Attention, everyone! Journalism has hit a new low. Meet Kevin McCullough. This writeup, "The 'Sex-Box' Race for President" is probably the most reprehensible article I've ever read. We're all used to journalists using creative rhetoric and omitting key details to be misleading. This, on the other hand, is downright slander based on a bunch of bold-faced lies.
You can read the article for yourself, and the (currently just shy of 700) comments responding to it are more than enough of a supply of counters to McCullough's inane statements. The corresponding GP article also highlights the important parts.
That said, here's the rundown: BioWare's Mass Effect is a recent sci-fi adventure title for the Xbox 360. There's been a fair bit of hype about it, and it lived up to the hype when it was met with very favorable reviews. (Praise for the game emphasizes excellent story-telling, among other things.) Mass Effect's ESRB rating is M for Mature, meaning that retailers agree to refuse sale of the game to persons under seventeen. It's about the same as a movie being rated R, although this particular example has nowhere near the mature content of a contemporary R-rated film. Note that games that are exceptionally violent/course/explicit are shunned by mainstream platforms and consumers.
Mass Effect contains a controversial "sex scene" between the player-controlled character and another character in the story. Which two characters are involved varies depending on what character the player chooses to control at the start of the game, and what choices they make up to this point. In the scene, two characters are seen kissing, and what follows is some very dark footage of the characters' faces close together, a hand running down a back, and, oh yes, a glimpse of some buttocks for all of one second. Raunchy stuff. The sequence is less than a minute long, and the rest of the single-player content takes around 35 hours to complete.
Mr. McCullough's article claims that Mass Effect targets teenage boys around the age of 15. He calls it a sex game, a porn game, wherein players customize and control a graphic sex sequence for nearly 3 minutes. He even goes so far as to say, referring to the 360's internet connectivity,
"With it’s [sic] 'over the net' capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away."
And there's a lot more where that came from. Frankly, that statement alone is far more perverse than anything I've ever seen or heard of in a video game. McCullough goes on to challenge the American presidential candidates to address this pressing issue, and expresses the wish that constitution would bring down the hammer on seedy, unsavory firms like BioWare.
So what's the big deal? I'll tell you. As far as I can remember, I've never given a thorough explanation on this blog of my philosophy around video games as emerging media. And when I say "my philosophy", I actually mean a widely shared opinion that is basically considered fact by people who study or think about media. This incident of slandering an awesome game is a great example of what gets under my skin.
The fact is, video/computer games are an artistic medium just like books, radio, TV, film, et al. They are the new kid on the block, so it's easy to point our fingers at them and accuse them of being the root of all kinds of problems. TV, comic books, etc. endured the same criticisms in their infancy.
The biggest misconception that a lot of people are still operating under is that video games are for children. Video games, as a whole, are not for children. Pulled straight from the Entertainment Software Association's (ESA) website, the average gamer is 33 years old. Think of it this way: some movies are for children, but most of them aren't. Instead of assuming, "Oh, it's just a video game," when they buy video games for their kids despite being rated T or M, they need to realize that's no different from letting your kid watch Restricted movies - because things get rated a certain way for a reason.
It's upsetting to gaming enthusiasts, or media enthusiasts in general like myself, when the public, politicians, and other groups set unfair double standards for games versus other media, or otherwise target games for non-legitimate reasons. The attacks and restrictions not only impede the growth of the medium, but overstep the boundaries that protect civil liberties like freedom of expression. Additionally, it should go without saying that the medium does more good for people than stereotypes would have you believe. (Consider, for example, all the heart-warming stories that come out of a highly social game like WoW.)
That's why Kevin McCullough's article is infuriating to people. He slanders a perfectly legitimate and well-respected project, and then suggests the government step in and punish the artists. Why get angry if some idiot is flapping his mouth? Because a lot of people will listen to that idiot, not knowing any better themselves. McCullough's failure as a journalist was completed when he tried to defend his statements, summed up well in this interview-style post from popular game news blog Kotaku. The defense includes resorting to ad hominem attacks, (many times), dismissing the effectiveness of ESRB ratings, and other tomfoolery.
That's not to say all critics of games and gaming culture reason and argue like children. However, I think it's reasonable to ask that people refrain from dressing up speculation as discovery. Do your research, please.
Oh, by the way, want to see what all the fuss was about? A 57-second video clip of that attention-mongering sex scene is right on YouTube. Here it is. Warning: The following footage contains some heavy breathing and a bum. Feint of heart, weak of mind - avert your eyes!!
I find it very interesting that, aside from that sorry excuse for a journalist trying to subtly demonize something she knows nothing about, the editors actually chose to (exclusively) use footage from the Black Temple trailer, which depicts children in a hazardous situation. Can you say, oh I don't know, obvious desire to influence? Good lord. I mean, it's no secret that mainstream media outlets put big slants on things all the time, but when, like me, you understand just how misleading this is, it makes them look pretty darn unprofessional. Or, maybe professional is what they are, since that's what professional media does.
