Spencer Halpin’s critically acclaimed Moral Kombat is now available on Hulu (or you can just watch it in the embed above). The documentary covers the “controversy” of videogame violence and first amendment rights. It features some of the biggest developers in the business, including Lorne Lanning and American McGee. My good friend Andy McNamara, editor-in-chief of Game Informer, is in there too.
It’s an interesting documentary with lots of interesting points on both sides of the argument. Check it out if you have a chance and let me know what you think of it (please). Kudos to Hulu for offering content like this!
Not a bad documentary. The asian guy, the one who lost his brother, is the kind of anti game advocate that I dislike. It's quite unfortunate what happened to his brother but because you don't find something fun and consider it damaging doesn't mean I feel the same way.
I think violence in society that is blamed on games is absurd. They mentioned the themes and story telling in games…I don't know if they have noticed or not but most young people, with my experiences mind you, do not care about a story. They do not have the patience to read or even listen to a story. I think that is a bogus cop-out.
I don't think people act out these games. I mean…let's face facts…if there are aliens popping out of the ground with machine guns or zombies chasing you…you have to shoot them lol.
Seriously though..parenting, parenting and more parenting. I think a huge component that is long to the masses is that games aren't for children primarily anymore. In fact we can argue that games are made for adults now. So why should the content of adult entertainment be censored to make a few ppl happy? This docu made me realize that I'd like devs to make AO games.
@Columbine
Everyone was searching for a reason why they did it, but no one stopped to ask why they hurt so much. Misery loves company and if you want to know why someone is hurting others, you have to ask how they are being hurt first. Games will never cause true violence, only real people can do that.
@Smartguy
They cut his statement up bad. Watch again and later on it shows him talking about when he started game journalism and how he started playing violent games again. I don't think he is against the industry.
Wow. That was a long-ass documentary. Probably because I wasn't prepared for it. I think it was pretty good, all in all. You have both sides of the argument that are kind of talking about different aspects of the gaming industry. I thought that the bottom line was freedom of creation vs. responsibility to society.
I'm sure that no parents want their kids exposed to violent or evil imagery, let alone play them. I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to raise a kid in today's society. Not just because of video games, but all the other bad things that are going on in the world around us. A good buddy of mine even said, "It is a crime to bring a child into the world today (with the state that it is in)." I'm sure that there can be a really good debate on that topic, but it's too late now and I still have to eat.
At the end of the day, however, I am a libertarian and to me, personal responsibility is at the core of my belief. The documentary made a lot of statements that I agree with on both sides of the argument, but the bottom line is this: as long as you do not infringe upon the rights of another, you should be able to have the freedom to do any damn thing you please. And if you are one of those people who do not agree with what that other person is doing, then it is your responsibility to move, turn off the console or change the channel. Remember, we vote with our dollars.
-M
@ Iceman
Whether or not parents want their kids exposed to violent imagery, there's an overwhelming amount of parents that just don't monitor their children for various reasons. They seem like good excuses too like "I have to work" and "I want them to learn to learn on their own" but in the long run, it can be dangerous for everyone to not keep constant tabs on your kids.
"Being a crime to bring a child into the world given the state it's in" is a statement that's been used since WWII. It's bogus. We can't help the future without doing our best to create a good one. The only way that's possible is to continue the cycle of life and survival of our species.
@N8R
Are you pontificating your stance on the violence in games or just adding to what Iceman said? I can't tell. Your first paragraph.
@Sandrock
Oh I must have missed that part. I probably skipped ahead when posting my comment and then returning back to the vid. All in all I thought it was a good piece, just wanted to rattle off why I'm all for personal responsibility.
@iceman
I knew I liked you for a good reason lol.
I thought that was a good documentary. It is one I wish I had heard of/seen last semester when I was writing my research papers for psychology class on video games and their effects on intelligence and whether or not video games cause violent tendencies. From doing research for both of those papers I would definitely agree with Prof. Jenkins when he said that most of the research out there on the matter is poorly done. All of the research I came across that proposed that video games did cause violent tendencies in children were either published by people who have pretty much stated that they have a vendetta against violent video games or completely avoided the main issues.
I definitely agree that good and constant parenting is key in any situations dealing with media in general. I don't always agree with it and think that even a good parent who is trying to do the right things can get it wrong sometimes (case in point: when I was in junior high/high school my parents were very against the music I was listening to, Disturbed, KoRn, Slipknot, etc., but when I was 5 my dad was the one who let me play Wolfenstein 3D on our new desktop). The big thing though, I think, is that the parents are involved and know what the content actually is before buying something for their kids. Unfortunately, I know that that is not the case in the majority of situations and likely will not change too much in the near future.
@Sandrock
I thought they edited the parts with the tech reporter who's brother died poorly as well. It was a little confusing for a minute.
@Iceman
I am right there with you on the personally responsibility thing. I actually go pretty far with that topic sometimes.
