The controversy over RapeLay, an obscure but disgusting forced sex simulation, appears to be rekindling. GamePolitics readers will recall that the game sparked a furor earlier this year after it was found to be for sale by a third-party reseller on Amazon.com. In response to complaints the online retailer quickly removed the listing.

This month, New York-based women's group Equality Now has targeted RapeLay and similar games for a letter-writing campaign:

Please write to [developer] Illusion Software asking it to withdraw immediately from sale of all games, including RapeLay, which involve rape, stalking or other forms of sexual violence or which otherwise denigrate women... Please write a similar letter to Amazon Japan.

 

Write also to... Japanese government officials... calling on them to comply with Japan’s obligations under [the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women] and the Japanese Constitution to... ban the sale of computer games such as RapeLay, which normalize and promote sexual violence against women and girls.

Australian news site ABC.net reports that the Japanese developer of RapeLay, Illusion, claims to be "bewildered" by the uproar. Spokesman Makoto Nakaoka told ABC.net:

We are simply bewildered by the [Equality Now protest]. We make the games for the domestic market and abide by laws here. We cannot possibly comment on [the campaign] because we don't sell them overseas.

A Japanese Government spokeswoman to ABC.net:

[The government] realises the problem is there. While we recognise that some sort of measures need to be taken, the office is currently studying what can be done.

Xbox Live has had a rocky relationship with its gay and lesbian users in recent times, but there are signs that things may be improving.

Gay Gamer reports that Stephen Toulouse, who polices the XBL community, recently met with members of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation:

I can't talk about what we discussed specifically except to say that we provided them with a lot of information about what we do today, why we do what we do and how we do it. And then we asked them the question, 'How can we do this better?' And we have some ideas. Here are some ideas. That dialog was super, super helpful. I think it was a great engagement. Justin and Jeffrey who came out from GLAAD really appreciated the effort that we're putting into it - and had great ideas, like they brought up some stuff we hadn't thought of.

We'll plan to say something about [GLAAD and Xbox LIVE policy] in the future.

Via: Kotaku

Sacrebleu!

A new law in Quebec has video game retailers concerned, reports the Toronto Star.

As of April 1st, it became illegal to sell an English language-only version of a video game if a French version is available.

Game Buzz co-owner Ronnie Rondeau is among those who are upset:

I'm afraid it's going to cost me my business. If it really was going to make a difference, I'd be for it, but only a small number of people want to play in French. The rest don't care. And money-wise, it's going to hurt.

Hardcore gamers, of course, are an impatient lot who often want their favorite titles on the date of release. But Haig James Toutikian, a Montreal game designer, said that technical difficulties in creating French versions could lead to delays:

I know how much of a pain they can be. They take up a lot of bug-tracking time... I don't think [the new law] will encourage people to buy the French version.

A new alternate reality game examines the future of caring in America.

Ruby's Bequest challenges players to make the fictional town of Deepwell a more caring place in order to earn a sizeable sum left by the mysterious Ruby Wood. The game will continue through April 10th.

From the ARG site's description:

Like Grover's Corners or Lake Wobegon, Deepwell is a fictional place. Deepwell's people, however, are alive (played by actors) and Deepwell's story is not preordained – it's up to our participants to shape its outcomes. In the next 60 days, as Deepwell moves forward into the next decade, its viewers will be traveling along. As they experience the future's challenges to the way we care for one another, they can respond with perspectives, ideas and solutions. Ruby's Bequest is a place where people with any level of experience with caring can meet and collaborate on visions of a more caring future...

 

Like Deepwell, America faces a future in which the ecosystems of caring grow more stressed. When you contribute your perspectives, stories and common sense to help Deepwell solve its problems, you are actually helping our nation anticipate its future challenges and craft its wisest responses. Each contribution helps us collectively to arrive at larger truths.

Via: BoingBoing

An experienced First Amendment lawyer warned that political correctness is a looming threat to the video game industry.

