The Anti-gamers are using fake names to spread their BS Nonsense online…

While reading gamepolitics.com, I came across the below article, talking about how the Whitehouse is not considering attacking the industry (thankfully) for the Navy Yard Shooting. So I started reading the comments, and came across one commenter who kept on spewing nonsense about violent games over and over again, and after reading his crap again I realized something. He is really not who he appears to be, in fact he is actually an anti-gaming crusader using a fake name. I won’t reveal his probable real identity but gamers who know who he sounds like know how that person behaves.  Here are a few quotes from him:

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/congress-video-game-violence-navy-yard-97131.html#ixzz2fZo0xKpg

“Sorry to bust your bubble but your wrong. In Paducah Kentucky, the 14 year old shooter had never fired a gun before his murder spree, except for once the day before. He played violent video games where it showed him how to aim a gun. He shot his victims with such accuracy that the only explanation is the video games taught him how to shoot so well. Look it up for your self. Not all kids that play these games end up killers, but all these killers played these violent games!”

This is one of the biggest BS claims going out there right now. That Micheal Carneal learned how to aim just from Playing Doom. There are tons of problems with this. First of all, doom at the time lacked vertical aiming. A random number generator determined how high your bullet went. You have no control over how high you shoot at all. Explain how carneal hit 3 of his targets in the head then? He couldn’t have. He fired 8 individual shots with semiautomatic pistols that don’t fire multiple rounds when you hold the trigger down, and hit 8 kids in the head or chest. Doom trains you to hold down the mouse button down, your gun in the game will fire multiple times. All of the guns do. Unlike anything but full auto guns in real life. After killing all the enemies in the current room you let go and rinse and repeat in the next room, etc. If Carneal trained on Doom, he would fire one round while holding down the real guns trigger and no more shots would fire, and would not be able to hit all 8 targets at all.

Another thing is that this poster claims is that lots of mass shooters played violent games. Only 4 have. Harris/Klebold, The Norway Killer, and the Navy Yard shooter. 1 News paper tried to claim Cho (V-Tech Killer) played Half-life (meaning counterstrike I think), but the neighbors of Cho said they never saw him obsess over “violent” games. Adam lanza was quoted by some plumber in a Tabloid to have played call of duty because “people who play call of duty know about realistic models of tanks and weapons from ww1-ww2” because of the posters showing Weapons and Tanks From WW1-WW2. No other proof given. To me that’s proof he Did NOT played COD. James Holmes played Some RPG’s (oblivion, etc), all Sword fighting games, combat wise. He killed people, with a gun. That doesn’t work.  The norway shooter said he used COD to train for the massacre. That’s it.  One other shooter said he played “Guitar Hero”. Is that the morons definition of a “violent game” now? I guess it’s because of the Heavy Metal and it’s fake Satanic cult who molests kids who happen to be part of every Metal band and metal Fan worldwide… Go Figure.

“Look up the work by Col Dave Grossman. He trains our military on how to kill people. He knows what he is talking about.

“Grossman argues that the techniques used by armies to train soldiers to kill are mirrored in certain types of video games. The conclusion he draws is that playing violent video games, particularly light gun shooters of the first-person shooter-variety
(where the player holds a weapon-like game controller), train children
in the use of weapons and, more importantly, harden them emotionally to
the task of murder by simulating the killing of hundreds or thousands of
opponents in a single typical video game. Grossman uses blunt language
that draws the ire of gamers—during the heights of video game controversy,
he was interviewed on the content of his books, and repeatedly used the
term “murder simulator” to describe first-person shooter games.”
As for your assertion that this has been tested… nice try. You are wrong!”

Col Grossman was a shrink from the Military. He had NOTHING to do with training people to kill. Boot Camp does. The whole idea that violent games are used to break down the inhibition to kill is debunked by this blog, not written by some “gamer druggie”, but a person who actually served in the military.  I quote his lengthy debunking below:

“Let me give you some background. I am coming out of a four-year stint in the United States Marine Corps. I spent six months in Afghanistan and two months in Iraq (crossing the Line of Departure a mere 72 hours after the word was given by the President).

While not in a combat unit, every Marine’s primary job is basic rifleman. We are all considered trained enough to put steel on target when the lawful order is given.

Video games are poor training tools. For anything, really. I think the last games I learned from were Sticky Bear Math and Number Munchers.

I’m not aware of any military unit that uses video games to break down the inhibition to kill.

In fact, this breakdown really only occurs in one place: Boot camp.

Boot camp doesn’t even specifically concentrate on the inhibition to kill. Rather, they follow the CIA training manual for brainwashing almost point by point, in order to instill in recruits ‘instant and willing obedience to lawful orders’ – that is what they do. The assumption, of course, is that these orders may be to kill; But they could be to drag a wounded child to safety, or set up a bunker in 100 degree weather, or pull night watch after being up for a 36-hour convoy.

The inhibition to kill can only be broken down by, wait for it . . . killing.

When we were parked on the outskirts of Fallujah and watched as night fell and the Iraqis came out onto the streets, even though our orders were much more liberal than the current Rules of Engagement, there was still hesitation. And this after our convoy had turned around after taking fire at the front.

When we got ambushed, it was actually unfortunate that my extensive game-playing hadn’t prepared me at all for the sheer confusion, excitement, fear and horror of those moments.

If you think America’s Army is anything but a half-decent game and a lame recruitment tool, you’ve never run an obstacle course, or been ‘quarterdecked’ by a DI.

If you think Halo can help you learn how to shoot, you’ve never tried to get ten in the black from 500 yards with the piece-of-shit M16A2, with your elbows getting ground by sand trapped in your cammies and the sun causing sweat on your forehead which drips into your eyes.”

One more quote by the anti-gaming activist pretending to be a politico.com poster with a fake name:

“Trust me I hunt, competitive target shoot and have a concealed pistol permit my self. Just look at my profile pic. It’s of the late great Col. Carlos Hathcock. I also play these same video games. I never blamed guns as the problem and never said all people that play these games are going to be killers. What I am saying is when you add these games without parental supervision, mentally unstable kids, etc… your going to get a few killers in the outcome.”

The fact that the same anti-gaming activist has called gamers “Junior” like this guy (read the comments he has said), and has berated gamers in emails, just like this person proves they are the same person. They are virtually Identical. There is no way this guy plays violent games. If he did, he would know the BS he spreads is NOT TRUE…

I have suspected for years that anti-gaming activists have been spreading nonsense like the Hack Psychologists claims under fake names, after I read several posts by odd people quoting his claim. Now I know the truth…. It IS happening. It’s quite disturbing. Why the hell groups like this allow people like this do do this kind of crap is beyond me.

Related articles

• SO…. FAUX NEWS want to track how much video games we buy and play?? WTF!!!! (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• The First Ever First Person Shooter Game (gaming.answers.com)
• Wayne Lapoopiere needs to STFU! (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)

Another Pro-Censorship Moron spews Nonsense About Violent Games…. UGH….

ESRB “Mature 17+” rating symbol, displayed on the packaging of computer and video games appropriate for audiences over the age of 17. Part of the ESRB Video Game Rating System. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So I thought this Moral Panic on  violent entertainment causing Sandy Hook was done. Apparently not… Lo and Behold, Senator Grassley, a Repooplican from Iowa starts ranting on how the Gaming Industry’s Voluntary Rating system isn’t good enough, how it “lets these violent games get to kids”. What violent  games are these, “ones that glorify killing of innocent people”. Sure… I quote:

“There are too many video games that celebrate the mass killing of innocent people — games that despite attempts at industry self-regulation find their way into the hands of children,” 

 

Talk about a moronic claim…. Number 1, the “attempts at industry self-regulation” (like they are a complete failure, despite the FTC study that says that the ESRB ratings are better than the MPAA ones, enforcement wise), have nothing to do with why these “violent games that glorify the mass killing of innocents” fall into the hands of children. Number 1, the Industry itself isn’t to blame if the Stores refuse to card the people buying the games, or the 2/3’s of parents who refuse to read the ESRB ratings in the first place, right? Apparently to this moron, the parents aren’t to blame and somehow the industry made the parents not read the ratings or the stores are being all run by the industry and purposely start selling GTA games to kids…. This whole claim is bunk, and he knows NOTHING about violent games, the industry or the “attempts at industry self-regulation”. He just blindly believes all the nonsense being spread that violent games are marketed to kids because “oh noes, the kids can buy games…” BLAH BLAH BLAH

To make things worse his claim of how their are too many games that “celebrate the mass killing of innocent people” is a bogus claim too. I regularly debunk crap like this. It’s just a blanket statement, used to demean the industry based on shitty games, ones that do allow the “mass killing of innocent people”, which are few and far between. Using a list of all released FPS games on wikipedia, I calculated that the sheer lack of “uber violent games” is astounding, despite what scaremongering is being said by people like Grassley.

This list spans all the way back to the 1970’s with Sega titles such as “Jet Rocket”, long before the dawn of PC gaming, so it does count everything…. No picking and choosing, no editing of the total data to show a point, pure unadulterated Facts…. Something anti-gamers almost never provide, it’s almost always rhetoric, false data, or misinterpretation.