This is all in relation to the story about Baby Grace, if you didn't know. The details are in that link, but basically some really screwed up parents tortured and killed their young daughter. As it so happened, they met on WoW. Dun-dun-dun! The whole point I'm representing here is: look at the numbers, people. Blizzard's got close to 10 million subscribers right now. Is it so surprising that, in a social game, two people met up and hit it off because they're both extremely screwy individuals?
There are 6.2 million teachers across all levels in the United States, (source) which is a lot less than the amount of WoW subscribers world-wide. If two teachers got married and did something horrendous like this, would people start pointing fingers at US Teachers' Colleges for instilling baby-killing tendencies?
Sorry that it's been almost a month since I last posted anything. The blog's not dead, I'll be coming back to it. I've just been busy, and sidetracked. And slightly disenchanted with the media industry in general, but this was just too juicy to pass up.
I want to share this thought-provoking video posted recently by Paul Stamatiou. It's from Professor Michael Wesch from Kansas State University, and is called "A Vision of Students Today". I'd like to say that a lot of the points this video brings to the table are very true, while some are questionable. I'll post the video first, and then say what I think. If you're going to read the rest of the entry, please watch the short video first. Otherwise you'll just ruin it, and this is worth looking at.
First of all, the whole "boo hoo I only get 7 hours of sleep a night" is completely ludicrous. Seven hours of sleep for me and everyone I know is a very good night. In reality, most students hit the hay somewhere between 2 and 3am, and start the day somewhere between 7 and 8. Also, in the point about being $20 000 in debt post-graduation, it's very important to note the following point, which was, "I'm one of the lucky ones". That is to say, you'd be lucky to finish owing only that much. Most people will be stuck with quite a bit more.
Most importantly, the attention they bring to to abusing laptops in the classroom seems to point a blaming finger at the technology itself. There's no doubt that there are lots of people Facebooking in class or doing other unrelated things. (On some campuses I know it's common to see people playing WoW in class.) But there's an equal number of people, at least in my classes, who are earnestly taking notes, following along with PDFs, using Wikipedia to quickly look up an unfamiliar term, etc. I use my laptop for all of these things in class on a daily basis, in addition to keeping my schedule straight and up to date using applications like iCal. I wish more people at Guelph were savvy enough to use Google docs to create collaborative notes like we saw at the start of that movie. Maybe I should get on my high horse and encourage this.
The point is, you're the one to blame if you don't have the self-discipline to pay attention and take notes instead of throwing a sheep at somebody on Facebook. I've made a concerted effort this year in a bunch of my classes to sit closer to the front, where the hard workers are most prominent and distractions from chattering bozos are at a minimum. And yes, you might end up sitting next to that annoying guy who puts his hand up in lecture every week to share an anecdote about his cat which he thinks is somehow relevant, but hey, it's not like you're going to (most) lectures to make friends.
One more comment - on the multitasking point - how true it is. While perusing the WoW forums the other day, I read an amusing story about a Hunter, (big surprise there!) that made their group wipe during a menial dungeon encounter. (For the uninitiated, that means the group all "died" and lost real time and game money.) Their reason? "Sorry guys, I'm trying to do a little studying for my exam in the morning and I stopped paying attention for a moment." Classic.
Now I want to segue to something else. In that video, we saw a fair number of Macs, which, culturally speaking, is a noteworthy part of the "vision of students today". I think it's a fair assessment that probably about a third of the laptops I see around campus nowadays are MacBooks, (or MBPs). To tell the truth, I'm a little irked that they're gaining popularity so quickly. And I can't honestly say if that's more because of the materialistic desire to stand out, or the sense of deflowered elitism I get when I meet more and more new Mac converts who don't know who "the Woz" is, but are happy to be looking hip. Windows Vista is the new Paris Hilton - the thing everyone loves to hate. And, honestly, I don't think there's that much to hate about it. Yet even if there is, it bothers me when people are all over the Hate-Vista-Love-Mac bandwagon but can't tell you a thing about either one of them, aside from "Macs are just so cool."
Am I far too elitist for my own good? Probably.
The other, more legitimate reason to be concerned with Mac Mania is the realization that the popularization of Macs will compromise the sweet, easy, Norton-less world we've come to know and love. By the way, it's not just me giving my unprofessional opinion - I'm getting this straight from Tech otaku Leo Lapporte's mouth. It's not as if Apple products have strong-like-bull security features built in. (Just look at Apple TV and the iPhone.) The reason Macs don't have virus problems is because - who uses a Mac? Yeah, nobody. Oh wait, no. Scratch that. It's all changing now. If everyone and their mother starts running OS X, you can be sure people will start writing viruses and other malware for it, and the next thing I know I'll have some abomination of software called iNorton going, "IM IN UR MENU BAR, HOGGIN UR RESOURCES"
Oh, and congratulations to Kat on her new MacBook. I won't pretend I'm not jealous of its Core 2 Duo-ness and the fact that she's running Leopard, but goodness knows she's probably the most deserving new Mac convert I know. May the Force be with you, may the RAM behoove you. Namaste!
It occurred to me while writing the entry about Blizzard's announcement of the new expansion for WoW that I never gave proper coverage of the first one. Suddenly, I had this overwhelming need to give it justice. The result is this post.