Lawrence Walters made his remarks at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco yesterday. GameSpot offers a report:

Just when the decency police and moral values groups have been all but defeated in the courts--both of law and public opinion--a new threat has emerged from our left flank: political correctness. The leftist thought police are now wanting to impose their view of propriety on modern cultural discourse...

 

Think about [a New York bill that would prevent minors from purchasing games containing racial stereotypes]... Would we ever in a million years tolerate the government passing a law that movies cannot have profanity, racial jokes, or derogatory language? That would eliminate practically every movie made.

Now we can debate all day long whether racist stereotypes or derogatory language is even appropriate in video games, but that's for us to debate, and not for the government to decide... [The video game industry] needs to reveal its enemies for who they are--radicals on the left and on the right--and marginalize them...
 

The Rev. Jesse Jackson downplayed the influence of violent media yesterday in testimony before the British Parliament's Home Affairs Committee. The committee, which has been investigating knife crime, is chaired by longtime video game critic Keith Vaz.

While Jackson said that violent video games, music and movies could have some influence on behavior, he placed far greater emphasis on poverty, drugs, domestic violence and inequality as factors which lead to increased violence.

For the benefit of our readers, GamePolitics has transcribed the portions of Jackson's testimony which relate to media violence issues:

Labour MP Martin Salter: Rev. Jackson, we've been taking evidence on the effects or the increasing effect of violent media images on young people, whether it's in video games, whether it's on TV, whether it’s the cinema. It seems the evidence were hearing, that there's a general danger that young people can be desensitized to the concept of violence by the images that they see, but there's a greater predisposition to violence if those young people are brought up in families and households and communities where actual violence is the norm. Do you have any lessons from America for us on this issue?

Rev. Jesse Jackson: For a long time we challenged music artists and movie makers to be sensitive to the impact that their music and their movies have on children and they have some force... But those who grow drugs in Afghanistan and poppy seeds – they don't listen to music. This thing is not about music and movies. It’s about a form of economy... we’ve lost more lives from [the drug] war than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we seem to see it as something marginal but it is in the center of our security and it’s getting worse in my judgment... the structural crisis of poverty and drugs and guns is more real than just movies and music.

Labour MP Keith Vaz: Do you accept that there is a link between violent video games and violence that is perpetrated by individuals? Do you think that those images do have an effect on young people?

Rev. Jesse Jackson: There may be some link of imitation. The question, Mr. Chairman, is art imitating life? Is life reflecting art?  There’s always a big debate there. What we do know in these troubled times… there’s increased domestic violence in the home. [Children are] more likely to imitate parents fighting physically. Domestic violence is maybe even a bigger factor on violent behavior than the movies and the worst games that are played. So, yes, we urge artists to not use their considerable skills to desensitize people to violence. Sure, these games that think that killing is a game must be challenged. But the economic impact of life options determines whether one is headed up towards university or down toward prison.

VIDEO LINK: Rev. Jesse Jackson Testifies

U.K. newspaper Telegraph reports that a veteran graphics designer employed by the Xbox side of Microsoft's house has sued the company for £45,000.

Jamie Durrant, 38, claims in the suit that he was harassed for an extended period by coworkers who indulged in name calling and nasty notes. Durrant worked with Lionhead for more than a decade until MS acquired the Peter Molyneux studio in 2006. His design credits include AAA titles Fable, Black & White and The Movies.

The Telegraph also notes that Xbox has seemingly had difficulty coming to grips with Xbox Live users who self-identify as gay.

Of his situation, Durrant told the newspaper:

I have never hidden my sexuality from the office and I felt this could be targeted at myself. This was not the first time there was homophobic content in the office. Previously, I had tried to deal with it myself. This time, I did not feel that I could.

I was very surprised that Microsoft did not have any policies relating to this sexual orientation harassment... I feel like they're making out that I'm the one with the problem and not the homophobic aspects of the company.

Durrant's situation notwithstanding, Microsoft earned a perfect score from U.S.-based gays rights group the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in 2008.

