I'd never heard of Glenn Beck before I spent a month in America, and I must confess I fell in the love with the guy when I first saw him last year. Not only did he look a bit like Mr. Kennedy from WWE, he was absolutely tearing a pedophile apart, live on air. I thought he was awesome. Now I see him rambling like crazy about GTA, using the same old outdated rhetoric and twisted logic as his peers, and the illusion has been shattered.
"We are training our kids to be killers," proclaims Beck. "Welcome to the great great grandfather of the videogame developed by the Pentagon." Beck is another one who has tied the use of the military's simulation software to videogames, as if they are one and the same. He also hinges on the logic that because soldiers wouldn't pull the triggers on each other in World War One, that means people were not violent until simulators taught them to be inhuman killers. He seems to hint that violence before WWI never happened -- I guess there were no crusades, there was no Feudal Japan, and the 100 Years War is something history books made up to be colorful.
He also states that because soldiers are more accurate with firearms, that means these "training simulators" are working, and once again this somehow makes videogames (which use auto-aim most of the time, or unrealistically accurate mouse-and-keyboard setups) effective training tools. He says nothing of the improvements actually made to firearms themselves which would facilitate easier use and greater accuracy. I also don't debate that a murder simulator could indeed train someone to be a murderer -- the only problem is that GTA isn't a simulator, and if you relied on just a retail videogame to prepare for war, you would be dead in minute s, if not seconds.
As he throws out stats, he claims that just television upped the homicide rate. Of course, as Rev Anthony explains on Podtoid, the crime rate in America has halved in recent times. Beck's arguments simply do not hold water. Having seen this man before with no prior knowledge of his work, it has to say I feel somewhat let down by a man who I thought was pretty cool. Sadly, my European ignorance of American celebrities has led me to be disappointed. "Whatever happened to Pong?" asks Beck. Whatever happened to mainstream journalists who knew what they were talking about?
Contest:
5:09 AM on 05.03.2008
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ZING! Sterling you slay me.
In other news, humans have been killing each other since we first picked up a blunt object and realized that we could use it to get the tasty fruit from the other guy over there by hitting him with it. In fact, if you look at the world, I'd say its less violent now than it ever was in the past. And video games are a recent development... so by logic, Video Games ended the cold war, prevented World War III and are leading us to a golden age of peace and prosperity (we're holding up our end of the economy, why doesn't anyone point that out?)
They have no clue at all, and I'm tired of hearing their tripe.
Interesting, how many years have the USA had guns, and killed there own people? Don't recall videogames being blamed back then obviously, as we are such a convenient scapegoat.
More power to the games industry as it gets bigger and stronger, right in their face, while other industries stateside lose money.
Glenn has a point as he's addressing this to parents. It's an adult game.
Children shouldn't be playing this, nor watching adult movies. Sure some do and some kids will eventually get their hands on it any way. But parents buying this game for their 11 year old son is wrong, and if it takes some idiot in a suit, rambling sensationalist 'murder simulator' style phrases to at least make a few parents think, then I'm all for it.
Censorship is one thing but letting Rockstar mismarket their adult games to kids and nobody, no matter how idiotic sounding, at least try and warn the parents that just because little Johnny's mother lets him play GTA4 - you should really think about it for your own child.
I was in Game the other day and the amount of 10-15 year old school kids clambering around the GTA4 stand was crazy. You don't see them doing the same thing when the latest 18+ movie comes out, you know why? Because they can't get in the cinema to see it. Maybe some of the older kids with their bum fluff and brothers ID will slip in but the rest will be refused and once the hype dies down - it'll all be forgotten.
I live in a pretty dodgy neighbourhood in North London, where we've had 16 shootings in the past year. This has NOTHING to do with video games. But that doesn't stop me feeling pretty strongly that the next time some American 'expert' bangs on about GTA4 - that you can't just slap it with the whole 'look at this sensationalist idiot trying to censor our games'. You should be all for keeping these games away from kids and keep the prostitute battering to the adults. Think about it, your starting to sound just as one sided as the people you ridicule.
Your sincerely,
Richard.
I have no problem with the idea that kids shouldn't be playing it, but Beck did not stop at that. Beck said, and I quote, "We are training our kids to be killers." If that's not wrong, I don't know what is.
These people cannot just make the good points and let them stand. They embroider, and they lie, and they use illogical, inaccurate statements to make their case. That is what I cannot stand.
I usually think it's harmless to let a kid watch a scary movie or play a game with some violence in it. However, I would not be comfortable letting a kid play GTA IV -- and I do not refute statements of a similar nature. What I refute is the scaremongering and bashing that goes with it.
I'd hate for my 10 year old niece to play this game, the idea of it scares me. But I was in Morrisions a month or so ago and this tiny kid, he must of been younger than 10, picked up GTA:Vice City for Xbox and walked straight thru the checkout with it. £8.99 of hard earned pocket money. He wouldn't of been able to do that with an 18 movie, they would of stopped him.
Video games and movies don't seem to abide to the same classification. I think that's something that needs looking at. Government TV campaign, rising awareness to parents that these games are not for kids and it's illegal would be a good start, don't you think?
Once the world ends, I'll leave my cave, but until then, it's dangerous out there.
Glenn Beck, just stop.
