[Rick James]

For all non-Canadians, a little background: the fifth estate is a "television newsmagazine" broadcast on CBC. The name is a play on the fact that the media are sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate, and was chosen to highlight the program's determination to go beyond everyday news into original journalism. And yes, it's meant to be spelled in lowercase letters only. However, thanks to faltering funding and the inevitable lack of journalistic oversight that comes with a news corporation suffering from an economic slump, there also comes the inevitable decline in standards which invariably leads to a putrescent lump of puss which can only be called journalism in the broadest possible sense of the word.

Case in point, the fifth estate's recent "investigation" into the death of gamer Brandon Crisp.

Now, the more savvy among you have already noticed how mainstream media tends to treat gaming and gamers in general. And for those of you who don't...

*clap clap*

OI!

For those of you who live under a rock, Brandon Crisp was a teenager who lived in Ontario. He ran away from home after his parents barred access to his Xbox 360, citing failing grades. A few days later his body was discovered not far from his home. An autopsy confirmed the identity of the teen via dental records and determined the cause of death to be "injuries to the chest area that are consistent with a fall from a tree". There was the usual media feeding frenzy over the event, and I admit to some surprise that it's taken the fifth estate this long to jump on the bandwagon.

But they did, and it's infuriating. The journalist responsible for the segment even tried to get the gaming industry to accept some form of blame for Brandon's death, but the grandstanding irresponsibility goes farther when the pro gaming circuit is portrayed a gladiatorial bloodbath where teenagers compete for blood money.

Way to ****in' go, the fifth estate. You're looking more and more like Fox every day.

[Grizzly]

Thank God you can pirate your favorite TV shows these days.

[Topgun]

Oh snap! that link has my name in it.
Fox rocks anyways.

[Snail]

[Dilmah G]

I Hate shows that try to alienate gamers from the rest of society

[Charismatic]

All you gamers should be ashamed. Everyone at HLP adds to the suffering and death in the world. Look at how many crazy shivan killing lunatics we have here.

[tinfoil]

That is dissapointing. The Fifth Estate is usually a very good show. Lately they haven't really been on the ball.

[TrashMan]

All you gamers should be ashamed. Everyone at HLP adds to the suffering and death in the world. Look at how many crazy shivan killing lunatics we have here.

Yes. Poor shivans. They suffered a small genocide at the hands of each HLP player. Untold billions have perished so far. Oh, the humanity!

That is dissapointing.

Most things in life are lately. ESPECIALLY in media.

[redsniper]

Huh, that gets me thinking: what is the total body count of all of HLP (in FS I mean)?

[NGTM-1R]

Huh, that gets me thinking: what is the total body count of all of HLP (in FS I mean)?

FSO doesn't keep track of kills in mods, IIRC, so it's probably impossible to quantify.

[redsniper]

what if you use the same pilot file?

[tinfoil]

Like I do

[NGTM-1R]

what if you use the same pilot file?

Even then; I know I have, against the advice of many, used the same pilot file for all the time I've played FSO in the last two years. Until recently whenever you switched out of a mod your kills while playing it were lost. I haven't checked in newer builds that actually keep track of where you were in a mod so you can switch and restart from the same posistion later, but it's reasonable to assume those continue tracking kills as well.

[IceFire]

Yeah I saw a bit of the Fifth Estate but I knew I would be angry and just turned it off...

[TrashMan]

Now the media in my country are full of it too.

they use counter-strike as an example of violence and gore...

I mean, really.. While I can't deny that exposure to violence via various media (and our culture in general) from young age is NOT good for a developing persons mind, it's funny how games get demonized . Sure, there are games where gore and violence are the selling gimmick (but games like that don't sell much and are mostly ignored), but most games have less violence than your average TV show. Heck, Tom & Jerry have more violence than most games, and it's portrayed as cute.
Games have ratings for a reason.
Sure, PC savy kinds can download games without their parents knowing, but there's ways to counter that too (like strict control over you monthly bandwidth. Any download bigger than 100MB bust be approved by your parents. the Internet bill does not lie). Most parents just don't try.

[Grizzly]

Why do they use Counter Strike as an example while you can slice headcrab zombies in two with circular-saws in Half Life 2?

The reason why everyone uses games to demonize stuff is because it is an new media, and largely unknown to the masses. Everyone watches movies these days, kids watch 18+ horror movies these days, but they go unaffacted and the argument simply does not work anymore. So they use games.

Because somehow movies were people's legs are slowly torned off their bodies affect people less then moving a crosshair over some masked guy's heads and clicking the left mouse button. And most games are not about that, either.

Huh, that gets me thinking: what is the total body count of all of HLP (in FS I mean)?

200 (Which I somehow think are the kills you score in the main campaign) * 6767 = 1 353 400.

[BloodEagle]

The reason why everyone uses games to demonize stuff is because it is an new media, and largely unknown to the masses.

 

[Grizzly]

The reason why everyone uses games to demonize stuff is because it is an new media, and largely unknown to the masses.

 

As in, most people know it exists, most people don't really know how bad it is.

Gamers are not really a big part of the population, are they?

[General Battuta]

In the US, something like 99% of teenage males and 97% percent of females play games in at least some capacity (i.e. Tetris or Bejeweled at the casual end of the scale, all the way up through hardcore stuff.)

[The E]

Well, Gamers seem to be pretty underrepresented when it comes to the "serious reporting" crowd...or the policymaker crowd, come to think of it.