By way of What They Play comes this bit of gaming/TV/war on drugs nostalgia:

Depending on how old you are, you might recall the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. It was a television show that aired on the cusp of the '90s, featuring wrestler Captain Lou Albano as Mario...

America's airwaves in the '80s and '90s were also thick with anti-drug Public Service Announcements. These were usually doled out by celebrities or cartoon characters. It so happens "Mario" warned kids away from drugs, too--in a manner that was a little harsher than the norm...

If you've played Call of Duty: World at War, you know how nasty those enemy attack dogs can be: They're fast, vicious and frightening (see video at left).

But a group of students at a Massachusetts high school are upset about the need to shoot dogs in CoD:WaW. They're taking their protest to Activision Blizzard, which publishes the best-selling game.

Breanna Lucci, who serves as president of the Animal Rights Club at the Academy of Notre Dame in Tyngsboro, said:

Killing dogs as a form of entertainment ... over and over again. That's one of the objects of the game. Parents need to know what they are buying their kids. Killing animals should not be a form of entertainment...

 

My little 12-pound Pomeranian, Winnie the Pooh, is sitting next to [my brother, who is playing CoD:WaW], and I'm thinking, 'This looks horrible!' My brother is a sweetheart. He won't be killing dogs after playing. But some people might.

Jen Dupras of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals supports the students' efforts:

I feel like these video games are dangerous for a lot of reasons. We can all rationalize and say it's just pretend. Even so, why pretend shooting people and dogs? They really desensitize kids and adults to what that violence signifies.

Via: Lowell Sun

Aeria Entertainment has announced that it will allow same-sex avatars to wed in its Dream of Mirror Online game.

The MMORPG is free to play. Aeria's revenues are based on micro-transactions for in-game items, including virtual wedding rings.

According to Massively, which tracks all things MMO-ish:

The same-sex aspect of this marriage system is simply one of the many [new] features, but it hasn't been added as just an afterthought. It's been a popular topic of discussion among DOMO players since the game's launch in Fall of 2007.

This marriage system allows couples to embark on a series of challenging quests where they can plan their in-game wedding, complete with dream locale, wedding outfit and even a perfect set of rings. Once married, the couple will be granted unique features which include the ability to summon their significant other to their location, as well as special healing abilities during battle.

Kennesaw, Georgia is in the midst of an ugly scandal. And a racist online game is playing a prominent role.

Last week, a group of minority employees in the Atlanta suburb filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging mistreatment by white co-workers, supervisors and elected officials.

City Councilman John Dowdy (left), a defendant in the suit, has resigned his post, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Among numerous allegations, the lawsuit charges that Dowdy, a 10-year veteran of City Council, circulated e-mail links to the anti-immigration themed Flash game Border Patrol. Released anonymously in 2006, Border Patrol disparages Hispanics with epithets such as "drug dealer" and "breeder."

From the lawsuit:

Dowdy sent an email to Human Resources Director... linking the recipient to a racially violent video game called "Border Patrol" in which the game player would "shoot" different cartoon characters that were stereotypes of Mexicans, including "Mexican National," "Drug Smuggler," and "Breeder," a cartoon of a pregnant Mexican woman holding hands with children . Points were assigned for shooting and killing each of these characters .

 

Dowdy forwarded this game to [three Kennesaw employees] among other people, along with a message which read, "THIS IS WAY TOO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!!!!!! Makes you feel better anyway, I did my part today, I kept a few from coming over!!! GET READY --- THEY ARE
FAAAST! ! !"

UPDATE: We inquired with Kennesaw officials as to whether Dowdy is a Democrat or Republican. However, we were told that council elections there are non-partisan, so no party affiliation is recorded by the city.

Over at Dissident Voice, blogger Martha Rosenberg writes that the recent spate of mass shootings has hurt the pro-gun political agenda.

More on point for the GamePolitics audience, however is the cartoon at left, which Martha drew to accompany her post.

