Fox News has come out swinging against EA's upcoming Bulletstorm, with claims that it will turn players into rapists...
Every time the next big violent game is facing its impending release, you can guarantee that some form of mainstream media will dust off the bandwagon and encourage the general public to jump aboard as they sing an all-too-familiar and distinctly out-of-tune song about the dangers of computer game violence. This diddy can be best summed up in the words of Helen Lovejoy: “Won’t somebody please think of the children!”
Ex-Attorney General Michael Atkinson was a fan of infamously warning against the invasion of sexually charged games such as RapeLay, and now FoxNews.com has taken up a similar cause. In what can only be fairly described as the most balanced title in the world (consistent with Fox’s stellar reputation for quality news reporting), ‘Is Bulletstorm the Worst Video Game in the World?’ (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/08/bulletstorm-worst-game-kids/) starts off with an integrity-fuelled tale of how Epic’s upcoming first-person shooter merges graphic violence with sexual acts.
Remember those various tongue-in-cheek Bulletstorm trailers that have naughty names for the game’s so-called Skill Shots? Yeah, that’s what FoxNews.com is taking issue with. But fear not FoxNews.com naysayers! They spoke to “the experts” who “were nearly universally worried that video game violence may be reaching fever pitch.” Fair enough, the whole video-game-violence dance is hardly new; so how exactly do sexually related Skill Shot names and extreme violence make the jump into an increase in real-world rape? Here’s how.
Dr Jerry Weichman, a clinical psychologist and one of the story’s expert sources, expressed concern that, “Violent video games like Bulletstorm have the potential to send the message that violence and insults with sexual innuendos are the way to handle disputes and problems.” That seems like a bit of a leap, Jerry. But that expert opinion was a crack in the ground compared to the Grand Canyon comment that proceeded.
Carol Lieberman—psychologist, author, FoxNews.com expert—threw it out there that, “The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games [sic].” Granted, she may have been quoted somewhat out of context (nothing about that quote relates to Bulletstorm specifically) and one has to wonder at what word was replaced with “[sexual]”, but, assuming she did say that, she’s way off the mark.
We’re struggling to think of any game that has gamers playing out sexual scenes. Can you? Further, such a massive sweeping statement would surely warrant some sort of research or statistics that link in-game controllable sex—which would assumedly be of the consensual variety for any game that sports it to be released in most countries—to real-world non-consensual sex (a la, rape).
Interestingly, the alleged link between supposed in-game sex scenes and increase in real-world rapes isn’t even the crux of the article’s argument. Instead, after casually putting the rape quote out there as though everyone already knew that anyway, the article quickly shifts into familiar (albeit American) territory of questioning the ratings system in place for games.
But the most interesting news came the day after the article was unleased upon the world when Rock, Paper, Shotgun (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/10/the-fox-news-debacle-techsavvy-update/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+RockPaperShotgun+(Rock,+Paper,+Shotgun)&utm_content=Google+Reader) did an interesting follow-up on the FoxNews.com piece. They managed to track down another expert, Scott Steinberg (CEO of TechSavvy Global), who was contacted by Fox but not quoted in the inflammatory story. You don’t have to read too far to understand why they left his perspective out.
“[Bulletstorm is] an unapologetically and straightforwardly satirical game meant for discerning adults that’s written in the vernacular of the times and speaks in a cultural context that’s the same as its target audience has long been indoctrinated in by mainstream media and pop culture … Yes, it’s shameless, but also knowingly so, because it actively aims to parody much of both the gaming field and larger cultural zeitgeist’s more asinine elements. The designers make no secret of their intentions, or to whom the title caters – The Oregon Trail, this isn’t. The giant M for Mature rating on the front of the box says it all: Only discerning adults need apply.”
Well phrased, Mr Steinberg. Well phrased indeed.
The major problem, however, is that this anti-gaming press fuels negative perceptions of our beloved medium from those who do not have our firsthand perspective: namely, non-gamers. For informed gamers, it may be easy to dismiss the FoxNews.com article as an opinion piece disguised as journalism. But the unfortunate fact remains that inflammatory and fallacious arguments can stick in the minds of the uninformed and make our lives harder and in a constant defensive stance as the general public’s most readily accessible media source (i.e. not gaming websites) to the gaming world is at times, horribly askew and maliciously negative.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012