When You look at the spreadsheet, look at the column “gms kill inno”. This is how many games out of 650 allow you to kill “innocent civilians”, where innocent civilians are defined as characters who can’t fight back. I have 2 rows, one with all 650 games in the FPS category, and another with all FPS games + Postal + all GTA games.  That one is the second row, the lower one with 658 total games. The top row with 650 games is just FPS games. “gms rwd inno” is how many games that reward killing of innocent people.  “gms nrwd ino” are games that punish killing innocent civilian characters. Look at the % with and without GTA and Postal applied, tiny %, less than 10 in each case…  There have only been 19 FPS games EVER released that allow the killing of innocent characters. Only 4 of these reward it. Tiny numbers when you factor in the 650 total FPS games ever made. 8 Punish the killing of innocents.  IF you count in GTA  games and Postal 1 you get 27 total games in this list that allow the player to kill innocent characters, and only 8 reward it. 15 Punish the killing of innocents!!! You see a pattern, equal amount of FPS games punish the killing of innocents, and in the case when you add in GTA, more punish than reward. Apparently Grassley can’t stand the fact that there are 8 games since 1970(!) (when the list started) that reward killing innocents. But he mentioned mass slaughter of innocents!!!

Grassley’s complaint about “too many games that celebrate the mass killing of the innocent” is a nonsense claim. Because this suggests that there are games where you are rewarded for mowing down big rooms of innocent civilians in such a game. Here’s the thing. No ESRB Game like this Exists! In any game with civilians, that reward it, it’s never been huge numbers killed at once. People might say “GTA!” but GTA, despite the nonsense claim about it, does NOT reward  the killing of innocent civilians. It punishes it. You get the police after you for doing stuff like this, get arrested, etc… That’s punishment, not rewarding. The last game to reward mass killing of innocents, the only one was before the ESRB, so the esrb has nothing to do with it, that was Carmageddon! In 1997! The only game I know where it :”rewards” the mass killing of innocents….. Under the ESRB, the “voluntary rating system” there have been 0 games that “glorify the mass killing of innocents!!!”. NONE! Zip! Zero!! Zilch!!! Grassley is a liar… Surprise!!

So Grassley is making up crap, just like a lot of morons who attack games do. It’s stupid. It has to stop. He is also hinting at regulation of the industry by the government and using biased claims and utter lies to support it??? I thought this country was beyond it. IF they do decide to regulate the games like this, what’s to stop them from setting up a system where they purposely rate any game that is only slightly violent or above, to their equivalent of Adult Only, so the stores won’t sell them.. Hmmm… Because thats what I think people like this want, just to get rid of all the violent games so no one can buy them, no adults can too, no gaming companies can sell them so the industry just goes out of business. These people shouldn’t be in office if they use nonsense like this to fuel censorship, and make no difference it is. The gaming industry does not need to be regulated!! Just the Congress!!! Seriously…

Related articles

• Obscure, now nonexistant Flash Game to blame for Sandy Hook? NRA are idiots!!!! (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• CCFC starts the next load of nonsense scapegoating of violent games in their NYT Article. (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• Gamers are Violent Sickos? DPO Pro-Censorship Trolls are violent sickos too!!!! (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• Obama’s plan to study video game violence ready to be Hijacked just like the EMA vs Brown Decion could have been… (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• Ralph nader calls gaming companies “Electronic Child Molestors”. We’re child molestors now. SIGH…. (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• Gamers! Mail your Rep’s about the video game nonsense. They are trying to regulate them again… (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)

Obscure, now nonexistant Flash Game to blame for Sandy Hook? NRA are idiots!!!!

I know this is old news to many gamers, But when I read this, I immediately laughed but then got angry at how serious nonsense like this is… Behold, Wayne Lapierre and the NRA have got a vendetta against violent games, because in their mind, they have to scapegoat violent entertainment like all these gun nuts do all the time. In a lot of cases, I have seen, Gun Nuts tend to be anti-gamers. Which is worse, violent games or people Selling tools of REAL violence, that only a nutcase like Lanza or Harris would want to use to harm real people in a school shooting… Where are the other Millions of gamers committing school shootings once per week in the country, caused by their constant “exposure to violent games”.  They don’t exist. That’s right, because Gamers for the most part Are not violent… The Few shooters that committed mass school shootings like Harris had Other Issues, like being raped by the police (!!! The real cause for columbine !!! not violent games!!! ), we don’t even know Lanza’s issue yet… Yet the scapegoating from the Nationalist Rhetoric ASSociation continues…   hmm…   So the NRA has to stifle the blame for something they may have caused. If they had nothing to do with this, why all the publicity on attacking a violent flash game that Doesn’t exist anymore (Kindergarten Killers)   ?

 

It’s not the first time some random 10 year old super violent game like Postal 2 has been used as an excuse to attack the gaming industry (in the media after Brown VS EMA dozens of articles kept on spewing nonsense about 99% of violent games having features like “peeing on kids”, that were, Surprise(!) only found in Postal 2, One Damn game!!! )  But in this case the game was a random flash game hosted on a website that deleted it later, newgrounds.com, and the gaming industry, has Nothing to do with it… It’s like Lapoopierre decided to look around for ONE game, flash or not that had murdering little kids part of it. He couldn’t find a single one marketed by  the Industry as a real ESRB rated title (because it doesn’t exist, DUH! – Despite how many idiots after columbine in newspapers tried to call Doom a School Shooting Simulator… More on that later).

 

To make things worse, this game wasn’t even POPULAR on newgrounds.com. It was taken down in 2008! It hardly was a Big Smash hit all the 2 year olds are playing behind their mothers back because the “ESRB rated it teen like they do to all uber violent games because the industry is selling filth to our toddlers!”.  Bullshit. This game wasn’t even a real Boxed game. But you know what? Do the NRA really care? Of course they dont!  Because it’s the scapegoat for the industry they have chosen and it will be used as proof that all violent ESRB rated games are like that in millions of biased, stupid, payed for by the NRA, news articles next. Mark my words. Just like Postal 2, which also wasn’t even remotely popular, and crappy too…

 

The worst thing, is this game is the LAST you want to use as a scapegoat. It is so Amateurly made… It is gory, but it has super hand drawn graphics that make it look so cheap, that trying to call it a “realistic depiction of real school violence” (they will try this…) is utterly stupid. You can’t even move around in the game, it’s all aiming and killing. If you kill the kids in each of the scenes, who all fight back(! – WTF! Yes they are all armed!!! Highly realistic… ) you go to the next scene. If you don’t you die. It’s strictly a flash shooting gallery game, sick, yes, disgusting, yes, but Realistic and bound to make kids shoot up a real school? NO WAY IN Hell. Too cartoony. Even a 10 year old can tell it’s not real life….

 

That’s besides the point here. The point is the NRA scapegoating is using something (on purpose) to demean 99% of the violent games that aren’t even that violent, and don’t have this kind of disgusting purpose (shooting up a school).  A previous article of mine debunked 5 extra violent game myths using a spreadsheet documenting all 605 PC FPS game releases. One was the idea that all violent games are uber violent… I quote:

 

“Ok… This isn’t so much a claim but a pattern among articles “damning”

Violent video games.  These articles use examples from 1 or 2 violent

games that are what I call “Uber Violent” games as proof that

“most games” are like them. Uber violent games are a rare thing.

What’s the definition of “Uber violent games”? Games that are so

violent that most people would find them tastlessly violent.

Out of all 605 FPS games ever made, only 4.46% are “Uber Violent”

like this. Only 14.81% of all 81 Popular FPS games could be

considered Uber Violent. These “Popular Uber Violent” Fps games

only make 1.98% of all FPS games ever released! (605)”

 

That’s right, this 1 Example of a game that isn’t a real Game marketed by the industry is being used

to demean Thousands of games that don’t even come close, simulated combat with aliens/demons/zombies/etc is being scapegoated for causing the shooting,  by using an example from a poorly done FAN MADE CRAPPY ARCADE GAME…. Yeah… NRA is really pushing it…. The nonsense continues.

 

 

 

Related articles

• The BS witchhunt over video game “violence” has thus errupted again!!!! (Sandy Hook School Shooting Paranoia) (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• CCFC starts the next load of nonsense scapegoating of violent games in their NYT Article. (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• Moron right wing christian nutcase compares violent games and pedophilia (also blames violent games for sandy hook shooting) (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• Calif. state Senator says gamers have ‘no credibility’ and a ‘lust for violence’ (polygon.com)
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Voting for Romney, is voting for the Death of the Gaming Industry…

Back on gamepolitics.com, there was a poll that asked how much gaming legislation impacts voting choices, and many ignorant fools kept saying that it didn’t… But it does…. One of our candidates, wants violent games banned, and he is still in the race, and it’s preposterous to assume that if people vote for him, that the gaming industry will survive, for his comments, in 2008 proved that he wanted “something to be done about retailers who sell violent games”…I am obviously talking about Mitt Romney. According to this site, his words in the 2008 election were quite proving if his motivations. I quote :

“I want to restore values so children are protected from a societal cesspool of filth, pornography, violence, sex, and perversion.”  “I’ve proposed that we enforce our obscenity laws again and that we get serious against those retailers that sell adult video games that are filled with violence and that we go after those retailers.”

Notice not once did he say that he would “go after” retailers who sell them to kids, just sell them, PERIOD…  If you think that the gaming industry would survive after this, you are crazy. He is clearly talking about Shutting down ALL retailers of any game with violence included, 99% of violent games today… It’s obscene to think that in America, that politicians can get away with such freedom tarnishing regulations.  It shouldn’t even be allowed in this country, anything that could allow for an effective ban of violent games to all age groups. It’s what the morons who attack games want. Romney’s speech proves it!.  Nevermind all his BS on the cesspool of filth and how he claimed Harris/Klebold “drank from this cesspool” when in fact it was proven through a freedom of information act request that a police rape incident in Jan 1998 triggered the school shooting as a revenge crime… (Look it up)..

