Time to roll them bones it the Dungeons and Dragons movie... no no the sequel.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Adaptation Hell-Tekken (the live action movie)
Here comes a new series where we look at the movies that come from other franchises, this week we take a look at the latest fighting game turned movie, Tekken.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Nerd For Your Thoughts- Nostalgia
Here comes Darren with a conterversial thoughts, nostalgia.
http://blip.tv/file/4469698
http://blip.tv/file/4469698
Monday, November 29, 2010
Nerd For Your Thoughts- Rip Offs
A new series that talks about the big issues of the day in the nerd world. From Comics to video games, from movies to manga. If there is a problem, there is always a nerd for your thoughts. This week's topic is on video games and the titles they rip off.
http://deshproductions.blip.tv/file/4440290/
http://deshproductions.blip.tv/file/4440290/
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Nerd for your thoughts-Editorials
You love them, you hate them, you fear them and burn that part of the paper or turn off the screen. Editorials are out there, and are probably one of the most notorious things in the entire world. However it may be the Editorial is a part of the newspaper that posts opinions of the executive editor of that newspaper. They most of the time are about Current Events, and are usually accompanied by a caricature drawing that usually states what the article is about in a one short panel.
These articles are put in for the effect of persuasion. To have the reader rethink his or her stand point on a subject or reinforce that opinion. However, I think that there is more to it than that. Persuasion may be the goal of an Editorial, however it isn’t its only point to it. There is also another part. While it may not persuade you into a new believe, there is a sense of informing people about the subject in question. However, that is not the case most of the time. When you talk to most people they don’t usually have the full story or are basing fact off of information that has been already given through another media to believe that is the truth to it and that’s it. Now you can go off that this is the worse thing that any media can do and that they should take an impartial stance on most things in the news. However the word ‘history’ is ‘his-story’ and is usually subject to opinion on how the event happens. So what happens in the end is that facts are taken at face value. Its goes back to the idea of profiling that I have mentioned before in another article. That some people take it on what it looks like on the outside and judges it on those parts. Sad part of life yes but it happens. That’s why I think that the Editorial is an important part of the newspaper. It may seem like an unnecessary evil but you can get more out of it than that.
That all being said I still have to say that editorialist still miss that most of the time. When it comes down to it there is more potential to these articles then they are given right now. So I’m going to list off some guidelines to how to be a better Editorialist (Yes I know this may seem like pandering to my greatness, but its not, I want to show that there’s more to the job then having an opinion on the things.)
1.Research the Subject (using multiple sources).
Talk about one thing that is mostly looked over in the Editorial process in most cases (not all there are good one’s out there). Research is the backbone to most things in life. If you don’t know how or why something is you should look out to someone else and ask him or her. This follows for article writers as well. When you do the story, you should know the background to it as well. The information may lay out why an event folded out into this regard or how certain things happened and what was the outcome for them. When I did research for an article I did on Columbine and its after effects (during College and ten to twelve years after the event) I went out and not only get the a detailed description on how the event happened but also the after effect, multiple psychological studies on the two boys in question, and the journals of the two boys. When reading them I found some amazing things out on how they thought and how they acted as people. When I wrote the article, I got an A on the project. It is just amazing what you can do when you put a little more time into something.
2.Sit and stew
This is one of things that most people forget to do. After all the research is done, most people want to get onto the topic of writing away. This is something I don’t agree with. Mainly because the subject is so new to the person its not yet settled. It’s like drinking a cup of ramen noodles that hasn’t fully cooked yet, you may get the meal done faster, but you also don’t have a good end result to enjoy. Now most of the time you don’t have time to let that settle I do understand. In the News business your on a tight schedule and don’t have an entire day to contemplate on something. However, it is a disservice to not your listeners, but also the article you’re writing if your not at least given the information you uncovered time to process through your skull. If you want an estimated time I would say that you should take an hour or two to think over the information and let the opinions come to you.
3.Explain your answers
One of things that can no longer do in the world is say something without any reason or a really bland one. No longer are the days you can just say, “Because god told me so!” or “Just because”. If you wan to have people to be compelled by your article you need substance and this is where it fits in. You must tell why. This can fall into many subjects of writing such as story telling in comics, movies, video games, what have you. You must tell why the characters actions are they are, and making them decision that makes sense for the character. This also falls into editorial as well; you must explain why your opinions are your opinions. The must also have merit that anyone can agree with or understand. However, that being said…
4.Don’t be afraid.
