Here's a real gun. Go kill people for the 'good' of the country in the military. But FSM forbid they are given virtual guns. That could cause problems.

I simply have to say about how dumbstruck I continue to be after these reports.

I honestly am very surprised at how little faith these people have in peoples ability to distinguish reality from virtual.

Or on the flip side, what people will do to get ratings and or coverage?

No offense Jenny whats your face but your no expert on the topic

"if only I knew their content."

Yes, if only there were some way of working out what content there was in a video game ... if only!

*sigh*

@figsnake12

Why should those two games be banned?

"I have never got into computer games"

It says it all. I bet her last video game reference was Pac-Man or Super Mario.

Oh, and I suppose she's "never got into" slasher movies either, considering her remark on "Resident Evil 4".

"Yet the truth, surely, is that the majority of us would indeed recoil from the idea that our teenage son or daughter was upstairs playing Manhunt 2"


*SIGH*
let me say this clearly...


so... dont.. let.. underage... kids... play... it..
The.. rating.. is.. on... the... box....


lol you should send JT a link back to the sections of the Byron report, saying there is no conclusive evidence!
lol n why would he link that, is Anne Diamond the authority on all things?(she is a Z list daytime tv celeb here in the uk, who nobody cares about)

Old news.

Also, funniest photoshop ever.

She doesn't play games because her BODY CONSUMES THEM

One more thing :

Usually, when the media need to ask someone's "verdict", they go see an "expert", or at least someone who has enough moral authority and knowledge of what he's talking about to give an opinion that has some value. But in this case, they ask a person who has absolutely no knowledge of games (and probably thought games were for kids until now).

And you wonder why mainstream media lost almost all credibility over the years ?

I have to say that I am glad that somebody out there knows what is best for us! I mean England would be a cesspit full of chavs and drugs and depression if she hadn't stepped in...

Oh wait...

As a gamer I am regularly at the butt of many jokes and lots of abuse by other people who actually believe this bullcrap, it is people like her that are leading to me getting attacked in my youth, not the videogames which she so zealously attacks

Oh, and I almost forgot Daily Mail's caption, just after the picture :

"Harmful: A Government-commissioned report says that video games can desensitise children to violence"

Anyway, what can you expect from the gutter press except the gutter ?

These people are old... they will die before we do. Take small comfort in that.

Also - fuck off you silly cunts.

The Daily Mail and all the other British tabloids: Where every day is opposite day.

Ban the movies before the games you *censored* ugly *censored* *censored* *censored* stupid *censored* (continues on like this for another hour or so)

"Yet the truth, surely, is that the majority of us would indeed recoil from the idea that our teenage son or daughter was upstairs playing Manhunt 2…"

I see the real problem here. Parent's in the UK are incapable of using stairs. It's so obvious now - see, she's worried about what her kids are doing because she lacks the physical ability to use stairs and is therefore unable to supervise them herself due to crass biological limits. And here I was expecting her to walk up there and get involved in her kid's life - oh what a cruel taskmaster I've become to expect such feats from the handicapped. Carry on you brave soldier *tear* carry on...

"GP: News flash, Anne. Everybody who plays this game at one time or another gets stabbed to death with pitchforks amid fountains of their own blood. But it’s virtual blood. It’s a game. Are you suggesting that zombie movies be banned, as well?"

Whats the point in saying that? Its not like she will read it. Your trying to stir the hornets nest again aren't you. ;)

Wouldnt blame him. Anne's report is filled to the brim with ignorance.

Oh dear, post got eaten by the system. :)

All this twisting of a good balanced scientific review is disgusting. But what annoys me even more is the fact that these people aren't thinking.

The kids can't buy those games in the UK. Any game with a PEGI rating of 15+ or more is also rated by the BBFC, whose ratings are enforcable by law! So only the parents buy the games, which is my ms. Byron called for increasing parental awareness on Game ratings. (as if the large 18+ on the front isn't enough) How convenient that the newspapers forget mentioning this... Technophobes, the lot of them.