If he is seriously planning on making it illegal to simply sell any game with violent content, how far will he  go is the real question. How would Amazon.com and other places be affected? I know that I plan to get several FPS games this Holiday season and into my birthday, next march. This kind of dark ages, knee jerk, save the children bullshit regulation is uncalled for.  This country should be ABOVE complete bans of violent entertainment, to EVERYONE. Every other country is for this crap. We are supposed to be civilized to know that my  freedom as an adult to buy violent games MATTERS…

That’s why I say, that voting for Romney, is voting for the death of the gaming industry, porn, etc…. He WILL try to legislate morality and there WILL be no gaming industry left when NO stores are legally allowed to carry any game with violent content in them..  Back in Brown VS EMA the Supreme court struck down a law trying to do just this. Don’t be fooled by the claim that the CA law would have fined retailers who sell violent games  to kids. The law used Obscenity clause language to determine how the board of censorship in CA would judge a game. If the game is offensive to  them they would claim that it lacks “scientific, literary, and educational value” and they then would fine any store that carries it. Stores, not knowing just WHAT games would be effected would pull ANY game that COULD be fined, effectively banning violent games without a strict law saying that this should happen… DONT VOTE FOR ROMNEY!

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Insite into the controversy surrounding certain video game modifications…

(This is a really old article published here several years ago that got accidentally deleted, but I thought it was important to republish it)

After reading about that article complaining about the ‘game’ (really a Half-life 2 MOD)  school shooter 2012, I began to wonder how the people writing the biased article linked in that debunking got their hands on the mod. It’s not like the mod was popular. It wasn’t even popular in the HL2 Community, so how the hell did the people attacking the game on the article find out about it?

Mod communities are closed communities. Fans of the game the mod is made for, and only those fans, go to the communities looking for mods for it.  So how does a nanny state representitive who wants to find the newest violent game to complain about find out about a mod, to complain about it?  In the case of a real game like GTA, there is countless ads on TV, articles about it coming out, etc. For mods none of this exists.  So for someone to find that mod to attack it on a site, must mean that they are in the Community releasing the mod, at least I think so. Do the anti-gamers go to gaming mod sites, and then write articles complaining about the mod being released by the mainstream video game press… It seems likely this is the case…

Only problem, is this is the only time that I’ve EVER seen a mod for a game, be targetted like it’s a game, by the violent game attackers. The thing is that this is not the first time someone has made some tasteless school shooting level or mod for a game. Go to Doomworld idgames site (where doom levels are hosted) and you will find this lovely gem, from back in 1997. Overlooked by all the anti-gamers. Was really the same thing as school shooter : american tour 2012, minus the kill yourself ending. Not that I like this kind of game, but….. It’s been done before. What caused SSAT 2012 to get so much negative press? It’s content is horrible, making light of the school shooting tragedies, make no mistake, but if this article would never have been written, no one would have commented on it outside the gaming community. There are tasteless mods for many games online… None are complained about in the media.

Who is inside these communities finding this stuff to write about? Is it someone being an idiot and seeing all the bad responses to get something to laugh at, because he has a sick sense of humor? Is he someone doing this on purpose to see how idiotic the comments are about violent games, to see what misconceptions they spread? Was the whole mod made for that purpose? Or is the writer some anti-gamer latching onto a mod that is tasteless to use it as ammo to attack Valve software with. It’s not like Valve hasn’t been hit with lawsuit threats before. Some lawyer threatened to sue valve when ‘he’ (the lawyer – in a news article, no less) named counterstrike as an influence to the V-Tech Killer’s rampage. With no other proof that Cho played counterstrike, presumably to use it as ammo against valve in some big lawsuit, even though valve did not make Counterstrike. The thing is that he said that ‘Cho Played Half-life’.  Currently, the articles slamming the Mod (or “game” as they label it for this purpose) don’t mention Valve. But what if one did? The company who has developed some of the best FPS games ever (half-life, HL2, Portal, Left 4 dead 1/2) would be ruined…. Out of all the gaming companies that DON’T deserve this kind of link to a school shooting, valve is it.  Their games are usually puzzle intensive, where combat is a challenge, and violence is not rewarded like in GTA. They pretty much started the ideas that formed the tactical shooter revolutioin, and lead to Far Cry, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., etc.

Valve would get lawsuit threats, a crapload of media complaints, and maybe even another senate hearing that could lead to stronger restrictions, a govt enforced rating system that I think could be abused to ‘effectively’ ban violent games to all age groups in the US. Is this the purpose of the article……

I don’t know. But I would love to find out

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ANOTHER site spreading BS about violent games… When will it end?

So I was browsing the net looking for a certain candidates views on violent game bans that I was writing about last week, when I  came across this lovely right wing Conservative site that is spreading utter BS about violent games to people, claiming to be a trustworthy source. Now I will add a disclaimer,  the site may not be Intentionally doing this, but many of the PRO side points are quite suspicious at best, and down right fabrications or bad misinterpretations at worst… Anyone looking at this will believe the points debunked below, because most people believe what they hear: Here is the site I am talking about.

Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?

Now on  to the debunking, shall we.. After all, this IS what I do here, debunk BS spread about violent games by ANYONE!

“97% of 12-17 year olds in the US played video games in 2008, thus fueling an $11.7 billion domestic video game industry. In 2008, 10 of the top 20 best-selling video games in the US contained violence.”

Really, 97% of 12-17 year olds played video games? Shocker. Notice it said video games, not VIOLENT ones…  It then tries to claim that this is the reason that the gaming industry made so much money. Then it immediately tried to assume this 12-17 year olds must have played  the violent ones!!! So  “10 of the top 20 best-selling video games in the US contained violence” Shocker!!!
Let me tell you one thing. Most violent games aren’t even played by such “young kids”… The target demographic is 18-35, according to the ESA. They also say that the average age of gamers are 30 years old… They even did a study proving this, unlike the article linked above, which tries to imply that 12-17 year olds are playing “violent” games. Now Let me define violent game. A game with Combat in it, and killing. Not neccisarily a Uber Violent one like GTA where you run over old ladies, or games where you decapitate people, BLAH BLAH BLAH. The media for years has been using examples of rare tastelessly violent games as a way to say most games are like this, but it’s more than wrong because, according to a study I did using a wikipedia list of 605 FPS games released since 1986 on my other blog, only 4% or so were what I think most people would  consider “tastelessly” violent. That’s 21 out of 605. Not even 1/10! The real number of tastelessly violent games is actually lower than this because FPS games make up only 1/5 of total violent games and tastlessly violent games, at least to me, seem quite rare… Now on to the more severe lies…

“Increasing reports of bullying can be partially attributed to the popularity of violent video games. The 2008 study Grand Theft Childhood reported that 60% of middle school boys who played at least one Mature-rated game hit or beat up someone, compared to 39% of boys that did not play Mature-rated games.”

The sample size is not mentioned here, 60% of anything less than  5000 people means nothing… A lot of studies  that try  to prove this stuff use small sample sizes to make it look like it’s an serious issue, and by possibly manipulating the results to show high percentages of people pre-chosen to show the result they want they can fudge the study. Recently a study was done saying that 1000 people all supported violent game legislation. 1000 people may seem like a lot to the untrained eye, but 1000 is TINY, like in 625 times smaller than the Population of Boston, MA in 2011, 625,000 or so. So finding 1000 people who support legislation ignores the other MILLIONS who do not. It’s statistically insignificant, and the fact that such studies, more than likely pick and chose 1000 people who support it anyway, means that they should not be trusted. Not saying the study above isn’t trust worthy or the one mentioned in the article but you have to learn how to critically examine such studies…

“Video games often reward players for simulating violence, and thus enhance the learning of violent behaviors. “

Most violent games don’t even do this at all. Ones that do are things like GTA, Sure, and uber violent games like blood, but many games don’t even make dead enemies drop items at all these days. Very few actually force players  to even kill any enemies, notable exceptions are quake 2, and serious sam type games. So much for rewarding violent behavior. Yes, killing is part of many games, but to kill, in order to survive hostile opponents trying to kill you, isn’t really rewarding anything but survival. Very Few FPS games that I have played (and I have played 100’s), really give you substantial rewards for killing… The whole realism thing in modern shooters (a BIG thing today) prevents significant rewards because realism requires minimal rewards per kill… A lot of these games focus on puzzles and missions to accomplish as well. Killing enemies is secondary. You can beat 90% of shooters without killing enemies. Just because killing is part of these games doesn’t mean they reward “simulating violence”. Also the claim that games that “reward simulation of violence” enhance the learning of violent behaviors is crazy. Most people who play violent games won’t go out and kill people because they have been rewarded in a game to do so in the game, not in real life… These points mentioned completely ignore that real life violence is different than simulated violence in a game, on purpose many times, to make it look like people who play violent games will want to kill for real… 

“Violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence. It is common for victims in video games to disappear off screen when they are killed or for players to have multiple lives.”

There is actually no real evidence to support the idea that violent games desensitize people to real life violence. Define Real life violence, then look at what desensization really means. It means that people who consume violent entertainment get more used to the violence in it. Real life violence is Completely separate from  this, Period!  There is evidence to suggest that consuming said violence entertainment, or anything really, will make a person more used to it. That’s all the evidence is really saying. Saying it proves that people get used to a completely separate, different thing (real life violence), is a willful, stupid, and deceitful misinterpretation of studies that prove something different. If there is any study that says violent games desensitize people to real life violence, then I seriously doubt that it isn’t flawed like all the other video game “aggression” studies being linked as proof of violent games causing real life violence by anti-gaming morons everywhere for 10 years. 

Now on to the claims that there are lots of games that have multiple lives, and disappearing characters. Where the hell did they get this from? Only Extremely KIDDIE games like Super Noah’s Ark 3D have Disappearing characters that completely disappear. Only one recent game series features this, that’s serious sam. Most games have corpses that NEVER disappear. Making Dissapearing characters is way to make a game seem LESS violent to kids, and is only done in KID type games to prevent the game from showing off VIOLENT DEATHS… HELLO!  And the idea that people in games have multiple lives. I can name all the popular games in FPS history that conform to this. Wolf3d, Descent Series, and Serious sam. THATS IT. Most FPS games ditched the whole lives thing because it made it too easy. The change was made in 1993 for gods sake, with Doom, which revolutionized  the idea that players who die don’t get to come back without restarting the level or loading a save game. Lives in FPS games are almost non-existent.

