Posts Tagged ‘Games’

Censoring Life Podcast Episode 1

Posted: May 7, 2015 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Censoring Life Podcast Episode 1.

This is a podcast talking about nonsense surrounding video game violence. I recently did it.  I will do another one tomorrow night if it gets views… Check it out…

MA tries to start another violent game Witchhunt!!!

Posted: November 14, 2013 in 2012/Doomsday BS, Copyright Infringement BS, Legislation against Violent Games, Moral Panics, Video Game Violence
Tags: , , , , , ,

Well it seems the idiots attacking violent games never stop, do they? On the heels of the idiotic study into so called violent games “effects” on kids  set up by Senator Jay Rockefeller, We have my state trying to start the same old nonsense again. A politician in MA has decided that it would be a good idea to start a biased study to study the effect of games on kids again…. Right after MA stalled their bill aiming to restrict violent games so they could not be bought by adults. These “studies” popping up everywhere get to me. Because just like all of the other game attacking studies, these are bound to be biased, and engineered to show a certain result. A lot of other studies are funded by the Center for Successful parenting, a group that has this in their mission statement “We aim to motivate leaders of <insert tons of industries here> to change culture so violence is not shown to children” basically meaning “ban violent games”, because changing the culture of violence can only done by removing the violence.

 

The current studies by Rockefeller and this idiot in MA are troubling. The Rockefeller study, has language in it’s text that tells that the studies can find whatever results they want, because it asks if the violent games have any “new” effects on kids. After the brief but stupid moral panic surrounding child molestation and it’s nonexistent link to violent game playing, spurred by that Preacher Boykin and Ralph Nader, I wondered if they could use the vague language in the study to find that violent game playing leads to child molestation and pedophilia.  To see what the Study in MA does I  looked at the text of the study closely…

 

I got the text from this source:

 

 

 

 

“That a special commission is hereby established for the purposes of making an investigation and study relative to video games as  a form of media and as a training tool. Within that context, the commission will focus upon video games that allow the player to  simulate severe battery or killing (“killing games”). The commission will study, investigate, and provide conclusions regarding:  (i) the social benefits, impacts and implications of video games in general and killing games in particular, comparing the impact  on youth with the impact on adults; (ii) the use of video games as military training devices, educational devices, and other training  applications; (iii) how video games compare to other forms of media in terms of their ability to recreate a realistic experience, to  desensitize the consumer, to train the consumer to accept certain ideas, and to teach the player new skills or capabilities; (iv) the addictive quality of video games; (v) any connection, including any exposure t or imitation of behaviors exhibited in video games,  between killing games and actual violence, including rampage killings that have taken place since 1990; (vi) the reasoning and  conclusions drawn in the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, as well as  other freedom of speech considerations relative to the regulation of video games, in light of the conclusions drawn by the commission  pursuant to (i)-(v); and (vii) the anticipated cost of any proposals to regulate video games. The commission members will play or observe killing games directly during the course of their investigation.”

 

So this study wants to see if games are an effective training tool. We’ve been told BS in the newspapers from the hack psychologists that violent games are being used in the military to break down the inhibition to kill. But this blog, written by a military trained soldier debunks the whole thing. I quote:

 

“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.

 

The fact that the studies author is bringing this nonsense claim up to the Government is proof that the the government is trying to ban violent games again, IMHO. It must be stopped before it gets to the 90 day phase (see below), or we could have a MA ban on violent games to adults. Not to kids.

 

 

“The commission shall consist of: the Governor or a designee, who shall chair the commission; a member of the general  public appointed by the Governor; 3 members of the Senate, chosen by the Senate President, 1 of which is a member of  the minority party; 3 members of the House of Representatives that are chosen by the Speaker, 1 of which is a member of the minority party; 1 constitutional lawyer who specializes in freedom of speech; the Massachusetts Attorney General or a  designee; 2 psychologists or psychiatrists, at least one of whom is a mental health professional specializing in addiction;  the Secretary of Education or a designee who is an educator; a member of the military who engages in military training;  a representative of the video game industry; and a representative of the law enforcement community.”

 

At least one of the people involved has a bias against violent games if I am right. They mention “a member of the military who specializes in military training”. This fits one of the Hack Psychologist to a tee. Another Hack Psychologist could be in it too if I am right, “1 constitutional lawyer who specializes in freedom of speech” sounds a lot like a retired anti-game activist everyone in the community hates to me. They also mention how they need to study the impact of the proposed regulation on free speech, probably as a cheap way to see how they can make a constitutional law that causes violent games to not get in the hands of adults, such as the Oklahoma tax on 1% of all property every time someone in OK played, stored, bought and otherwise consumed violent games.

