I want to personally thank the big media for being a bunch of morons when it comes to how they handle subjects in order to get as many people to visit a page as possible. I understand that these media companies are businesses and have to try to get people to read their articles, but if you’re going to create articles, making them interesting and innovative and not use scapegoats in order to try to get as many people to read them as possible. You’re actually only hurting yourself when you’re doing this because you’re losing the trust of the people who you depend on for actually reading the content.

“Norway killer trained on video games”

Now, this heading right here is not entirely alarmist, but it submits that training on a video game is something that can be done and already takes a stance on a subject that a media company should not be taking a stance on.

Image Courtesy of Reddit.com / IMGUR

When put next to “Does the internet breed killers?”, it becomes easy to see that they are indeed taking a stance without taking a stance. Now we have a lot of people starting to link violence to video games and you have others that are instantly going to be outraged because of that thought. We revisit this discussion every few years and certain lawyers out there start to immediately swing around their lawsuit axes so that they can cash in on the cash cow. You also have so-called “expert” on the field who are willing to share their opinions.

Let’s take a look at how life was lived before we had technology, video games, and other forms of media. How did kids play? I would say they played Cowboys and Indians if my grandfather has anything to say about it. I would say that in itself is just as violent as a video game since the entire goal is to kill each other. Now, did this game breed a bunch of killers and malicious individuals? I would say no more than video games are capable of doing the same thing.

However, if you look in the past, you will also see the children were more likely to get into fights and physical skirmishes because that was the way things were back then. When you start putting guns and knives into the hands of kids, you’re of course going to have the inevitable reality that they are going to end up using those weapons and you’re doing so not through video games or through playing around on a playground, but through the same people who fight for weapon rights and such. Which is done through the media.

See how I turned that around? It sucks when you’re being blamed unfairly for something. Sure, the media is not to blame for violence, but neither are video games. The real problem here is the responsibility of parents and other individuals who are involved with these people. You have people that are being raised in abusive homes or by parents who quite frankly should never have been allowed to have children. Parents don’t like to hear blame placed on them for their children, therefore they are going to look for the first scape goat.

“My child is violent because I used my money to purchase him that Grand Theft Auto game that I let him play because I was too busy watching the Price is Right to actually spend time with him or talk to him about how violence is not the answer! It’s clear the game makers faults!”

I know I am kind of expanding on it, but I am trying to make the point pretty clear. Parents are very quick to judge video game companies and makers for the types of games they are making without looking at the way that they themselves are raising their children. Because parents don’t make mistakes, right?

Obviously telling it like it is isn’t going to sell page views on a website. The truth is something that people are not going to continue getting coverage of when they could have delusional messages and fanatic ravings on television to watch. Some people actually believe in the bullshit which Fox News spews on a daily basis while others watch because it can feel like a train wreck; you don’t REALLY want to watch this but its so crazy that you cannot help but continue to stare.

Hopefully this time around people are more sensible about the topic of video game violence and are merely going to just ignore what is going on and therefore we don’t have to have these mass discussions again. Then again, I would pay anything to watch Jack Thompson get schooled again live on national television.

I figured I would provide some content while I work on my website, so I wanted to touch up on the concept of DRM vs Piracy.

This recently posted on /r/gaming on reddit.com illustrates the frustration that companies like EA put their customers through:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/rvkoy/ea_pay_attention_this_is_why_some_people_choose/

Electronic Arts was recently awarded the title of “Worst Company in America” by the Consumerist as a showcase to how much PC gamers are put off by the company’s lack of business ethics and moronic decisions made by their executive team. Anyone with a business degree can see just how much EA Games is only focused on money with very little focus on making an actual game. They purchase studios and whore them out in order to get as much money out of their titles as possible without providing any real “value” to speak of, but they still intend to use DRM to prevent multiple installations while using DLC in order to continue to milk their customers of their money.

EA claims that piracy hurts their business model without ever addressing that DRM hurts their customers and doesn’t actually prevent or reduce piracy. Look up any EA game on TPB and you’ll find it there completely working. Obviously DRM is not working, but they are only going to continue doing it because they are still making a profit while implementing DRM practices. It’s a showcase of human stupidity.

PC gamers all around the world are becoming more and more annoyed with the business practices of Electronic Arts because of their blatant disregard towards platforms, business ethics, franchises, and their own customers. Any representative of EA that would ever tell me that EA cares about the gamers would get a laugh in the face in a kick in the ass. The fact is they run a business and only a business; they are not a creative agency and they do not care about what we think as consumers. Their job is to monopolize and capitalize the gaming industry in a way that makes them rich and puts everyone else out of business.

The entire purpose of Origin is to give them complete control over their titles because they cannot accept that they are incapable of successfully running a platform similar to Steam. Their massive problems continue on and on with games that consumers purchase because of Doritos, Mountain Dew, and only caring about kill streaks instead of whether or not the game contains good content. That’s because most gamers that purchase games like Battlefield 3 do not care about games with varied gameplay, styles, creativity, or storyline. Half the people that purchased the game had complaints about Electronic Arts, but consumers don’t seem to be intelligent enough or well enough informed to realize that things are only going to change if people stop buying the games. Electronic Arts continues their current business practices because they get away with it; even if there were television advertisements, politicians, celebrities, and even God himself coming down to tell EA what they are doing is wrong, EA still will not change their business practices until it actually starts to hurt them. The company is not run by humans but by individuals who don’t have the emotions that most people do have and would instead rather whore out gaming franchise after gaming franchise until they have to buy another.

EA actually stopped making their own games a long time ago and instead has other studios and development teams create their games as they market and publish them; thus they are not actually a gaming company. They’re as much of a gaming company as many online marketing companies are actual marketing companies (because many companies actually just outsource to other companies on a white label basis). From that perspective, it makes you wonder why Electronic Arts continues to exist as a company, but the easy answer is that they enjoy the money that they receive and a bit of the notoriety. Notice how they took the whole “Worst Company in America” award and actual turn it into their own thing.

Our entire industry is being taken over by a single company who has little to no regard for the consumer, the industry, or the people working in it and are not going to be changing their business ethics any time soon. If you as gamers want to see the industry change, you need to completely stop buying games released by Electronic Arts now matter how shiny or sparkly they look. Stop buy  them on PC. Stop buying them on the XBox. Stop buying them on the PS3. Stop  buying them on the Wii.

Only when their money supply starts to dry up and they start losing profit will they start to re-evaluate what they are doing and probably get others involved in order to try to save their company from taking a plunge into the wonderful world of Sega-land (being a non-existent company for the most part). (Please don’t take this as bashing Sega. I love them, but let’s face it. They have shrunk. And they aren’t what they used to be.)

Then again, most of this will fall on deaf ears since no one reads this blog, and even if they did, someone is just going to tell me to shut up and go out and buy the latest CALL OF DUTY game so that I can get “pwn’d” by some twelve year old who wants to “bang you’re mom”.

Oh, and don’t feel bad when you have to download a crack for a game that you already purchased. The game companies should feel bad, not you.