Archives for the 'Video Games' Category
Kids, Video Games, Fantasy, & Imagination
My Kid is the Man of Steel! ... in his mind.
Regular readers will recall my great interest in video games and the public policy debates surrounding efforts to regulate “violent” games in particular. One thing I bring up in almost every essay I write on this subject is how fears about kids and video games are almost always overblown and that kids can typically separate fantasy from reality. Nonetheless, kids have active imaginations and adults sometimes fear that which they cannot understand or appreciate. Friendly mentoring and open-minding parenting can go a long way to encouraging kids to make smart choices and understand where to draw lines, whereas efforts to demonize video games and youth culture almost always backfire.
Anyway, what got me thinking about all this again was an entertaining column in today’s Washington Post by Ron Stanley (”Who Needs a TV to Play Video Games“), which describes the author’s experiences with his nephew when they played out video game-like scenarios using traditional toys and household items. It’s a wonderful piece worth reading in its entirety, but here’s the key takeaway that I’d like to discuss:
There was no evidence that television and video games had stifled the kids’ creativity. Nor was there any evidence that technology had made them smarter than earlier generations. They simply had a different frame of reference, one that included video games and computers as well as ponies, pet stores and sword fights. Children play with the tools at hand, and they’re great at thinking metaphorically — at imagining that a landspeeder is a sentient robot or that a stick is a gun or that salt-and-pepper shakers are a bride and groom or that a card table is a horse’s stable.
They’re also geniuses at figuring out simple mechanics. My 6-year-old nephew had to explain to me that miniature low-rider cars don’t roll very well on carpet and will flip over more than if racing on hardwood floors. Novice that I was, I was choosing cars that looked the coolest. And they are geniuses at intuiting rules and systems, and at re-creating these rules and systems in their own play. Children who play lots of card games will invent their own card games. Children who play lots of board games will invent their own board games. And children who play lots of video games will invent their own video-game-like games when they don’t have access to the game controllers.
Australian video game censorship: Does it work?
Do we have any Australian TLF readers out there? If so, I’d be interested in their input about how well video game censorship works down under.
I follow Australian content regulation via the wonderful “Somebody Think of the Children!” blog, operated by Michael Meloni of Brisbane, Australia. (Mike, if you’re listening, you have at least one big fan here in the U.S. and thank you for keeping the rest of us up-to-speed about censorship developments on the other side of the globe!) This week, Mike reports that another video game (”F.E.A.R. 2″) was refused classification by the Australian government’s Classification Board. Apparently, the “refused classification” designation is the equivalent of a ban in Australia. And F.E.A.R. 2 is the fifth game to receive that designation in 2008. (Other games that have been censored, or subject to some sort of political investigation or pressure, are inventoried at the “Refused Classification.com” website.)
First, let me just say that this again reminds me how lucky we are to have strong free speech protections here in the United States thanks to the First Amendment of our Constitution. I do so much bitching about efforts to regulate speech and media content (especially video games) that I sometimes fail to step back and appreciate how fortunate we are here in the U.S. to not have to worry about an official government ratings body overseeing all game releases. This really hit home for me when I read that “Fallout 3” was one of the 5 games banned this year. It’s a brilliant game and I just can believe it would be censored such that the Australian public could not play the same version of it that I can.
Second, I’m wondering how well these bans work in Australia. A big part of my research on speech regulation is focused on the practicality of censorship in the modern Information Age. [See my "End of Censorship" essay.] Thus — taking off my advocate hat and putting on my academic hat — I would be very interested in hearing from Australians about how effective these regulatory schemes are in practice. Can you still get games from overseas and play them on consoles and PCs in Australia? Do you download uncensored versions (either legally or illegally)? Does the government take steps to stem the flow of unregulated content? Or, are most citizens willing to just played the censored version of games that the Australian government eventually authorizes? Have there been academic studies done on the practical side of content censorship in Australia?
You get the idea. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
[Note: I have also been following the Australian government's big recent push for centralized Internet filtering. Would be interested in input as that as well from Australians citizens.]
“Virtual Worlds, Video Games and the Law” - 12/2 Event in DC
My good friend Jim Dunstan will be speaking to the “Games Gateway” meet-up group for the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region on Dec. 2 at 6:30 pm about the legal issues affecting video game developers.
