Is the Game Media Being Oblivious?

MaryAlan writes "The National Summit on Video Games, Youth, and Public Policy was this weekend, and almost no one from the game media showed up. In fact, the game industry seems to pretty much be ignoring the whole event. There's an article up on GamesFirst, which attended the summit, that criticizes the mainstream game press pretty hard for not attending. Apparently only one game journalist showed up. From the article: 'The video game media owes it to our readers to come to events like this and listen, come here and think, and come here and base our editorials on the reality of what's being said instead of an interpretation of the talking points that are published afterwords. Too many of the people discussing these issues in forums do so based on the works of the game media, and too few in the gaming media are spending the time to make it justified.'"

"Gaming journalism"? hahahaha

[RichPowers]

These are the same journalists who won't give any exclusively reviewed game less than a 9.0/10, use developer diaries (aka devs shamelessly plugging their projects) to fill webspace, make every previewed game sound like The Next Big Thing, frequently make grammatical errors on their front pages (it's and its are different, IGN.com), write like they're still in high school, and generally suck at everything they do.

Sorry for sounding so cynical, but I've been reading gaming mags and websites for years and the quality is steadily decreasing. Gaming journalism is about not pissing off the big guys (like EA) so you keep your ad revenue coming, effectively destroying any integrity in the game review process. Not every website is this bad, I know, but the big ones are pretty shameless. Go to Metacritic.com and click every review for Battlefield 2142. Funny how only one or two mention how the game has in-game advertisements...

Gaming Media Aren't Journalists.

[iSeal]

That's because GameFirst incorrectly assumes that the gaming media are journalists. They are not. Or so at least in North America.

There seems to be two different standards at play here. American gaming mags in particular, for instance, are paid mostly by game publishers via advertisements. European mags, for the most part, do not rely on these publishers for income. That's why European mags are so frickin' expensive.

However, you can see that the focus is quite different for the two. American gaming "journalists" hype the latest games from big publishers, ignore all the indie titles, and never question disturbing practices in the industry. There are two reasons for this. For one, because they don't want to endanger their money stream. For another, because sensationalist and shallow "reporting" is what sells. It's all about money. Integrity has no place in such a world.

I must say, however, that European gaming mags do cover social aspects, cons, indie titles, in addition to your stereotypical big publisher stuff. Why? Because they're less dependant on sucking up to those same publishers.

Sponsoring Organization are Nutjobs

[ewhac]

A quick Google search reveals that the National Summit on Video Games, Youth, and Public Policy [mediafamily.org] is an event organized and sponsored by the National Institute on Media and the Family [mediafamily.org].

In case you didn't know, NIMF is a right-of-center conservative, sensationalist group that finds things -- anything -- to complain about in the media. These are the same guys who gave a grade of 'F' to the ESRB's rating system. They also advocate -- with soon-to-be-ex-Senator Joe Lieberman as their mouthpiece -- a uniform media rating system monitored by an "independent" oversight group.

They're not nearly as bad as James Dobson's "Focus on the Family" group. In fact, they've actually told Jack Thompson to take a hike. But they are in no way the friends of the games industry. Given NIMF's record, the "summit" likely had nothing to do with a frank exchange of views or exploring the true nature of mass media and its impact on the human psyche, and was just a schmooze-fest for people bent on circumventing the First Amendment.

Attending would have only legitimized the event. The games industry was correct to stay away.

Schwab

Re:Guess they didn't learn

[HappySqurriel]

I can't speak for the Alaskan pipeline, but here in Alberta the Oil pipelines are owned by companies that are seperate from the oil companies; they tend to ensure that their oil pipelines are well maintained (in school I worked at a welding gas warehouse and we, on average, had 100 welders come in a day to pick up materials and head out to fix sections of various pipelines).

The fact is that shipping oil is far more risky than using a pipeline under similar levels of maintainance; there are tons of examples of poorly maintained oil tankers that leak tons of oil in transit and are just waiting to burst. Also, when oil pipelines have leaks, they have a localized effect and can (mostly) be cleaned up afterwords; obviously some soil will become toxic waste but there are new cleaning methods every year that get closer to resolving these problems.

Re:Guess they didn't learn

[stunt_penguin]

Bullshit.

http://www.edge-online.co.uk/ [edge-online.co.uk]
Click the subscription link and be enlightened.