 

They also want to study how violent games have caused mass killings like columbine (I assume). Whats to stop them from not believing the nonsense spread by the idiots in the government, the media, and unknown parties that says violent games influenced Harris/Klebold/Lanza, etc? Such things include the Doom will become reality hoax and similar “tidbits of information” that seem to make it look like mass killers played violent games but this info is badly written at the least, and is outright lies at the worse.

 

“Legislative appointments shall be made not later than 30 days after the effective date of this resolve. The chairperson shall  meet with the full commission not later than 90 days after the effective date of this resolve. Members shall not receive  compensation for their services but may receive reimbursement for the reasonable expenses incurred in carrying out their  responsibilities as members of the commission. Upon appropriation of sufficient funds, the commission shall engage professional “advisors as needed to accomplish its purposes. Not later than 270 days after the effective date of this resolve, the commission shall report to the general court the result  of its investigation and study and its recommendations, if any, together with drafts of legislation necessary to carry its  recommendations into effect by filing the same with the clerk of the House of Representatives. ”

 

We have 90 days to stop this, gamers.  I want every gamer in MA to write their Representatives, using this message:

 

“Dear Representitive.

 

I am your constituent, and I am alarmed by the  study our senate has started dealing with video game violence and the whole idea that the effects on kids and how violent games are a training tool for the military needs to be studied. For years studies like this have been done and many are methodologically flawed, using cheap ways to say violent games lead to  violent behavior or aggression, such as subjecting the violent game playing kids to electroshock therapy. It’s very important to note that any evidence that violent games cause real life crimes has to be doubted. There are many hoaxes going around and media fabrications that make it seem like violent games cause real life violence. If you do a google.com search for the “doom will become reality hoax” you will find a blog debunking a claim that was used to “prove” eric Harris was influenced by the video game Doom while shooting up the school. This claim is a hoax, a fake website said “doom will become reality” and the FBI proved the site was not Eric Harris’s real site. Also many claims are spreading that violent games break down the inhibition to kill. These are false claims spread by 2 anti-gaming activists in the 90’s and the below linked site debunks them totally. The site is a blog ran by a Soldier in IRAQ, telling how violent games could never break down the inhibition to kill, and only Boot Camp obedience training does this…..

 

http://designsynthesis.blogspot.com/2005/03/training-our-kids-to-kill.html

 

I find it disgusting that the government would spend millions of tax dollar money on a bill that would have restricted violent games to minors so adults could not buy them. There is no reason to studythe false connections between violent games and Real life killings, all invented by the media and anti-gaming groups. The hoax mentioned above was used as “evidence” against  the industry in an Anti-Gaming Group’s Amicus Brief.  This group is from the Midwest, they are called the Eagle Forum, and they are pro-religious zealots who think violent games should be banned to adults and gamers should all be dealt with somehow.  They were trying to fool the Justices in the SCOTUS to think this evidence is real and not a hoax. One of the people championing the break down to kill “theory” is a zealot former lawyer who once said on the gamepolitics forums that all gamers need to get the Death Penalty. If you plan to study these things, you must be sure NOT to be swayed by these types. For they tried to sway the EMA vs BROWN Case and others….. I just don’t think this study is a good thing because it looks like people like these kinds of people are on the group conducting the study. I don’t like the idea of fake evidence being used to sway any people to believe this nonsense is real. A study like this is almost impossible to be Not swayed by people like this. I am against it for this reason, and I hope you are too.”

 

 

Send this message to your Representatives, gamers. Maybe we can get them to stop this now… If it doesn’t work, I urge people to resend it over and over again, till they stop the study. Flood their Inboxes over and over again, till their network slows down, if they fail to listen. It’s important to stop nonsense like this.

 

 

 

 

Related articles

I have set up a facebook group to broadcast this blogs messages and my youtube videos… Check it out!!!

Posted: August 4, 2013 in Legislation against Violent Games, Moral Panics, Video Game Violence
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Regularly, I do blog posts on this blog attacking nonsense spread about violent games. I do youtube videos once a Night during a time when I am thinking a lot about this stuff, or during a gaming related moral panic. I need a place to broadcast this stuff, hopefully to a bigger audience. That’s why I created a facebook group to host this stuff, it’s called “Gamers Against Moral Panics”. Any and all news in this whole category will be broadcasted on this page… Check it out here… If you like what this blog posts, please like the page on facebook. Thank you…

 

Enjoy…

 

 

 

Related articles

Massachussets Apparently wants to Ban violent games, even to adults!!!!

Posted: August 3, 2013 in Legislation against Violent Games, Moral Panics, Video Game Violence, Video Games
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

So after going to gamepolitics.com last night, I looked in the legislation tab to see if any state had drafted Anti-Violent Game Legislation. Surprisingly, My own state of Massachusetts, was among those states, that drafted draconian anti-video game bills within the last 6 years. Back in 2007, HB 1423 was drafted, it would apparently “restrict violent games to minors”, but that’s not all… No No… That’s not all..

