Gaming Going Backwards

http://www.konami.com/arcade/Arcade/SilentScope/

Don't you think this would have been a better trainer than counterstrike?

Damn, forgot my password:

Anyhow.... Wal-Mart says NO! to video games

but YES! to Sniper Training Manuals..

real nice!

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?cat=28377&dept=3920&product_id=1359698&path=0%3A3920%3A28377


-Steve [H]ardOCP

Moral of the story is that Walmart is evil. They have always been. If you can avoid it, never shop there, and tell others the same.

Their business model is to drive local businesses out of business by super low prices, then raise prices when they are gone and give the community a bunch of 7$ and hour jobs.

They practice selective censorship by not selling albums with parental advisory stickers, and yet sell R rated DVD's to 12 year olds. Hypocracy.

"If the snipers didn't have violence in their life, I don't think they'd be as violent as they are. "

That is a complete Bushism.

Imagine, in a Bush Dubya voice saying, "If there was no violence then there wouldn't be any violence.

Morons! The both of them.

Fucking people still can't realize that videogames don't cause violence, its the fucked up American society. Fuckers.

stupid cock tarts at Wal Mart .. good god

I guess stupid just begets stupid.

I think that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I mean come on; you really believe a videogame is possibly the cause of the sniper situation. That is a bunch of BS. Shooting games have been around for a long time and the sniper hasn't! Leave the games out of this.

im going to go buy the movie sniper, buy the game sniper, buy a book on navy seal snipers, buy a sniper rifle and changed my name to wesley snipes.

LOL. Once the sniper is caught, Walmart will restock those shelves very swiftly and quietly -- and things will go right back to "normal."

What's really fucked up is that the store would take games off the shelves and yet still sell scopes and bullets. Doh!

That guy in Texas must have been really ahead of his time. That happened about twenty years ago? and 17 people were killed? I don't really know many facts about that, but anyway I wonder how he shot all those people without games to train him. Especially considering vionlence and guns has nothing to do with the avalibility of guns and everything to do with the avalibility of games. Don't ever stop to ask a gamer or think about how much they may resent the implocation that they are now killers for playing them.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=1&cid=578&u=/nm/20021024/ts_nm/crime_shootings_dc

If these two are it, seems MILITARY training is at fault, think anyone will suggest we BAN that?

haha walmart .......they have extra low security.....free games LOL

Ah two steps forward.. uh two steps back... We come together when opposites attracts UH....

Coolest song evar!!!!1

3 words: Grand Thief Auto

I just was browsing Wal-Mart.com and found this list of approved video games:

LawnMower3D 2003
Jenga Online Tournament Edition
Virtual BirdWatching
Handwriting Master2k3
3d GroceryShopping
Super Paint Mixer

They should remove all the movies in the past 10 years that involved a swat team, there's always a sniper waiting to shoot someone, along with movies like "In the line of fire" and "Enemy at the Gates" and "Navy Seals", along with all firearms in the store. I mean, come on. Damnit, that was the walmart closest to my house, I wish I was there, I would give them a piece of my mind.

that_is_rediculous

why didn't they pull flight sims off the shelves after 9-11

i know this is slightly off topic, but i have to say this...
I just called the FBI Tip line regarding the case on the sniper...
apparently the task force missed the sniper by 10 min in richmond on monday...
i had driven me and my wife to work that morning, and passed that gas station roughly 10-15 min before the incident. we saw a TAN mini-van using the payphone, and had kinda joked about it...now that they announce that they had missed the sniper by that amount of time...i tried to call in...after about 1/2 an hour of trying, i finally got someone...and they totally brushed me off because i didnt know the licence number of the vehicle.

i understand they want more conclusive leads, but...the fact that the van I saw was DEFINATLY tan rather than white might be worth something if that guy was the shooter.

dumb asses

when its something to do with violence, they blame video games
when its something to do with abuse, they blame the parents
when its something to do with stealing/theft, they blame the video games/parents

fucking media is stupid ... if counter-strike is so bad, then why arent all 75,000 players going ballistic and sniping out people in their home towns?!? the media makes NO sense at all and they try to blame whatever they can just to make people happy.

and fuck wal-mart. they're an evil corporation just like any other. wal-mart likes to move into a small town that has nothing, become the staple for jobs, the central place where people buy all their things and then when profits go lower than a certain margin, they pick up and leave, totally fucking over the small town they just "took over" so i dont believe a word of what they say when it comes to "trying to help the people" or whatever.

i could go on forever talking shit about this but i have to leave.

