NEWS & Wii: Ultra-violent video games and Madworld

Madworld is coming for the Wii, if you’re not sure what this game is about, then think gore and blood. When you’re done thinking of gore and blood think of even more gore and blood than you pictured. Perhaps you should multiply it by 1000. On top of that think of the source of that gore and blood as being your player in Madworld inflicting unspeakable horrors upon other human beings. Then picture yourself being the architect of those unspeakables via the wii remote. That’s Madworld in a nutshell.

Yeah, it sounds awesome to me too. /LOL

So if that’s not horrific to me and disturbing, what is? Well from this author’s perspective, the dangers of being desensitized to violence is significantly less than the dangers of being over sensitized to it. What do I mean by that, I mean that being so worked up about violence that even video games that depict it seem a threat. Folks, to be really clear here, THAT IS THERAPY TIME.

We don’t live in a nice, kind, beautiful world. We may live in nice, kind, beautiful communities, heck even some entire countries are (think really really tiny ones like Luxembourg)… but not the world.

We live in an era of Darfur, of suicide bombings, religious wars, terrorism, and genocide. There are REAL problems that we face on our planet. People who worry about video games should be made to serve as a peacekeeper in Darfur or patrol the streets of Bagdad slums. Do that for a year then come back to me and let me know if the biggest concern you have is video games.

Madworld is ultra violent, yes. But it is PRETEND. If the pretend violence has you that up in arms and your concern is TRULY about the impact of violence on our world then you’d start focusing your efforts on things that are REAL.

If you can show me a neighborhood that is without crime and violence, then I can show you a place where reality is swept under the rug. There’s no major city in the world that is without murder, assault, and worse. That being the case we have to ask ourselves what is truly motivating these “video games are dangerous” people.

In the case of the most recent controversy over the video game Madworld, it’s a pretty simple answer. In case you’re not familiar with what occurred, there is a very goofy newspaper in the UK with a large readership (think over a million); this newspaper called the Daily Mail published a sensationalism article about Madworld and how it’s simply horrible and dangerous to society. The by-line “Parents horrified as most violent video game ever to launch on 'family friendly' Wii” says it all.

So back to the issue of motivation, with the Daily Mail, that’s easy-money. Scaring parents (one of the easiest things to do in the news/media industry) is a surefire way to boost circulation/viewers/listeners and thus increase your ad revenue. The people who publish the Daily Mail could care less about your safety as long as you’re able to purchase their product.

There are many categories of these faux-worried-for-our-children types. Among them is the member of your community looking to expand political influence through fear for your children. Politicians looking to get your vote by protecting you from something that isn’t’ dangerous in the first place. The list goes on and on.

The bottom line is that if Sega and Nintendo can get Madwold out there to us, then we’re going to buy it. The only way to stop that is by thwarting the will of the people for some personal gain that these anti-violence groups don’t want you to pay any attention to.

I’ll close with saying it one more time: If you are truly concerned about violence then go work to prevent it. There is NO shortage of violence and atrocity in our world. Leave the video games alone.