Re:Guess they didn't learn

[HappySqurriel]

Because you should definitely listen to cigarette companies when they tell you cigarettes are not only safe, but also not addictive.

Seriously, though, I was with you up to that point. I am not an expert in the field, but I have gone to listen to experts speak about the subject. From what I understand, there is no "evidence". Evidence requires experimentation, and we're living in the only known experiment RIGHT NOW.

What I was saying is less "there is no global warming, listen to the oil companies" and more that "only one side of the issue is really getting listened to". No scientist disputes that we're not at a historical high temperature (the earth was warmer durring the middle age warm period), the earth hasn't been increasing at an unprecidented rate (there have been decades where the world has increased at a more rapid rate), and there is no direct connection between greenhouse gases and the temperature increase that we have seen; it has, however, been demonstrated that the temperatures are closely related to solar activity and that Mars in undergoing a period of global warming.

Basically, I was using Global Warming as an example of how there is usually no real discussion or information exchange on political issues; usually people have made up their mind before they go to a conference and look for validation of their beliefs. If tomorow God said that global temperatures were increasing because of Solar Activity (which humans have no impact on) there would still be Millions of people who were trying to meet the kyoto targets; at the same time if there was conclusive evidence that CO2 was the only thing effecting Global Warming there would still be Millions of people who claimed that lowering greenhouse gasses was pointless.

Well, let's see...

[R3d M3rcury]

The National Summit on Video Games, Youth, and Public Policy is hosted by The National Institute on Media and the Family and Iowa State University.

First session was an overview presented by Douglas Gentile. You can buy his book here [booksforchristians.com]. Next, they had a session on "Violent Video Games: Effects and Public Policy" from Craig Anderson [iastate.edu]. Then they had a panel discussion with Joanne Cantor [joannecantor.com], Kim Thompson [harvard.edu], Douglas Gentile [oup.com], and one person from the ESRB.

I can go on, but it looked like a mutual masterbation get-together from the names I saw in attendance. So I can see why the games press didn't want to go.

Re:Guess they didn't learn

[HybridJeff]

Evidence does not require experimention, your definition is flawed.

evidence (v'-dns) pronunciation
n.

      1. A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment: The broken window was evidence that a burglary had taken place. Scientists weigh the evidence for and against a hypothesis.
      2. Something indicative; an outward sign: evidence of grief on a mourner's face.
      3. Law. The documentary or oral statements and the material objects admissible as testimony in a court of law.

Re:Ayn Rand: Philosophy for the Self Centered

[Anonymous Coward]

People throw around the word "right" way too much. Where do our "rights" come from? Let us put this back in a context: This article is about a movement to control video games in the United States of America. In the USA communities are not all powerful in their ability to enforce their "rights" against the individual because the individual also has rights. Video games may be classified as speach, or the playing, owning or producing of such games may be protected from government interference by privacy rights born of judicial opinion.

Your argument that a community has a right to deny all the benefits of membership is a philisophical belief and is just as valid as the parent's belief in John Stuart Mill's harm principle. In order for your discussion to move forward, you may want to ask where these rights come from. Do they come from the collected might of the community to enforce them? Are they granted by a deity or some concept of natural law?

Also, if you're going to call a believer in the harm principle selfish because they cannot specify a test for what harm is, I'd love to know how you divine what a community "wants." Because as often as I've seen the harm principle used to excuse antisocial behavior I've seen someone else lable their opinion as the community's

Re:Guess they didn't learn

[timeOday]

"Prove" is a very high standard, so probably not. "Support," yes. Here [uchicago.edu] is the very first google result for "computer-games children violence", which is 5 years old but references a meta-analysis of 35 studies which had already been performed. And these studies are mentioned on Slashdot from time to time. Of course, people are very quick to discount studies they don't want to believe. Let's assume the studies are only somewhat rigorous. Even so, are there some equally rigorous studies disputing these results? I know there are some touting other benefits of games, like cognitive skills. But enough work has been done on a link to violence to raise it as an issue.

Re:Guess they didn't learn

[14CharUsername]

the earth was warmer durring the middle age warm period

Actually its warmer now than the Medieval Warm Period. Historical documents from that time are euro-centric. It may have been warmer in Europe then (although even that is questionable) but it was not warmer globally.

Just take a look at estimates on the temperatures in the MWP. Of the dozens of studies of this, not a single one of them shows the global temperature to be higher than it is today.