Posted on 03/12/2018 9:09:08 PM PDT by fluorescence
Donald Trump’s claim, in the aftermath of the Florida school shooting, that these events are the result of violent video games, resurrects old arguments about whether young people emulate the games they play. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recent decision to consider video game addiction an official illness shows comparable concern. However, these responses demonstrate anxiety about the right things for the wrong reasons.
Gaming cultures are connected to violence – but should be considered in terms of the rise of far right political discourse and the prominence of “alt-right” misogyny and racism. While Trump is firmly on the right and the WHO may embody normative centrism, there is an aspect of gaming that should worry the progressive left.
The white male supremacy in gaming has been discussed in the context of the harassment campaign Gamergate and via the link between Trump and gamer message board threads on the 4chan website. Yet it’s not simply that many gamers are right wing, or that the right recruits gamers, but that the logic and pleasure of gaming itself has served and continues to serve the political right.
Games are ideological constructions which push a set of values on the user. Like television and film, they often support the ideologies of their context: in the Bush years, American games endorsed aggressive foreign policy; since Brexit, British games advocate isolationism or nostalgia for empire – and the prominence of anti-Islam games in the 2000s tells it all.
However, video games have at least two unique features compared to other media.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
The Housers, who created the Grand Theft Auto games, are self-proclaimed socialists (though, I notice they haven’t given away any of their $100s of millions) and their games are filled with potshots at the right. Far Cry V is pretty much an assault on Christianity and traditional values (I say with some degree of ignorance, never having played it, but the left-wing Dallas Morning News even acknowledges it). The developers of Wolfenstein II certainly acted like their game was set in a “Trumpian” America.
Unfortunately, the triple-A titles have become as infected with left-wing ideology as Hollywood’s big movies.
I started gaming (on PC..first PC was 1980) before the millenniums were even born, so I see it from a little different angle.
The PC gamers I knew were all Conservs.. the (lazy) PLATFORM gamers were full libtard.
You should try Metro 3033 and Metro First Light. Made by Russians, fighting a (post nuke) war between rebels (you), nazis, and Reds (communists). FPS, of course ;^)
AND... don’t forget Half Life and Half Life 2 :)
I dunno man, I still remember Tipper Gore.
Lots of younger folks have no clue who Tipper is. But Rock and Roll was the 80’s version of today’s video games.
I’ll never call out for the government meddling in ANYTHING, much less video games because video games are awesome. But I do remember Tipper and I want nothing to do with it.
That’s the domain of the whacky left.
I’ve played all the Far Cry games and found nothing in them that could be construed as anti-religion. Wolfenstein, as you know, fights against a Nazi occupation of the US. If dystopias depicted in video games are meant to represent Trump’s America, they do a poor job of making even a subtle connection. And one things vids are not, is subtle.
PewDiePie is red-pilling a lot of Millenials and post-Millenials in his own inimitable fashion.
Solitaire promotes asocial individualism and the culturally insensitive imposition of western standards of order.
I’ve played Metro. It’s okay. I’ve played all the Half Life games and for the life of me cannot figure out why they’ve stopped publishing the series. It’s money being left on the table.
Yeah, I’ve been waiting for HL3 for ages >.<
Considering when it was created/released, it was way ahead of its (tech) time ;)
Remember Mad Magazine? It and comics of that sort were said to be destroying the youth of the time. There were efforts to ban them, followed by trying to force a code onto the industry. Didn’t work. We got the 1960s anyway.
Yes, they were. The graphics were way ahead of their time.
It’s amazing what you could get without a six hundred dollar graphics card.
The first Far Cry was amazing.. the follow-ups were.. well, meh.
The team who made the original Far Cry (I believe), were the ones to branch off to Crysis, which had excellent physics and eye candy. The first one was open (non-linear), and I can’t count how many times I’ve played that one, trying different angles each time. The follow-ups to that one were starting to get linear though, so it took the enjoyment of ‘freedom’ out of it... of course, as far as I know, they ported the PLATFORM version to PC, which is what is ruining the PC games anymore :p
Leftist thugs have been working hard for years to control video games for propaganda
It is a disease, a cancer, that invariably destroys everything it touches......
Like how Bown totally disregarded how those very video games may or are fueling the far let, like ANTIFA.....
Far-right ? Does not compute.
I thought it was Russians. Maybe it’s Russian video gameskis!
I think I’ve found the article you read. The writer is worried about the message it sends when the antagonist in the game is a religious extremist. If that’s true, and it probably is, the fact the extremist is the villain seems hardly left wing and weighs further against the thrust of the article atop this thread.
Gamergate 2.0.
Wasn’t there a pop song entitled “WTF Alfie”? This writer is as badly wired as an old video arcade game.
I loved XAXXON. Never could avoid getting shot down but I did take out a lot of enemy tanks and forces on the ground, plowing the road for those who followed, like Luke’s men on the power generator.
Brenda Laurel. If I remember correctly, she was the instigator that started all the anti-male feminist crap in games claiming that everyone would play games if they werent marketed to just boys. There was a whole movement that had been around for quite awhile that those guys walked into.
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