You should never be afraid of your opinion. A long time ago my father told me that opinions are like assholes, everyone has them and they all stink. Even though you don’t have the opinion of the usual person. You should be able to make that opinion loud, mainly because variety is the spice of life, and it makes your argument even more valid. So you shouldn’t be afraid of your opinion, because your opinion maybe bad, everyone else is (yes even mine).
So there is my short list on how to be better editorialists. In the end what an editorialist should be is a person who not only expresses his opinion, but also must be able to make you think about your own opinion. To expand on your opinion or to reinforce there believes already. That is what an Editorialist should be and what their job should be. I know it’s not a perfect world, and that everyone would not agree with this opinion. Well then I think I did my job well enough to make you think about whether or not this is what an Editorialist job is.
These articles are put in for the effect of persuasion. To have the reader rethink his or her stand point on a subject or reinforce that opinion. However, I think that there is more to it than that. Persuasion may be the goal of an Editorial, however it isn’t its only point to it. There is also another part. While it may not persuade you into a new believe, there is a sense of informing people about the subject in question. However, that is not the case most of the time. When you talk to most people they don’t usually have the full story or are basing fact off of information that has been already given through another media to believe that is the truth to it and that’s it. Now you can go off that this is the worse thing that any media can do and that they should take an impartial stance on most things in the news. However the word ‘history’ is ‘his-story’ and is usually subject to opinion on how the event happens. So what happens in the end is that facts are taken at face value. Its goes back to the idea of profiling that I have mentioned before in another article. That some people take it on what it looks like on the outside and judges it on those parts. Sad part of life yes but it happens. That’s why I think that the Editorial is an important part of the newspaper. It may seem like an unnecessary evil but you can get more out of it than that.
That all being said I still have to say that editorialist still miss that most of the time. When it comes down to it there is more potential to these articles then they are given right now. So I’m going to list off some guidelines to how to be a better Editorialist (Yes I know this may seem like pandering to my greatness, but its not, I want to show that there’s more to the job then having an opinion on the things.)
1.Research the Subject (using multiple sources).
Talk about one thing that is mostly looked over in the Editorial process in most cases (not all there are good one’s out there). Research is the backbone to most things in life. If you don’t know how or why something is you should look out to someone else and ask him or her. This follows for article writers as well. When you do the story, you should know the background to it as well. The information may lay out why an event folded out into this regard or how certain things happened and what was the outcome for them. When I did research for an article I did on Columbine and its after effects (during College and ten to twelve years after the event) I went out and not only get the a detailed description on how the event happened but also the after effect, multiple psychological studies on the two boys in question, and the journals of the two boys. When reading them I found some amazing things out on how they thought and how they acted as people. When I wrote the article, I got an A on the project. It is just amazing what you can do when you put a little more time into something.
2.Sit and stew
This is one of things that most people forget to do. After all the research is done, most people want to get onto the topic of writing away. This is something I don’t agree with. Mainly because the subject is so new to the person its not yet settled. It’s like drinking a cup of ramen noodles that hasn’t fully cooked yet, you may get the meal done faster, but you also don’t have a good end result to enjoy. Now most of the time you don’t have time to let that settle I do understand. In the News business your on a tight schedule and don’t have an entire day to contemplate on something. However, it is a disservice to not your listeners, but also the article you’re writing if your not at least given the information you uncovered time to process through your skull. If you want an estimated time I would say that you should take an hour or two to think over the information and let the opinions come to you.
3.Explain your answers
One of things that can no longer do in the world is say something without any reason or a really bland one. No longer are the days you can just say, “Because god told me so!” or “Just because”. If you wan to have people to be compelled by your article you need substance and this is where it fits in. You must tell why. This can fall into many subjects of writing such as story telling in comics, movies, video games, what have you. You must tell why the characters actions are they are, and making them decision that makes sense for the character. This also falls into editorial as well; you must explain why your opinions are your opinions. The must also have merit that anyone can agree with or understand. However, that being said…
4.Don’t be afraid.
You should never be afraid of your opinion. A long time ago my father told me that opinions are like assholes, everyone has them and they all stink. Even though you don’t have the opinion of the usual person. You should be able to make that opinion loud, mainly because variety is the spice of life, and it makes your argument even more valid. So you shouldn’t be afraid of your opinion, because your opinion maybe bad, everyone else is (yes even mine).
