thanks for the excellent posts, Todd and Radtimes.
My two bits to add: The death-by-remote-control-industry is gearing up to escalate production of all kinds of remotely piloted drones. The young generations, already desensitized to heavy video violence and pre-skilled with excellent eye-hand coordination that comes from video games will be perfect fodder for the next generation of hired killers, who will exercise push button remote control killing with no personal physical risk at all. Could even be from the comfort of ones own home thanks to the connectivity potential of the internet. Those highly desirable personality types most suited to remorseless killing, a rare percentage in humans which is a problem for our military, could be mined from software applications like Facebook. Think about that next time you run one of their personality "games", not to mention wonder what might happen to all the other personal information they collect. All this guided by profit seeking corporations who have more rights than people do and have a vested profit interest in helping the war on terra, ooops, I mean terror.
It will change warfare more than the invention of the Atom bomb did. Retail killing coming to a neighborhood near you. A profitable way to eliminate surplus humanity as Global Warming and Peak Oil kick in.
Gordon Sturrock - Squadron13.com
At 01:16 PM 12/27/2009, Todd wrote:
At 01:00 PM 12/27/2009, radtimes wrote:
>>> War-themed video game sales booming [continued at bottom]
We need to get to the bottom of this essential question: does playing first-person shooter games, many hours a day, over many years, make a teenager any more likely to join the military and kill people? Or NOT? This is important.
I wonder if we could find the answer from the much larger volume of studies into the question, whether heavy viewers of pornography end up committing sexual assault at higher rates? Do they even end up more horny, or more misogynous than the typical male?
I don't know the answer to these questions. I don't even know if the pornography studies would predict the answer to the FPS video games question. The FPS games are not the same, in all respects-- for example they are obviously, explicitly violent, and obviously position the teenager in the position as killer, hundreds of times an hour. The duration of the FPS games is also much much longer, I can't imagine anybody immersing themselves in porn for so many hours per day, especially at such young ages -- the heavy porn addict is probably much older than the FPS players, both of my teens stared their FPS addictions pre-adolescent years and my older one got sick of them by around 18 and got addicted to Second Life for another couple of years, before real life and the demands of college intruded to such an extent that he had to quit the games. Afaics he did not end up with homicidal tendencies. His great loss was all the other things he could have done, and learned, in other activities. His great loss was a poverty of experience and delaying of entry into real life to his twenties, to an age when his biological concrete is already hardening, learning becomes more difficult, personal transformation becomes harder, etc.
Todd
At 01:00 PM 12/27/2009, radtimes wrote:
War-themed video game sales booming
http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainm ... 27167.htmlBy VICTOR GODINEZ
Dec. 26, 2009
If you want to see a thrilling war movie about America's battles in
Iraq and Afghanistan, forget about heading to your local movie
theater or calling up your Netflix queue.
You need an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 video game console and a game
like "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" for epic action from today's front lines.
Hollywood churned out dozens of in-the-trenches, pro-America
extravaganzas while World War II was being fought.
But the portrayal of the U.S. military during its current engagements
has been more subdued and even critical.
Game makers have stepped into the breach. And they're making huge
bucks crafting patriotic entertainment pieces for which the movie
industry used to be famous.
Most notable of the new virtual epics is "Modern Warfare 2" and its
predecessor, both from California publisher Activision Blizzard.
"Modern Warfare 2," which is set partially in Afghanistan and lets
you play as American and British soldiers hunting terrorists, is a
cultural sensation.
When it came out Nov. 10, it became the biggest entertainment product
launch in history, grossing $310 million in North America and the
United Kingdom in its first 24 hours. In its first five days, "Modern
Warfare 2" sales hit $550 million.
Activision was quick to put that in perspective, noting that the
largest worldwide five-day box-office take for any movie was "Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" at $394 million.
"The title's success redefines entertainment," Kotick said.
Games like these aren't just redefining entertainment: They're
redefining perceptions of America at war.
During the 1990s and earlier this decade, Hollywood was happy to show
U.S. soldiers battling on the other side of the world. From "Three
Kings" to "Black Hawk Down" to "Rules of Engagement," audiences saw
stars including George Clooney, Josh Hartnett and Samuel L. Jackson
play troubled but essentially heroic soldiers fighting in real or
realistic conflicts.
But after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Hollywood went
silent instead of ramping up production on war epics as it did when
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941.
When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, that silence turned largely to
criticism, as anti-war films like "Redacted" and "Lions for Lambs" emerged.
But the $20 billion-a-year video game industry was ready to enlist.
Besides "Modern Warfare" games, other successful military games
released since 9-11 include "Conflict: Desert Storm" and its sequel,
"Back to Baghdad"; "Full Spectrum Warrior" (originally developed as a
U.S. Army training simulator), and the "SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals" series.
More will soon join the fray.
Electronic Arts' "Medal of Honor" franchise, which previously focused
on World War II battles, is making the leap to the modern era. The
next installment, due in 2010, will focus on U.S. special operations
forces fighting their way through Afghanistan.
Sean Decker, vice president and general manager of the Los Angeles
division of Electronic Arts that is overseeing development of the new
"Medal of Honor," said video games rather than movies are becoming a
cultural touchstone for a growing number of Americans.
"There's a new generation of consumers of media, and they're looking
for something that's a little less static," he said.
But not all video games have been able to delve into the current wars
without getting singed by controversy.
Earlier this year, Japanese publisher Konami said it would produce
"Six Days in Fallujah," which would let gamers play as U.S. Marines
during the 2004 battle in Iraq.
Criticism poured in from all sides of the political spectrum.
Anti-war advocates attacked it as glorification of a controversial
battle and ill-advised war, while war supporters assailed the
developers' decision to consult with enemy insurgents to enhance the
game's realism. Konami quickly dumped the game.