Did you know that enabling gamers to talk via voice while in a virtual world may subject you to FCC regulations? Or that the Child Online Privacy Protection Act under the FTC must be followed for game sites that knowingly include children under the age of 13? Whether you are a developer of console, PC or online games and worlds, there are legal issues which you need to keep in mind. Many of them are surprising, so join us to hear James Dunstan, partner at Garvey Schubert and Barer, an expert in video game and telecommunications law, discuss the ins and outs of interesting legal issues, what you as a game developer need to keep in mind, and steps to take as you develop your next game.
Besides being a space/Internet/communications lawyer (my alter ego!), Jim’s a video game programmer himself and has spent years advising video game clients. RSVP here.
Women Play Video Games?
The Washington Post reports today on a trend that I thought we all knew about, but one I’m glad the mainstream media is finally realizing. It turns out that people who play video games are not just virginal teenage boys with acne problems. No, even 20-something, attractive women play video games.
The Post’s Mike Musgrove reports on the mother and daughters of the Burguieres family of Bethesda, Maryland. Of course in good journalist fashion Musgrove uses the Burguiereses to illustrate a larger point, he even points to the relevant stats:
It used to be that this all-woman crew wouldn’t fit the standard image of the video game consumer. But the perception of gamers as being mostly young guys isn’t so true anymore. Women and girls make up 40 percent of the gamer population, according to the Entertainment Software Association.
The most interesting point brought up in the article on this demographic trend—one that most gamers realize has been happening for quite some time—is Musgrove’s observation that women once were not naturally accepted members of the gaming community. It’s a great point, but one that can be extended to tech community in general.
PC Game Software Sales Actually Growing
I hate to burst a theory, but Adam is wrong to say that PC gaming is on the decline. But I understand how appearances can be deceiving. Walk into your average GameStop or Best Buy and you’ll see row after row of console games placed front and center. You’ll usually find the PC games stuck in a corner with routers and external hard discs.
Retail numbers also support the theory that PC games are on the decline. NPD Group says that while North Americans spent $18.8 billion on game software in retail stores last year, just $910 million went to PC games, down from $970 million the year before. So, PC games are roughly 5% of retail sales. It sounds a lot like a death nil.
But retails isn’t the only place games are sold these days. Just like iTunes and its online component—the cleverly named iTunes Store—have revolutionized the way music is sold, so too have PC game makers revolutionized software sales in recent years.
My most recent gaming experience has been barreling through Half-Life 2 and Portal as I make my way through the Orange Box. When I installed the Orange Box, a package of 5 games by Valve Software, I wasn’t just installing games, but also a game-buying service. I’m now a proud registered user of Steam, one of the largest online game buying services. The Boston Globe recently published a story covering the rise of Steam:
Today Steam sells more than 250 games by Valve and other PC game publishers. The service has 15 million registered users, and posted 2007 sales growth of 158 percent. Valve cofounder Gabe Newell recently said he expects Steam sales will soon surpass Valve’s retail store revenues.
Even with services like Steam around, aren’t the consoles swimming in dough after the release of mega-hits like Grand Theft Auto IV? Not when you factor in the subscription fees being forked over on a monthly basis by those who have given over countless hours of their lives to massive multi-player online games (MMOs).
Do video games create cop killers?
Dennis McCauley of Gamepolitics.com takes on that issue today in a column:
In the United States, the FBI tracks annual statistics on police officer slayings as well as assaults on police officers. I compared these figures to the various release dates for the three major GTA console game releases to date (GTA III, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas) and plotted the whole thing on the chart below. It’s a bit like the well-known video games vis-a-vis juvenile crime graph created by Duke Ferris of GameRevolution a few years back, although with a much narrower focus.The FBI statistics portray a much different picture than that painted by critics like Thompson and Grossman.
In the chart, I’ve plotted FBI figures for police officers feloniously killed (blue line) and police officers assaulted (red line, listed in thousands). As can be seen, police officer murders peaked at 70 in 1997 (i.e., four years before GTA III) and again in 2001. GTA III was released in late October that year, so if the game caused that year’s spike, it would have had only two months in which to do so. (also, the 2001 figures don’t count the 72 officers lost when the World Trade Centers collapsed).
The chart shows that since GTA III was released police killings have been trending downward to a low of 48 in 2006. Although the FBI has not yet posted 2007 numbers, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund lists 68 police officers as having been shot to death in 2007. But it’s worth pointing out that while there may have been a spike in police slayings last year, there was no corresponding GTA release. There hasn’t been a new Grand Theft Auto console title issued since San Andreas in October, 2004.