“A 2000 FBI report (187 KB)  includes playing violent video games in a list of behaviors associated with school shootings.”

Ok… So there is this study that lists risk factors for school shootings, and it listed being obsessed with violent entertainment. So a bunch of anti-gamer DickNozzles starting purposely interpreting it as proof that playing violent games is the risk factor, not being obsessed with any form of violent entertainment. Since I couldn’t actually quote the study, I screenshotted it below. Lo and Behold, this proves it again. The people who made this site committed this crime.

Nowhere here does it A) Single out violent games B) Make it so simply playing them is a risk factor like the article linking to it says.  The article above is Purposely misinterpreting the facts to create a moral panic. Plain and simple.   The FBI study finds that “themes of hatried, violence, weapons and mass destruction Recur in virtually all his activities, hobbies, and past times”. So simply playing violent games will make this happen? WTF! Sounds like these people who posted the article Don’t know people who play violent games mostly Do NOT obsess over real life violence. The study also says “The student spends inordinate amounts of time playing games with violent themes and seems to be more interested in violent images than the game itself”. Where does this equate simply playing violent games with school shootings. NOWHERE.   Then it says “On the internet the student regularly searches for web sites involving violence, weapons, and other disturbing subjects. There is evidence the student downloaded and kept material from these sites”. Where does this equate playing Violent games, with school shootings? NOWHERE. It equates being Obsessed with Real violence, Hatred, And wanting to commit real violence, as a risk factor. This whole paragraph DOES NOT simply link playing violent games with school shootings. It links OBSESSION WITH VIOLENCE IN GENERAL. These people are making up BS about this…. The FBI wouldn’t actually link simply playing violent games at all. They aren’t pro family enough to do  that… Only right wing nutjobs who want violent games banned do that..

“Violent video games cause players to associate pleasure and happiness with the ability to cause pain in others.”

Looking at  the source of this proved that it came from one of the “hack psychologists” going around on talk shows in April 1999 claiming the military uses violent games to break down the inhibition to kill, all while selling his book, a big batch of lies… If a blog run by an actual person who was in the armed forces debunks the claim, then this claim sounds suspicious as well.. I know for a fact that even though I played wolf3d for the first time at age 13, duke3d at age 16, etc, I did not “associate pleasure and happiness with the ability to cause pain in others”. The whole idea that this happens, is using the same analogy as people misinterpreting desensitizing studies to prove that violent games desensitize people to real life violence, not the fake video game violence. This makes it look like games that make people want to cause pain in a virtual environment make people want to do it in real life. It’s BS… Just trust me on that… If it were true, you would have a LOT more cases of gamers hurting real people. I don’t see that, or any evidence that that is actually happening… So this is more than likely bunk too, IMHO.

“A 1998 study found that 21% of games sampled involved violence against women (165 KB) . Exposure to sexual violence in video games is linked to increases in violence towards women and false attitudes about rape (47 KB)  such as that women incite men to rape or that women secretly desire rape.”

Number 1, the (probably) flawed study was done in 1998! More than 10 years ago! Number 2, since then most FPS or violent games, don’t even have women to kill in them. And if they do, that’s not saying they do this on purpose to single violence against women on purpose. Then the thing makes up the claim about sexual violence. Like all the other claims of “rape simulators” in violent games, this is also BS, because the last time a game actually had a scene where there was a controllable rape scene where a woman was a victim and the player was a perpetrator was, Custer’s Revenge, in 1989, an ADULT only game not sold in normal stores!!!! Since then only 3 games have even had rape in them, Phantasmogoria, which features the player being raped in a cutscene, and Fear 2, which ends with the evil chick villian Alma, Raping you in arguably  the most fucked up ending any game has ever had, but get this, it is most likely a dream sequence….  Not once has there been a game that had virtual rape in it where a women was a victim, and if a guy was a victim, well, I have never heard of it. And the claim  that violent games lead to “increases in rape” came straight out of a moron Fox news put on their “bullshitting” on Bulletstorm 3 years ago, which they tried to say bulletstorm causes real life rape, with this analogy “Since Rape is a violent crime and violent games cause violence, then violent games have caused rape”… It’s Fucking bullshit. The person saying this had NO proof that violent games caused real life rape, just said they did without actual evidence.

“Violent video games can train youth to be killers. The US Marine Corps licensed Doom II in 1996 to createMarine Doom in order to train soldiers. In 2002, the US Army released first-person shooter America’s Army to recruit soldiers and prepare recruits for the battlefield. “

Nowhere here, did they mention that the first was a training for group tactics, and was a Modification of the game not the game itself, with HEAVY REALISTIC changes to gameplay, and graphics, almost nothing from Doom in it at all. They want to make it look like the military uses real games like Doom 2 to train soldiers to kill on, but the blog ran by the military dude linked above “design synthesis” disproved that, didn’t it?  Now the thing about americas army is true, it WAS a recruitment tool. But it’s the only game that ever was a recruitment tool, period. That’s out of THOUSANDS of violent games, most of which aren’t tastelessly violent..

“California passed a law in 2005 that would have required violent video games to include an “18” label and criminalized the sale of these games to minors. On June 27, 2011, the US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Association (485 KB) that the law violated free speech rights.”

What they don’t say is that this law would have used a really subjective Obscenity clause like language to determine what games would be fined, by saying that games that are morbidly violent and “lack literary, scientific and educational value” are targeted for fines. This would allow them to fine any game they got offended by, period, causing many tame games to be fined, causing stores to pull any game that could be fined under the law off  the shelves, causing most violent games not to be sold in stores, causing the companies that make lesser known games go out of business at the least. That’s what the BS article REFUSES to tell people…  It claims to be a trusted source on the points made by the experts…  All it is is spreading plainly debunkable lies to fuel censorship… It’s stinks, like most of the polished turds that get released by the anti-gamers…

Related articles

• This Just in! A certain US Presidential candidate wants a complete ban on violent games!!!!! (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• More Youtube video editorials on video game violence by Me… (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• New Video Game Violence Editorials being done on Youtube… (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• More video game violence debunking on youtube for me today…. (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• Study: Violent Games Lead To Reckless Driving (g4tv.com)
• Is the Government or some other Entity spying on Youtube Watchers… (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• Violent video games not so bad when players cooperate (phys.org)
• Violent video games not so bad when players cooperate (techandle.com)
• Hoaxed evidence used to blame Doom for Columbine? (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)

This Just in! A certain US Presidential candidate wants a complete ban on violent games!!!!!

While looking at how many of the candidates are for video game legislation of any kind, I came across a shocker, according to this site, which posted US presidential election candidates opinions on violent game legislation  A certain Presidential candidate  apparently  supports a complete ban on all violent games, yes that’s right, a full ban to everyone, adults included, not just kids. (I’m not naming this candidate by name to protect my from possible fraudulent libel lawsuits from any candidate. I have no choice, the US Gov’t won’t make it so bloggers are immune to Libel, and don’t make it so false claims of libel get thrown out before the lawsuit has been decided to go to trial.)

So He is quite possibly saying that he  wants to go every retailer that even dares to sell violent games, PERIOD. Apparently to “shield kids from the violence in society”, we need to makes sure even ADULTS can’t get “video games that are uber violent BLAH BLAH BLAH!”.  And I assume he has lumped online retailers like amazon.com into his description, because they have no way to filter out kids because there is no way to tell age at all through amazon, so under his plan he would be taking down any possible retailer that could accidentally sell “uber” (as in any kind of violence in them) violent games to kids, even ones online that have no way of knowing what age their buyers are.. BAH!  Well under his description of what all of these games are like we would end up banning 99% of all the games ever made because 99% of video games have violent content, from sidescrollers, to FPS, to Third Person Shooters, To RPG’s, to fighting games, to you-name-it. But apparently someone hasn’t actually researched how many violent games are not Uber violent. Shocker!

Using an article from this blog, I will show right here, that unlike what certain people think, 99% of violent games are not uber violent…Here is a quote from that article in question which was written to debunk the most common violent game myths using a wikipedia list of all the FPS games made since 1986, to calculate how many fit the claim of the myth based on ones I have played or heard about:

“Claim  : Most FPS games are Ultra-Violent

Source : MANY, Many articles saying this in many ways, basically all saying most FPS games are uber violentbased on descriptions of one game (good example is all the articles describing games like Postal 2 to attack the Justices who voted against CA in EMA vs Brown)

Ok… This isn’t so much a claim but a pattern among articles “damning” Violent video games.  These articles use examples from 1 or 2 violent games that are what I call “Uber Violent” games as proof that “most games” are like them. Uber violent games are a rare thing. What’s the definition of “Uber violent games”? Games that are so violent that most people would find them tastlessly violent.  Out of all 605 FPS games ever made, only 4.46% are “Uber Violent” like this. Only 14.81% of all 81 Popular FPS games could be considered Uber Violent. These “Popular Uber Violent” Fps games only make 1.98% of all FPS games ever released! (605)”

So according to this data, which I measured myself, only 4.46% of all FPS games are “uber violent”, not counting all the Third Person Shooters, RPG’s, Fighting games, and Sidescrollers that I didn’t count, so the actual % of violent games that are uber violent is actually much smaller than  that 4.46% figure.