Virginia/MD is NOT "northeast"

We've heard this all before. There will be hype and outrage from idiot rednecks from East Snowshoe, West Dakota, and then it will blow over. As for me, I'm going to boot up my copy of GTA3 and race around the streets for a bit, to be followed by some SOF2.

only games, music, and movies i watch are violent ones. i own rifles & shotguns and have easy access to them. why have i not went and killed anyone? or have any type of criminal history what-so-ever?

just because i dont sit in a recliner drinking wine and listening to classical music, bitching about politics and shit that doesnt matter, doesnt make me a criminal. those fucked up middleage/overthehill fuckers that run this country want to blame video games, movies, and music on their bad parenting. FUCK THOSE FUCKING FUCKERS!

I learned it from watching you Dad! I learned it from watching you!

interesting twist on the sniper news, police raid a house in tacoma wachington, thats 3 thousand miles away from the shootings, god damn, i cant wait for the made for TV movie. woo hoo!

OMG ITS SO CLEAR NOW!!1 TEH SNIPER KILLED PEOPLE AND TEH GAME HAS WHAT? PEOPEL! AND GUNS!!!11 AND THE GUY LEFT A NOTE WHERE HE SAID "GG" PROBABLY AND HE IS FROM COUNTARSTRIEK!! BAN IT!!!11 OMG TEH CHILDERN!!

Hum... no.

I originally posted this on Domain of Games, where I saw it first, but I thought I would share my thoughts here is well.


I don't think that the gaming community can claim with 100 percent certainty that the sniper doesn't play video games. There HAVE been past examples of violent criminals who were obsessed with violent video games. The point isn't that they aren't attracted to violent video games, the point is that they take something much different away from their gaming experience than normal gamers.

Normal gamers find violent games give them the same feeling of excitement of "being the hero" that an action film gives their audience, or just the adrenaline rush and competition that online gaming provides. Every teenage testosterone pumped male has those "hero" fantasies. Yes they do gain pleasure from the violence of the situation, but it is secondary to their understanding that it is controlled violence, that it is just a hero fantasy and nothing else, that even if it is not using violence to further justice in the game that the suffering and death that occurs is purely imaginary and something to be ignored. But in 99 percent of the games the user gains pleasure because they, in that fantasy, are risking their lives to serve justice, to protect the innocent, to be the hero. Even if they are playing a game like Grand Theft Auto, in which they are the bad guy, they understand that it is just a fantasy. The suffering or death of their virtual victims is not real, and so the morally distasteful part of being a bad guy is no longer there. Even in games like Grand Theft Auto you are still acting out the part of a hero, in a sort of Butch Casedy/Sundance kid fashion.

The criminals who play these games are of two types. Either they are psychopathic and ENJOY the killing for its own sake, and their fantasy is that the virtual suffering they cause is actually real, or they are of the type that is so detached from reality that they consider the suffering and death they cause in real life to be no more significant than the virtual deaths and suffering caused in the games they play. In either case, these criminals are as radically different from normal gamers as they are from normal people who don't even play games. ANYONE who has enjoyed a movie containing violence, or a story, or approves of the use of violence for justice, is on no higher moral ground than that of the average gamer.

The problem is that the term violence has an entirely negative connotation, and it is the only adjective used to describe games that contain it. The fact is violence is necessary and acceptable in certain situations. Being a moral person does not mean being a pacifist that condemns any form of violence, it means being able to differentiate when violence is acceptable and when it is not. As an example, the police use violence, but they do so to serve justice.