@N8R
I am curious, if you feel like sharing it, what you do with your kids with regards to this issue? Being someone who plans on being a parent one day down the road and who also plans on still having video games around whenever that may be, I am interested in what other people I know do with those situations.
This documentary seemed to cover both sides, if a little unevenly.
Sure, it's all in the parenting. And I hope one day when I have a kid of my own, I'll be able to prove that point. I grew up on violent and non-violent games, but I have a family that loves me and taught me correctly what's real and what's fantasy.
Sure sure if you wanna keep your kids from violence that's fine. But remember they got friends, and their friend's friends who will prolly own movies and games. So… does that make it a losing battle? No, it's in how you parent them. Sadly a lot of parents don't want to do anything, b/c this generation of "adults" are too young and incapable of even the slightest task themselves.
I thought it was a little funny how they went on and on about Mortal Kombat and other similar bloody games, and then further down the line basically saying they were too cartoonized to be anything really threatening.
@Cami
Talking about your second paragraph, it is also partially about each individual kid. There are still kids out there that know their parent's rules and follow them even when the parents are not there, which just goes back to good parenting. I know it seems rare, but kids out there do exist that will still stay away from some things they know that they should not see because they know their parent's rules.
@ Smartguy
Both.
@ Bsu
My son is 8 and my daughter is 4. My daughter is still too young to grasp the concept of many games with exception to like, Elmo games. With my son, there was a time when I walked gently with the issue. I wouldn't even let him in the same room as me when I was playing GTAIV. However, it was Dead Rising that made me realize that he was well aware of the difference between fantasy and reality.
He saw me playing it a few times and liked it. He asked me if he could play it. I said "I don't know buddy, you could get scared and have nightmares from all the zombies and stuff." He looked at me with an extremely serious look in his eye and said "Daddy… I will NEVER have nightmares from playing the zombie game. You HAVE to believe that."
That's when I realized that he could handle it.
The violence isn't so much an issue, but I still filter the games with sexual content.
@ the rest of the topic as well.
Please realize that if it wasn't video games, it would be whatever media artform was hot right now. They banned Tales From The Crypt comics in the 60's under the same logic. Even though that led to the birth of MAD Magazine, it still wasn't right. It was horror movies in the early 80's and it was novellas in the 1800's. There was the gangster rap thing too as well as "devil worshiping" heavy metal.
People are just trying to place the blame elsewhere than where it belongs… it belongs with the individual and in the case of kids, it belongs with the parents.
@ additional
Notice that even though I have 2 kids, I treat them both as individuals. This (I feel) is important as well. What works for one kid, may not work for all kids. The theory that it should (we'll refer to this as the"public school theory") is totally wrong.
@ Ray
The NFL Preseason has officially started. We need to secure our avatar bets and agree on the rules.
@ N8R
I respect your parenting style. I would also like more info on these avatar bets and rules.
@N8;
If I ever have kids, I hope they grow up to be as mature as your boy. I do not envy parents that have to raise children in today's society. Hell, I don't even want the responsibility of a dog… and I LOVE dogs.
I realize that a lot of parents don't monitor what media content their kids consume. Looking back, when I was a kid, the only thing that my parents (dad, actually) forbade me and my sister to watch was MTV since he came into the room when Billy Idol's "White Wedding" video was on and he saw the hot, scantly-clad chick trying to rape the nerdy guy. He turned off the TV and said; "I don't want you to watching that channel anymore." It was ironic since we had seen much worse things on MTV, not to mention the stuff we read (we could buy and read any book we wanted). Also, that incident happened on what would be considered the crest of MTV's popularity with our generation. We naturally were turned off by MTV when they started taking away shows we liked and replacing music videos with crappy shows like "Real World" and stuff. My parent's attitude towards the media content we consumed (when we were around 12 to teenagers) seemed to be: "Let them do whatever they want (within reason) and trust that they have good judgment."
Luckily for them, we did, but I am terrified that it may not be the case with my future kids.
-M
P.S.- Let's start the NFL bets! I think I'm going to add either a Hanna Montana, Jonas' Brothers, or Twilight icon for the possible Gravatars that N8 would have to sport after the Steelers lose to the Dolphins by ten points.
@N8R
I am hemming and hawing over you either sporting Robert Pattinson (sp?) or Glambert.
Careful guys… there's a good chance I'll make you sport Sarah Palin.
@smartguy Please don't include Twilight in the avatar bet. I hate those effers.
@Mr. Padilla;
Didn't you mention at one point (either on this site or the other) that you liked the Twilight series? I can't remember if it was Twilight, or some other juvenile series, but I just remember thinking to myself: "Oh my god, I can't believe he likes that same crap that my 12-year-old cousin likes." Harry Potter, maybe?
Oh, well. If you're interested in ripping on Twilight, here's Movie Bob's review shredding Eclipse into pieces:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escap…
-M