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October 13, 2005

Violence Theft Auto

So the Entertainment Software Association is planning to sue Schwarzenegger over his passing of the bill that bars the sale of violent games to kids under 17. While most of the gaming community was almost positive that this was going to happen, I’m not too indignant over it, and I honestly don’t know why.

The gaming world of today and the gaming world when I was an underage gamer were vastly different. Growing up, I had various Nintendo consoles along with the accompanying classic games (Tetris, Super Mario Brothers, Metroid) and even an Atari 2600 kicking about. The most violence you saw was a fat mustachioed Italian plumber bouncing off of the shells of (presumably) attacking tortoises. The only violent act that you were likely to engage in was screaming and throwing your controller at the screen after dying so many times on a certain level that you were absolutely goddamn positive that the game was programmed to drive you to insanity.

Nowadays, the kiddies have games such as Grand Theft Auto to keep them company. Everyone who’s even remotely close to the pop-culture vein has heard about it, either from someone who completely derides the concept without ever having touched any of the games, or from someone who absolutely loves them. Coming from my heyday, the most violent game we had to worry about was Mortal Kombat, and it was more over-the-top, mindlessly unrealistic violence than anything. I mean, you leapt through the air and kicked people’s fucking heads off. It wasn’t as blatant as carrying around a pistol and randomly shooting pedestrians. And even then, I wasn’t allowed to play Mortal Kombat until I was a certain age, much like it should be with kids and violent games nowadays.

Part of me wants to be irrationally angry. Part of me wants to hem and haw and mold my dislike for Schwarzenegger into some sort of fury that can be thrust towards this law. But in all honesty, I wouldn’t be able to explain why I would be so angry over the decision to keep violent materials out of the hands of kids.

I grew up watching Westerns and action films laden with the likes of Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, and so on and so forth. I loved them, but I loved them based on the idea that they were entertainment, and nothing more. Just a simple pastime. A good way to kill a few hours and have a little bit of fun. Sure, it was fun to run out afterwards and shoot cans with my BB gun, but not once did I think of going right out and finding a weapon to kill someone.

People want to blame the media for so many things. And honestly, American media is deserving of most of the blame. We don’t mind gratuitous violence, but a tit or a curse word is strictly taboo. But I honestly blame the lack of basis in reality amongst most teenagers nowadays on –gasp- shitty parents. Yes, shitty parents. If they weren’t so busy letting their children be raised by the television or by the gaming console, their kids might actually have to be held accountable for their actions and have some sort of guidance in their lives that actively tells them, “Hey, have fun with this, but remember: It’s only a game/movie/song/whatever.”

And I’m not even sympathizing with the self-righteous mouthpieces like Jack Thompson, the fucking joke of a lawyer who has a personal vendetta against the gaming industry. People seem to be overly concerned with pointing the blame everywhere else but where it belongs, which is with ourselves as role models. The over-emphasis on blaming the media for everything is a frightening indicator of just how irresponsible our society has become with promoting accountability and common sense throughout future generations. Instead of taking the blame ourselves and saying, “Yeah, I fucked up, I’ll work on it”, we construct a straw man and immediately attack it so that we don’t have to be held accountable for a lack of responsibility.

And that’s bullshit. It’s bullshit that this should even be an issue, and it’s bullshit that a fan of action/horror movies and violent video games has to put their foot down and say, “Excuse me, sir/ma’am, but you’re full of shit. Look in the mirror before you blame everyone else.” And that’s essentially why I think that the ESA is going about this the wrong way. I’m of the school of thought that their hand in this is solely profit-based – they could probably give a shit about the average age of gamers just as long as they crank out x amount of games for y amount of profit. And it fucking pains me to say this..but…gah….Mr. Schwarzenegger, for once, you didn’t make a stupid fucking choice with this bill.

Now excuse me while I go soak my hands and brain with bleach.