Furthermore, we humans are not entirely detached from our basic nature. Just as we have to eat and sleep, we also find tales containing violence to be exciting, and always only when the violence is used in a socially acceptable way. This basic nature of ours can not be said to be morally wrong. Morality enters into the equation ONLY when it is REAL suffering that is being caused that does not serve to perpetuate justice. Games easily pass this definition, and the prejudice with which the media and the masses at large treat video games is spawned not from their abhorrence of violence, but from their ignorance and a natural tendency of people to mistrust new things. These are the same kind of people who have in past centuries thought it was blasphemy and evil to claim the earth was not the center of the universe, that the earth was not flat, and many other things that we now take for granted. In my opinion the problem here is not people finding socially acceptable, harmless outlets for their more basic human tendencies, but people’s basic social nature to not think for themselves, demonize things they are ignorant of, and to generally mistrust anything new or different.

I doubt these opinions will be popular here, but <deep breath> here goes...

1) I'm not real sure why everyone is pointing their finger so sharply at the media here. I mean, THEY weren't the ones who said the sniper is a gamer in this article. They're simply reporting that Wal Mart is taking this action. I don't see the media's fault in this instance. They've made some big stumbles before, but more and more, they're getting it. Everything is a learning process.

2) It's easy to denegrate Wal Mart for this decision, but keep in mind that a) they're doing this in the middle of the area that's being terrorized by a sniper. Simple courtesy for the shoppers there, who had to be pretty damned brave to even come into the store, would indicate it's probably a good idea to - for now - remove products that have snipers on the cover. and b) the game's getting lousy reviews anyway! If it weren't for the ongoing story, there's a damn good chance they'd yank it anyway.

Now where the hell did I put those asbestos underwear of mine???

You've got to remember, Wal-Mart is based in Arkansas, a southern state that values their hunting equipment...this is the same chain who refused to sell a Sheryl Crow cd in 1996 because she made an unfavorable reference to Wal-Mart's gun sales...also, personally having been a POW in Arkansas for 10 years, them people down there don't no nothing bout no silly sniper pinball machines..

This is a step in the right direction.
It's about time they started investigating Counter-Strike for its role in the decline of Western Civilization!! I say we let CS take the fall for everything in this world that we think sucks ass:

The AIDS epidemic? That's Counter-Strike's fault.

The current recession? Counter-Strike.

Death of Napster? Once again, Counter-Strike did it. The RIAA was merely a scapegoat.

Banning of anonymous accounts on the Shack Forums? Well, who else would do such a thing?

I'm certain that there are several other heinous happenings that we can trace directly back to Counter-Strike. Anyone else have any ideas?

Fuck them. Fuck them. That is all.

Does anyone really buy games at Walmart?

Anybody know what the heck they could be looking for under a tree stump in Tacoma, Washington? Pot of gold?

this is pathetic, always the gaming industry gets attacked by the media and public.
how about the tv and movie industry?
there is way more violent acts on tv and in movies, which are available to anyone and everyone at any givin time of the day.
ya.. it must be counter-strike....
wut a bunch of bs.

Someone just asked a question about this in the forums.. I responded with

... but I think it's ok for companies to pull Sniper off the shelves for the moment.. the motion picture held off on releasing a couple movies after 9/11. I'm surprised the company who published it didn't pull sniper earlier as a gesture of respect/senstivity to the current situation.

Oh great, msnbc. My source for tripe.

Ok wtf, this has nothing to do with the content of the game. Sniper has little sniping in it their basing this solely on the name. If they were concerned about content they would have to ban deer hunter and just about every other game rated T or above.

From my IM Conversation:

<snip>
Riptide: according to some people on msnbc/cnn/etc, video games are responsible for these snipings
UVA00: people like you who play those sniping games are victims of society
UVA00: blame the video gaming industry
UVA00: you should sue
UVA00: like those fat ppl who are suing mcdonalds
<snip>

Hehe class action suit. Who wants some money!! :)