Yes, that is the resounding sound from Richard Bartle, the creator of MUD, who is currently teaching at the University of Essex. He is in fact, referring to gamers.

If only I had the sheer brashness as this guy has, I would have come out with a similar message. It lays into those that are in parliament at the moment, saying that all these terms for gaming, such as “moral decay” and “aggressive tendencies” are just code for them not understanding the whole idea of gaming, and why it has attracted such a following. The article further delves into the Byron Report’s real reason for existing; to give politicians some real wallop when it came to going on their crusade against the video game industry. The problem is, the report that they were dying to see was indeed balanced and fair. The author relates it to her birth year, because her generation was the maiden audience for home computing, and therefore gaming as a whole.

I loved reading this article, and I highly recommend that you read it yourself. It can be found here.

Tags: videogames, byron review, byron report, parliament

Looks like some mediums are finally starting to wise up to the industry as a whole. The title is taken from a Guardian article written by Noami Alderman (I was lucky enough to have a glimpse during my break at work; I read most of it online, however), and defends the industry very well, without making it seem like she is a fangirl of the video games culture as a whole.

She constantly refers to her own potential bias, while at the same time referring us to similar themes in other material, saying that ‘Of course, wanting to devote this amount of attention to a computer game probably demonstrates that I’m “addicted”. Unlike, say, if I were reading a novel: then my irritation at being interrupted would just show that I was “engrossed”‘. In that sentence, the entire argument over video games is explained.

Nobody ever takes the time to understand that taking time in a game is indeed akin to wanting to read a good chunk of a recommended book, and that the themes are misunderstood, as well as deliberately misinterpreted by more popular, biased arms of the media (Refer to tabloids for said bias).

Despite how she defends the gaming culture, she also states that themes of Grand Theft Auto, for example, are not suitable for young children, just as “a responsible parent wouldn’t hand their child a copy of American Psycho or sit them down in front of Marathon Man without any further discussion or comment”.

Put it this way: If I had a child (Mini-Allans are SO not a good thought), and he/she asked me to play a video game with them, I would be happy to. Playing video games together (Not Wii. Please not the typ-wii-cal titles of sports and brain games and minigames.) is becoming the ‘day out’ of this generation, and even though they should not be the sole bond between a parent and child, there is no doubt in my mind that it can be nothing but beneficial.

You game with your child, you’re respected by said child, you’re a ‘cool parent’, but above all, you’re not out of touch with your child and his/her interests, which is what causes half the problems in youth society.

From The Guardian/Comment is Free and MCV.

Tags: videogame violence, guardian, tanya byron, byron review, games in the home, keith vaz, you go girl

The latter half of my ‘fruits’ from a Daily Mail search.

Doctors are now claiming that playing too much on your 360, PS3 or Wii could give you the “same highly negative character traits associated with a form of autism“.

Dr. Charlton (Why do these people have almost expected names) studied almost 400 members of an online MMORPG, called Asheron’s Call. What the entire article said, is that 3% of these players exhibited similar symptoms to Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism, where you basically have problems forming relations, and communicating. He even says that many of these symptoms are already present in people that are ‘normal’.

OK, here I go again.

• Do not consider analysing players of an MMORPG for game addiction. That’s skewing the results, and represents a tiny portion of gamers as a whole. The sample just proves how small the game is. Anyone who’s been playing it since it’s release date in 1999 is addicted anyway, so this report just warps the results, damaging the reputation of video games further.
• 3% is still an absurdly low figure. If we assume that he tested 400 people, that means 12 people had symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome. aka 388 people showed no symptoms whatsoever. Not to mention, some of these people might have genuinely undiagnosed Asperger’s.
• Asheron’s Call is a Pay-to-play MMO, and as such people will of course spend more time on it than most computer games, because, quite simply, they want to get their money’s worth.
• PC Gamers are amongst the worst for spending time online, quite simply because it requires a lot more than just pushing the power button and inserting a disc. If you really want to skew the results, do the same on World of Warcraft. If you want a genuine sample, choose console gamers, and monitor them. I spend less than two hours a day on Live, but I spend a load more on the computer (mostly ratting out publicity stories like this)

In conclusion, this report has been deliberately set up so it’s already giving them the results they want to hear. And even then, it’s a small percentage. So, take today’s paper with no salt, no sugar, straight to the recycle bin and save yourself the trouble.

Tags: videogame addiction, aspergers, syndrome, autism, asherons call, daily mail

I saw this, and I had to post it. I was just looking around for stuff to submit to Kotaku, and I found this. I seriously thought this stuff was over and done with. Obviously I was wrong. From the Daily Mail (Seriously; why do I bother reading the paper anymore?):

“Amro Elbadawi died from a knife wound to the throat after a fight with another teenager last week.

Internet photographs of him published soon after his death show Amro posing with a group of sinisterly masked youths.

But his father Sabri Elbadawi, 60, a mechanical engineer, last night claimed his son was a star student who had nothing to do with gangs but instead loved maths and science and had ambitions to become a doctor.

He said violent computer games and aggressive music were leaving teenagers with no respect for life.”

I have to ask myself what possesses someone to blame such a broad spectrum of entertainment, to the point of essentially saying that whoever put the knife to this teen’s throat is no longer responsible for his actions, because he played Gears of War, or enjoyed Resident Evil.

I’m going to be highly controversial here, so skip if you’re going to make drama: What the hell is an obviously immigrant family blaming one of our industries for the death of his son, when it’s quite obvious that he is one of the many people that costs the state despite holding down a job?! The kid was in pictures, hanging around in gangs! Take your rose-tinted glasses off, Sabri, and see the world for what it is. Your son was in a gang, and he got the bad end of it. I’m not saying it’s right, but don’t even consider flipping this onto violent video games and aggressive music, when your son put his own life in danger and suffered the consequences.

Tags: videogame violence, aggressive music, scapegoating, i call bullshit, daily mail

Every time I go onto Kotaku and see something to do with the British Media, I cringe. I’m not joking; my face is already contorted as soon as I see the words. At least this time it’s justified. And majorly so.

The site ‘StarNow’, essentially an online job-application-fest, has an advertisement for people to “Write a few lines about how computer games turned you to crime”, and if they like what you write, they’ll call you back, negotiate a price, and you sell your story etc etc. However, as has been pointed out by Kotaku, there is no need for the story to be true. All that is needed is that ‘they like it’. And what’s worse, is if you do not let them use YOU as the source of the article, since you wrote the outline and submitted it without any sort of copyright/licence, they can use it without paying the submitter a penny. Doesn’t that suck hard?

And since they stated it’s a ‘National’ Newspaper, I have to say that it’s one of the following as the culprits, or one of their go-betweens:

• The Sun
• The Daily Mirror
• The Daily Sport
• Daily Star
• The Daily Telegraph
• The Times
• The Independant
• The Daily Mail
• Daily Express

I’ve probably missed a few, but, minus the Indy and the Telegraph, I wouldn’t put it past any of these papers to publish it, although I will admit I’m looking more closely at the top four, since they are tabloids, and as such have a major thing for sensationalising a topic.

Have a shot yourself, if you want.

Via Kotaku

Tags: kotaku, british press, newspaper, sensationalism, fraud, video game violence, crime