The reason I didn't say much about The Burning Crusade (BC) expansion, which was an enormous deal in the gaming community at the time, is that I wanted to keep the knowledge that I was actually playing on the down-low. Certain people I know, (namely my parents) had issues with me playing a game - that, for some people, can be very addictive - while I was in school, and paying a hefty price to be there. All secrets have been divulged, so now, a whooping eight months after the fact, here's the previously untold tale of WoW's first expansion.
The night before the game was to launch, (which was at some point in January, a date that doesn't matter) stores like EB Games were open at midnight across North America. I didn't really expect there to be anything like this in Guelph. At the time my new town seemed like the last place you'd expect there to be a healthy WoW fanbase. So, when I found out about a midnight launch at the EB Games in Stone Road Mall, (not more than a 20 minute walk from the animal palace where I was living) Pete and I were all over it. We got there fairly early and snagged a good spot in line, with about 8 people in front of us. By midnight a line had formed behind us that stretched about halfway across the mall. This event was a big thing for us, not only due to the excitement of the game coming out, but the very line we stood in betrayed all kinds of negative stereotypes that people apply to gamers every day. In the video clip I posted earlier from the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert makes statements in his usual satirical style that reflect what are still the masses' opinions about games. (He himself, of course, is not so ignorant, thank goodness.) Such opinions are that most people who enjoy videogames are young, socially awkward teenagers, (and some comment about their complexion is always tossed in) or jobless, sexless adults who live in their mothers' basements or garage-apartments. Anyone who has done minimal research, as I have, knows better. For example, the average gamer-age is currently 33, and 67% of American heads-of-households play games. (Source.)
It's one thing to read such things on the ESA's website, or read tales on the WoW forums about whole families who play together and married couples who met ingame. It's another thing to see those people in real life, standing around with you in a mall in the middle of the night because they're just as excited as you. I had a conversation with a forty-something asian man who said he was taking the following day off sick so he and his son could start exploring the new content together. We wondered what the server stability would be like once everyone got home and logged on, all flocking to the same hot locations in the game world. (As it turned out, there were no significant server issues - my first night playing went off without a hitch.) Also in the crowd was a bearded late-twenty-something fellow who boasted loudly for the entire waiting period about his ingame exploits, such as how he kicked a 12 year old out of his guild for being 12. If I'd met him in game, I'd have probably thought he was the 12 year old. And as for the fairer sex? First in line were two girls about my age - I think I heard them say they arrived three hours early.
I was going to write a brief rundown of the game itself, but that seems completely irrelevant now as the newly-announced second expansion is what's got everyone ticking. On a personal note, I played BC a lot for just under two months. I leveled my main character, the druid, to 66, and in doing so experienced much of the exotic Outland. I also started a Blood Elf mage to play as a sidekick to Peter's new character, a Blood Elf paladin. They were fun days, but a combination of playing so much and suffering drastic game-balancing changes to my druid, (what MMO players call "nerfs") made the novelty wear off by the time my subscription ran out in March. I have not played WoW since.
For more statistics and other research-obtained data about MMORPGs, from demographics to potential psychological effects, everyone should check out Nick Yee's thesis work, called the Daedalus Project. It is by far the most comprehensive and unbiased database dedicated to MMOs on the web. Such is the quality of Yee's work that he was recently featured in an hour-long segment on CNN (click for 8-minute cut) about the future of virtual worlds.
Blizzard has announced World of Warcraft's next expansion title: Wrath of the Lich King.
I won't go into a lot of specifics. For those interested, all the information is can be found here. The biggest news bits are the fact that they're introducing the "Death Knight Hero Class" and adding the continent of Northrend. This is a very exciting development for veterans of the series, because it will be picking up the story of the main character from the last story-based game.
Because of that, I have a strong gut feeling that this expansion will spell the end for the Warcraft franchise. Blizzard can, (and may) release another expansion after this, but as far as the plot's concerned, the main struggle will be over. I can certainly think of ways to create more content inspired by existing plot material, but the material's flimsy. Maybe I'm wrong - the game does after all have over 9 million subscribers - it just seems to me that trying to take WoW another step further after this would be trying to milk it one too many times. If I'm right, than this announcement could be the beginning of the end of WoW.
Interesting Dave-related updates coming as soon as I get my media together - aka when Peter feels like uploading photos.
There's been a fair bit of hype about it, and it lived up to the hype when it was met with very favorable reviews. (Praise for the game emphasizes excellent story-telling, among other things.) Mass Effect's ESRB rating is M for Mature, meaning that retailers agree to refuse sale of the game to persons under seventeen. It's about the same as a movie being rated R, although this particular example has nowhere near the mature content of a contemporary R-rated film. Note that games that are exceptionally violent/course/explicit are shunned by mainstream platforms and consumers.
Video games, as a whole, are not for children. Pulled straight from the Entertainment Software Association's (ESA) website, the average gamer is 33 years old. Think of it this way: some movies are for children, but most of them aren't. Instead of assuming, "Oh, it's just a video game," when they buy video games for their kids despite being rated T or M, they need to realize that's no different from letting your kid watch Restricted movies - because things get rated a certain way for a reason.