So there is my short list on how to be better editorialists. In the end what an editorialist should be is a person who not only expresses his opinion, but also must be able to make you think about your own opinion. To expand on your opinion or to reinforce there believes already. That is what an Editorialist should be and what their job should be. I know it’s not a perfect world, and that everyone would not agree with this opinion. Well then I think I did my job well enough to make you think about whether or not this is what an Editorialist job is.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Nerd for your thoughts-Realism in fighting games.
I’m one of those people who is a major fighting game fan. I also have a great fascination for real life fighting and the martial arts (both west and east). I’m a member of the SCA –the Society of Creative Anachronism, a realistic historical society that tries to tell both realistic fighting and realistic lifestyles of the medieval ages. I have trained (I’m not that good) in heavy weapons fighting (think knights in shining armor type of fighting) and rapier fighting (musketeer like fight generalizing but the closest). When I play a video game that involves weapons, but I have to say realistic damaging in fighting games, I do not like. Its one of those things where I will get a lot of crap for this, but when it involves weapon-like fighting in fighting games. I have to say I prefer Soul Calibur to any other weapon fighting games.
I bring up this topic of realism in fighting games because of Spoony’s Deadliest Warrior review (a. yes I’m behind on the latest news I know and b. I’m doing this because it is something I have to get off my chest). Sometimes I expect a game to suck toting realism and realistic graphics being the selling point. What this means is when I hear it is that the games designers are focusing too much on the look of the game rather than how it plays, the story of it, and are just wasting time making a generic game idea just pretty. However in this case I was somewhat interested in the realism here. Simply because its not going for realism in looks but realism in design and play. There have been little games that tote on realistic fighting, save a few Virtua fighter and bushido blade. So I was interested on the game overall, then I played the damn thing and had an epiphany. As cool as an idea is to have realistic fighting in a game, there comes a downside to that. That is short matches, blind luck winning, and just feeling cheated. Like last time I’m going to break all these points into mini section and talk about them as they pertain to the real life fighting and true good fighting games.
A. Short Matches
This one is self-explanatory but because I like hearing myself talk… um, write, I will talk about it. One of the things that are equated with fighting games is that they are easy to play hard to master, and are quick fixes for twitch reflexes. Most fighting games about one to three minutes completing a match. This is enough time to give you that jolt of twitch reflex satisfaction, but short enough to make not make in tedious. However in real life (and in the Deadliest Warrior) this is not the case, since most of the time in a real life fight (and I mean a real life fight not an arena fight) the idea is to end the fight as fast as possible because normally your never attacked one on one, it’s usually a one against many. So when you fight, you want to end a conflict with one person as quick as possible so you can then switch to the next person and end him so you can switch to the next, and rinse and repeat. This especially true when your dealing with weapons, tools made that to kill people in one swing, thrust, what have you. So when your doing this in video games your not going to have as much fun, simply because when you have a one swing or one punch knock a person down it isn’t that fun. It doesn’t fill that twitch reflexes because its not long enough, and its so short that you’ll not comprehend what won, and you need the replay to show what killed them rather than having the replay as a glory shot of you winning. So it just doesn’t work.
B. Blind Luck
So when it comes to fighting games there is a small bit of skill involved of getting a win. There are times when someone wins where there’s no skill or due to a lucky shot. This is a blind luck moment and in most fighting games there is a small bit of blind luck win that slip in. However when it comes to real life blind luck, rarely happens as well. Seriously the fighter who is more skilled is going to win most of the time. However, when doing a realistic fighting game like I said earlier and usually has one shot kills, so when you mash buttons in the game its not going to be of skill most that makes you win. It is usually going to be the guy who get the lucky shot in wins, and when it comes to the ratio of lucky wins in a regular game its usually 1:10-20, meaning that in the ten to twenty matches its usually one that wins out of luck. While in more realistic games (such as deadliest warrior) is usually 1:2, meaning that half of the fights are one by pure luck. That is a ratio that is unforgivable. It makes the game shallow, short, and easily put down, and if your just want the game to be just sold (like I’m guessing with spike games the shallow cunts) then it doesn’t matter. However if you wish to make a game that you can always pick up and can play for just hours upon hours (like capcom and everybody else) then this isn’t what you want for your game. What you want is a game that you can play for hours, and has some depth to it. So people can build skills towards it and have fun more harnessing skills.