The Bill is so ridiculously draconian that is scares me just as much as the Bill that California Drafted that got Defeated for Unconstitutionality in Brown VS EMA. Like that bill, this one uses the greatly subjective obscenity clause to determine what games would be restricted…. Basically, if the game is offensive to the public, and the judges of the content find it lacks scientific, educational, or literary value, it would be restricted. The problem is if a game is so offensive that it offends the Judges (it seems any violent game with gore would do this, hell even guns in a game offended a co-worker years ago, Doom none the less), they would be so offended that they would say it lacks those values anyway, and therefore would use it against the game and then restrict it to minors.

The real issue is not this but the fact that it uses the restrict word in the wrong way, or in an unclear way. Restrict means to ” to confine or keep within certain often specified limits or selected bounds” according to an online dictionary, so if you use this definition,  the bill makes it illegal to sell games to adults now…. Even worse, the bill fails to even mention the punishments, who will judge the games, punishment (if any) for false judgement based on faked evidence or incorrect evidence or abuse of the judging process. Even if these issues are my imagination, it still uses a subjective system to determine what games are restricted and what ones aren’t.  How would the stores know which ones not to sell…. Like Brown VS EMA, they might end up taking all games off the shelves to prevent losses or lawsuits coming from violations of the law. So therefore this bill would create an effective ban because since stores don’t know what games get restricted till to late, they then end up having to take ALL violent games off the shelves to prevent damages, especially if the bill is abused..

Text of the Bill in question for people wanting to read it In case it gets deleted later for any reason. (a lot of the stuff like this gets deleted suddenly, as of late anyway, such as the Brown vs EMA Amicus Brief, etc)

As of now the Bill is in the House Committee being stalled, but who knows for how long?  This could come to bite my state and my freedom of choices  in the Ass later. I am an Adult! I have the right to choose WHAT GAMES I Buy. I don’t want this bill to backfire and make retailers get rid of violent games in fear like it could.  And since I use online retailers mostly now, who knows how it will effect online retailers in MA, or the gaming industry here. This could be, in theory, Disastrous for gaming in my state…..

This is MY STATE we are talking about here… We don’t do shit like this, uber save the children conservative nonsense here. Not till one of the hack psychologists crazy unproven theories invaded the minds of people like our Mayor,  did this nonsense start, with the Banning of GTA ads on subway systems that don’t have kids in them anyway (from my experience, their too dangerous for kids)…  IF our Mayor ends up allowing this to pass, I will fight it tooth and nail with regular emails to ALL the Representatives and Senators in my State…. I won’t let this go quietly and with out opportunity. I will start a campaign to get people to write EVERYONE in office in MA to oppose this and hopefully it will flood their Mailboxes so bad that they find it unconstitutional.

As of now, the bill is in committee, and who knows if it will be taken out for a vote anytime soon. But still I urge ALL Gamers in Massachusetts to email the Rep’s about this. This is danger waiting to happen for Gaming here… Don’t let this pass, gamers, spread the message, email your Rep’s, send the message below to them to make them see that this is WRONG!!!

Text to email (please us this, don’t write your own)

“As your constituent and as an avid Video Game fan, and also as an anti-censorship person, I oppose HB 1423  due to it’s vague use of the phrase “restricting” in it’s text, and other issues. I know this is an old  bill, but according to gamepolitics.com, it’s still being worked on, and hasn’t completely died, according to  them.It claims to be a bill that will restrict Sales of certain violent video games to adults, but when I didgoogle searches for similar bills in other states, only a few were restrict to adults type bills. Many were  ills to restrict violent games to children… Since I oppose any form of Censorship, I immediately looked  at the Bill’s text, and compared it to others in other states. When looking up the definition of Restrict  online, It seems this bill is actually designed to Restrict sales of violent games to adults, as in a ban  of violent games to adults only. Since the bill’s text is so vague, there is no part that clearly states “stores must not sell games to minors”, so which way is it? Banning games from being sold to minors, or  to Adults…. Based on other bills, it looks like the writer of such a bill Purposely left it out to abuse it for such a purpose, to make it illegal for stores to even sell games to adults…. Thus killing the video game industry in this state.

Other issues I have with it, are how it uses an incredibly biased Obscenity clause that states that if thegame is lacks scientific, literary, or educational value for minors, it is harmful to minors and can’t besold, but since the the people who are deciding this (which it does not state), could simply use theirstandards of what offends them, they can simply say that the game offends them, so therefore it lacks those  standards, and ban it to adults or children…. I feel Indecency and obscenity clauses are to vague and  subjective to use as a test of what should be restricted, banned or both… It’s too easy for someone  else to abuse this, and IMHO, that’s why the author wrote this bill to get an “effective ban” in MA  passed… I just wanted to share my concerns…”

Related articles

Comments attacking violent games in Newspaper articles, Filled with BS…. Surprise!!!!