I’ve commented more on these issues in my essay on “Why hasn’t violent media turned us into a nation of killers?”
Grand Theft Auto: Masterpiece or Abomination?
In less than 36 hours, one of the most anticipated—and most demonized—games in years will hit the shelves. Grand Theft Auto IV, the “true” successor to the groundbreaking Grant Theft Auto III, has been the focus of intense criticism ever since being announced. But while GTA IV will undoubtedly be filled with extreme violence, it may also be a masterpiece of human creativity.
On Friday, IGN reviewed GTA IV, giving it a highly elusive perfect score. Calling it “masterful” and an “American dream,” IGN says GTA IV is the greatest game in nearly a decade. Since the press embargo ended this morning, many other reviewers are reaching similar conclusions.
No real surprises there. What’s surprising, however, is that unlike its somewhat one-dimensional predecessors, GTA IV offers unprecedented character depth along with an “Oscar-caliber” storyline. And it also depicts the ugly downside of crime in the same vein as epic films like Goodfellas and Scarface, retelling the classic story of a struggling immigrant coming to America in search of fortune, haunted by the experiences of a past life.
Naturally, Grand Theft Auto’s release has re-ignited public debate over how games affect kids and whether new laws are needed to protect children from the gratuitous violence found in many video games. GTA has been a favorite target of politicians for the past eight years, and the usual suspects like Jack Thompson and Tim Winter have predictably spoken out against GTA IV. But parental controls are more robust than ever, as Adam has documented, and some have even suggested that kids should be playing Grand Theft Auto. Despite the recent explosion in hyper-realistic violent games, violent crime rates have been dropping across the board. Maybe games like GTA are just another harmless outlet for kids to express violent behavior, much like playing cops and robbers.
As game budgets have swelled and public interest in gaming has expanded, more games than ever transcend the stereotype of gaming as a juvenile pursuit with little artistic merit, reminding us that games can be artistic expressions on par with books, movies, or songs. Critics whose gaming experience consists of having played Pacman in an arcade may belittle gaming as a trivial pastime, but anybody who has played Bioshock or Gears of War or Oblivion knows better. Games can critique the harsh realities of modern society and offer insight into the nature of the human soul in ways that less interactive forms of media cannot. Likewise, games deserve both critical admiration and legal protection.
Of course, GTA IV is no Mona Lisa. But the way things are going, it’s entirely possible that the next timeless masterpiece of artistic expression will be created not with a brush or pen, but with lines of code.
Manjoo on “Grand Theft Auto 4″ hysteria
Salon’s technology writer Farhad Manjoo has some sensible comments about the hullabaloo we’re already hearing about the forthcoming “Grand Theft Auto 4″:
When I watched the game, I caught one sequence that would seem sure to prompt outrage — your character gets falling-down drunk and can, if he wants, steal and then drive a car. The scene is undeniably fun and funny. Admittedly, the humor is low-brow, more in the tradition of “Jackass” than of Oscar Wilde, but it’s still fun; like much else in the game, it’s the thrill of discovery, the sense of, “Whoa, I can’t believe I can do that!” Of course, that’ll be exactly the sentiment of the game’s detractors: Can you believe they’re letting children do that?! This has to be illegal!
Well, actually, nobody is letting kids play this game. It’s rated M, which means it’s for sale to people 17 or older. Kids will still get it, of course, just like they also get hold of R-rated movies and all kinds of perversities on the Web. But nobody — at least nobody sane — calls for movie houses to refuse to play R-rated movies just because kids might sneak in. It’s hard to see why the policy should be any different with video games.
That’s exactly right. Moreover, as I have pointed out countless times before, parents have more and better tools to control video game consumption by their children than any other form of media. And that’s especially the case considering the cost of video games! When a game costs $60 bucks a pop, you gotta wonder how the kids are getting their hands on it. Are the parents just stuffing their kids’ pants full of cash and saying “OK, Johnny, you go buy whatever you want now.” If so, they have only themselves to blame for failing to effectively use the ‘power of the purse‘ to their advantage.