Posted by GP on Twitter this morning: Game press commentary on RE5 issue perplexes me. Can a white guy even have an opinion on whether something is offensive to black people?

---------------

The controversy over whether there is racism in Resident Evil 5 continues to bounce around the media.

Variety's Ben Fritz pens a review of the game (he didn't like it so well) and, near the end, touches on the race issue:

The racial imagery is disturbing at times. No, that doesn't mean the game is "racist." Racism is the belief that race is a determining factor in human capacity and that some are superior to others. That's a tall order for a game and certainly not one "RE 5" fulfills.

But the game does contain some disturbing imagery reminiscent of the violent colonial past... you're the white solder, walking through their villages, murdering every single one of them...

Does that mean you can't make an action game set in Africa, even with a White protagonist and Black enemies? Of course not. It just means you have to address the issue in some way because it's real and unavoidable...

Is it unfair that you have to address the race issue differently for a game set in Africa than for what was essentially the same game set in Spain? Sure. But, you know, colonialism was unfair too. Such is the reality of the world in which we live.

Meanwhile, in a lengthy post, Stephen Totilo of MTV Multiplayer writes that his concerns about the RE5 race issue have faded:

Watching the [E3 2007] trailer again, it still made me feel uneasy. I still didn’t like the fantasy it portrayed...

In the game, however, I saw something different. The white vs. black racial dichotomy was gone. The infected people looked infected. The characters who once looked like poor Africans whom I didn’t want to shoot now looked like undead menaces I needed to stop to stay alive.

I don’t know if I have changed. I don’t think I have. But what I’ve seen of the game has changed. The game gives a different feeling than the trailer. It uses race and color differently. That’s worth more discussion, and I hope people will engage with it.

Yesterday, GamePolitics reported that the mainstream (i.e., non-gaming) press was beginning to weigh in on the race issue in regard to Capcom's just-released Resident Evil 5.

As we noted, the AP's Lou Kesten was concerned. The Huffington Post's Earl Ofari Hutchinson was angry.

Seth Schiesel is the video game reporter for the New York Times. Like Kesten, he has a foot in both worlds. You can't any get more maintream than the Times, yet gaming is his daily beat. Schiesel, who reviews RE5 this morning. believes that the race issue is overblown:

Let’s get this out of the way: Resident Evil 5 is not a racist game.

For at least a year some black journalists have been wringing their hands about whether the game... inflames racist stereotypes because it is set in Africa. The answer is no... Resident Evil 5 exposes the perhaps uncomfortable truth that blacks and Arabs can become zombies too, just like anyone else... The point of the story is that the indigenous people have become the innocent victims of evil white people.

All that said, Resident Evil 5 could not possibly have been made in the United States. Racial sensitivities and prevailing political correctness would have had American game executives squirming in their Aeron chairs the minute they read a budget proposal for a game featuring African zombies.

Not so in Japan, apparently...

While the video game press appears to have reached a consensus that Resident Evil 5 is not racist in its portrayal of blacks, non-gaming media outlets do not seem quite so sure.

Lou Kesten, for example, who covers games for the Associated Press, straddles the line between games and the mainstream. In a syndicated column which will be reprinted across North America, Kesten clearly is uncomfortable with RE5's racial vibe:

Even longtime fans of the horror franchise may find themselves wondering: Is this game racist?...

 

Yes, the vast majority of monsters in "RE5" are infected black men. Does that make it racist? I believe producer Jun Takeuchi's claim that the story led naturally to Africa, and it's obvious that a zombie-creating virus unleashed there would lead to hordes of African zombies.

Still, there were plenty of moments where I felt uneasy after shotgunning a path through a crowd of feral Africans. Even though "RE5" makes some points about colonialism and capitalism... the racial imagery is more loaded than its creators probably realized.

Judged purely as a game, "RE5" is undeniably entertaining. But many players are going to find it disturbing for the wrong reasons.