Posted: September 17, 2012 in Moral Panics, Video Game Violence
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

For years, I have been seeing BS comments on newspaper articles that attack video games for controversial reasons such as causing school shootings, violent content, etc. Calling violent games “trash”, “junk” or “garbage” is a common one I have seen thousands of times since 1999. Always being bugged by crap excuses like this and people saying crap about gamers, I committed myself to studying just how many of the comments from articles I found, could be considered inflammatory toward gamers, games, the industry, and most important, spread lies about violent games. The results were quite shocking, to say the least…

So I embarked on this study last year. The total results  from part 7  published in this old article,  and the details are cited below… Part 6 is available here as well. (The first 5 out of 7 were deleted due to possible libel complaints down the road… I wanted to avoid that, but the specific comment types were recorded in another post online, but that was accidentally deleted last night)



“I am continuing my study into the nature of comments attacking violent games on articles in newspaper sites online. By definition the comments must fit these categories to be considered ‘attacking violent games’…

A) Spread lies about violent games

A2) Making up new lies about violent games .

B) Call for games to be banned outright

C) Call for games to be restricted to adults

D) Enforce negative gamer stereotypes

D2) Shows dislike, hate, or a grudge towards gamers.

E) A Bias towards gaming, such that the person commenting thinks games don’t deserve 1st amendment

protection,  the industry is marketing “trash” to my kids, etc.

F) Not sure what violence effects on kids are a restriction might be in order…

G) Attacking the ESRB due to some flawed thing like the FTC study or the fact ‘my 9 year old’ could get bulletstorm.

H) Wants violent game manufacturers sued or games boycotted.

The Previous 6 parts of the study found that, out of 77 comments, 57% were spreading lies about violent games, 31% had a clear bias towards violent games, 7% wanted violent games banned, or violent game makers sued, and 4% wanted violent games restricted to adults.

 

Results:

Out of all 97 comments in parts 1-7, 64 are spreading lies about violent games. That’s 65%

Out of 97 comments in parts 1-7, 26 have clear bias towards violent games, violent gaming companies, or the industry. That’s 26%

Out of 97 comments, 5 wanted violent games banned, and 5 more wanted the companies that make these game sued. that’s dropped to 5% for each.  3% wanted violent games restricted to adults.

Out of 97 comments, 7 made up totally new lies about violent games. that’s 7%. It’s small but still significant that this is happening.

Out of 97 comments, 4 enforced negative gamer stereotypes.  (4%)

Out of 97 comments,  4 showed a clear hate or dislike towards gamers. (4%).

 

Lies that are made up from the blue seem to be getting more popular in the last few articles. These lies are brand new, and are being spread by commenters. They are not from various news articles, or psychologists. These ones are troubling. Who would gain from complete nonsense being spread about a violent game by people who knowingly spread these lies that they know are not true? If you make up a total nonsense claim about a violent game you know you haven’t heard before, you have to know it’s a lie… Right? So who would gain?

Do anti-gamers sign up under fake names and spread more lies?

I can’t say. But these lies seem to hint at that. These aren’t the things I have heard from the so-called “experts” on media violence. These are totally new to me….  And they are false… But…  Do we really have a generation of libeling right wing anti-violent games groups hiring members to sign up with fake names to make up BS claims about violent games and post them in comments? I think we do. But I can’t prove it. But if they ARE doing this… It is VERY alarming… I will keep track of these lies that seem to be made up by commenters to see if others repeat them in other articles. I have an idea to see how many people are gullible enough to believe nonsense that is spread. More on it later….”

Now to read the worst of the comments and my response (if I responded to it in the original surveys at all):

 

(A certain comment, quoted from part 6)

“And it games cause violence, so be it. If a gamer tries to be violent with you, remember this one rule of thumb, so to speak. Since gamers spend a lot of time inside playing games, they are physically weak. As long as you can avoid their powerful, unnaturally strong thumbs, you should be able to subdue them.”

Pitiful. Who in the hell actually thinks that “violent gamers” should be “subdued”. Someone who hates gamers who think gamers cause school shootings, like that idiot who threatened to kill me on the newspaper forum back in 1999 after Columbine. This goes beyond a mere perpetrating anti-gamer stereotypes and goes to wanting them physically hurt. Is this a trend? First we’re bullies, and now we need to be “Subdued”. Moronic.

 

Source : https://www.npr.org/templates/story/storyComments.php?storyId=137660609&pageNum=1

(source story DELELTED to cover it up?)

 

“others are using pseudo facts to support their bias towards games in the guise of anti-censorship”.