Finally, let’s not forget that gritty, M-rated games like “Grand Theft Auto” are the exception to the rule, as I have proven here.
review: Dr. Kourosh Dini’s “Video Game Play & Addiction”
Dr. Kourosh Dini is a Chicago-based adolescent and adult psychiatrist who has just published a new book entitled, Video Game Play and Addiction: A Guide for Parents. [You can learn more about him and his many talents and interests at his blog, "Mind, Music and Technology."] Dini’s book arrives fresh on the heels of the fine book, “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do,” by Drs. Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson. [See my review of that book here.]
Like Kutner & Olson’s book, Dini’s provides a refreshingly balanced and open-minded look at the impact of video games on our kids. One of the things I liked about it is how Dr. Dini tells us right up front that he has been a gamer his entire life and explains how that has helped him frame the issues he discusses in his book. “I have played games both online and off since I was about six years of age, and I have also been involved in child psychiatry, so I felt that I would be in a good position to discuss some inherent positives and negatives associated with playing games,” he says. Dini goes into greater detail about his gaming habits later in the book and it makes it clear that he still enjoys games very much.
Some may find Dini’s gaming background less relevant than his academic credentials, but I think it is important if for no other reason than it shows how we are seeing more and more life-long gamers attain positions of prominence in various professions and writing about these issues using a sensible frame of reference that begins with their own personal experiences. For far too long now, nearly every book and article I have read about video games and their impact on society at some point includes a line like, “I’ve never really played many games” or even “I don’t much care for video games,” but then–without missing a breath–the author or analyst goes on to tell us how imminently qualified they are to be discussing the impact of video games on kids or culture. Whenever I read or hear things like that, I’m reminded of the famous line from an old TV commercial: “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.” Seriously, why is it that we should continue to listen to those critics who denounce video games but who have never picked up a controller in their lives? It’s really quite insulting. Would you take automotive advice from someone who’s never tinkered with cars in their lives but instead based their opinions merely upon watching them pass by on the road? I think not.
Continue reading this post »
Bruce Everiss on video game piracy
Bruce Everiss, a UK-based video game industry veteran, and author of the blog Bruce on Games, has penned a comprehensive essay on video game piracy through the years. I recommend you read the entire piece, but here’s the take away:
And the game industry continues to grow and prosper, despite the piracy. This is because the proliferation of platforms allows publishers to more easily abandon platforms that are pirated to the point of being uneconomic. Instead they concentrate on platforms where there are windows of opportunity to run a viable business. Either because the anti piracy technology is on top or because there is a sufficient number of honest customers to get a return, even sometimes with a heavily pirated platform. Games with an online element can often be made very pirate proof which has been a major incentive for developers to go down this route.
So for 25 years or so game players have been stealing games in truly massive numbers with zero chance of being caught and punished for their crime. Very often far more copies of a game title have been pirated than have been bought. This self evidently causes harm to the games industry, ultimately leading to less money being invested in games for the pirated platform. So, the game player suffers for his theft by having less games and lower quality games. All pretty obvious to anyone but the pirates who make all sorts of feeble excuses to justify their stealing.
[My own views on video game piracy can be found here and here.]
Video games, pro wrestling, and the politics of hypocrisy
For those of you who aren’t avid WWE wrestling watchers, the 3 leading presidential candidates all offered up videos for the professional wrestling crowd recently. McCain’s freakish one is right below and Hillary and Obama’s are down below the fold. They all cracked a bunch of jokes and used what were obviously scripted remarks that integrate in the requisite number of wresting analogies. And they all talked all sort of stupid smack, just like pro wrestlers do. [It reminded me of former candidate Mike Huckabee’s bizarre cultural politics].
review: Kutner & Olson’s “Grand Theft Childhood”
Don’t judge a book by its cover (or its title, for that matter). I’m usually faithful to that maxim, but I must admit that when I first saw the title and cover of “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do,” I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, “here we go again.” I figured that I was in for another tedious anti-gaming screed full of myths and hysteria about games and gamers. Boy, was I wrong. Massively wrong.