At left-leaning political blog Huffington Post, commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson pulls no punches. For Hutchinson, RE5 is clearly an exercise in racism:

The well-worn script reads like this. A protest group blasts a video game manufacturer... for dumping a game on the market loaded with racially insulting and demeaning stereotypes. The video game team yelps that the game is pure entertainment, has some blacks or Latinos in on the design and production, and gets high marks from the industry...

So it was no surprise that Jun Takeuchi yanked out that script to defend his video game brainchild Resident Evil 5 from the charge that it's racist. But what else could one call it? It features a white male (modern day Bawana) mowing down a pack of poor, primitive disease challenged Africans... . The racist game reinforces the worst of the worst ancient stereotypes against and about Africans...

GP: When video game controversies flare, there is typically lag time between the gaming press's more immediate coverage and the issue's crossover to the mainstream media. Now that RE5 has been released, it's likely that the racism issue will be receiving a new round of attention from mainstream outlets in coming weeks.

The Christian conservative website WorldNetDaily has got its undies in a twist over an option that permits same-sex couples in Hasbro's The Game of Life.

The downloadable PC title is an update of the classic board game of the same name. WND writes:

The online version of a popular board game from many Americans' childhood includes an option for players to choose homosexual marriage and child-rearing as a way of life... even children can download and play a free trial version of The Game of Life, the first game ever created by Mr. Milton Bradley in 1860.

The player's first option in the online version is to choose a persona based on pictures that clearly depict men and women. Shortly thereafter, the game invites players to choose a spouse, regardless of the potential spouse's sex...

But, as WND notes, the modern version of the board game, created in 1960, allowed for gay unions as well:

The board game did not prevent players in any way from placing two pink or two blue pegs in the front seat [of the playing piece representing the family car], thus depicting a homosexual couple.

GP: Got this tip from none other than Jack Thompson during the course of seeking comment on last night's passage of the Utah video game bill.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's advisor on knife crimes has called for a tax on violent video games, reports the Telegraph.

Richard Taylor (left), whose 10-year-old son Damilola was stabbed to death in 2000 made his comments to to the Brown Government's Home Affairs Committee.

Also coming in for Taylor's criticism were rap music and American cultural influences:

Violent games are “too cheap” and taxes on them should be “very high”, Mr Taylor told MPs.

He told the Home Affairs Committee: “I have young people who I mentor and I see them go up and buy the games and it saddens me that they are being able to have such a negative impact...”

Mr Taylor also told MPs that he was concerned about the content of much rap music.

“It is creating more of a problem because of the language that is used. It is language that, as a father, I would not allow my children to hear. To me, there is a lot of negativity that comes out of this music, especially that which is coming from America.”

In an opinion piece for Slate, game journo Leigh Alexander ties up the loose ends on the recent controversy surrounding RapeLay, a particularly despicable PC game which migrated from Japan to the retail pages of Amazon.com via a third-party merchant.

After the news broke. Amazon, which almost certainly was unaware of the game in the first place, quickly banished it.

Alexander views RapeLay and its ilk as a largely Japanese problem:

It's an old cliché that the more repressed a society, the more extreme its pornography—but more upsetting than RapeLay is the social environment that birthed it. The premise here is that a wealthy man is out for revenge against the schoolgirl who had him jailed as a chikan, or subway pervert. The epidemic of chikan is an enormous problem in Japan, particularly in major cities...

While the moral outrage from the New York City Council and Web sites... is obviously well-placed, there's little hope that legislation or activism can stem the perversion. Not only is RapeLay rooted in a social illness that's embedded in Japanese society, it's just one game in a niche industry that's more closely related to the porn business than to the video game world.

Above The Influence, the youth-oriented, anti-drug media campaign run by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, has a new, avatar-based ad campaign which warns gamers that their skills will be negatively impacted by smoking pot.