 

“games have ‘passive and casual avatar rape and murder’ in them”  

 

2 Words : Custer’s Revenge. 1989! Stop making this damn fake claim of rape simulators up… It’s idiotic. These people read biased articles that keep putting that lie in the game and everyone believes this  tripe. It’s ridiculous.

Source : The same link that was deleted above

 

“Remember when the cigarette companies kept saying that no one had “proven” that cigarettes CAUSE cancer? So we continued to let the ads run where all the kids could see them. Lots of people died. Has it yet been scientifically proven that cigarettes cause cancer? Do you believe they do anyway?

Here’s the future of gaming: TVs as big as your entire living room wall. Life size enemies. Realistic wireless game guns with a loud bang and a huge kick. Maybe actual gun makers will make a wireless game clip that you can pop in the real gun where the bullet clip goes. Maybe someone will make an accessory that throws fake blood all over you when you shoot a game enemy at close range.

That’s OK, because no one has scientifically proven that violent games make the players more prone to violence. Until they do, let the carnage continue! “

 

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10430358-17.html

 

Now you can see the idiocy being spread by commenters and how many comments attacking violent games are filled with anti-gamer stereotypes, hate towards gamers, games, the industry, etc, and how much they spread complete lies, fabrications, all designed to make violent games look bad after a school shooting. Every time I heard the media using fake claims like “violent games make kids violent/aggressive”, “violent games are used in the military to break down the inhibition to kill”, “violent games link to real life violence is greater than cigarettes link to cancer”, “Violent games are being marketed to kids”, “violent games are recruitment tools”, “violent games that allow you to rape and pee on people”, “violent games that allow you to stalk virtual women and rape them”, “violent games are training tools”, etc, I always here at least 1 commenter per article respreading them, and in some of the claims, you get “special anonymous advertisers” repeatedly and maliciously advertising the book for the author who made up the “video games are being used in the military to break down the inhibition to kill” BS claim, on talk shows after Columbine, a Hack Psychologist. You also get TONS of comments, on how gamers are psychopaths, sociopaths, how gamers should be subdued, how we’re “gamer shitheads”, how we are “gamer druggies”, how gamers are all potential school shooters, and much worse. It’s a real problem, because the exact same claims made about gamers being sociopaths/potential school shooters/violent people were also made by certain anti-gaming fundies on newspapers as well, after 1 or 2 immature gamers threatened their lives…. Being a death threat victim myself from similar people to the people  who claim they are being threatened (and multiple ones claim they did, without proof of course), it makes them look like complete hypocrites, because they unknowingly (or knowingly) support people who intentionally make other peoples lives miserable on message boards just to prove “gamers get violent”, as  the moron troll on the message board of a newspaper did to multiple gamers 24/7 for 3 months, and said “I have enough evidence that gamers get violent” (the responses to their death threats probably), has been swept under the rug and covered up. It’s pathetic. The fact that there are people out there that think all gamers are sociopath’s because of people like Eric Harris, or any other damn reason, I don’t give a fuck, is sick in itself….  I know at least 10 guys who have played video games before, 5 were serious gamers, NONE were sociopaths. Maybe 1 or 2 gamers are “sociopaths” but that’s just a goddamn coincidence, not proof that games take completely normal children and turn them into sociopaths… Sheesh..

 

 

 

 

Now to show off comments making complete NEW lies up, all completely false, but apparently some people besides wackos in anti-gamer right wing religious groups like to make up false claims about violent games…

 

“But the videos in question, which the court ruled that kids can see, allows them to virtually stalk, beat, rape, and defile virtual women in a range of perverse and degrading ways. That is purely sick”

THERE ARE NO GAMES THAT ALLOW PEOPLE TO DO THESE THINGS….

 

Source : http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/sex-and-the-supremes/

“It’s offensive and embarrassing the Supreme Court will afford murder in all its contexts—self-defense, revenge, military mission, zombie killer, mobster—and variety–disembowelment, decapitation, abassination, guns, chainsaws—more protection that sex.”

Most of these things aren’t even murder…… Only assassination, mobster are… The rest are either military combat, “self-defense”, or combat…. how is “zombie killer” murder? Idiots like this astound me. Especially when they bring up disembowelment, and and decapitation, which are rare in most violent games!

Source : http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/sex-and-the-supremes/

“1 comment of type A2) Making up new lies about violent games – Claims violent games as training tools to recruit military at young age, says violent games ‘permanently burn memories’ into the minds of children, blah-blah blah… Common. Back up your crap. You can’t therefore it’s a lie.”

1 Comment of type A2) Making up new lies about violent games – Claims violent games and action movies have too much things happening at once, overloading the brain, causing ‘anti-social behavior’ in kids. WTF?

“But the videos in question, which the court ruled that kids can see, allows them to virtually stalk, beat, rape, and defile virtual women in a range of perverse and degrading ways. That is purely sick”




“The Commenter Claims just because he drove around for days and because of the length, he was forced to automatically do things without knowing he did them, the ‘kids that play games 18,20,24 hours a day will go into kill mode!’ Is this another hack psychologist worshipper unknowingly or knowingly advertising his best seller?”



