declare it as the one source of it that should not exist (especially when your reasons seem to imply that it's the only source of violence).
I remember as a kid hearing many zealots around here (note: I'm in the Bible Belt) talk about how Harry Potter series of books and movies would corrupt your children and turn them from God, because it depicts the use of witchcraft, and that failure to shelter your children from it could lead to their experimentation in such things. It's the exact same damn logic.
I don't know about your example. Harry Potter is about witchcraft, true, but the witchcraftery is only a device through which the story is told. The book deals with a wide range of moral issues and events that are more wide spread than just ways of casting spells. If anything, I found the books to promote spirituality much like churches claim to.
Violence in games and movies are not usually the same as magic in Harry Potter. For the most part, the violence isn't a vehicle to carry the message. Violence is the message. The story is weak, it's difficult to kindle empathy with the characters, and any morals feel tacked-on. This is especially true with video games. Even Freespace 2 (which I feel has done the best with the story). Freespace 2 has a great story, but it could be told without the game. Any story told during gameplay could be told by adding a few more minutes of video.
It may be that playing a violent video game doesn't make killers. However, the glut of media where where violence is its sole focus can only promote the normalcy of violence. It's true that the world has always had an appetite for violence, but it's not as bad as in the past. I hope that we're even less tolerant of violence in the future.
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FreeSpace 2's story would be a lot weaker told through any other medium. That's why it's such a great game story.
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Ace Combat games
Hey, I always liked those Sukhois in those games, where can I buy one?
Contact manufacturer for further information.
If you're interested in tanks by chance there are some T-72s available starting around 50k USD from eastern europe.
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Depicting gun violence in crime novels should also definitely be looked at... :cough:
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A 13rd year old boy plays Daddy's COD and brings a pebble gun to school ?
Thank god hey didn't read his Mommy's exemplar of fifty shades of grey, heaven knows that he would have taken to school in that case...
If your 13 year old child consumes media that is meant for adults something goes wrong... and the wrong thing is not the violence in the media, it is bad parenting.
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A 13rd year old boy plays Daddy's COD and brings a pebble gun to school ?
Thank god hey didn't read his Mommy's exemplar of fifty shades of grey, heaven knows that he would have taken to school in that case...
If your 13 year old child consumes media that is meant for adults something goes wrong... and the wrong thing is not the violence in the media, it is bad parenting.
Except CoD is targeted for 13 year olds.
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A 13rd year old boy plays Daddy's COD and brings a pebble gun to school ?
Thank god hey didn't read his Mommy's exemplar of fifty shades of grey, heaven knows that he would have taken to school in that case...
If your 13 year old child consumes media that is meant for adults something goes wrong... and the wrong thing is not the violence in the media, it is bad parenting.
Except CoD is targeted for 13 year olds.
(http://bwaff.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/game-target-audience-actual-audience-call-of-duty-black-ops-ii-pokemon-my-little-pony.jpg)
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Ace Combat games
Hey, I always liked those Sukhois in those games, where can I buy one?
Contact manufacturer for further information.
If you're interested in tanks by chance there are some T-72s available starting around 50k USD from eastern europe.
You can actually buy them? Are they full of important military equipment thats too valuable for civilians? And 50k sounds cheap for a tank.
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You can actually buy them? Are they full of important military equipment thats too valuable for civilians? And 50k sounds cheap for a tank.
It's legal for an American citizen to own foreign military equipment that's more than twenty years old and has been demilitarized (usually by removing firing pins and breach blocks from weapons). There are several Mi-24s in private ownership in the US, and a number of older MiGs.
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You can actually buy them? Are they full of important military equipment thats too valuable for civilians? And 50k sounds cheap for a tank.
http://www.mortarinvestments.eu/products/tanks-2#currency=USD
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You can actually buy them? Are they full of important military equipment thats too valuable for civilians? And 50k sounds cheap for a tank.
http://www.mortarinvestments.eu/products/tanks-2#currency=USD
Oh, man, this takes american gun culture to a whole new level.
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Oh, man, this takes american gun culture to a whole new level.
I just can't help imagining rolling up to work in a BMP-1 (http://www.mortarinvestments.eu/products/tanks-2/bmp-1--bvp-1--75#currency=USD) or driving out of the surf and up the beach in a BRDM-2 (http://www.mortarinvestments.eu/products/armoured-vehicles-4/brdm-2-76#currency=USD) and freaking out people who think they're being invaded.
Just thinking about being able to drive around town without worrying if anybody will cut me off or tailgate me (and if they do, just rotate the turret toward them :D) makes me happy.
I know they're probably not street-legal, just let me have fantasy
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Hey, I always liked those Sukhois in those games, where can I buy one?
Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker: about 5M$ (http://www.ohgizmo.com/2010/01/18/for-sale-lovingly-restored-sukhoi-su-27-flanker-the-best-5-million-youll-ever-spend/).
Seeing the faces of your fellow flight club pilots: PRICELESS.
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I want that so bad.
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Shame you can't have nearly as much fun with it as you'd want
2. Section 602.32 of the Regulations is replaced by the following:
602.32 (1) Subject to subsection (2), no person shall
(a) operate an aircraft at an indicated airspeed of more than 250 knots if the aircraft is below 10,000 feet ASL; or
(b) operate an aircraft at an indicated airspeed of more than 200 knots if the aircraft is below 3,000 feet AGL within 10 nautical miles of a controlled aerodrome unless authorized to do so in an air traffic control clearance.