From the Huffington Post:

To dramatize how bad a stoner can be at video games, the site interviews a computer-generated character who laments the demise of a gamer friend of hers. "I used to have a good time with Lyle. We made a good team. He had skill. He had swiftness," she says. "Well, he used to, anyway. Then our last fight, Lyle decided to get high. And it was simply: sayonara skill, sayonara swiftness."

The Above the Influence campaign points out that perception, memory and eye-hand coordination are all reduced by marijuana use.

Via: Kotaku

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has weighed in on Resident Evil 5 and finds no evidence of racism, reports Eurogamer.

Complaints of racial insensitivity in RE5 have cropped up periodically ever since a trailer for the game was released at E3 2007. Most recently, Eurogamer's report on a pre-release look at RE5 code renewed concerns about possible racism in the game.

But the BBFC's Sue Clark dismissed the racial angle in a scene fretted about by Eurogamer:

It's the bit where you see "a white blonde woman being dragged off, screaming, by black men", as our preview put it... [BBFC's] Clark responded, "In the version [of the scene] submitted to the BBFC there is only one man pulling the blonde woman in from the balcony, and I can't say the skimpiness of her dress impressed itself on me. The single man is not black either.

"As the whole game is set in Africa it is hardly surprising that some of the characters are black, just like the fact that some of the characters in an earlier version were Spanish as the game was set in Spain," Clark continued.

"We do take racism very seriously, but in this case there is no issue around racism."

Odd that both Eurogamer and Kikizo reported it was black men doing the dragging, but presumably we were given an earlier version of the code than the one submitted to the BBFC.

Conservative Newt Gingrich is back, and he's exploiting the Nintendo Wii for political gain.

By way of backstory, there is a pro-union bill, the Employee Free Choice Act, currently before the Congress. The Huffington Post reports that Gingrich views the legislation as "a mortal threat to American freedom."

(GP: Because, you know, rich guys and corporations should have all the power in our society.)

Speaking this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C., Gingrich reminded attendees that they could register to win a free Wii by signing up for American Solutions, Gingrich's new media campaign.

The Huff Post has a comment on the Wii giveaway from an unnamed union official:

Is this part of [new RNC chairman] Michael Steele's hip-hop revolution? Or is being against working families so lame that they have to bribe kids with a Wii to do it?

A woman who identified herself as a lesbian in her Xbox Live profile has reportedly been banned from Microsoft's online gaming venue.

The woman, known only as "Teresa," told The Consumerist:

My [Xbox Live] account was suspended because I had said in my profile that I was a lesbian. I was harassed by several players, 'chased' to different maps/games to get away from their harassment. They followed me into the games and told all the other players to turn me in because they didn't want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap.

As if xbox live is really appropriate for kids anyways! My account was suspended and xbox live did nothing to solve this, but instead said others found it offensive...

Microsoft does nothing to stop this or prevent it, but instead sides with the homophobes...

Microsoft, which in September received a perfect score from gay equality group Human Rights Campaign, has struggled with the gay identity issue on Xbox Live.

Most notably, in 2008 XBL banned the gamertag "Richard Gaywood," even though it was the user's actual name.

With the release of Capcom's Resident Evil 5 drawing closer, the debate over whether the game contains racist imagery has been rekindled.

What do you think?

Register your opinion in the GamePolitics poll at left...

Can playing World of Warcraft make you a better citizen of the real world?

Perhaps.

A study by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Constance Steinkuehler found that WoW players were more likely to listen to and reason things out with their fellow Azeroth residents.

Steinkuehler spoke on the benefits of digital worlds at a museum in Madison last night. As reported by the Capital Times, her remarks included:

Learning how to navigate [the online world's] diversity is "in the big scheme of life" about citizenship, she said...

Video games... push social norms and practices because those things are necessary to succeed at highly complex MMOGs like World of Warcraft, Steinkuehler said...

 

Her work included analysis of message boards where World of Warcraft players get together... She found that 65 percent of the discussion was "evaluative" vs. 30 percent "absolutist" -- "My idea is right and not open to discussion" -- and 5 percent "relative" -- it's just opinion and no one is right.

