The debate over media violence is one that is relevant to many gamers, as well as parents of gamers. As I was getting caught up on my RSS feeds I came across some videos on the topic, one of which is funny (though rather gory), the other is tragic (but kinda funny).

First, the tragic, a story by Charlie Brooker for the BBC about the coverage of the recent shooting in Germany. In the second half it juxtaposes the advice of a forensic psychologist about how best to cover these stories with clips of the media epically failing to follow said advice, suggesting that the news media is just as complicit in spreading violence as any other media.

On a lighter note, The Onion asks the question “Should We Be Doing More To Reduce The Graphic Violence In Our Dreams?” in a hilariously spot-on round table debate. As I said though, it does get rather gory and disturbing (at the 1:59 mark).

Should We Be Doing More To Reduce The Graphic Violence In Our Dreams?

“But I don’t want a dead baby.”

“Well then why did you come to Best Buy?”

Brilliant.

UPDATE: If you prefer sex to violence, you might want to check out this other, NSFW, clip from the Onion about how porn is inflating our children’s expectations about sex, which talks about games like Grand Theft Auto near the end:

Study: Children Exposed To Pornography May Expect Sex To Be Enjoyable

This was posted on gampolitics.com a while ago, but I just had to compare it my mockup of what The Fifth Estate thinks game boxes should look like.  Although mine was meant to seem absurd, it really doesn’t hold a candle to this real-life example, which almost makes the title unreadable.  Apparently, knowing what you are buying isn’t really important when the government doesn’t think you should be buying it.

The controversies over videogame violence and addiction are, of course, just the latest in a long history of moral panics over things like Dungeons & Dragons, heavy metal music, comic books and even the waltz.  Knowing this, I always wondered if there were similar concerns triggered by the advent of cheaply available books after Gutenberg’s invention of movable type.  It wasn’t hard to imagine, but I never had a concrete example until I came across this article on gaurdian.co.uk.  about Samuel Auguste André David Tissot’s book, Diseases Incidental to Literary and Sedentary Persons, with Proper Rules for Preventing Their Fatal Consequences, and Instructions for Their Cure.  The article features some choice quotes in which the good doctor relates cases of patients suffering from fainting, palpitations, complete and total hair loss, madness, and ironically, idiocy as a result of too much studying.

Although I naturally felt vindicated by reading the article, I was surprised by the source.  I always imagined these concerns coming from illiterate, uneducated parents who were somehow able to scrape enough money together to send their children to school and then didn’t know what to make of their newfound tendency to sit and stare like zombies for hours on end at the incomprehensible squiggles on the page.  To hear this sort of thing from a highly educated, obviously literate person came as a surprise.

Then again, given what some of our so-called experts say about videogames, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised.

(via Mind Hacks)

For those who don’t recognise it, the graphics in the banner are from my favorite arcade game of all time, Wonderboy In Monsterland, captured from an actual game that I played in which I was able to buy all the “legendary” gear.  Today, another milestone: beat the game on one credit and broke 1,000,000,000pts!  Yay me.  Apparently its possible to get a lot more by “leeching”, but I don’t like to waste time.

I was also suprised to find that somone posted a walkthrough series for this game on Youtube:

Not the best game ever made, but I always had a soft spot for arcade games that tried to be RPG’s and bad “engrish” translations.  This one and Cadash ate a lot of my quarters back in the day.