 

First the GOP wages war on porn, and now thiis candidate’s comments suggest he is willing to wage an unconstitutional war on all games with even a hint of violence. Under no circumstances should the US government even think of an outright ban on violent games to all age groups. The very thought of US even attempting to this is Obscene in itself. The scary thing is that, it’s happened before in 2 states, right after columbine. Both states drafted bills that would have banned violent games to everyone but both failed thanks to the supreme courts. The government was so brainwashed by the newspapers all making up fake crap about doom (doom has pipebombs, allows you to kill kids, is a school shooting simulator, remember these?) to make it look like Harris/Klebold were solely influenced by it, that they had to attempt full bans. There is no excuse for this BS. Restrict all the games to adults all you want, but once the government even attempts to legislate morality in such a way so that any kind of ban, intended or not, happens, in such a way so adults cannot get violent games at all, or companies can’t sell them to adults in stores, or the internet,  this country becomes a fascist state.  I have played over 100 FPS games since I was 13, and there was not a single time I felt like I was gonna get violent or aggressive due to them, ever. And there are millions like me, and only a few anomalies, and people the media labeled as “game obsessed”, people who the media claim become violent due to violent games and only that, but in reality those people (School Shooters) most likely had other problems, like an obsession with violence in general, and terrorism, racism/white supremacy crap, mental illness, and other issues that would more likely cause real life violence than playing Doom, a game that came out in 1993! A game scapegoated by the media with questionable or possibly even hoaxed evidence,  like no other for crimes it did not commit, under the false tense of “saving the children” from violence caused by other issues! Go figure…. BLAH BLAH BLAH!

Related articles

• Violent Video Games Increase Pain Tolerance? OK, Hit Me. (kotaku.com.au)
• Hoaxed evidence used to blame Doom for Columbine? (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• Why mandatory Web Filtering is stupid…. (erosionoffreedom.wordpress.com)
• Violent video games not so bad when players cooperate (phys.org)
• FPS’s and Brain Cells (playtheobjective.wordpress.com)
• Easy Modes Can Ruin Games? Um, No. [Assassins Creed] (kotaku.com)
• Violent video games not so bad when players cooperate (esciencenews.com)
• Playing violent games increases your pain threshold according to study (techandle.com)
• Violent Video Games Increase Pain Tolerance? Okay, Hit Me. [Science] (kotaku.com)

Hoaxed evidence used to blame Doom for Columbine?

Doom s level of graphic violence made the game highly controversial (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This might be a very long post. I don’t care. I have to get this off my chest. First thing’s first, I will say is that I have been a gamer since 1993 when I started playing Simcity, Wolf3d, Doom, the list goes on. I have played every single big FPS game for the PC till around 1999. Then came the columbine massacre. Despite how horrible it was (I am NOT condoning it), what pissed me off is how the media kept on blaming violent games.  Doom was blamed for it almost right away. Claims that the shooters were influenced by it. Blah Blah Blah… I started reading really bad, sensationalist articles on newspapers around that time, all blaming Doom for the crime, saying they were living in a game world, playing out the game in “god mode”, blah, blah, blah….  Then came the article and the incident that caused me to become an pro-violent games pro-freedom anti-censorship activist.

An article was written by a Colorado newspaper which I won’t mention here by name. It said that some hate site tracking group found a modified version of Doom on Eric Harris’s AOL page, which they claimed was used to plan the shooting, with begging students saying a quote “oh lord, why are you doing this to me…”, and other dubious features.  I couldn’t stand the game-bashing by the media any more so I signed up to that newspapers forums, and posted how I couldn’t stand the lies being spread by newspapers making up bunk claims to make violent games look like a cause of what we would learn later was a botched terrorism attack by two really messed up individuals, not game obsessed murderers turned that way by Doom. I physically blamed the media and condemned people in schools trying to “reform” and “discipline” Doom playing students after the shooting, and complained about 2 bills that were being worked on in 2 states legislatures that would have completely banned violent games, to adults, not just kids.

Immediately I was threatened by an internet troll, using a fake name, who started insulting me right and left, and called me and some other pro gamer types on the forum “gamer shitheads”, and then threatened my life after anger drove me to say a particularly rude reply in return, with an underhanded attempt to quote themselves from a previous post saying “you’re sick” as something I said later on… The whole thing wen’t on and on, with the same old BS replies to anyone who even dared to defend Doom, every sentence was quoted, and followed by insults, then the next sentence, more insults, etc. The insults were lewd, sexually explicit and full of swears, threats, racial slurs, you name it.  After 3 months of this happening every 1 minute 24/7, with only a few breaks, and 99% of the forum posters on the Troll’s side condemning the “gamers who like to twittle with their joysticks” – yes another quote by a moron who sided with the troll,  the troll then was asked “prove that Harris was Inspired by Doom”, and then he used an internet hoax “doom will become reality”  to back it up, which I debunked on my first blog post at this  blog, which is here. So that’s what I set out to do, debunk BS claims said about violent games. And I did for 3 years on this blog, but a lack of followers and viewers have always stymied me there.. So I am posting this article here… Now onto the main point of this article..

The poster who threatened me on the forum of the newspaper said one very suspicious thing, “I have enough evidence to prove gamers get violent”. This post was taken down no more than 20 minutes later. 3 years later the entire forum was removed, all of it, and then the email address on “justicemail.com” was completely removed from their system, in fact the whole system was completely purged.  Justice mail is advertised as “email for the law community” or was then…. So the thought crossed the mind of my friend who was there to fight the troll for me, “it’s a lawyer!!!”. So for a few years I kept on trying to reverse trace the morons email with NO good results on 100’s of reverse email lookups. I needed info on who this moron was… But every attempt lead to “no results”, over and over again.

So I gave up, and forgot about it, till I opened the wordpress blog 3 years ago and debunked the hoax. That brought back bad memories, and I started wondering about the news article with the modified version of Doom found on the AOL site of eric harris. Immediately something pissed me off about it the first time I read it. I had a “gut” feeling it was a much more elaborate hoax like the Doom will become reality one, but couldn’t really prove it. While researching BS claims made by violent game haters that mentioned Doom and Columbine one day for a blog post I ended up discovering this thesis which claimed Doom was licensed by the military to train soldiers to kill better (a lie, Doom was used as an Unnoficial mod to train group tactics, not to break down the inhibition to kill – a BIG lie spread by anti-gamers (my term for radical censors who spread lies about violent games)), and the fact that a modified version of doom was found by the same exact hate site tracking group without the begging students but with “2 shooters, infinite ammo, and extra weapons for both shooters”.  I knew right away the 2 shooters and extra weapons were NOT doable by Doom in 1999. I’ve been editing doom since 1995, I know what can be done and what can’t be done. In 1999, the only way to modify a doom .exe is with the program dehacked. There were no source ports with the features needed then.  So this Thesis was spewing Bogus claims. But further research found out that the claims were quoted from an APA paper which is not online anymore. It mentioned the same features 2 weapons, infinite ammo, extra weapons, and so did an article from another Colorado news paper, but that newspaper article was even more dubious, because it mentioned the quote said by dying students in the mod, but it was a completely different quote than in the first newspaper article I read , plus “infinite weapons” as a feature, something NO Fps can do. There is no way to even have infinite weapons, the idea simply doesn’t compute. Weapons are a finite asset, not something you can never run out of, in fact running out of weapons is impossible, It’s ammo you run out of, not weapons. The idea is so dumb that I don’t know where to start.  Further research lead to the original source of the BS, an article written by a magazine writer talking about columbine on the first 3 pages, and then mentioning this modified version of doom being found on the AOL page again with no sign of the begging students being mentioned, but the article did mention the 2 shooters, infinite ammo, extra weapons and one feature that I knew Doom could not do “when one of the shooters ran out of ammo, he died”. Or something along those lines.

Ok… That’s the long part out of the way. Now to the more interesting part, proof that all of these articles are putting claims in that simply cannot be done in Doom…  Here is a screenshot from the program dehacked I mentioned above.

This shows the property set used for all “things” that dehacked allows you to edit. Examples of things, for the non-Doom Editing people out there, are Ammo, Items, Weapons, monsters, basically anything that can move and isn’t a wall, floor, etc. Every thing in the game uses this exact set of properties. Lets say I was trying to make a “second shooter” in dehacked. I would need a property to make one of the peaceable enemies in the game (lets say the chaingunner), friendly to attack enemies that look like students, via some graphic editing used.  You look closely and you can see that there is no property for friendly AI, whatsoever… But that’s not even the last part in these articles that is an outright impossible claim.

Here is the Generic Player Properties, cheat changing panel and weapon properties list in Dehacked. The generic properties allow the player to have more total bullets, more total health, armor, and more ammo at the start of any level. The weapon properties allow someone to change properties of each weapon in the game. Adding “extra weapons” for each “shooter” with this is simply impossible. Why? Doom has only 8 weapons, Fist/Chainsaw/Pistol/Shotgun/Chaingun/Rocket Launcher/Plasma Rifle and BFG. Doom 2 adds the double barreled shotgun. There is absolutely no way to add a new weapon without replacing an old weapon, with this program. Look for a “new weapon” button. You won’t find one. Dehacked won’t let you do that. Another claim of the article, proved to be impossible.

Now look at the above image again. Is there any variable that stores the players current ammo at any time editable through dehacked? No. That variable is always in memory and can’t be edited directly, because it always changes. The problem is that  there is no way to make the player die if he runs out of ammo, period.  No way. No variable for current ammo on that screen at all. So how could someone have even made a feature where the shooter who runs out of ammo dies first?

This first image again of the player’s properties. Look for a property or ability to make the player die first when he runs out of ammo. There is none!!! No way whatsoever to even do this!!! In fact the magazine article in question even says the modified version of doom had infinite ammo then said the player who ran out of ammo dies first. How is that even possible when running out of ammo is impossible with infinite ammo? IT ISNT! As you can see many of these features this modifed version of doom had simply don’t work in 1999. Not till 2000 did friendly AI even become a real thing in Doom Sourceports via Dehacked, and not till 2002 did ACS scripting, the first scripting language get implemented in Doom that would have made “killing the player who ran out of ammo first” even doable.

