Break out your tinfoil hat again
This time Jack Thompson, general jack of all weirdness when it comes to what we think are outrageous claims against video games, has hit the trail again. This time it is all about the evil collusion between the DoD (Department of Defense) and Game Makers to train the warriors of the next century.
Sure, we will give Jack the idea that the military uses games for scenario planning, and the flip side of that is games for therapeutic uses for wounded soldiers.
Not buying the tin hat bit, someone please tell us what Viva Piñata has to do with training kids to be warriors, or PG4, Grand Tourismo, and other non-violence oriented games. Tell us the difference between any entertainment form that promises the gangsta life style, from movies to music to bits of popular culture, and you can pretty much so make the argument that popular culture world wide trains folks to be warriors.
We are not going to even go near militia movements, government sponsored mercenaries, fundamentalism Christian, Muslim or anything else. However, if someone is looking for scapegoats, this might be a good place to start.
It is not video games that are responsible for the deplorable state of the world today.
Ahh, but then that defeats the tin foil hat conspiracy theory bit that Jack seems to thrive on, even when he has the very real potential of loosing his bar accreditation.
In a press release sent out yesterday, controversial attorney Jack Thompson claims he has found a correlation between the gaming industry and the US Department of Defense, who, he adds, are using videogames to teach “an entire generation of kids that war is glamorous, cool, desirable, and consequence-free.” Source: Wired
While there is a working relationship between folks to develop better video games specifically suited to military purposes, we seriously doubt that they will be found in wal-mart any time soon. If they show up there at all. Moreover, yes, game companies push the envelope, but to date, there has still been no scientific correlation between video game violence and real life violence.
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