Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Category: Social Justice Stuff (Page 9 of 11)

Update: WoW’s “Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That” Policy

February 7, 2006 /

Early indicators is that Blizzard is stepping away from their stance, calling it an ‘unfortunate interpretation of their policy’ (perhaps by an overzealous GM). Link from the offended guild posting the news can be found here. Kotaku notes that this began happening simultaneously with pressure for prominent gay-rights legal crusaders from Lambda Legal. WoW further goes on to say that the policy is ‘under review’ – where that leads, who knows.

Reading responses from the various threads gets kind of wearisome after a while, but they actually explain something succinctly – why would someone want to advertise their guild as GLBT friendly? Solely so you don’t have to group with the idiots spouting their opinions on this matter.

WoW’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy

February 3, 2006 /

Design doesn’t always agree with Customer Service. We live in the ivory tower, and they live in the trenches. They have to deal with the script kiddies, the racist jerks, and the epiphets against their mother. We get to play in clouds, and fix the design when they finally say ‘enough, this is a problem, make it go away’.

Still, it’s unfortunate to read about World of Warcraft’s decision to ban ‘gay-friendly’ guilds (InNewsWeekly broke the story, Terranova’s got commentary). The short form is: guilds who advertise that they are Gay Friendly might invite abuse and discord upon themselves, so better off they just keep things quiet. Continue reading

A Peaceful, More Tranquil Year

January 19, 2006 /

Buzzcut wants to point out that there were no M-Rated games in the top 10 games from last year. Which is interesting, given all the hoopla about video games provided by people named Thompson and Clinton. To be honest, the only M-Rated game that I thought was really excellent last year was God of War, which suffered from sub-par sales, so perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Also of note: yet another Pokemon in the top 10. One wonders how much of Nintendo’s annual earnings are made by releasing a Pokemon title every year.

Professor: Game Education a Sign of the Apocalypse.

December 5, 2005 /

This Political Science professor sees the coming of video game classes to major universities as the sign of the end times.

[These courses are] yet another sign of the coming of the apocalypse. Schools of higher learning are simply cashing in on a fad that is destructive to society.

I resent that! Video games have only been screwing up society for 30 years, max, whereas politicians have been screwing up society since the first time that three people that disagreed with each other ever climbed into the same room.

Original comment thread is here.

Youth Gone Mild

August 24, 2005 /

Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good For you: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, is the subject of this article on canada.com regarding violence in video games. In the midst of it, he links to the Child Well-Being Index at Duke University.

The latest index, released last March, shows that violent crime among teens and adolescents in the United States has plunged by almost two-thirds since 1975, to less than 10 juveniles per 1,000 people.

Continue reading

Parents Let Their Kids Play M-Rated Games

August 22, 2005 /

In the other thread, Josh asks a study explaining why parents do the stupid things they do. Ask and you shall recieve. From an article not quite a month old…

A study commissioned by the UK games industry found that parents let children play games for adults, even though they knew they were 18-rated.
…
“Parents perceive age ratings as a guide but not as a definite prohibition,” said Jurgen Freund, Modulum chief executive. “Some may have not liked the content but they did not prohibit the game.”

The research showed that parents were more concerned about children spending too many hours playing games, rather than about what type of title they were playing.

Long story short: if parents are aware of the rating system and what ‘M’ means but still buys the game, at what point can all of the blame cease to be placed at the industry’s footsteps?

The original comments thread is here.

More on Game Violence Studies

August 22, 2005 /

On re-reading my comments from last Friday about the AC2 study, I realize that my poor, unfocused diatribe levelled pointed fingers in a direction I was completely not intending to. I blame the fact that my brain was in ‘Late Friday Mode’.

The study actually accomplished what it was trying to do, judging from the title of the study (“Internet Fantasy Violence: A Test of Aggression in an Online Game.”) To some degree, it clears my chosen genre of work (MMOs) from the charges levelled at the GTA’s of the industry. As an aside, it also is useful in that it successfully points out that simply having blinking images of very mild violence on a computer screen isn’t going to turn your kids into zombies. While obvious to some, this is still a useful data point to have, and highlights the importance of content, interactivity, and tone to the debate. Continue reading

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