C. Feeling Cheated
Finally we get to the last part of realistic fighting. When you get down to it that life is not fair, and you will be cheated in life multiple times. In fighting, this also holds true. Due to armor or just pure bad luck, you will be killed. More or less being cheated of showing your skills. The reasons for this are as I said above, due to one hit kills and blind luck. However, when playing a game, games are supposed to be fair, they have rules. So when you break those rules, it feels bad and like the person is cheating. In the deadliest warrior game, your not allowed to show some skills, that one hit kill, the pure luck involved, its feel wrong and most people feel cheated (shorter than others but you get the idea).
So when you get down to it, realism is one of those things that probably should be excluded in fighting games. Now I’m not saying that you can’t have spots of realism or inspiration of realism. I’m saying that its probably not as good to have a fighting game based around realism. There are always exception to the rules, I know that. However the only exception I’ve seen that makes me reverse all this is Bushido Blade. Sadly, that’s one of those exceptions that you have to say ‘that is an exception to the rules sadly there won’t be as many like those’. So in the end realism shouldn’t be as much of a concern as it should for having fun in a game.
One last thing I have to get off my chest is more or less to say “Fuck you Spike Games”. Don’t play this “Oh we are small game company, and thus we can’t make good games like capcom can.” Fuck you, your back by Spike TV, a national television channel. Who is also owned by fucking Viacom. So don’t say this bullshit of how your small and insignificant. Fuck you, your being lazy and trying to get out that you made a crappy game.
I bring up this topic of realism in fighting games because of Spoony’s Deadliest Warrior review (a. yes I’m behind on the latest news I know and b. I’m doing this because it is something I have to get off my chest). Sometimes I expect a game to suck toting realism and realistic graphics being the selling point. What this means is when I hear it is that the games designers are focusing too much on the look of the game rather than how it plays, the story of it, and are just wasting time making a generic game idea just pretty. However in this case I was somewhat interested in the realism here. Simply because its not going for realism in looks but realism in design and play. There have been little games that tote on realistic fighting, save a few Virtua fighter and bushido blade. So I was interested on the game overall, then I played the damn thing and had an epiphany. As cool as an idea is to have realistic fighting in a game, there comes a downside to that. That is short matches, blind luck winning, and just feeling cheated. Like last time I’m going to break all these points into mini section and talk about them as they pertain to the real life fighting and true good fighting games.
A. Short Matches
This one is self-explanatory but because I like hearing myself talk… um, write, I will talk about it. One of the things that are equated with fighting games is that they are easy to play hard to master, and are quick fixes for twitch reflexes. Most fighting games about one to three minutes completing a match. This is enough time to give you that jolt of twitch reflex satisfaction, but short enough to make not make in tedious. However in real life (and in the Deadliest Warrior) this is not the case, since most of the time in a real life fight (and I mean a real life fight not an arena fight) the idea is to end the fight as fast as possible because normally your never attacked one on one, it’s usually a one against many. So when you fight, you want to end a conflict with one person as quick as possible so you can then switch to the next person and end him so you can switch to the next, and rinse and repeat. This especially true when your dealing with weapons, tools made that to kill people in one swing, thrust, what have you. So when your doing this in video games your not going to have as much fun, simply because when you have a one swing or one punch knock a person down it isn’t that fun. It doesn’t fill that twitch reflexes because its not long enough, and its so short that you’ll not comprehend what won, and you need the replay to show what killed them rather than having the replay as a glory shot of you winning. So it just doesn’t work.
B. Blind Luck
So when it comes to fighting games there is a small bit of skill involved of getting a win. There are times when someone wins where there’s no skill or due to a lucky shot. This is a blind luck moment and in most fighting games there is a small bit of blind luck win that slip in. However when it comes to real life blind luck, rarely happens as well. Seriously the fighter who is more skilled is going to win most of the time. However, when doing a realistic fighting game like I said earlier and usually has one shot kills, so when you mash buttons in the game its not going to be of skill most that makes you win. It is usually going to be the guy who get the lucky shot in wins, and when it comes to the ratio of lucky wins in a regular game its usually 1:10-20, meaning that in the ten to twenty matches its usually one that wins out of luck. While in more realistic games (such as deadliest warrior) is usually 1:2, meaning that half of the fights are one by pure luck. That is a ratio that is unforgivable. It makes the game shallow, short, and easily put down, and if your just want the game to be just sold (like I’m guessing with spike games the shallow cunts) then it doesn’t matter. However if you wish to make a game that you can always pick up and can play for just hours upon hours (like capcom and everybody else) then this isn’t what you want for your game. What you want is a game that you can play for hours, and has some depth to it. So people can build skills towards it and have fun more harnessing skills.