Actually, make the gaem cases outta aluminum, like the ones the anime season packs come in. (btw, appleseed ex-machina = EPIC!)

Don't try to leave an anti-story comment at the Mail's site, all comments are reviewed "and may not be published".

Way to go to get a balanced view.

GP, have you read Anne Diamond's ill informed rant about gaming?

We really need a preview button.

It is rather like getting some woman who hasn't got a TV or seen any movies (except "Jungle Book" in the cinema back in 1967, let's say) to watch some 15/18 rated DVDs ("Scarface", "Dead or Alive: the Movie", "Black Hawk Down", "Saw", "Hostel", and so on) and then asked what she thought of them and if she considered DVDs like this as suitable for children!

Call of Duty 4: Perhaps it might be OK for older teenage boys, but only in small doses.

Yes, we'll make sure to tell the militias they'll be fighting to only shoot at them "in small doses".

That image was such a lame Photoshop job :p.

You know what's truly immoral, Jenny? Owning Tenchu.

Once again, what is going on in the UK these days? I don't think the moral panic got nearly as intense anywhere else.

@ Zerodash - The truth is that what you've seen on GP.com recently are the sum total of a few isolated incidents of the mainstream print media bashing games. I'm sure that the printed press would LOVE to whip a true 'moral panic' (as that would shift more copies), but the fact of the matter is most people over the age of 40 in the UK think that videogames aren't worthy of thir attention in the same way they don't think comic books, cartoons or trading cards are worthy of their attention. This makes it very difficult for the papers to engineer any kind of moral outrage or public panic, much as they would like to, which I suppose is why they keep on trying.

The truth is, until television news (I'm thinking the BBC, ITV and Ch.4 rather than Sky) starts paying attention to videogames and broadcasts stereotyped views into people homes on a daily basis, or until The Sun/The Mirror start serious, prolonged negative coverage, this will remain and only amount to a few isolated incidents in the "Little England" right-wing media. However, so far all the FOX News-isms are confined to the papers, whose readership are all 40 + years old.

They should include a special RE4 scenario just for her. In the beginning of the game, you have the choice to leave. You do so, you get the game over, the credits roll, and you get small movie of you being stipped of your job and fired, then the ending picture of Chris wearing a paper hat and asing if you would like to super size that.

RE4 was the ONLY RE game I could play, and only because I don't like horror survival. It's surprising that the game that she hated so much that she feels it should be banned (aka: "shouldn’t be allowed to be sold, even to adults"). Well, it's a good thing that here in America we have the First Amendment, along with a lawyer that obviously doean't know what it means as he supports people who are against it.

You know, in one light, he is a First Amendment Lawyer... If you think about it, both the defense and the prosecuter in a murder case could be considered homicide lawyers, it's just a case of which side they are on. For our good friend JT, it's obvious which side of the First Amendment he is on.

Bullshit. That is all.

Must...resist...urge....to punch Anne Diamond.

Good grief, I live in this fucking country! I'm suddenly very glad of my decision to move to New Zealand. Are things as bad there? Or do people just not care? I've given up hope of a country where games are an accepted artform

We knew this was coming. The Bryon report has made video game critics feel vindicated. While Bryon did say that there is no conclusive evidence that real life violence was connected to video games, she did say that video games raise aggression levels in the short term. And she did recommend stricter measures against games being sold to minors.

To video game haters, this is all the ammo they need to organize a new surge against gaming. Editorials and bloggers will be coming out of the woodwork to shout, "See?!? See? Video games are the devil!"

On Diamond's "reviews," I find it interesting that while she objected to graphic violence against AI opponents, she had no objections to the tamer violence of Halo3. Yet, Halo comes with multiplayer, which means that you get to shoot up player-controlled avatars. Wouldn't the more viceral action of multiplayer be more allarming than zombies with pitchforks?

(Note: I have nothing against multiplayer. I'm just boggled by the "logic" some game critics employ.)

Is this an April Fool's day joke? It's so hard to tell these days, politics being what they are.