Speaking of (What appears to be) nonsensical rambling, here is an "opinion" piece from ABC News.com
Grand Theft Auto and Business
read some of his greatest hits at http://mediamatters.org/items/200601200013
for example:
"[I]f I'm an interrogator, and they say, [imitates Arabic accent] 'I read in your papers that you cannot torture me,' I'll say, 'Yeah, you know, you saw another thing in the papers, you saw pictures of people being tortured. And I just want you to look around, little, uh, Habib, here, I want you to look around the room. Notice one thing is missing, and that's called a camera.' "
I enjoy listening to Glen Beck's radio show, just because I love hearing the insane leaps of logic he and other pundits use to make their case about the latest thing destroying American values.
Glenn Beck is just one reason of many why I simply don't watch TV at all anymore.
I tend to act more violent when I hear people of this nature speak the way they do. They just piss me the fuck off. I'm not gonna do anything to fuel the fire. I'm sure they don't care if the entire community of gamers hates them. It just might prove his point even further when we act like a crazed mob. It just makes me sad to see such ignorant people. I doubt hes even played the game. What a fuckin hobo. When I play GTA, I never feel violent. Yeah, I'll go on crazy cop chase scenes and kill a hooker here and there, but when it comes to those moral choices you have to make in the game, the ones where emotion is actually involved, I just CAN'T kill the innocent man. I can't, haha.
Glen Beck...pfff...more like...more like...eh I give up.
Sure, a lot more bullets were wasted, but a lot less lives were lost (at least on our side). It doesn't have anything to do with "murder simulation" (we had murder sims in the 40s? Before TV?), but with really basic psychology.
@Oolong -- to reiterate Jim's point: I don't want kids playing GTA either, and I'm not particularly opposed to stricter regulations. I think retailers (and parents) should be held accountable, but I don't think that misinformation and scaremongering is the right way to do it.
No one surprised here.
I was listening to some local guy on the radio and he kept saying you could rape people in GTA IV. I think my copy is busted.
I don't think that keeping it out of kids hands is the answer. It's like abstinence only sew education, it doesn't work. Parents need to teach their kids that what they are seeing or playing isn't real and that it's not acceptable to do in real life. Parents need to teach their kids values and responsibility. Keeping kids sheltered does more harm than good.
Grand Theft Morality?
Grand Theft Auto Version 4?
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: THIS GAME CELEBRATES MURDER?
Your son/husband/boyfriend can do these horrible things, but he doesn't mention your daughter/wife/girlfriend? Only devious males play these games, eh?
Fuck him.
He also had that wunderkind Jack Thompson on immediately after this segment, along with some other guy, but like I said, no volume, so I haven't a clue what kind of nice things they had to say...
Wait you can have Oral or Anal?...sweet
WTF?
**NEWS FLASH**
More adults play video games than kids!
In a nutshell, if the goal was to produce an effective killer, most training analysts would consider video games a very poor learning tool. Paintball would be a much more effective simulation.
P.s. Pew pew pew
Where did you read that? I'm interested in those findings.
But I am incredibly glad for the strident ignorance of pundits like Glenn Beck. Most kids can call bullshit on panic pieces like this, which hopefully means they won't be so quick to swallow what is fed to them in the future. You just shot your career future in the foot, asshole.
I can't remember the specific journals or articles where I first learned about it, but its a pretty much a given in the field.
You could probably find a relevant article by searching for "Instructional design" "simulation" and "psychomotor"
(as you can probably figure out 'Psychomotor' is body training, as opposed to 'cognitive' which is the mind, and 'affective' which is emotions.)
He talks about the firing rate of soldiers going up as if it is a bad thing. I see it as a good thing myself. I mean, it is good that are soldiers will shoot a person the first time when they have to, that results in less of our troops deaths. But that isn't attributed to retail video games.
It is true that the government uses forms of video games to train soldiers, but they are very different from games like GTA. One of the military's biggest projects in recent times, which was later transformed into Full Spectrum Warrior, is a great game to emphasize teamwork.
The original version of the "game" is actually very boring and can take hours to complete missions. But it is a superb tool to train soldiers as they can map out entire real location, give the soldiers a mission, and have them go in and complete the mission. The purpose of this is to build teamwork and to learn to adapt to unexpected events, not to learn how to shoot people.
It pisses me off even more that they have Jack Thompson on the show. I like the line where he says, "oh no, there have been dozens" in response to how many people have killed people because of GTA.
everybody needs to hear this. Go to 2:28 in part 2 of the video where he runs over the prostitute. you hear somebody say "oh, shit" in the background. that is fucking great. that just made my day.
"Oh no. There have been dozens."
OUT OF THE 80 FUCKING MILLION WHO HAVE BOUGHT IT? THAT'S HARDLY MORE THAN ONE
Actually this does make me angry... anybody want to go kill Jack Thompson.
Likewise, after Grand Theft Auto, I didnt know how to kill a prostitute so I had to pick up a real one.
Why do I say its from video games? Since my early ages in the FPS genre I have learned that hesitation causes you to lose, in the Army they teach you that hesitation can cause you to lose your life. So I transition that knowledge with the knowledge of legaleses (knowing when its legal to shoot), to know when to fire and if all fails knowing what to do to make it look like I had the right to fire (aka just like cops).