Now they are making up utter crap about games in comments…. Some of these comments seem like something a moron in a right wing pro-censorship group would say, like the “perminantly burn memories”, and “overloading the brain”, and the “going into kill mode” ones…  In my honest opinion we have a bunch of pro-censorship morons both saying things like this, all completely made up to the media, especially after school shootings, and also on forums with fake names. I can’t prove it, but those 3 comments are too suspicious to ignore, in light of all the very similar nonsense made up claims anti-gamers keep on making on talk shows, newspapers, etc after a school shooting. I have heard every single goddamned fake claim being made up about violent games by the anti-gamer right wing morons. I know them all by heart… These ones are new to me… What actual gain would a normal person have to actually post some claim they made up to make games look bad on a message board? None. Now what gain would a right wing anti-gaming moron from one of  those anti-gaming groups that keep spreading crap about violent games in the media, have to post something like this on forums? More people could believe the lies they post, and their claims could be spread to other forums. It all spirals out of control when one person online says one fake claim, others repost it quite quickly, everyone believes it because people today have been brainwashed to believe everything they hear.  This effect, greatly aids such right wing violent game censors, trust me it does..


This whole spread of lies is, IMHO, part of a much bigger scheme to get violent games banned for 1 reason, they offend religious right nutjobs.  There is evidence to suggest in many places that the media makes up utter crap about violent games, and the politicians believe it. But that isn’t enough to get a ban to happen, because they need faked evidence to sway the supreme court, to fight against a claim of unconstitutionality. Faked evidence in the form of hoaxes were spread in April/May 1999 and in an Amicus Brief done by a right wing pro-family group, these hoaxes were cited as evidence to prove violent games make people violent…. This group has been known to recycle 2 very false claims about violent games over and over again, the claims that games have “decapitation of prostitutes” and “sodomizing victims with broomsticks”. This groups claims cannot be true, because research done by me on my wordpress blog revealed how fake these 2 claims are.  

This whole thing is been engineered to create the violent game bans the censor/anti-gamers want…. The thing is that the media spreading lies and hoaxes being made by the media and others are being used to hijack the supreme court now…. You then add in justices who are for violent games through the election of a conservative christian president (like the candidate who supports a complete game ban), and what’s to stop the supreme court from having a hung jury (and going back to the law that was passed before they looked at it on grounds of unconstitutionality), or even finding it constitutional via faked evidence in Amicus Briefs and 4 justices who support the idea of a violent games ban. This could happen if you add these 2 things in, the faked evidence in Amicus briefs and new justices who support bans… It’s scary… Something must be done about it and the lies being spread… More on that for another article or video… Stay tuned gamers



Related articles

Insite into the controversy surrounding certain video game modifications…

Posted: September 17, 2012 in Moral Panics, Video Game Violence
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

(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

Related articles

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

Posted: September 16, 2012 in Moral Panics, Video Game Violence, Video Games
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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!!!!!

Posted: September 9, 2012 in Moral Panics, Video Game Violence
Tags: , , , , , , ,

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

Hoaxed evidence used to blame Doom for Columbine?

Posted: September 6, 2012 in Moral Panics, Video Game Violence, Video Games
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Doom s level of graphic violence made the game...

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.

Related articles

How “Doom” was blamed for school shootings with questionable evidence.. A tale on how the media is NOT to be trusted…

Posted: June 11, 2012 in Moral Panics, Video Game Violence, Video Games
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve been avoiding blogging on this one blog for one reason…. There hasn’t been any anti-gaming news stories of note lately… Until now.  On my first blog post I utterly debunked a hoax claim that was used to attack video games on many sites, ranging from medical journals, to newspapers, etc, the infamous “Doom will become reality hoax”. This is the first post  I am referring to. That hoax has been used to justify attacks on violent games, Doom specifically in at least 100 different “attack” sites.  Of course it wasn’t something the real school shooters said on their website, it was obviously fake.   Which brings me to this article.

http://extras.denverpost.com/news/shot0504f.htm

This article was written on May 4, 1999, right after columbine by 2 denverpost writers. They claim that on Harris’s AOL site there was a modified version of Doom that had begging students saying a certain quote, “god mode”, etc…. Among other things.  Similar stories with a similar “modified” version of doom had been popping up in other newspapers around then… I find this problematic that this hate site tracking group has to be the only group that even had knowledge of this “modified” version of doom.  Number 1 the hate site tracking group would have to know the EXACT Web path and file name to get this file if He did have such a modified doom version on his site. Since no one else has any corroborating evidence this mod exists (Harris’s Doom levels are freely available online, you’d think someone would have found this too…), then how the hell did some hate site tracking group (who by the way has no business tracking video games related stuff at all) find the file in the first place? If there is no link to the file at all, this is impossible.. PERIOD. They’d have to log onto his site to get a site file listing..  And without the password that is impossible, without hacking.  The article also goes into a claim that his school was made as a level for doom and duke3d. But this snopes article completely debunks that completely. There were never any CHS maps lying around on his site, nor was there any indication he was building one.  That disproves that… But what about the begging students supposedly found in this “modified” version of doom?

