October 2, 2007
When TV cop shows air a video game theme, it's almost never good news for the reputation of the gaming community.Rather like a Jack Thompson press release, TV drama plots generally portray gamers as either completely geeked out, obsessive or stone-cold teen killers.
So we'll keep our fingers crossed as we await tonight's episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Here's the capsule version of the story line:
A woman involved in virtual reality video games goes missing, and her "avatar" is at the root of the investigation.
You can tell this is mainstream stuff, because, where you and I would just say avatar, they say "avatar" ...
GP: Thanks to GamePolitics reader marc for the tip!
Comments
I can't speak much to the plot, except that the acting sucked and everything seemed incredibly contrived, if creepy. But it's a show that deals exclusively with sex crimes...is anyone really surprised at the subject matter?
i still remember the cringeworthy X-files episode entitled FPS.
That one was extramely really stupid...
From the previews, it looks based on Second Life.
Confidentiality and the dangers of the internet would be a good modern storyline for a cop drama. I can only hope that they portray it realistically, ie. a murderer who uses this online social network to find victims, and not some silly tale about a normal person who becomes a murderer by playing the game ("Your honour, the harvard brain scans show it!").
Worst case scenario? The killer turns out to be someone who missed a roll for some zomg epix and tracked down the winner. "We present exhibit A your honour, the Sword of a Thousand Truths"!
One female CIS character asked if the suspected killer had played the GTA games.
The guy replies something along the line that the suspected girl is a child prodigy.
Same female character then says something like "Well, I play them and think they are fun."
... So who knows where this one will go.
I don't know much more than that.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
Random Tower: Game News and Commentary
How PETA missed this I don't know.
I hope.
Yeah, that was the first thing I thought of when I read the headline.
@ Gameboy
Hehe...that sounds about right, actually =)
I've seen prime time dramas do video game episodes that weren't bad. JAG comes to mind (the ep was about a programmer for the U.S. military who basically stole software when he left the service and then got hired by a developer, where he used it to make an FPS...really didn't cast games in a bad light, just that one guy). But that GTA ep of SVU made my blood boil.
And as jonc put it, the last 10 minutes had the 'games made me do it' defense screwed.
And they portrayed it in a positive light. The Asian therapist for the police department had made comments that it takes more then a video game to make someone kill. And that video games are not to blame.
I only caught the end of the episode...but video games were portrayed in a positive light.
A robbery
An explosion
A murder
A kidnapping
and then some.
But I am interested to know how they portray games as a whole, Second Life, and so on.
Keep us posted, please! :)
~Otaku-Man
Wasn’t this also the plot of a Criminal Intent episode?
Yea, it was the WoW-esque game in which one of the developers was the murderer, if I remember correctly. Still, all the L&O's have had video game themed episodes over the years. Most "___made me do it" plots show that claim as a last ditch effort by an obviously guilty person.
Beating CSI:NY to the virtual punch, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit tonight features a sex crime linked to a remarkably Second Life-looking virtual world called AOI. As described by a character in the preview: People do everything in AOI:...
Criminal minds, one of the main characters was a gamer.. though she was a bit geeky. (30-40 year old woman though)
* If your a doctor and it's a medical episode, you can pick holes in it
* If your an IT specialist and it's about computers, you can pick holes in it.
* If your a teacher and it's about the classroom you can pick holes in it.
* If your a gamer ..... get the picture?
Quote from commercial:
"You had her in the virtual world, so you wanted her in the real world too! Didn't you?!"
Yeah, I saw it. IIRC the girl masterminded the whole thing to pay back a few students that were responsible for her rape at the hands of a jock, because the mathematician found that one of the shooters were targeting certain people as opposed to randomly shooting people.
It wasn't that bad, The graphics were years out of date, and the MMO both had too much information on it's people (Meetings with Avatars) and way too little (A Cabin you can't see from above? CHANGE THE COLOR OF THE GROUND. Or something, geez.)
My favorite part is how the killer coordinated where he kept the girl on the game with where he kept the girl in real life. That sounds EXACTLY like what a killer would.
Also:
"But I can't turn the sun on in the game to help catch a killer! It might scare people on the game!"
And I do want to say two things:
1) Positive point: They showed, on a few levels, that games can be used constructively.
2) Negative point: The image of games as a cesspool of debauchery and perversion wasn't helpful.
Overall, I think a fairly neutral episode.
-Mike Schwinger
I should probably give my opinion in my blog and not rant it here.
And it wasn't the game that he was addicted to. It was "youth". Not "young" people, but "young LOOKING" women. Or, rather, young looking women who looked like young Lauren.
But cripes! He's got that look down, doesn't he? The revulsion. The insanity. Oh yeah, he's got those solid.
I see insanity plea in the future for that character.
Nightwng2000
NW2K software