Video games & sex, violence, etc
For about 40 years now video games have made sure that people everywhere are entertained. Video games have always been treated as a hobby or a way of waste time. Not too many people actually think about all the hard work and creativity that goes into making video games. The home video gaming industry first got its start in 1972, when Magnavox released the Odyssey. Designed by Ralph H. Baer in 1966, The Odyssey was the first home gaming console (“Technology Review”). Thanks to this one event in history the world was significantly changed forever.
When The Odyssey was released the graphics were extremely bad. There was not a character on the screen that players controlled. There was just a little rectangle that the user would slide across and up and down the screen using the joystick. There was not any real differentiation between the games. Even though The Odyssey did not do too well and the future of home gaming looked like a failed venture. In 1977 Atari launched the 2600; companies like Atari were what help keep video games from falling out of existence. Not too long after the Atari 2600 other game consoles started to be produced by companies like Sega and Nintendo. With all of these home consoles being made the market needed game designers to make the games for these machines.
As time went on video games and the art that was used in the creation of video games became better defined. The images became clearer and people were able to easily match the image of a specific character to the title of a certain game. Sadly most people did not think of this turn of events as a good thing. Video games have been going through the same struggles as any other art form. It seems they are slowly becoming acknowledged as a form of media entertainment, and not being looked at as just a toy. However being recognized by the public is in a sense a double edged sword. The recognition of their art and hard work is something that all game developers want. Unfortunately the more the masses are aware of your presence the harder they try to keep you down.
Video games have been blamed for many things; people say they affect how children learn causing them to not do as well in school. Psychologists also say that Games make kids violent and causes depression that will later lead to suicide. One of the latest things video games have been accused of is selling sex. This all seems to be just another ploy to keep the gaming community down. The individuals who claim that video games are overly sexual and forcing sexual images upon the youths of America do not even play video games and have no point of reference when they make these statements. Further proof of this is where Fox News reported that Mass Effect featured “full digital nudity and sex”. This statement that they made could not have been further from the truth. Actually the game did not show any sex and the player only would have seen a side view of the female character, this is assuming the player made it to this point in the game. This scene was not a part of the main game play, it could only be accessed if the individual playing the game made the right decisions and tried to form a romantic relationship with the female character in the game.
It is extremely rare to see any sexual images in a video game, most games the player just makes their character run around killing things and solving puzzles. There are more graphic sexual images displayed in movies than in video games but no one is trying to ban movies and keep children away from them.
Besides the selling sex issue the other thing that everyday society is accusing video games of is racism. During mid 2007 Capcom released a trailer for their upcoming horror game Resident Evil 5. The launch of this trailer caused an up roar from people across the nation. People, mainly those outside of the gaming community, called the game racist because the trailer depicted a White protagonist killing Black characters. The same people who were calling the game racist, once again, did not know anything about the series and did not research the plot of the game. If they had they would have known that the game took place in Africa and that the entire Resident Evil series centers on killing infected humans in an attempt to keep the rest of the world from becoming infected and taken over by terrorist. Society likes to pick and choose what they consider needs to be banned and kept from children. There was never uproar about the release of Resident Evil 4. In which there was another White protagonist killing Spaniards, and just like the Africans of Resident Evil 5 the Spaniards of Resident Evil 4 lived in a poor rural area.
The portions of society that do not fall into the classification of “gamers” are trying their hardest to keep video games off the market. They say that games are selling sex when they show a brief video of the side view of a naked woman, but they do not say anything about movies that show full nudity, like what was shown in 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate. As long as a White video game character is not killing Black game characters then there is nothing wrong. The whole sector of “normal” adults do not know what video games are, the concept confuses them so they want to get rid of games. This is the same cycle of confused public, unjust hatred, and eventual acceptance that every media art form went through with time hopefully things will change for video games.
When The Odyssey was released the graphics were extremely bad. There was not a character on the screen that players controlled. There was just a little rectangle that the user would slide across and up and down the screen using the joystick. There was not any real differentiation between the games. Even though The Odyssey did not do too well and the future of home gaming looked like a failed venture. In 1977 Atari launched the 2600; companies like Atari were what help keep video games from falling out of existence. Not too long after the Atari 2600 other game consoles started to be produced by companies like Sega and Nintendo. With all of these home consoles being made the market needed game designers to make the games for these machines.
As time went on video games and the art that was used in the creation of video games became better defined. The images became clearer and people were able to easily match the image of a specific character to the title of a certain game. Sadly most people did not think of this turn of events as a good thing. Video games have been going through the same struggles as any other art form. It seems they are slowly becoming acknowledged as a form of media entertainment, and not being looked at as just a toy. However being recognized by the public is in a sense a double edged sword. The recognition of their art and hard work is something that all game developers want. Unfortunately the more the masses are aware of your presence the harder they try to keep you down.
Video games have been blamed for many things; people say they affect how children learn causing them to not do as well in school. Psychologists also say that Games make kids violent and causes depression that will later lead to suicide. One of the latest things video games have been accused of is selling sex. This all seems to be just another ploy to keep the gaming community down. The individuals who claim that video games are overly sexual and forcing sexual images upon the youths of America do not even play video games and have no point of reference when they make these statements. Further proof of this is where Fox News reported that Mass Effect featured “full digital nudity and sex”. This statement that they made could not have been further from the truth. Actually the game did not show any sex and the player only would have seen a side view of the female character, this is assuming the player made it to this point in the game. This scene was not a part of the main game play, it could only be accessed if the individual playing the game made the right decisions and tried to form a romantic relationship with the female character in the game.
It is extremely rare to see any sexual images in a video game, most games the player just makes their character run around killing things and solving puzzles. There are more graphic sexual images displayed in movies than in video games but no one is trying to ban movies and keep children away from them.
Besides the selling sex issue the other thing that everyday society is accusing video games of is racism. During mid 2007 Capcom released a trailer for their upcoming horror game Resident Evil 5. The launch of this trailer caused an up roar from people across the nation. People, mainly those outside of the gaming community, called the game racist because the trailer depicted a White protagonist killing Black characters. The same people who were calling the game racist, once again, did not know anything about the series and did not research the plot of the game. If they had they would have known that the game took place in Africa and that the entire Resident Evil series centers on killing infected humans in an attempt to keep the rest of the world from becoming infected and taken over by terrorist. Society likes to pick and choose what they consider needs to be banned and kept from children. There was never uproar about the release of Resident Evil 4. In which there was another White protagonist killing Spaniards, and just like the Africans of Resident Evil 5 the Spaniards of Resident Evil 4 lived in a poor rural area.
The portions of society that do not fall into the classification of “gamers” are trying their hardest to keep video games off the market. They say that games are selling sex when they show a brief video of the side view of a naked woman, but they do not say anything about movies that show full nudity, like what was shown in 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate. As long as a White video game character is not killing Black game characters then there is nothing wrong. The whole sector of “normal” adults do not know what video games are, the concept confuses them so they want to get rid of games. This is the same cycle of confused public, unjust hatred, and eventual acceptance that every media art form went through with time hopefully things will change for video games.
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