Posted by Ward Rubrecht at 1:52 PM May 08, 2008
Normally I'd let Kevin have the last word on conservative columnist Katherine Kersten's latest rant; I'd be too busy kicking prostitutes in the teeth to get my underdoodles in a twist over the ravings of one more mentally deficient sermonizer. But it's reportedly several months before a PC version of GTA IV comes out (if ever), so I have tons of free time.
Also, I'm armed with a new copy of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do (By Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, and hereafter referred to as Kutner & Olson). It's a great book, one that any gamer should read (and one I'll likely quote many times here in the future). It discusses the violent-media studies of the past and details a new set of studies performed by the authors, a pair of academics with no previous game experience or ties to the games industry. And I need to justify expensing the book, so let's get ready to rumble.
Read more "Grand Theft Childhood..." >>
Posted by Kevin Hoffman at 7:15 PM May 06, 2008
Letter writer Joshua Nichols points out some selective editing by Strib conservative lightning rod Katherine Kersten in her recent column on Grand Theft Auto IV.
In the column, Kersten writes:
"[T]eenage boys of America," wrote one reviewer, "... you can still kill and maim and plunder and screw until your heart is full," but now "the violence is no longer cartoonish." Thanks to GTA IV's new realism, when G-stringed strippers grind the main character's lap, the player's controller vibrates in response.
But if you run the phrase "can still kill and maim and plunder and screw" through a Google search, you'll find the source material, this Slate column. As you'll see from reading the full quote in context, Kersten used some selective editing to remove portions that were inconvenient to her conservative orthodoxy.
Read more "GTA Hater Gets Owned..." >>
Posted by Chris Ward at 5:15 PM Apr 17, 2008
OK, maybe HATE is a strong word. But it got your goddamned attention. I saw Slash on Conan O' Brian last night giving Guitar Hero a fanboy handjob (The guy who wrote Welcome to the Jungle was getting stiff over the idea of beating "Baracuda" on Hard Mode. Just...wow.), and this got me thinking about some recent interviews I did with musicians. I'm not sure a lot of them—the ones who don't have playable characters in the game—understand or have anything to do with Guitar Hero, though they're in the game. It's pretty much a loose relationship where they allow their songs to be used and collect the check. No big surprise there, the last two sentences being the most obvious statements ever typed. But if you've ever wondered why some tracks are the Master Tracks, and some songs are cover versions, rest assured that the artists' don't know either. More with Rob Zombie and Rivers Cuomo, after the jump...
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Posted by Ward Rubrecht at 7:59 PM Apr 04, 2008
Phyllis Schlafly, anti-feminist activist and seared husk of fustian disgust, has finally found something she hates more than her own genitals. In an article posted yesterday on WorldNetDaily, she railed against video games with the kind of deliberate ignorance only possible in those who laugh un-ironically at Dennis the Menace comics.
Ms. Schlafly rehashes the thoroughly cliche and unsupported "argument" shouted from both sides of the aisle that video games train aggressive behavior and desensitization to violence. But she further, and specifically, disagrees with the thundering unanimity of judges who've ruled that video games are protected under the First Amendment to the same degree as literature.
And that just pissed me off.
Read more "Phyllis Schlafly..." >>