Also, is it just me, or does it look like Anne is trying to throw up some bling in this picture? And why are the games being consumed by her body?

She's right, Resident Evil 4 should be banned. That game made me shout so many obscenities because of the number of times I died. I think I held the record among my friends with about 63 deaths in all.

It seems that rather than play the game, she got someone to give her a brief description of them and made up other bits.

I read the full article and she had at least one inaccuracy in every game she 'reviewed'.

@ Monkeythumbs

So, the UK videogame panic is more isolated to print? That's a bit of a relief.

They do bring up good points. To talk about morality in videogames is a good step forward, although they kind of brushed it away in this paper. Regardless, I think if we know more about what morality stands for in a videogames, to take it from perspective, then we will be better off in understanding the content and meaning of videogames itself. Much like how cinema was initally imagined and slowly re-interperted into what it is today, morality came into question then.
We are gamers and we know the content matter so well, we represent ourself independent of the rest of society. But, because we are already biased due to our favoring of games, that our interpertation of what is morally accepted in a videogame is very different. Perhaps we need to find the middle ground, and then controversy will stop.
I am not saying in any way, however that we are to be regulated by some outside interest group.
Sorry if this was a little bit of a ramble, but the article was interesting and commentary worthy.

It's the 'Mary Whitehouse' mathematical theory in action

'Offence taken is inversely proportional to the ability to understand the medium'

Publish Jack's threats! I'm going to a board meeting today and I need a laugh to calm the nerves!

Nice picture. Dead Rising, Clive Barker's Jericho, Resi 4, Call of Duty.

One army game. One zombie game based on a classic film. One game filled with sadomasochism and deformed humanoid creatures... from a guy who has written books and movies on the same subject. One game about parasitic infection which earlier in the series was a classic film-style zombie game.

In *every single one of those games* you would hope to act in the same way as the character(s) you play or else you would die. In three quarters of those games you will never find yourself in that situation in the first place, and in the remaining quarter you would only get there voluntarily and after a sheadload of training.

By the way, whoever did the airbrush of her holding the games did a horrible job.

Was she even holding the games she whines about?

I caught the Diamond article over at Joystiq and couldn't help but note her woeful gaming skills. Somebody should've gotten her online -- being called a "rocket whore" probably would've made her faint.

I agree with McCartney on one point, though: I would recoil at the idea of my kid playing Manhunt upstairs, because I'd rather they were in a family-oriented area so that we could talk about the game together and determine its values as compared to real-life situations. Morality starts at home, right?

Anne Diamond, or anyone else for that matter, is in NO position to tell adults what is good or bad for them as far as any entertainment is concerned.

Can we moralize agiasnt Useless governments and not entertainment? Ooh even better Corrupt Politicians.

"Her comments include:

Call of Duty 4: Perhaps it might be OK for older teenage boys, but only in small doses.

Resident Evil 4: This game shouldn’t be allowed to be sold, even to adults… when I played I was stabbed to death with pitchforks amid fountains of my own blood. This kind of violence can only be bad for you."

You're not a scientist, Ma'am. You're a columnist. You don't know what's good for every kid, let alone every person on the whole freaking planet.

Oh, and what the hell is going on with her shoulder and that game box?

Ummm Resident Evil 4 isnt a bad game. Ya there is blood but it is not explicit.

"Resident Evil 4: This game shouldn’t be allowed to be sold, even to adults… when I played I was stabbed to death with pitchforks amid fountains of my own blood. This kind of violence can only be bad for you."



Bite me all right you have no damn right at all to tell me a 27 year old adult what games i have the "right" to buy....F*** this anti game crap i'm sick and tired of it and i'm beyond the point now where i think we need to "protect the children" nothing says this better then a george carlin quote "F*** The children"



Damn moron go do something useful

Yeah, I got pissed when I got stabbed to death by all the guys in the first big area of Resident Evil 4, too. But I didn't go bitching about how nobody should ever play the game.... I just kept working at it til I started getting the feel for how the Wii remote worked in the game :P

I wonder how this woman feels about religious texts such as the Bible. That has some way worse stuff than a bunch of villagers stabbing you to death with pitchforks. It'd be hypocritical if she didn't think that should be banned as well.