I have been literally playing AND editing doom in every way possible since 1997. I KNOW what is doable in doom with each source port. Since the source code for Doom was released online there have been multiple source ports that are basically souped up doom programs with new features. I know in 1999 the only major source ports out were Dosdoom, Legacy, Boom, MBF and some others.  If these begging students could be done in doom, I was going to find out. Using a doom Exe Editor (dehacked), I decided to run a test to see if Doom could even do what the articles claimed. I tried to debunk this claim through using dehacked  to see if it was possible and it was,  however upon searching for more info I came across This forum posted an article that was written in another newspaper 1 day before…  The first thing you notice is that the quote is         COMPLETELY DIFFERENT in this article. Also the denverpost article mentioned how the quote was “shouted” while this article says it’s “cried” out.. Hardly consistent. It’s like multiple writers all decided to write the same article but couldn’t get the details right, makes both articles very suspicious, in the truth department.  As a doom fan, reading the second article made me realize how impossible some of the claims are because, they mention the modified game had “Unlimited” weapons and ammunition right from the get go plus “God mode”. 2 out of these 4 are doable, but “unlimited” weapons are something that no game did in 1999, nevermind doom. And starting with unlimited weapons and ammunition is not even doable in doom.  The engine isn’t THAT customizable. It’s close but still could not be done back then.  What’s even worse is that another site brings up this hate site tracking group with further “evidence” a doom version like this exists (even though there is absolutely no evidence to support it’s claim), with completely DIFFERENT features:

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1723

This is a paper on violence in video games, a thesis. In it the same hate site tracking group claimed to have found a modified version of doom. In this version infinite ammo is brought up again as well as enemies that can’t fight back (students, probably), and this time it brings up the claim the mod added in a “second shooter”.  The second shooter thing could be multiplayer. But I don’t think the hate site tracking group is an expert on how to set up multiplayer games. So what else  could it be. Friendly AI? Not quite. Doom can do that, but here’s the catch. The first source port (altered doom program with more features) available to allow friendly characters to be made was called Marines best Friend, and was released in 1998. But… here’s the thing. The text file included in the port didn’t even mention what code pointers are needed in MBF to create a friendly “second shooter” using a dehacked patch (needed to make a “friendly” second shooter – it’s the only way). Not till 2000 did wads (doom addons) come out that even used this concept. The problem is that the paper then claims that the “second shooter” had extra weapons just as the player did. ANOTHER thing doom could not do in 1999. The whole “begging students” screaming out “lord, why did you do this to me?” thing has bothered me since I got my life threatened on the denverpost messageboard back in april 1999, by some moron (apparently a lawyer), who responded to my post on the forum basically ripping the columnists who wrote the article from denverpost, which I had read for the first time 5 minutes before posting.

So who is behind this nonsense? People might think the hate site tracking group is behind it, but I doubt it. For one there is not a SINGLE corroboration from them that they found this on ANY site. Number 2 searching for more info only lets you see news articles and other anti-gaming articles quoting the said news articles that end up quoting the same person from the hate site tracking group, but make that person say different things, and  at least one of those things wasn’t doable by doom before 2000.  I don’t know if the articles are fabricated or not my gut feeling tells me this “modified version of doom” is unlikely to be real. Who would gain from such articles?  We obviously had a ton of idiots who wanted violent games completely  banned since 1997 and even before that, merely for the fact that the games “offend” them. Of course they have to bring up the “save the children” card because saying “ban the game, it offends me” doesn’t work in this country for the most part.  Something like this could (and has) been used against ID Software for lawsuit purposes. Some people DO blame ID for the mere ABILITY to make such a tasteless mod. These articles,  Their being cited like wildfire in arguments to attack violent games. If you search for sites on google that quote the thesis article linked above you get these search results. At least 15 different sites are using the article to attack games. One post, which was obviously done by an anti-gaming moron, was posted  in a message board for an article condemning the SCOTUS decision on Brown VS EMA links to it to use it as “evidence” that violent games lead to real life crime, all while saying “SCOTUS doesn’t care about kids!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”, basically, citing some case where the supreme court ruled in favor of “surprise!” not the kids…

