The Blame Game

Videogames are awesome! You obviously also think so, therefore I assume there is nothing wrong in sharing my enthusiasm. ‘Games are designed experiences’, as Steinkuehler says, with ‘systems designed into them’ in which ‘players actively inhabit their worlds’, and experience the ‘mysterious transformation of their movements’ into ‘extraordinary spectacle of lights, colors and sound.’ Though, just like Television – medium I adore - videogames are blamed to be responsible for our generation’s loss of creativity, originality, and childhood. Anti videogame discourses demonize videogames as a violent tool. So violent, that can lead to murder. This CBS report is a good example: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/17/60minutes/main702599.shtml. Rebecca Leung frames Grand Theft Auto as a ‘murder simulator’, a ‘cop-killing game’. The way the murder occurred is described in the article as an identical sequence of the actual game. Funny enough, there are no references to the police’s lack of efficiency. The security inside the police station was so lame that a ‘video-game trained’ kid won the fight. Here is a link to the Grand Theft Official website just in case any of you would like to become an outlaw: http://www.rockstargames.com/grandtheftauto. Despite all psychological, cultural and social reasons that might lead a citizen to kill someone, the game still got the blame. The CBS article proves that the videogame is a new popular cultural force, and that clearly society has been influenced by it. My passion for Media lies here, in the relationship between the media and society, its cultural constructs, and the way it influences our sense of self. Until yesterday’s lecture, for example, I did not consider myself as a gamer at all, even thought I play Angry Birds any chance I get.  Now I know I am a causal gamer, thank you very much! In fact, I was addicted to Nintendo for a long time. I never got into any MMOG mostly because none of the boys wanted me on their team. Ok, they did let me play a few times, but I quickly got eliminated: I didn’t really want to kill anyone, I was more of an explorer. I’m back on the scene though, this time to break this text apart, and hopefully explore how its awesomeness causes a significant increase on the global economic flow, cultivates thousands of communities, and shape behaviors. As Jenni Marques points out on Just a Thought, http://ftvms212-328-2012.blogspot.com/2012/01/just-thought.html, to do it so, I need a game to start. A cool game. Any thoughts?