Gaming Under Fire from Imbeciles

I don't usually cover too much about the politics around gaming. It's actually quite fascinating to me, thanks in part to how the games industry has grown and how quickly news and rumours can proliferate on the Internet. This really isn't a games politics story, however, it's just stupidity.

I'm a little late to the party, as the games media and the devoted gaming community has already rallied together since last week with their pitchforks in hand to combat this latest attack on our hobby.

Hit the jump for my tirade. (Well, I never intended to get up on a soapbox but it's inevitable when I finally do)


I'll try to keep this short, as there's already been so much digital ink spilled over this asinine situation. Putting the issue of Fox News' relevance as a legitimate news outlet aside, I always wonder when gaming culture will finally take those last steps into mainstream acceptance. Right now, it's still in a transitory phase. Wiis are still selling out the second they touch the store shelves and the latest rhythm music games a collectively selling millions of units, as well as moving a few million songs through down loadable content purchases. Gaming is bigger business than it ever was and since the dawn of the current generation of hardware, it's very much been in the spotlight of media attention.

Gaming is becoming more acceptable yet it is still not fully understood by the mainstream audience. It's quite simple enough to understand the appeal of Wii Sports and being engaged by Nintendo's brilliantly conceived motion controls, but there is obviously so much more to gaming. What is game addiction and why does it exist? How does the ESRB rating system work? What's involved in making a game? What is the history behind the most popular gaming franchises?

We can assume the general public is still ignorant when it comes to the nitty-gritty fanboy aspects of the gaming industry. And although they often behave otherwise, I'm willing to bet the major media outlets know much more about games than they let on about. They just choose not to capitalize on their knowledge to serve the public with interesting stories based on factual content. They know the mainstream population is still in the dark when it comes to the many facets of the games industry and maybe the temptation to pander to sensationalism is just too strong to resist.

In fact, maybe these major media sources shouldn't even attempt to cover games yet. There are plenty of magazines, websites and blogs dedicated to this function already. I've also read my fair share of gaming coverage from the likes of major publications like Time and capusle game reviews in my regional papers and frankly, it's embarrassing for everyone involved.

So is sensationalism the only resort left? It seems like every other week, the gaming industry comes under attack from someone who wants to restrict it, demonize it or slander it. If it's not Jack Thompson, it's Hilary Clinton. If it's not Hilary, it's some two-bit psychologist flushing away their ethics for grant money. If it's not those guys, it's apparently a little-known author by the name of Cooper Lawrence. Ms. Lawrence, who admits having not even played Mass Effect, dares to paint the most distorted picture of the game. By her account, Bioware's latest title does indeed sound like "Luke Skywalker meets Debbie Does Dallas". God knows, when I was deep into my Mass Effect campaign and haven't seen my girlfriend in over a week, I would have like to play this space smut opera described by Cooper Lawrence instead of taking a cold shower.

Of course these allegations are baseless and Fox News was promptly called to task by Spike TV games reporter (and all-round nice guy), Geoff Keighley. EA also responded with a highly restrained rebuttal asking for "fairness". As for the rest of the gaming pubic, we had a field day, as usual. Yes, as gaming continues to attract the spotlight of media attention, we can expect to see an increasing number of these stories develop. Fortunately, defending video games is a rather easy affair when you have such poorly conceived drivel masquerading as professional news. Surely, anyone who watched the Cooper Lawrence piece on Fox News could not have taken her seriously. She was just there to promote her book, which has nothing to do with games and she herself is no gaming expert. I can't decide if this all smacks of lazy journalism or a clever sort of pre-meditated sensationalism. Maybe Fox News' intention was to try to whip the gaming community into such a rage, using Cooper Lawrence as they patsy, they hoped to provoke an extreme enough response to somehow validate all the prevailing misconceptions of games being too violent, too base and too smutty.

All it takes is a slip of the tongue and we the gamers -- even our representatives out in the gaming press -- can help send gaming back several years. Not from a technological standpoint but from a cultural and societal perspective.