Lawrence Kutner, PhD, and Cheryl K. Olson, ScD, cofounders and directors of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media, have written the most thoroughly balanced and refreshingly open-minded book about video games ever penned. They cut through the stereotypes and fear-mongering that have thus far pervaded the debate over the impact of video games and offer parents and policymakers common-sense advice about how to approach these issues in a more level-headed fashion. They argue that:
Today, an amalgam of politicians, health professionals, religious leaders and children’s advocates are voicing concerns about video games that are identical to the concerns raised one, two and three generations ago with the introduction of other new media. Most of these people have the best of intentions. They really want to protect children from evil influences. As in the past, a few have different agendas and are using the issue manipulatively. Unfortunately, many of their claims are based on scanty evidence, inaccurate assumptions, and pseudoscience. Much of the current research on violent video games is both simplistic and agenda driven. (p. 55)
They note that these groups, “probably worry too much about the wrong things and too little about more subtle issues and complex effects that are much more likely to affect our children.” They continue:
The Perils of Mandatory Parental Controls and Restrictive Defaults
I have just released a new PFF white paper on “The Perils of Mandatory Parental Controls and Restrictive Defaults.” It points out the dangers of government mandating that parental controls be defaulted to their most restrictive position. I’ve gone ahead and just pasted the entire text below (but without the footnotes):
_______________
During ongoing debates about parental controls, ratings, and online child safety, there have occasionally been rumblings about the possibility of requiring that media, computing and communications devices: (1) be shipped to market with parental controls embedded, and possibly, (2) those controls being defaulted to their most restrictive position, forcing users to opt out of the controls later if they wanted to consume media rated above a certain threshold.
Imagine, for example, a law requiring that every television, TV set-top box, and video game console be shipped with on-board screening technologies that were set to block any content rated above “G” for movies, “TV-Y” for television, or “E” for video games, which are the most restrictive rating designations for each type of media. Similarly, all personal computers or portable media devices sold to the public could be forced to have filters embedded that were set to block all “objectionable” content, however defined.
If “default” requirements such as this were mandated by law, parents would be forced to opt out of the restrictions by granting their children selective permission to media content or online services. In theory, this might help limit underage access to objectionable media or online content. Such a mandate might be viewed as less intrusive than direct government censorship and, therefore, less likely to run afoul of the constitution.
For these reasons, such a proposal would likely have great appeal among some policymakers, “family” groups, child safety advocates, and parents. But mandating parental controls and restrictive defaults is a dangerous and elitist idea that must be rejected because it will have many unintended consequences and not likely achieve the goal of better protecting our kids.
Continue reading this post »
presentation at PSU’s conference on future of video games
Today and tomorrow I am attending a terrific conference at Penn State University called, “Playing to Win: The Business and Social Frontiers of Videogames.” It features panel discussions about various legal and business issues facing the video game industry, as well as discussions about how video games are used to aid teaching and learning. There are also panels on multiplayer online worlds and virtual reality environments and the issues surrounding both. [They will apparently be posting videos from the conference on their site shortly.]
The folks at PSU were kind enough to invite me to deliver the luncheon keynote on Day 1 and I decided to provide a broad overview of the policy issues facing video games that I have covered in some of my past work. My presentation was entitled, “Video Games, Ratings, Parental Controls, & Public Policy: Where Do We Stand?” and the entire 36-slide presentation is now available online here. Down below, I thought I would just outline a couple of the key themes I touched upon in my presentation.
Do you have the “S.I.G.N.S.” of Net / video game addiction?
This week over at Net Family News, my friend Anne Collier interviews Dr. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist in Portland, Ore., who has worked with patients suffering from Internet or video game addiction. Dr. Block has developed this mnemonic to identify the ‘SIGNS’ that kids or adults may be on the road to Net or gaming addiction. “If one or more of these questions are answered ‘yes’ AND the person is having interpersonal problems, he/she is at risk,” says Dr. Block. Sadly, I find I am clearly suffering from several of these symptoms. Are you?
_____________
S = Sleep cycle is consistently advanced. Goes to sleep later and wakes later or is tired in the morning.
I = Irritable when not on the computer. Preoccupied thinking about the computer and their activities there (sex, gaming, browsing, tuning the system up, etc.). Can become enraged if told to stop using.
G = Guilty about his/her computer use so tries to hide evidence of 1) game/porn purchases, 2) online activities (deletes cache, uses encryption/passwords, etc.), and 3) logs on secretly, etc.; 4) defensive when confronted.
N = Nightmares. Dreams about his or her gaming/computer use.
S = Social dropouts - people who become more isolated by their computer use. This is seen when there is a consistent pattern of sacrificing real-life relationships to preserve virtual ones. Alternatively, seems to prefer living in virtual worlds more than their real one. These people become NEETs: ‘Not in Employment, Education, or Training.’
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