C. Feeling Cheated
Finally we get to the last part of realistic fighting. When you get down to it that life is not fair, and you will be cheated in life multiple times. In fighting, this also holds true. Due to armor or just pure bad luck, you will be killed. More or less being cheated of showing your skills. The reasons for this are as I said above, due to one hit kills and blind luck. However, when playing a game, games are supposed to be fair, they have rules. So when you break those rules, it feels bad and like the person is cheating. In the deadliest warrior game, your not allowed to show some skills, that one hit kill, the pure luck involved, its feel wrong and most people feel cheated (shorter than others but you get the idea).
So when you get down to it, realism is one of those things that probably should be excluded in fighting games. Now I’m not saying that you can’t have spots of realism or inspiration of realism. I’m saying that its probably not as good to have a fighting game based around realism. There are always exception to the rules, I know that. However the only exception I’ve seen that makes me reverse all this is Bushido Blade. Sadly, that’s one of those exceptions that you have to say ‘that is an exception to the rules sadly there won’t be as many like those’. So in the end realism shouldn’t be as much of a concern as it should for having fun in a game.
One last thing I have to get off my chest is more or less to say “Fuck you Spike Games”. Don’t play this “Oh we are small game company, and thus we can’t make good games like capcom can.” Fuck you, your back by Spike TV, a national television channel. Who is also owned by fucking Viacom. So don’t say this bullshit of how your small and insignificant. Fuck you, your being lazy and trying to get out that you made a crappy game.
Nerd for your thoughts- Mazes, Monsters, and Madness
If anyone has seen the most recent of the Spoony One, he did a review of the 1982 made for TV movie Mazes and Monsters. The movie is a propaganda piece that shows that RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons can in fact affect your sanity and make you believe that your in a fantasy world and you will harm others believing that they are monsters. Now I don’t have to go on how that it is a ridiculous premise, and only was made to fuel the fire of fear that everyone should be afraid of gamers. However I’m going to go into the idea of diving into what filled this hysteria and giving a proper answer to those worries.
I know most people are over the fear but there are still thing in the world that make people worried. Remember Jack Thompson may be disbarred, but he is still alive and working. So he’s probably still working. Then your also have the worrying Christian mothers who ‘try’ to ‘spread’ the ‘good word’ but are just forcing old stereotypes and making their children, well that’s another rant for another time (Watch George Carlin and he’ll say everything I think). So yeah there are still people who believe in these unreasonable fears. However, the question then comes to why? Why do these fears keep coming up? Well lets split these into different parts and see what the fears are.
1. Profiling
Yeah, this may be a bit of a cheat, but when you think about it is probably one of the major reasons why these fears maybe still around. Profiling is when a person, or a group of people look at something and basing that thing on shier appearance. Many people do profile things all the time and base decisions on that profile. Now when a person grabs an old book of Dungeons and Dragons and sees a demon on the cover, well some may sort this sort of thing in with El Diablo and other evil occult practices. This is the biggest load of horseshit in the world. Anybody who’s played a game knows that usually you’re fighting against evil things and are trying to make the world a good place. Plus, anyone who thinks that Dungeons and Dragons leads to Satanism is complete nonsense. Imagine that someone tells you that football (not the associations of football the game itself) is a gateway to the entire world (or Country) to war, you would laugh at them and tell them that complete bullshit. It’s a game, recreation, a pastime if you will, and what happens in the game stays in the game, it doesn’t reflect the real world at all. There are more other reasons for things to happen such as political debates, unease hatred towards a group of people, and dirty underhanded schemes against one another. To round it back to Dungeons and Dragons, its not the game that effects people, it’s the person’s own problems that lead them to do bad things.