The more I look at this, the more I see how suspicious this article and the Doom will become reality hoax seem. The 3 articles (the magazines one, the first colorado newspapers one, the 2nd colorado newspapers one) all mention the same hate site tracking group, but cannot even get the features consistent among them. The first article, the magazine one failed to even mention any begging students. The second one, which was published by a colorado newspaper, doesn’t even mention the running out of ammo and dying thing, but mentions that the quote was cried out, and Infinite weapons. Then the 3rd article, the one by the 2nd colorado newspaper, mentions a completely different quote, says it was shouted, not cried, and left out everything else, the infinite ammo/weapons, the dying when running out, etc. The more you look at it, the more it looks like a sloppily done article series with impossible in doom claims done by 3 newspaper/magazine writers, that all borrowed the same hate site tracking group but added in their own features, all in an attempt to cause a massive outcry against violent games. If these articles and the doom will become reality hoax never even happened, the link between the shooters and Doom would be less defined…

All I know is that certain things just don’t add up to me.

The hoax mentioned above, “Doom Will become Reality” is used in over 7 pages of anti-video game attack sites, all blaming doom for columbine. We still don’t know who put up the hoax on the fake Eric Harris AOL page mentioned at this site,  (look at the link on the bottom right). This site proved it was a hoax but was swept under the rug by such attack sites. The only other site corroborating the fact that this was a hoax was “mysteriously” taken offline by someone. I found it search results, some newspaper. It is gone now. Now you take the articles with the impossible features and search for them, using this quote from the second newspaper article,  in the search results, and you get over 13 pages of results. (make sure to let google put in the search results that are omitted). You combine the search results for the doom will become reality hoax search and the search with the quote and you get over 20 pages of results all claiming these articles are genuine and are reporting the god-fearing truth, but only 3 pages debunking them with facts, 4 at one point but it was taken down. The problem is that none of these attack sites even proved without a shadow of a doubt that this modified version of doom was even real. In fact no one has. All of the other Eric Harris Wads are available online if you search for eric harris wads. People around 1999 were trying to get their hands on addons by him for some sick reason, but not once on his AOL site did he even mention this modified version of Doom. And since the way file/website hosting works involves knowing the exact file path needed to download it off his site, which intern requires finding a link posted by someone else (who found it), how did  this hate site tracking group even find it, without knowing the directory listing of all his files on his AOL site? If it really wasn’t found by people in the doom community like all of his other wads, how could they have known the file name? I don’t think they could have hacked his password in time, but maybe it is possible… However even if they did find something, the proof that  these claims are impossible to do in doom dispute any rational idea that this mod even existed at all.  More questions, less answers, that’s all I have to say.

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• Carmack Confirms Doom 4, Apologizes for Rage PC (tomshardware.com)
• No Serious People Blamed Video Games For The Dark Knight Tragedy Today [Dark Knight Shooting] (kotaku.com)
• Psychiatric Detention Silencing Allegations Columbine Was Revenge For Police Rape (dprogram.net)
• Hell on earth: id’s Tim Willits on the return of Doom (vg247.com)
• Dishonored and DOOM 3 BFG Edition playable at Eurogamer (dailyrecord.co.uk)
• Doom 3: BFG Edition Hands-On (1up.com)
• How Do I Show The FPS In Doom 3 (mademan.com)

When the Media Overexagerated video game tendencies, I debunk!

Image via Wikipedia

Today, I spent 4-5 hours doing some work with a spreadsheet, looking at how prevalent things the media always says about violent games, are in reality.  To aid me in this, I used the list of all 605 FPS games ever released that I got from wikipedia. I used this in a previous article into a trend following big video game controversies that I blogged about recently.  This list over the last year has been invaluable for me in helping debunk claims about violent games that certain pro-censorship group and media outlets seem to put out.

An article on RockPaperShotgun that I dug up from last year is the source of the first claim I will use scientific evidence to debunk. Unlike the media lies that keep popping up, that I did studies on to see how much they were being spread, these claims have games that the claims actually make sense for, but the claims say that MOST or Many Games  fit the description of the claim, but in fact the truth is far different, in most of these claims. So these aren’t lies at all, just over generalizations, really.

To help me to see how common these claims are in games I used the below spreadsheet to help me. It was basically a copy and paste job from the Wikipedia article. I took each claim and made a column for it. Then I made 3 rows, 1 for how many games fit the claim, how many Popular games did out of all 81 FPS games that I think are considered “Popular”, and how many games out of all 605 were popular games that fit the claim.  The total number of games the wikipedia article lists is 605, from 1985 to 2011. Yes that’s right, FPS games were actually created as really badly done maze games back in the late 80’s. All these games have similar enough gameplay or movement to make them FPS games, and there are 28 before Wolfenstein 3-d.  Looking at the Wikipedia article you can see that there are literally 100’s of FPS games that the attackers of such games never even know about, like “In Pursuit of Greed”, “Cybermage”, “Kens Laybrinth”, “Nitemare 3d”, “corridor 7”, “Blake Stone”, and 200+ more I won’t mention. All they see are either video clips of controversial games or descriptions. I on the other hand have played 100 of these games myself and have seen descriptions of hundreds more  of them in the Media (from PC Gamer, to Video Gaming sites, to blogs, etc). I have literally been playing FPS games since 1992. I’ve played 100% of the popular ones in the 90’s and many of the popular and non popular ones in the 2000’s.  Call me biased, all you want, when you read this article. I don’t care. Fact is, I am an Infinitely better source of what games have what features on them than some hack journalist trying (or succeeding) to make a million bucks on sensationalist claims to scare parents into talking to their representative. This leads to the Rep’s actually creating bills to censor violent games.

But… Let’s go into it shall we?

Claim 1 : Many games give you “bonus points” for headshots

(source – Parenting group the article on rockpapershotgun into the funding of brain scan studies)

This really overexagerated claim is the first I will debunk. It’s true, there are a few FPS games, 10 or so that reward headshots. Now 10 might seem like a lot. But there are over 600 FPS games ever released, so the % of quite low, really. In fact it’s only 1.16%! Tiny. It’s a bit bigger (8.64%) for popular games only, and those popular games only make up 1.16% of all 605 FPS games ever released! Games that reward FPS games include all Unreal Tournament games and Modern Warfare games plus Battlefield : Bad Company. All are popular, unfortunately. But.. Still. 10 out of 605 is a bit much for “many” isn’t it….

Claim 2:  Many games allow the player to be a “gangster”

Source : http://twanajournalism.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_archive.html

This article makes several inflammatory claims against purveyors of thy video game violence (Gaming Companies), including how anyone who is saying they don’t cause “violence” is being paid by the game companies, and even cites the “Doom will become reality Hoax I debunked in the first post in this blog. The claim that Many games are Gangster games, is based on paranoia over GTA, and only that, because besides the 5 GTA games (which for completions sake, I put in the spreadsheet, even though they aren’t FPS games), there are very few other popular “Gangsta” FPS/Third Person Shooter games out there. Life of crime, true crime, that is like 10 tops. So at worst it’s 15 of 605, which is still FAR less than 10%! In FPS games + GTA only the % I got was 0.83% of all 605 games were “Gangsta games”.  That’s LESS  than 1%! Popular games were 7.41% out of all FPS games+GTA games that were popular. That’s a bit bigger, but far from overwelming. Those Popular “Gangsta games” make up only 0.99% of all 605 FPS games+GTA games ever released! So much for “overwelming” proof that “Gangsta” games are making kids want to join gangs based on a mere 5 out of 605!

Claim 3: Many games reward “Deviant Behavior”

Source : A post  that was linked in one of my studies into the natures of comments on News Articles attacking violent games

One of the quotes I highlighted in my studies (with a funny cartoon drawing) basically said that most games reward “deviant behavior”. For the purposes of this study I assume “Deviant” = “Law Breaking” (Aka, Stealing, Murdering in Cold Blood, etc).  The thing is that there are more games in all 9 or so Video game genres that Punish “Deviant” Behavior than Actually reward it. I’m referring to crime systems in RPG’s, of course, like the crime system in Morrowind, Or Oblivion, for instance. For those who are unawares, Both games allow players to steal and kill… However there are “town guards” walking around the whole fantasy universe and if any of the characters in the game (any of them) see you doing the crime the guards will come after you and arrest you. Then you can 1) Pay gold – and get stolen items taken from you : or 2) Resist arrest (and get attacked by the  guards who are much tougher than you no matter how good you are) or 3:) Go to jail and lose a lot stat points making  you weaker.  A lot of article writers take examples of games that don’t reward or punish “Deviant” behavior and use it as “proof” that those games reward “Deviant” Behavior, example : Some article said that GTA rewarded running over people, and killing  them right and left. In fact the game actually punishes stuff like this. Believe it or not, GTA DOES have a crime system similar to Oblivion. Commit Murder, and you get the cops come after you. It’s not as bad as oblivion, but you ARE being punished for committing crimes, despite what the media always says “GTA rewards mindless killing”… Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah-BLAHHHHHHH! Another thing is that both GTA and Morrowind/Oblivion are sandbox games. All of  the gameplay, any of it really, is OPTIONAL. Nothing is required. Killing pedestrians is something you never are FORCED to do. Same thing with running over old ladies. It’s something that isn’t required either. It isn’t even rewarded, despite what the media says.  It’s punished.  Morrowind and oblivion are the same way. No crime is encouraged, or required to progress in any story in the game, unless the player CHOOSES to do so.The problem is that 99% of GTA fans CHOOSE to do this stuff. Because honestly, the game’s story sucks.  THAT’s the problem.