You add in the troll on the denverpost message board who threatened me for merely saying one line he didn’t like “games shouldn’t be banned just because kids were killed”, and you end up getting possible motivation for the “lawyer” to threaten my life… I had posted the contents of the above denverpost article on their forum, said I was pissed off at the media. Since then I’ve been wondering just who this moron was.  I don’t know. He was basically  a “lawyer” troll with a pseudonym, who basically kept on insulting gamers over and over again calling us “gamer shitheads”, threatening to kill me, saying I should have been aborted, “crawl up your mothers fly infested c**t”, and much worse. What makes me think this moron was a lawyer?He had a justicemail.com email address, justicemail, email for the “law community”. Yeah. He even posted at the end “I have enough evidence to prove gamers get violent…” but that was deleted 5 minutes later. The suspicious thing is that 1) that last quote on evidence was deleted 5 minutes later 2) The justicemail.com account he used was deleted 5 years later, that entire forum doesn’t even exist online now. There is NO evidence but my word that this happened, and believe me it did. It basically made me absolutely despise morons like this who are (unfortunately) behind the anti-gaming movement. We have these questionable claims,  and the “doom will become reality” hoax that was “supposedly” written by Harris on his AOL site, and proven to be a hoax by the FBI. Yet literally hundreds of anti-violent games sites STILL Continue to use the articles, and the hoax as evidence that violent games make people violent, (and not being a racist, psychopath who wanted to be famous – the real reason!).Now we have these articles and even till this day, morons are still quoting them as evidence to attack SCOTUS, etc.

Even if this “modified version” of doom was REALLY found on his site by the attack group, it doesn’t rule out the idea that the modified version was NOT made by Harris, and was put online along with the fake “doom will become reality” hoax by unseen perpetrators who wanted to use Columbine as a reason to ban violent games. ANYONE with doom modding knowledge could have made this, just because HIS name was on a wall pattern doesn’t mean HE actually made it.  Hell even me, back in 1998 with crappy doom modding ability could have made something like this… In the 1999-2000 period there were at least 3 examples of “questionable” evidence being used to attack games. This is the worst. This whole thing is a shirtstorm that will never end.

Then you have the Attempted Violent game Bans in 1999 by two states. They failed. These would have banned violent games to everyone, not just kids. Everyone thinks just because our country has more freedoms then others, no one will attempt to ban things like this. It ALREADY HAS HAPPENED. Supreme court shot it down, thankfully. However all we need is another big tragedy like Columbine, with ties to violent games, and the morons have another excuse for the next complete violent game ban. It’s quite probable that stuff like the hoax and the MANY articles by newspapers all making up utter BS about violent games, lead to the government getting involved and attempting to ban violent games that year. You had at least 1 moron (the troll mentioned above) blaming ID software for the  “modified version of doom” being possible, not knowing that ID software had NOTHING to do with the modding for classic doom. It was several very dedicated fans with hex editors finding out the specs of the format of the game. Same for Wolf3d. ID software didn’t even release 1 EDITOR for the damn game. Not till quake (in 1996) did they do that (for quake not doom).  It keeps going on. It never ends. This stuff keeps fueling the fire of the anti-gaming movement.  It’s a never-ending cycle of BS.

 

The future defenders of the right to make/buy/play/own violent games has to be vigilant for the next wave of BS after a supposed video game related crime, of this degree. I wrote this article because 99% of the Gaming community does NOT know about half of this. It was swept under the rug by the media, and forgotten. Never forget the faked and “questionable”  evidence used to demonize games and the result (attempted outright bans of violent games).  This wasn’t the only major thing of this type where lies were used to try to legislate morality on this scale. Back during the SCOTUS Brown VS EMA thing in 2010, a certain violent games hating group submitted an Amicus Brief mentioning at least 3 known lies 1) Violent games are used in the military to break down the inhibition to kill 2) The “Doom will become reality Hoax”  3) Micheal Carneal became a better shot all because of Doom. They wanted the Supreme Court to believe this stuff and the Justices, not knowing these were NOT facts but absolute BS might have ruled the other way. You can be thankful they did rule the right way to prevent the badly constructed CA bill from being passed. You can’t use an Obscenity Clause (like the CA bill Did) to regulate what violent games to legislate in any way. Lacking “scientific, educational, or literary value” is not ground for fining companies who sell a game that the judges in the state find “offensive” because of these things, because those three values are…..Subjective!!!   Be on guard for the next attack when the censors will undoubtedly try something like this again with another game.

Addendum:

My work with dehacked to attempt to disprove the claim was done in the hope of a complete debunking of the “begging students” concept. I literally tried 2 times over the last few months to find SOMETHING in doom (a bug, an issue with 1 code pointer, etc) that would prevent this from even being possible. I failed. Twice. It sucks too, because I did come across a few bugs with the sound system but none of them really stopped the begging sound from being played, just partially obscured it. Without the internet search I would have found nothing to write about, really.

Related articles
Older Entries