2. Reinforcement
This follows more or less that it’s not the person who thinks for themselves if the object is evil, but a group of people who decree without any prerequisite, knowledge of object, or a scientific proof, but just say its evil. Why is it evil? because Oprah said it was, because the talking heads on the television said it was, because your preacher said it was. It’s a sick mob mentality that promotes itself around hating this one thing and mingling with others that hate it as well. As soon as you know it there’s a giant group that has form and only reason that they are together is due to their hatred for something. A bit of an overstatement probably, but when you look at the world there are a bunch of groups that have done that. Bringing to Dungeons and Dragons again, lets look at Patty Pulling. Who’s Patty Pulling? Well she’s the founder of the lovely heart warming group known as Bothered Against Dungeons and Dragons (or BADD). She formed group after the death of her son committed suicide. The son was an avid D&D player and through such logic as most normal people would (meaning dumb asses) She file a wrongful death Lawsuit against both the Principal of the School and TSR (the then owners of D&D). However, smart people prevailed and the lawsuit was dropped. However Mrs. Pulling didn’t take to this and started up BADD, and started publishing works that promoted D&D as (and I’m quoting here) “A fantasy role-playing game which uses Demonology, Wicca, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, child molestation, suicide, assassination, insanity, sexual perversion, sodomy, prostitution, Satanism, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, Sadomasochism, Desecration of Christianity, Summoning malevolent Spirits, Necromancy, Satanic divination and other strange immoral teachings.” (So what this person is saying is D&D promotes butt sex?) Anyways this is just ridiculous as well. It feels like a bunch of hens Chirping away in a farm field… that may have been to sexist. But anyway the point is that most of these fears are brought up do to stupidity, ignorance, and a mob mentality. As Tommy Lee Jones put it in MIB “Person is smart, people are dumb, panicking, stupid creatures and you know it.” Well said K, well said.
3. (Final reason) Tragedy
Now when you look at the fear and hatred towards anything, there is always some tragedy involved. It’s another dumb human mentality that must lock on an object and say that that’s the only reason why the world sucks and if it dies the world will be a better place. I hate to bring up Batman Forever (gah that movie did suck) but Bruce (why fucking Val Kilmer?) has a point when he said that sadness begets sadness and more suffering. Vengeance is never a good relief method, its great in movies, BUT THAT’S NOT THE REAL WORLD!!! Going back to Patty Pulling on this one, what did start her ‘crusade’ against D&D? Well the death of her son Irvin (I don’t think it helped matters that named him Irvin). So yeah sadness embark many down the path of revenge and madness. Giving another example is the death of James Dallas Egbert. This was in the late seventies. Young Egbert was a sixteen-year-old-prodigy, tried killed himself, but didn’t ran away. The Private Detective in the case was asked by Egbert to not reveal the true reason why he tried to kill himself. Thus the blame was forced onto D&D, Egbert a year killed himself, four years later the Detective release to the public the true story behind Egbert in a book called “The Dungeon Master”. Telling that it wasn’t D&D that brought him to this Demise but due to stress, depression, and the fact that he was a sixteen-year-old genius that was forced into the real world too soon. A depressing tale and depressing after effect, the only thing that this illustrates is that people are way to easy to point the finger at someone else and say that its their fault the world sucks.
So now that we’ve discussed the reasons why the hate keeps following on lets think about how we can stop matters from this. This I’ll keep short and simple due to the fact this is long enough as it is. The first way is knowledge. the only way that you can know that something is evil is if you research it (the way you research it may differ between person). The second way is independent thinking. I always hated the phrase “Go with the Flow” and the incident up here brings up how that’s a bad thing. Last but not least, blame the man who did it. I know this may sound a bit hypocritical in a way, but when you get right down to it it’s usually a person’s fault that the tragedy happened. Did the gun kill him, no the man who pulled the gun did it. Was it D&D that made him commit suicide, no only he is to blame for his suicide and no one else. We were given Free will for a reason (yes I’m catholic get over it) so we can make our own decision and reasonable thoughts. It never is left up to the roll of the dice.
P.S If someone has already said this, I apologize for repeating. However I felt it was necessary.
I know most people are over the fear but there are still thing in the world that make people worried. Remember Jack Thompson may be disbarred, but he is still alive and working. So he’s probably still working. Then your also have the worrying Christian mothers who ‘try’ to ‘spread’ the ‘good word’ but are just forcing old stereotypes and making their children, well that’s another rant for another time (Watch George Carlin and he’ll say everything I think). So yeah there are still people who believe in these unreasonable fears. However, the question then comes to why? Why do these fears keep coming up? Well lets split these into different parts and see what the fears are.