I played Vice City. Everything was FINE BUT the story. The story sucked so bad. The missions, were frustrating, annoying and aggravating. I gave up after the “save lance vance” crapola quest where he died over and over again. The only replay value was running over old ladies. That’s it.  Did you know you can also be an ambulance driver, taxicab driver, airplane and boat pilot, and play real golf in GTA. Of course not. The media completely refuses to mention the things in the game that are ACTUALLY redeeming, or non-violent. SHYAH!

Like GTA, in morrowind or oblivion there are quests that REQUIRE you to commit crimes. But their all optional. The thing is that Elder Scrolls games like Oblivion and Morrowind aren’t much less “crime infested” than GTA. Yet GTA gets all the controversy for basically being a thug, and prostitutes. Elder scrolls games controversy has lead to 1) Someone complaining about topless mods for Oblivion, and 2) Some parody group ripping Skyrim for Gay Marriage, with fake but hellarious Claims. GTA’s controversy amounted to 1) Lawsuits, 2) Bans, 3) Constant anti-gaming propaganda directed at Rockstar, Nonsense claims being spread about these games, and 4) Controversy about 1 THIRD PARTY SEX MOD that happened to use SEX SCENES REMOVED by rockstar.

Don’t mistake my aim here. I HATE GTA games. But not for their violence. For their crappy gameplay, that locks you in one area until you finish X amount of shitty aggravating missions. NO exploration till you do the missions. Bah. I had almost no problems with the violence or sex because the game to me is a big parody. I could see through that. I didn’t take it seriously. Vice City, that’s the parody name for Miami. Miami Vice. Get it. Gotham city = New York City. But I keep seeing the media make up bogus claims about this serious endlessly. Even Doom (even after Columbine) Didn’t get the frequency of complaints GTA has gotten over a 5+ year time, that were bogus.

In the study I found 20 games (out of 605!) that reward “Deviant” behavior. This is mostly Blood, Blood 2, Shadow Warrior, etc. This might seem big but in reality it’s a mere 3.31% of all 605 games!  Out of 81 of the popular FPS games only 4.9% actually rewarded “Deviant” Behavior. A bit bigger but still LESS THAN 10%!

Claim 4 :  Many games have x-rated content in them

Source : An Article attacking Duke Nukem Forever

Duke3d brought x-rated material into the FPS universe. However the total amount of FPS games that actually have such x-rated “Sexist” material is EXTREMELY low. Duke3d is the only popular game to even feature this material among FPS games! No other Popular FPS games even have “naughty” content like this in them. DNF was anything but popular, the entire gaming community was spending their time attacking the “sexist” content in the game without actually playing it (even though it sucked, not because of the x-rated material). Shadow Warrior is all forgotten (that’s why It’s printed in my previous article.) That’s it. No other Popular FPS games have this damned “X-rated PORN!” in them… At all. Period…. Serious… Anyone using DNF as an “Example” of how sexist FPS games are in general is an IDIOT. The % of all 605 games that have this “Content” in them is 0.99%! Yes… Les than 1%. Serious. % of Popular FPS games featuring dirty material is slightly higher, at 6.17%. However these 6.17% of the 81 popular FPS games are only 0.89% of all 605 FPS games ever released.

Claim 5 : Many  games feature Decapitation

Source : The Amicus Brief of the group who using fake evidence in the said Amicus Brief for EMA Vs Brown

Since the above group started running their mouth over, and over, and over, and over again, about how FPS games with Decapitation in them are the norm, the claim has been spread all around the internet. The truth is very few FPS games even feature decapitation, at all. Many FPS games have blood and gore (62.96% of all popular FPS), most of the popular ones lack decapitation. Only 12.35% of all 81 popular FPS games even have Decapitation in them. Higher than the previous claims but still VERY small. Not even a third. Or even a 5th. Total FPS games that have decapitation is only 5.12%!  And even more shocking, the 12.35% of popular FPS games that have decapitation only make up 2.01% of all 605 FPS games ever made.

Claim 6 : Most FPS games are “Realistic”

Source : Same comment poster as Claim 3

The commenter who mentioned that games that reward “Deviant” Behavior, also said that most were “realistic”. Visually graphic maybe, but people think that just because FPS games are “Realistic”  LOOKING they are total realism simulators, with an 100% analogue to real life Military Combat. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Visual graphics have not been increased over the years at the same rate as combat realism, what people think when they read these claims. The truth is that combat realism is found only in 1 RARE kind of FPS games, “EXTREME” Tactical shooters. These games are NOT uber violent. They are Simulators of real life combat. And most aren’t even that popular because they are Insanely difficult. They should be. 1 hit kills you. No Health. Things like “marine Doom”.  Most Tactical shooters are at most 75% realistic. They do bullet damage fine, and health not around every corner, but things like mimicking real weapons, that almost always fail, with few exceptions. Number 1, in these games, gunshot sounds are quiet. Real gunshots are DEAFINGLY loud.  Number 2, real guns jam, break, and need to be repaired regularly. NO games do this accurately. Because that’s stuff that the military teaches. Number 3, as a gun degrades it fires worse. Accuracy and similar characteristics go down. No game mimics these 100% accurately. Some might have weapon degradation. Number 4. Armor in most FPS games, even some tactical shooters is 100% resistant to bullets. or Very resistant. In real life armor isn’t nearly that effective. There are armor piercing rounds that  go right through armor.  Number 5. In Realistic scenarios like Simulations, Getting shot anywhere can be deadly, not just the head and chest. Shot in the leg. You can’t walk. Shot in the knee or elbow, or fingers, you  might be in so much pain that you cannot even move. Shot in the neck, risk of paralysis. Very few, if no games simulate this. Some games TRY to emulate real combat but most fail. The total of these games that come close in some cases in certain areas (like weapon physics, STALKER is a great example, or damage to the player (Far Cry)) are a small % of the total 605 FPS games ever made. MOST Fps games realism level is ridiculously low. For the first 10+ years of FPS games getting shot would just do minor damage most of the time. Not till Far cry come out did this change. Guns had no recoil in most old FPS games. Total % of TRUE “Semi-Realistic” games is 6.61% of all 605 FPS games ever made. But very few of these are even popular. Only 4.94% of all 81 popular FPS games are like this. These “Popular Semi-Realistic FPS games” are only 0.66% of all 605 FPS games ever made!

Claim 7 : Most FPS games are “War Themed” games (think COD) that make gamers want to join the Military.

Source : A commenter in one article surveyed in my studies into comments saying this

This claim was repeated many times in the comments I studied. Basically it said most Violent games are “Realistic” War games that are being used as recruitment tools by the Real Military. Only 1 FPS Game counts as this however, in reality that is. That’s American Army. No other FPS game is a recruitment tool, period. Many games use war as a thematic backdrop. However MANY of these simply lack proper realism. COD for instance has “points”, “Regenerating Health” while taking cover. Hardly realistic designs for the gameplay, in a true realism sense. So the claim that these games are “realistic” is coming from the visuals only. Gameplay wise Realism is only seen in a tiny sub % of all these games. Mostly Ghost Recon.  Out of all 605 FPS games, 17.52% are “war” themed. That’s less than a 5’th! Out of 81 Popular FPS games, 19.75% are war themed. That’s still less than a 5’th, barely. These “popular war themed FPS games” only make up 2.64% of all 605 FPS games ever made. Less than 3%!

Claim 8 : Most FPS games Glorify Terrorism

Source : Some news article targetting Counterstrike after Virginia Tech

This claim comes from an article attacking Counterstrike and any other games that allow the player play as a Terrorist, Overexagerating most FPS games like they are Terrorist training Simulators. The truth is that this is the least prominant type of FPS game of all the claims besides the last. There are literally only 4 FPS games ever made that fit  this description (0.66%!) out of the 605 FPS games ever made. Out of the 81 Popular FPS games only 3 of these 4 count as “Terrorism” Simulators (3.70%!). These “Popular Terrorism Simulators” only make up 0.5% of all 605 FPS games ever made! So any time you here this claim (not that It will be said much I think from now), Know that it is a pure, unfiltered, polished, Turd of a Bullshit claim!

Claim 9 : Most FPS games are Ultra-Violent

Source : MANY, Many articles saying this in many ways, basically all saying most FPS games are uber violentbased on descriptions of one game (good example is all the articles describing games like Postal 2 to attack the Justices who voted against CA in EMA vs Brown)

Ok… This isn’t so much a claim but a pattern among articles “damning” Violent video games.  These articles use examples from 1 or 2 violent games that are what I call “Uber Violent” games as proof that “most games” are like them. Uber violent games are a rare thing. What’s the definition of “Uber violent games”? Games that are so violent that most people would find them tastlessly violent.  Out of all 605 FPS games ever made, only 4.46% are “Uber Violent” like this. Only 14.81% of all 81 Popular FPS games could be considered Uber Violent. These “Popular Uber Violent” Fps games only make 1.98% of all FPS games ever released! (605)

Claim 10 :  There are games with “Decapitation” of “Prostitutes”, “Pushing victims into big running saws”, and “Sodomizingvictims with Broomsticks”

Source : Same group who filed the amicus brief above.