(2) A person may operate an aircraft at an indicated airspeed greater than the airspeeds referred to in subsection (1) if the aircraft is being operated in accordance with a special flight operations certificate – special aviation event issued pursuant to section 603.02.
(3) If the minimum safe airspeed for the flight configuration of an aircraft is greater than the airspeed referred to in subsection (1), the aircraft shall be operated at the minimum safe airspeed.
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Section 2 is the relevant part here. Planes like these are flown as exhibition planes during air shows, not for simple fun (Not to mention that, even if you can afford the base price tag for the plane and its ongoing maintenance, the fuel cost must be enormous).
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Last night I flew a Consolidated B-24 Liberator with a full load of sixteen 500-kilogram bombs over a German-occupied city, dropped my bomb load on the railroad yard, and destroyed 43 train cars, probably causing untold amounts of personnel loss and collateral damage. Then, enemy FW-190 intercepted me, shot my right wing full of holes, gave me many fuel leaks, coolant leaks, and disabled my ailerons. I was able to bring the plane back to straight and level with rudders and differential thrust. On the way home, my engine #3 failed, which meant I had to further reduce throttle on the engines #1 and #2 to avoid rolling the plane to the right. With help from my team-mates, I managed to escape the enemy planes and return to base safely, gaining 1440 points.
I also beheaded several bandit thugs with Glamdring Foe-Hammer, and slayed a dragon.
When I grow up I would like to own a real B-24, a real FW-190 and the real Glamdring.
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I wonder if the same applies to games that feature swords and shields instead of the one of the first most awesome semi automatic pistols out there...
I suppose that if people feel inclined to do so, a readily available kitchen knife would be sufficient for emulating a sword fight (that is, if they have a similarly-minded opponent) or murdering in cold blood. Firearms, of course, are generally harder to come by, so generally relatively few people own them yet they have the power to affect things at range and potentially do more harm, unlike someone wielding a knife (on that subject, there was a recent MythBusters episode in which they experimented with gun vs. knife scenarios, it was kind of interesting).
(I will admit, I am quite fond of the idea of owning a Colt M1911. Not because of games, but the fact you're essentially holding history in your hands. The thing has been around for a hundred years. That's bloody ****ing awesome)
The nearest experience I have to using a gun was at an airshow when I was about 9 or 10. There was some sort of an army careers tent there with a small mock shooting range. The gun was a light or infrared gun that looked like a replica (it had a scope but I'm not sure what gun it was an emulation of), and it seemed heavy and solid enough to be real to me. The targets consisted of colored lights on a circular board. At first I was put off by the idea, it didn't feel right to me. But somehow I came around to wanting to have a go, maybe because I saw my friend try it out. There was a long queue there, mostly consisting of young kids/adolescents. Somehow I impressed the soldier who was supervising enough to tell me that he should have me enlisted, obviously he was joking about that (I think). I smiled and thought "No thank you". I can't say I came away from it feeling any more attached to guns than I was before. It was fun while it lasted, but it did feel a bit unsettling just holding and aiming it.
EDIT: The whole thing was definitely geared towards future recruitment. I suppose it's something I find unsettling, especially as there were so many children there.
Before that experience I owned a light gun for the computer and a few water guns, but apart from play-fighting with them nothing really came of it in terms of developing an interest in weapons.
Other edit...
You hear a 12-year-old trash talking on Call of Duty multiplayer, you report him -- not because he called you a "fagmobile," but because he's too young to be playing that game.
...is that something we ought to be doing? What do you folks think
Having been gaming since I was about 4, I've seen how digital entertainment has advanced and I can understand the effect games could have (but not necessarily - since other factors influence behavior too) on a young person's mind, especially with regards to violent content. I agree with the idea of more stringent adherence of ESRB ratings and such, especially on the part of parents and games retailers (the former more so).
Personally I don't think I can see see myself reporting, or berating someone else's child for ignoring age ratings though.
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You can actually buy them? Are they full of important military equipment thats too valuable for civilians? And 50k sounds cheap for a tank.
http://www.mortarinvestments.eu/products/tanks-2#currency=USD
Oh, man, this takes american gun culture to a whole new level.
You can buy one in several European countries as well I believe. It's actually easier to buy a tank than a handgun in the UK IIRC.
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you think i can get DOD stickers for the BMP i've just decided to buy so that i can drive it to work? if i get it fast enough, i can take it to the newport news yard i'm at now. i'd never be bothered by hobos again.
although getting it across the bridge tunnel might be problematic. don't want to get shot at by a passing destroyer from the naval station.
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you think i can get DOD stickers for the BMP i've just decided to buy so that i can drive it to work? if i get it fast enough, i can take it to the newport news yard i'm at now. i'd never be bothered by hobos again.
although getting it across the bridge tunnel might be problematic. don't want to get shot at by a passing destroyer from the naval station.
Better check local emissions regulations.
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*rolls up to inspection booth at tunnel*
*point turret at booth*
*pop hatch, stick head out*
"hey buddy, does this count as a truck that needs to stop for inspection? no? cool."