1. Profiling
Yeah, this may be a bit of a cheat, but when you think about it is probably one of the major reasons why these fears maybe still around. Profiling is when a person, or a group of people look at something and basing that thing on shier appearance. Many people do profile things all the time and base decisions on that profile. Now when a person grabs an old book of Dungeons and Dragons and sees a demon on the cover, well some may sort this sort of thing in with El Diablo and other evil occult practices. This is the biggest load of horseshit in the world. Anybody who’s played a game knows that usually you’re fighting against evil things and are trying to make the world a good place. Plus, anyone who thinks that Dungeons and Dragons leads to Satanism is complete nonsense. Imagine that someone tells you that football (not the associations of football the game itself) is a gateway to the entire world (or Country) to war, you would laugh at them and tell them that complete bullshit. It’s a game, recreation, a pastime if you will, and what happens in the game stays in the game, it doesn’t reflect the real world at all. There are more other reasons for things to happen such as political debates, unease hatred towards a group of people, and dirty underhanded schemes against one another. To round it back to Dungeons and Dragons, its not the game that effects people, it’s the person’s own problems that lead them to do bad things.
2. Reinforcement
This follows more or less that it’s not the person who thinks for themselves if the object is evil, but a group of people who decree without any prerequisite, knowledge of object, or a scientific proof, but just say its evil. Why is it evil? because Oprah said it was, because the talking heads on the television said it was, because your preacher said it was. It’s a sick mob mentality that promotes itself around hating this one thing and mingling with others that hate it as well. As soon as you know it there’s a giant group that has form and only reason that they are together is due to their hatred for something. A bit of an overstatement probably, but when you look at the world there are a bunch of groups that have done that. Bringing to Dungeons and Dragons again, lets look at Patty Pulling. Who’s Patty Pulling? Well she’s the founder of the lovely heart warming group known as Bothered Against Dungeons and Dragons (or BADD). She formed group after the death of her son committed suicide. The son was an avid D&D player and through such logic as most normal people would (meaning dumb asses) She file a wrongful death Lawsuit against both the Principal of the School and TSR (the then owners of D&D). However, smart people prevailed and the lawsuit was dropped. However Mrs. Pulling didn’t take to this and started up BADD, and started publishing works that promoted D&D as (and I’m quoting here) “A fantasy role-playing game which uses Demonology, Wicca, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, child molestation, suicide, assassination, insanity, sexual perversion, sodomy, prostitution, Satanism, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, Sadomasochism, Desecration of Christianity, Summoning malevolent Spirits, Necromancy, Satanic divination and other strange immoral teachings.” (So what this person is saying is D&D promotes butt sex?) Anyways this is just ridiculous as well. It feels like a bunch of hens Chirping away in a farm field… that may have been to sexist. But anyway the point is that most of these fears are brought up do to stupidity, ignorance, and a mob mentality. As Tommy Lee Jones put it in MIB “Person is smart, people are dumb, panicking, stupid creatures and you know it.” Well said K, well said.
3. (Final reason) Tragedy
Now when you look at the fear and hatred towards anything, there is always some tragedy involved. It’s another dumb human mentality that must lock on an object and say that that’s the only reason why the world sucks and if it dies the world will be a better place. I hate to bring up Batman Forever (gah that movie did suck) but Bruce (why fucking Val Kilmer?) has a point when he said that sadness begets sadness and more suffering. Vengeance is never a good relief method, its great in movies, BUT THAT’S NOT THE REAL WORLD!!! Going back to Patty Pulling on this one, what did start her ‘crusade’ against D&D? Well the death of her son Irvin (I don’t think it helped matters that named him Irvin). So yeah sadness embark many down the path of revenge and madness. Giving another example is the death of James Dallas Egbert. This was in the late seventies. Young Egbert was a sixteen-year-old-prodigy, tried killed himself, but didn’t ran away. The Private Detective in the case was asked by Egbert to not reveal the true reason why he tried to kill himself. Thus the blame was forced onto D&D, Egbert a year killed himself, four years later the Detective release to the public the true story behind Egbert in a book called “The Dungeon Master”. Telling that it wasn’t D&D that brought him to this Demise but due to stress, depression, and the fact that he was a sixteen-year-old genius that was forced into the real world too soon. A depressing tale and depressing after effect, the only thing that this illustrates is that people are way to easy to point the finger at someone else and say that its their fault the world sucks.
So now that we’ve discussed the reasons why the hate keeps following on lets think about how we can stop matters from this. This I’ll keep short and simple due to the fact this is long enough as it is. The first way is knowledge. the only way that you can know that something is evil is if you research it (the way you research it may differ between person). The second way is independent thinking. I always hated the phrase “Go with the Flow” and the incident up here brings up how that’s a bad thing. Last but not least, blame the man who did it. I know this may sound a bit hypocritical in a way, but when you get right down to it it’s usually a person’s fault that the tragedy happened. Did the gun kill him, no the man who pulled the gun did it. Was it D&D that made him commit suicide, no only he is to blame for his suicide and no one else. We were given Free will for a reason (yes I’m catholic get over it) so we can make our own decision and reasonable thoughts. It never is left up to the roll of the dice.