Ok…… The claim is that there are Violent games that have “Decapitation of prostitutes” and “sodomizing victims with broomsticks”. The former claim is a meticulous misinterpretation of the GTA games that is absolutely false. Yes. There are Prostitutes in these games and NON-graphic (aka not shown) Sex scenes in cars. And you can run them over after. But there is no way you can decapitate them…..  Proof is this forum….. I quote:

“It’s pretty bad, considering the game he describes does not actually exist. Could be it’s Postal 2 (doubtful), but the game doesn’t really give you much of a context for you to describe it in that sort of detail. They’re just trying to make it sound like the kid played GTA IV, but you can’t actually decapitate prostitutes in the game, so that’s bogus. ”

Ok… So It’s not any GTA games…. Name any other game with prostitutes… Hmm… DNF (came out after the claim was made = doesn’t count), Duke3d…….. No other FPS games or violent games feature prostitutes, at least decapitateable ones…. So guess what…. This is one of the 2 claims that IS an outright lie… Basically NO game allows you to decapitate prostitutes! Ok… So that’s bad enough. But what about the saws claim? Turns out  there is games that have this feature. JUST 2 of them! Manhunt 1 and 2. No others….  Those are popular games sure, and sick ones too….. But they only make up 0.33% percent of all 605 FPS games ever made! But since manhunt aren’t FPS games…… That’s actually a much LOWER % of all types of violent games because there are FAR more than 605 total FPS/Third Person Shooter/RPG/Survival Horror/etc genre games ever made…. So EVEN though 2 popular games that ARENT FPS games have this feature, they are the ONLY ones….. Now… What about the “Sodomize victims with Broomsticks” claim? SURPRISE! NO GAME FEATURES THIS AS WELL! Doing a Google Search on this claim lead to 3 things. 1) The Original Claim… 2) My Blog Debunking the Claim and 3) Gamers saying it’s not true and making fun of it…. NO other proof that a game with  this feature even exists….

So out of these  three claims claimed up by the pro family Group:  2 are complete Fabrications, and 1 is only seen in 2 games. Wow…. Sheesh….  Since 99% of these claims aren’t lies but gross overexagerations of games, I can’t say that the media saying them is doing it on purpose, or are spreading “lies”. However, it’s really bad… Because People today believe everything they hear…. My research seemed to show the real truth in the matter….

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Correlation between video game controversy and crappy games?

Image via Wikipedia

 

Over the last night I’ve been thinking of how modern FPS games (Quake 4, Halo, Doom 3, Bulletstorm, Crysis, etc)  seem to be absolutely terrible in comparison with oldschool games like Doom, Quake, Duke3d, Heretic, ROTT, Dark Forces,  and even middle of the road FPS games like Jedi Knight, Half-life 1, Unreal, Clive Barker’s Undying, Deus-Ex,  etc. What irked me is that total enemy count reduction (100 plus in Doom 2 levels, reduced to 35 or so in Quake etc) and the introduction of badly done story and grating characters in modern shooters (with few exceptions). I kept looking at valid reasons to reduce total enemies each time a new game comes out, and to introduce story in a way so that all the rooms that had enemies in Doom/Quake For instance, half of them would become empty and have “scripted story” sequences.. One really controversial idea popped up……. Shooter developers reduced this due to the controversy following super violent games in the 90’s.

After columbine, dozens of newspapers ran stories that made up stuff about doom to make it seem like it influenced Harris/Klebold, like Pipebombs and killing kids, are things that doom has. Add the hundreds of medical journals, news articles, video game attacking articles by “violent game censorship” groups quoting “Doom will become reality” (a hoax proven here), and the questionable claim that there was a version of Doom on his site that allowed him to train for columbine complete with a “second shooter”, “infinite ammo”, and other things not possible to do in doom in 1999, and you get a controversy over violent games that seems 90% fabricated, (everything but one quote by Harris that seems to link Doom as something that Influenced him/Klebold to Commit the massacre seems to be made up by the media or at least questionable). The next month, two bills were considered in senates of 2 states that would have completely banned violent games to every age group. They both failed.  Next came the senate hearings to see how violent games were effecting kids, to question if violent games made kids violent.

I noticed a pattern over the last few years in total FPS games that have come out that I actually thought were as engaging and combat intensive as older games. There was only 1 game, Serious Sam 3 that fit this description. Most shooters tried too hard to put in a story and intermittently mix it in with combat so every other room had the above mentioned “scripted sequences”. Leaving less total monsters per room. And also I’ve noticed a trend over total violence levels in MOST fps games from 2002 till now. They are FAR less violent than the older ones. Call me crazy, but I think most FPS games Like Halo, Half-life 1/2, Call of Duty, etc, are actually far less violent than duke3d, shadow warrior, blood, Serious Sam, etc. So I needed some hard data to measure the phenomenon.

This Wikipedia  List of all released PC FPS games was used as a base.  I looked at only FPS games, and only ones I have either played and finished, or have seen most or all of the game in Youtube Lets plays videos. That leaves about 100 games to do the study on. Here is picture of the completed spreadsheet.

I used this spreadsheet to measure total violence level per year, by using my own experience of each of these games to find out violent each one was. 1-nonviolent 10-horribly violent. Same thing with enemy count % 1-almost no enemies 10-insane counts (1000+ per level). I also measured how good I thought each game was based on my play through or the lets plays I watched. (1 – Horrible, 10 – Perfect). I calculated the total per year by using formulas for average for all three categories. I also added controversy level per year,  based on my recollections of controversial issues relating to violent games in the year and controversial games I knew had been released that year. I used this list of controversial games to help me on that.

The chart to the right, is viewable below:

Notice the two BIG spikes in controversial Game related issues (yellow) in 1999-2000 and 2006? 1999 is Columbine, and the media nonsense spreading around blaming it on Doom.  2006 however is less known. the Controversial stuff that year was a texas plan to 100% tax “violent” games, the Hot Coffee Controversy in GTA III, and other related controversies.  Notice the obvious Drop in quality of games (green) for the 3 or so years after these? Is there a correlation? Also notice that during the big 2 “violent” video game controversies, the actual level of violence in games overall is lower than when there isn’t…. There isn’t a huge overall rise of violence in games to spark the controversy, just people saying violent games lead to this and that (falsely mostly). The small rise of controversy around 1997 has to do with 3 things, Paducah, Violent games being ‘misidentified’ as something the military uses to break down the inhibition to kill with, and overly violent games like Duke3d, Shadow Warrior,  and Blood. The overall violence around 1997 is higher than 2000+ because of these 3 games, mostly.  Take out games like this and you notice the actual violence level of games is lower around 1999-2000 because of the lack of duke3d, shadow warrior, and blood type games post 1999.

I’m not obsessed with violent content in games, but it seems like the more combat and blood in the game, the better it was. It wasn’t because of the blood. More  combat made the game have a bigger Adrenaline Rush. Serious sam is the best example of this. Hundreds of enemies per room. And they don’t stop coming. The whole game is an adrenaline producing experience. It seemed to me that games past 2000 had less blood because pressure from censors made them need to replace blood with story.
This brings me back to my theory. After BIG violent game controversies the industry in the US  has been making dumbed down FPS games to avoid worse controversies. 2000 was the last year that a lot of good FPS games that had fun gameplay and good stories came out. Modern FPS games started throwing in too much story. They kept on reducing total enemy count and violence and gore level. Notice the violence level past 2000. Two big games caused the violence to jump up in 2006 and 2011. F.E.A.R and Bulletstorm, respectively.  Twitch shooters and those two are responsible for the raise of violence seen past 2000.  But most games I played in the years past 2000 were LESS violent than the ones in 1996 and 1997, blood and gore wise, even though the graph seems to show that games have been getting more violent past 2000. They (with a few exceptions) have been getting LESS violent in the US. Twitch shooters like Serious Sam/Painkiller/Bulletstorm made the exception to this trend.  99% of those are european developed. US games besides Bulletstorm in the years past 2000 have been far less violent, blood and gore wise. The twitch shooters also had much more enemies per room than most shooters, even oldschool shooters like Doom/Duke3d/Shadow Warrior. All other shooters that weren’t twitch shooters seemed to have less than 10% of the enemy count per level found in the twitch shooters, at least in 2000 and later.  This leads me to a theory of mine which I briefly mentioned. In the US, (possibly) due to threat of lawsuits for the years after columbine (2000-now) there has been a severe reduction of what makes FPS games fun to me. Story is added in to make the game less violent. Plain and simple. Back in 1998 US fps games had NO story, whatsoever, besides Half-life. They had tons of fights with enemies and really bad gore in some cases, and all had a decent amount of blood, with the only exception being Half-life which concentrated on puzzles and realism instead.  Now… Most games have blood but very little gore. And monster count has been reduced from 150 per level to 35 now. Why? To fit in the story that IMHO is used to make them less violent, because they can say (‘there is more to do now that there is more than killing in the game’) to critics. Why is this happening? I don’t know for sure, but I suspect censorship has lead to times when the industry is afraid of censorship and start toning down their games.

In fact this dumbing down is what is ruining modern shooters. Adding story was good at first with Half-life, Unreal, Undying, etc. But FPS developers weren’t very good at keeping this up. They weren’t designed to make story intensive games, unlike RPG developers that Concentrated on it. The story got worse and worse, IMHO, with all the ” realistic war” games like COD, Medal of Honor,  America’s Army, etc.  These games suck horribly. They are way too intense and are simply aren’t FUN! You cannot relax and play these, because every 10 seconds some drill instructor asshole is yelling at you to “MOVE IT”. Even if you got their in 000.35 miliseconds. Doom 3 and Quake 4 abused this BS tactic to make it so insults from friendly characters were guaranteed to happen no matter how quick you got to the insult trigger.   This is partially the fault of censors. They pressured the industry to make FPS games less violent. This, IMHO lead to the story driven shooters of today that had 10 enemies per level and crappy stories. FPS games like this aren’t nearly as good as Doom, etc.

And the graph clearly shows a correlation between big game controversies and horrible games coming out after them, overall. We’re in a 5 year period that has had only 3 good shooters with good story come out, because everything else has been dumbed down. Same  thing after 1999-2000.

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