In contrast, she said studies have found that the U.S. population is only 15 percent evaluative, 50 percent absolutist and 35 percent relativist...

Steinkuehler likened the efforts of gamers to President Obama's neighbor-to-neighbor tool where, for example, volunteers surveyed their neighborhoods and updated the campaign's database.

Late last week GamePolitics reported on a Brigham Young University research study which linked video game play to a variety of negative behaviors in college students (see: BYU Study: Video Games Are Bad For You in So Many Ways).

The research, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, found gamers more likely to drink and use drugs and to have poor family and friend relationships. Among women, game play was linked to reduced self-esteem.

While Edge Online and Kotaku are reporting somewhat conciliatory comments by the study's authors, their research findings remain unchanged. For example, Edge spoke with BYU's Dr. Larry Nelson, who stressed that the study found correlation between gaming and negative behaviors, not causation:

The study absolutely does not find that videogames cause this behavior. We've repeatedly tried to emphasize that in the study itself. It was all correlation...

 

One factor [of increased substance use] could be the experimentation that goes on with [drugs and alcohol]... If we had done a study specifically on videogaming ... I'm sure [benefits] are there. There's no doubt they're there. We're not saying there is nothing at all positive about videogames.

Nuclear Geek details an exchange with BYU's Laura Walker. The professor, who previously told the Deseret News, "Everything we found associated with video games came out negative," attempted to clarify her remarks and indulged in a bit of the media blame game:

One study does not claim to be representative of all gamers, and we were in no way making that claim. We are not even claiming generalizability to the 18-25 age group, this is just what we found in our sample.

 

Media has a way of really spinning these stories that are not always accurate. However, in our study, we did find that video game use was related to only negative behaviors for students this age. Does that mean this applies to all gamers? No. Does that mean video game use causes these outcomes? Certainly not. It is possible that video game use could be positive in a number of ways, but given the variables we measured in our study, it was related to only negative outcomes...

GP: To be perfectly honest, I don't see the BYU authors backpedaling, as Kotaku reported. Nor do Dr. Nelson's comments to Edge explaining that the research team found correlation vs. causation change anything.

As we saw in 2008 with Breakthrough's immigration rights-themed I.C.E.D!, non-profits are increasingly turning to game tech to reach a wider - and younger - audience.

Along that line Ars Technica reports that Games for Change has released a toolkit designed to help non-profits tap learn how to tap into issue-oriented games of their own.

The Games for Change Toolkit is primarily a Flash-based presentation containing video, reference material, and links to demonstration games that cover various aspects of game design, from the initial concept to production and distribution. While an actual [software development kit] may not be involved, the toolkit introduces nonprofit organizations to both the broad potential and finer details of bringing an issue-conscious game into reality...

The Toolkit covers seven primary topics and introduces each with a video snippet of their relative presenter's speech: Urge, Concept, Design, Production, Distribution, Evaluation, and Case Study...

A study published today in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence maintains that video games - including the non-violent kind - are linked to a variety of negative findings among college students.

According to the Deseret News, the study, conducted by a team of faculty and students at Utah's Brigham Young University, concludes that:

• the more the students play video games, the worse their relationships are with friends and parents (although this effect is modest)
• those who play video games daily smoke pot twice as much as other players and three times more than those who never play
• young women who play often have lower self-esteem

BYU prof Laura Walker, the lead author of the study, told the newspaper:

Everything we found associated with video games came out negative... [But] I don't want parents to go out and yank all video games. It's like TV. We have to choose what's good and bad and practice moderation.

Student Alex Jensen, who participated in the research project, added:

I assumed violent video games would be related to lower relationship quality with friends and family. I didn't expect regular video games — nonviolent video game use — would be correlated to lower relationship quality...

An abstract posted on the website of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence offers some information on the methodology of the BYU study:

Participants included 813 undergraduate students (500 young women, 313 young men, M age = 20...) who were mainly European American (79%), unmarried (100%) and living outside their parents’ home (90%).