P.S If someone has already said this, I apologize for repeating. However I felt it was necessary.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Violence and video games
Fellow blogger Robert Chipman, other wise known as either Movie Bob or the Game Overthinker has posted a video with video maker Brian Schmoyer in a talk about video games and the violence that proceeds them. I don't to argue that video games are violent they are, but as a society we are violent as well. It seems to me that violence is one of those animalistic pleasures we strive from and that it shows in the world at large. Now both these men have made videos that talk about how gaming culture is and how still well to put in colorful words fucked up it is still. The Game Overthinker made two films about this (or videos to be quite honest I like using film because these guys actually put some fucking work into them rather than my shit) one discussed violence as a hole in the video game 'world', while the other reflects the culture brought around this and how it could improve, I suggest watching both as they both have very good points and very interesting thoughts on the subject. On the other hand we have Brian Schmoyer who seems to be talking less philosophically as the Game Overthinker does, and tells us about his life experience with "The Only Thing I Know", now this made my jaw drop to the floor when I watched it as it showed what happens when you take this hobby and turn it into an obsession. It makes me shocked that lives can be ruined by video games. Then it made me realize that lives could be ruined by just about anything, and its the not the subject itself that matters as much, but the community that is brought around the hobby. If there is something I can take from both of these guys are a sense of understanding about how the gaming culture works. Now I'm going to ramble on a bit about the the though of video game violence a bit since this podcast these two did main topic was the violence of video game.
Personally I don't think violence in the mass media such as video games or movies is a catalyst for violence in the real world. I am a person who likes to keep his nose out of a lot of stuff. There is has been a line that video games that have been drawn by me, due to the simple fact that you are not "committing" the horrible act. You’re pressing a bunch of buttons in a combination to cause someone to be disemboweled. Now with the modern age of motion capture hardware, it may lead to more people thinking that they will be able to do these things with no hesitation do to that they've done it before in a game. Now do I believe that will happen 95% of the time? Of course not, believe it or not we have common sense, and people to teach us what is wrong or right. Its that five percent that scars me, due to lack of common sense or no moral grounds due to bad parenting.
But what do I get out of this discussion? What I get is that there are some people out there with a moral high ground, with enough common sense, and the ability to project that common sense and moral high grounds out that can reach out and grab that five percent and smack some common sense into them. Though also pigs may fly and I will be caught in the middle of watching the next twilight saga movie (ugh that’s another discussion for another day). However, what I'm getting at with all this is that I do see these two helping out the new gamers in finding their moral compass. So thank you, Game Overthinker, and thank you Brian for at least making this seem to be worth a damn.
The game overthinker's blog
http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/
The only thing I know
http://screwattack.com/videos/The-Only-Thing-I-Know
Their talk
http://screwattack.com/videos/Brian-Bob-Overthinker-talk-Games-Violence
Personally I don't think violence in the mass media such as video games or movies is a catalyst for violence in the real world. I am a person who likes to keep his nose out of a lot of stuff. There is has been a line that video games that have been drawn by me, due to the simple fact that you are not "committing" the horrible act. You’re pressing a bunch of buttons in a combination to cause someone to be disemboweled. Now with the modern age of motion capture hardware, it may lead to more people thinking that they will be able to do these things with no hesitation do to that they've done it before in a game. Now do I believe that will happen 95% of the time? Of course not, believe it or not we have common sense, and people to teach us what is wrong or right. Its that five percent that scars me, due to lack of common sense or no moral grounds due to bad parenting.
But what do I get out of this discussion? What I get is that there are some people out there with a moral high ground, with enough common sense, and the ability to project that common sense and moral high grounds out that can reach out and grab that five percent and smack some common sense into them. Though also pigs may fly and I will be caught in the middle of watching the next twilight saga movie (ugh that’s another discussion for another day). However, what I'm getting at with all this is that I do see these two helping out the new gamers in finding their moral compass. So thank you, Game Overthinker, and thank you Brian for at least making this seem to be worth a damn.
The game overthinker's blog
http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/
The only thing I know
http://screwattack.com/videos/The-Only-Thing-I-Know
Their talk
http://screwattack.com/videos/Brian-Bob-Overthinker-talk-Games-Violence
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