Remember six months ago, when Rockstar released Bully, its comedic and mildly violent horrors-of-high-school simulator? Remember how some people were upset, believing the game would somehow glorify or promote bullying in school? You know, as if playing a video game could completely change a person’s personality?
Yeah, neither do I.
But the Canadian Teachers Federation, which bizarrely includes teachers in the United States, Britain, South Korea, Australia and the Caribbean, wants you to remember. They’re calling for retailers to refuse to sell the Bully: Scholarship Edition, a rerelease of the game with additional content. Continued…
I wrote a few weeks back about how I tried to create a bio on my Xbox LIVE gamertag and how I was also denied because my name (Jesus) is one of the forbidden words in Liveland. I haven’t had a chance to sit down to write a follow-up till today. Here are the e-mail responses that I got from Xbox customer support:
Hello Jesus,
Thank you for writing Xbox Customer Support!
Thank you for your inquiry! I understand that you are requesting for your Xbox Live account information.
As much as we would like to help you, this support line is for technical, troubleshooting and Xbox setup only. It will be best for you to call our phone support number so that you will be properly assisted.
We may require personal information for verification which cannot be divulged over email. When you call, immediate action will be given to your inquiries or request. You may obtain Xbox phone support. Thank you for your understanding. Continued…
Videogames and films, violent or otherwise, are helping decrease violent crime rates, according to two economists.
Their logic is simple; violent films and videogames appeal to young men with violent propensities. And during the time these violence-prone people spend in the theater or in front of the TV, they are not out committing violent acts.
And this logic is supported by the data, according to Gordon Dahl of UC San Diego and Stefano DellaVigna of UC Berkeley. Continued…
Okay, so it wasn’t the worst year ever in gaming. That was 2001. But a lot of stupid shit went down in 2007. Continued…
So, I just bought Call of Duty 4 on Sunday, even though I had posted a couple of weeks before that it was $40.
I rush straight to the online and while a buddy of mine sets up the match, I go ahead and mess around with some of the new features from the dashboard update. I see the bio option and start thinking about writing up about the little town I live in, hoping to run into some local residents online. The first thing I do is try to set up my name and it won’t let me. My nickname is Chuy, which is pronounced Chewy, which is also the way I spell it.
My tag here on GGL is also my gamer tag. The thing is that Chuy is a nickname for: Jesus. Yes, like Christ. My real name is Jesus. I can understand them having a problem with it, but how come there wasn’t an issue in the past year when I’ve downloaded about thirty Xbox Live Arcade games and bought who knows how many points?
Every time I would purchase some points, up would come my credit card info which included my full name. I mean, it wasn’t blurred out or anything. I didn’t continue with the bio or anything. I was just going to say, well, fuck it. I WAS going to do that, but instead I e-mailed Xbox customer support. Should they make an exception for me? I don’t know. I just know that my name is Jesus (hey zeus), not Jesus (jeez us). I’ll keep you posted on what they do and don’t let me do.
I went to the GamePolitics web site to catch up on Jack Thompson’s disbarment, and found the front page loaded with newsworthy and alarming stories. Rather than repost everything, here’s a list:
- Hillary Clinton promises to support games censorship legislation
- Wisconsin to tax videogames and consoles to fund juvenile delinquency programs
- Second Life a training ground for terrorists
- Teens kill 7-year-old girl while supposedly reenacting Mortal Combat
- IGN’s Nintendo editor is married to a Nintendo PR executive
Yikes. Link to GamePolitics.
Heroic San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is proposing a surcharge on soft drinks to offset the medical costs of the child obesity epidemic. The American Beverage Association is not thrilled — indeed, they blame childhood obesity on videogames.
Granted, playing videogames is a more sedentary pastime than playing outdoors. But I don’t see the ABA blaming homework for the same reason. Once again, videogames are a convenient target, as many parents don’t understand their child’s fascination with gaming.
The ABA is the same industry group that insists caffeine is non-addictive. After drinking two 2-liter bottles of Coke a day for five years, a neurologist diagnosed me with caffeine poisoning, and it took me two years to finally cut all caffeine out of my diet. Non-addictive my ass.
Link.
A censorship advocacy group published its ten games parents should avoid buying for their children this holiday season. The National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF) is a “non-partisan” group, representing all political philosophies from right to far right.
The ten games, all M-rated, are:
Assassin’s Creed (violence, Arab people)
Call of Duty 4 (violence, Arab people)
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (violence, chain mail bikinis)
The Darkness (darkness)
Jericho (violence, written by a gay man) Continued…
A poll finds that 60% of consumers believe the US government should directly regulate the sale of “violent” videogames. Fifty-one percent want the government to regulate game content, according to a poll by New York based PR firm Hill & Knowlton.
In other news, 51% of Americans have never heard of the First Amendment.
The Entertainment Software Association released a statement criticizing both the findings, and the timing of the statement during the Christmas shopping season.
Hill & Knowlton’s decision to release these findings was both unprofessional and unethical and its timing is questionable. We understand that parents have concerns about mature content getting into the hands of children and we are working to help make sure that does not happen. Continued…
Three quarters of parents surveyed in the UK are “worried” about videogame content, with 71% concerned across the UK, France, Germany, and Italy.
Of the 4,000 parents surveyed by Microsoft, 44% said children should only play video games for up to an hour a day.
Sixty percent said they understood the parental controls on consoles; less than half felt they had any control over how long their children spend playing.
Here are some more questions from the survey:* Continued…
I didn’t plan to write anything about the Jeff Gerstmann imbroglio. Games journalists writing about games journalists seems incestuous to me. But there is an important issue here — can games journalists be trusted to give information and opinions that gamers can trust?
Here is a timeline of the Reviewgate scandal:
November 13: Gamespot Editorial Director Jeff Gerstmann publishes a negative review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, giving the game 6 out of 10. An accompanying video review is also posted.
November 29: Gerstmann is fired. According to a rumor repeated on a number of gaming sites, Gerstmann is let go because Eidos is unhappy about his negative review of Kane & Lynch (the company paid a great deal of money to advertise the game on Gamespot). The text of the review is edited, although the 6/10 rating stands. The video is taken down. Continued…