GP: It is quite interesting that this study would appear in conservative Utah at a time when a renewed effort to legislate video games is underway there.

The Kansas Department of Transportation is offering citizens the opportunity to try their hand at balancing its budget - or not - via an innovative web-based tool.

Writing for the New York Times' Freakonomics blog, UCLA transportation researcher Eric Morris praises T-Link:

I can’t help but wonder how many urban planners were inspired to enter the profession by computer games like SimCity or Railroad Tycoon... these programs convey information about arcane topics like utility maintenance costs and right-of-way clearance in a fun and accessible manner...

 

Now the Kansas Department of Transportation has come up with a neat way to both educate the public about its services and get valuable feedback about customer preferences, using a game-like format. The T-Link Calculator allows you to set transportation policy in Kansas and see the fiscal results of your choices...

 

By presenting the information this way, [KDOT] reaches out to voters (particularly younger ones) who are accustomed to interactivity and immediate feedback from their information sources. I have a feeling that many people who would never think of sitting down and reading the state budget will warm to playing “transportation god” on this site.

Moreover, the site makes it clear that we can’t ask for everything from our government; tough budgetary choices have to be made...

A strategy game which challenges players to create and manage a private prison empire has outraged some observers.

Of ValuSoft's Prison Tycoon 4: Supermax, the Criminal Justice blog writes:

[Building] a private prison? Who would want to spend free time building an elaborate cage, allowing gang wars, drugs and racial violence to fester in an attempt to earn more money? This is the fourth version of the game, so apparently someone is playing it.

I guess there's a video game version of nearly everything one can imagine. But the existence of this game... highlights the disturbing prevalence of prisons in our society. This game takes for granted that prisons are everywhere and that they are simply a tool for profit. That's a sad place to be.

The architecturally-oriented BldgBlog couches its dismay in sarcasm:

The description of Prison Tycoon 4: SuperMax... urges players to experiment in the architectural framing and administrative implementation of prison life.

 

"Build a profitable privately run prison from the ground up... Grow your facility to SuperMax capabilities, housing the most dangerous and diabolical criminals on earth – all for the bottom line."

 

Putting moral limits on our imaginations temporarily aside, perhaps we could even conceive of Prison Tycoon 5: Guantánamo Bay, or Prison Tycoon 6: Austrian Basement Edition. Prison Tycoon 7: Gulag. Prison Tycoon 8: Escape from Abu Ghraib...

Prison Photography takes a more blunt view:

Prison Tycoon is less gratuitous than Grand Theft Auto and the like. But I don’t know if this is any comfort. To manipulate a virtual prison population with “friendly interaction and fighting between inmates dependent upon mood and gang affiliation” and to rely on “guards [who] will subdue aggressive prisoners, medical staff to treat injuries, chaplains administer to prisoner’s spiritual needs and therapists talk to prisoners to lift their spirits” seems a bit too sinister and calculated for an evening of gaming...

Really, why does this game exist? I suppose it is just completing the loop - the gamer, as a God of Pixels, can create criminals in his other games and then manipulate them in this one.

Surprisingly, the head of MADD Canada has flatly dismissed a game designed to teach users the perils of DUI. As reported by the Globe and Mail, CEO Andrew Murie has "no interest" in Booze Cruise, a drunk driving simulation developed at the University of Calgary.

While MADD Canada sees no value in the game, the U.S. Army is in the process of adopting Booze Cruise as a tool to educate military personnel on the dangers of getting behind the wheel while impaired. 

MADD Canada's objection appears to be that the game lets players know - based on body weight - how much they can imbibe before becoming intoxicated. That would seem like a pretty valuable thing of which to be aware. However, Murie said:

We've spent decades telling people not to drink and drive, and this simulator, one of the skills it teaches is to drink so much, and then drive.

GP: In some ways, Murie's objection to Booze Cruise is reminiscent of the sex education vs. abstinence debate. 

Via: What They Play