Everyone has a cause
Looks like there’s some sort of “we’re defending our rights” thing going on for gamers soon. Everyone likes to feel like they are threatened and their rights are in danger of being taken away, it gives them a reason to live. I guess when you’re simply not responsible enough to raise a family, defending your right to play games where you sleep with prostitutes to gain health and then kill them to get your money back is the next best cause. But in the wake of tragedy, why be so quick to completely revoke the possibility that your past time had something to do with it. At least wait until the families have had time to move past their losses, doing anything this soon is, quite frankly, tacky and makes gamers appear to be insensitive oafs, which may not be entirely inaccurate. I think an opinion piece on Ars Technica put it best:
While I’m all for activism for one’s beliefs, I really think this may do more harm then good. As gamers, we feel a need to defend our passion, but we run the risk of ending up looking no better than those seeking to shift blame, while further disrupting the already-mourning. I say that the thing to focus on at this point is simply remembering those lost and cherishing what we still have. Now’s not the time for political vendettas, and gamers need to step down and just humbly accept the fact that blame will always be shifted to the popular youth activities: be it a KISS concert, a video game, or something else.
And honestly, no one has done anything to take these violent games away from adults. As far as I know the only legislation that has been proposed is to actually ban the sale of these games to minors. It’s kind of hard to argue that people under the age of 17 should be playing games that glorify killing other humans, especially authority figures. I’m no psychologist, but I know that kids copy what they see. From jumping off of coffee tables like wrestlers to acting like their favorite video game characters, I think it’s best to keep games like Grand Theft Auto out of the hands of minors. A comic on Penny-Arcade sums up my feelings on this nicely:
Truth be told, I’m willing to bet most gamers aren’t even behind this. The ones organizing it are the ones that have something to gain from being in the spotlight, whatever their true cause may be. The majority of gamers are probably perfectly content to stay home and play Final Fantasy or Halo2 without making any sort of scene.