Is it just me, or have the games in her left hand have a huge chunk missing at the top of'em?

Wonderful the idiots without any real knowledge of games continue to spout off. Thank god she didn't get to the chainsaw enemies in RE4.

Actually, as much as i think she's wrong in several important ways, i do give her credit for this: she didn't just complain about "the filth our kids play", she actually tried playing several of the games herself. Again, I disagree with her conclusions pretty much completely...but at least she's not reprehensible like the many who claim "it corrupts our youth" without even bothering to find out what the hell they're criticizing. So +2 for that, before I deduct 10,000 for everything else.

You lost, but gave it a fairer shake than most, so a grudging, minimal respect is warranted.

" Perhaps if more people, including teenagers, were prepared to voice moral objections to this toxic stuff, it would no longer be possible to lampoon them for caring."

Moral objections? Moral objections from teenagers? Over video games?

Yeah suuuuure and maybe if the Pope got a subscription to playboy we wouldn't have to deal with that issue.

What moral objections would teen have over games? Everything you do in the game doesn't happen in real life, and the only person who could possibly be affected by violent video games is the player.

I'm 15 and I play Resident Evil 4 for the wii. It's great fun and although it's violent, I don't think it's had any effect on me besides deepening my deep internal fear of zombies

Did Jonh Lennon said something about, like: "you are too young for sex, but older enough to go to war"...?

[GP: The link on the Jenny McCartney column was sent in by our old pal Jack Thompson, in between threats to sue us.]

I got a good chuckle out of that.

@ KillianD

God no, her head would probably explode :). In all seriousness though don't people realize just how absurd the violence in most titles is? I mean blood just doesn't do the thing it does in games. I mean how can it be so hard to see just how stylized and divorced from reality the violence that is so often raged against is. Maybe it will desensitize you to really cartoonish violence in which humans are basically big fountains of highly pressurized blood, but that isn't going to help you in situations were violence is realistic.

A little allegorical story for everybody, recently frontline did a nice little thing called "Bush's War" now I'm not here to pass judgment on the war and I'd rather this thread not devolve because that's not the point of this story. Basically at on point footage is shown of a man getting shot during a gun battle, you see the shots strike you here the thunk and he falls. Nothing, in the total sum of my life has ever left me as utterly numb as that. I missed the next five minutes because I was just dumbstruck. Now it has to be understood, it was just a guy on a screen, I don't think they I could even see his face, nonetheless I was more than a little effected.

Now I think we can understand the reasons for this. Even if he was only an image, I knew he was real I knew he had a mother and a father maybe even a wife and children and I knew I had just seen another human die. Now I of all people should be pretty bloody desensitized to things like this according to Mcartney and Diamond, but I'm not obviously or I wouldn't be writing this.

Now I know neither explicitly trotted out the "desensitized" argument but that's what all this talk of violence always boils down to and frankly I've moved from being annoyed by this to offended. If normal people are really as easily influenced as Diamond and Mcartney seem to think we have much bigger problems than whether or not video games will make us violent.

And this is what happens when your desperately avoiding writing the paper you have due at 10 a.m.

IMO, games SHOULD be morally ambiguous: less shoehorned morals, more room for plot analysis! :D

i cant forgive that bitch mocking Dead or Alive!

She has a right to criticise Dead or Alive.

It's a mockery to fighting games compared to the likes of Virtua Fighter and Street Fighter. :P

THESE ARE THE ONLY 6TH ERA GAMES THAT SHOULD BE BANNED:
.MANHUNT
.MANHUNT 2
ALL OTHERS ARE SUITABLE WITHIN A CERTAIN AGE GROUP
I am sick of seeing wound up BLOODY MOTHERS who think they know better than we do about video games AFTER NINE YEARS OF GAMING ON OUR PART.