• Join Us |
  • |
  • Sign in with:

Hot News

Latest News

View All

TV Says Gamers Are Crazy Killers

by Chris Remo, Nov 23, 2005 2:30pm PST
Related Topics – Wack News, Jack Thompson

Did you see the recent episode of CSI: Miami in which a bunch of gamers were found to be committing serial murder and robbery in imitation of a video game? Well, I didn't, but Salon's Andrew Leonard did. If you didn't catch it and don't want it spoiled, feel free to stop reading. Anyway, it seems that not only were these fictitious gamers committing the aforementioned crimes, they were actually raping people for extra points, which clearly strikes deep at the core of the actual appeal of Grand Theft Auto--oh, I'm sorry, "Urban Hell Raiser," the rather thinly veiled game featured in the show. But wait, there's more:

To those of us who do live in the real world, as opposed to video game land or the tortured plot devisings of bad TV writers, it might seem unrealistic that a gaming company wouldn't cooperate with the police in such a circumstance. Kinda suspicious. Hey, you don't suppose the gaming company might be involved, do you? It turns out that executive isn't just smarmy -- he's Satan. Not only is the company providing bad role models to the youth of today, but, in an effort to boost sales in a competitive industry, it's also actively supplying college students with Tec-9 automatics and encouraging them to murder innocent people.
The situations described are clearly ludicrous, but it's not difficult to surmise that there are plenty of people out there whose opinions were merely reinforced by way of CSI: Miami. After all, Jack Thompson (coincidentally from Miami) has built quite a name for himself and gathered quite a following, as crazy as it might seem, by making similar accusations as the ones in this episode--except in real life. Of course, one response in the article's comments section points out, rather plausibly, "Maybe TV execs are just jealous that they are losing out the 18-24 male demographic to Playstation 2."


Read all the News


Comments

24 Threads | 68 Comments
  • #63
    Refresh Thread
    By: deadhorse x
    Reply
    I remember watching this episode cause I was sick and it sounded interesting from the commercial. Going into the episode, I assumed they were going to make it so that the criminals killed to amplify the thrill they get from games or something. At least that would be plausible. The episode did turn out to be really stupid and shed gamers and developers in a generally bad light. The scenes from the video game were very obviously gta:sa-esque and apparantly in the CSI world developers release games where you're rewarded for raping women. For some reason I just can't see any company ever doing this, aside from some TC for an FPS or something.
    Nov 23, 2005 9:38pm PST
  • #28
    Refresh Thread
    By: rosone x
    Reply
    The use of stereotypes saves time since you don't need to explain the motive, intentions or even introduce the character. For sure you know those scenes when something is being explained to you indirectly, usually one actor explains something to another actor so the viewer knows what it is or how it works.

    There are probably two explanations to this episode. One is that they had to save some time to make other scenes longer. The other one, which I think hits it on the spot, is that we are not the target audience for this show. It's aimed for the simple minded who know for a fact that every 3rd gamer is a criminal.

    As long as you make your consumer happy, no matter what crap you sell it's all fine. Seriously, look at Counter Strike, if people buy crap you keep making more crap. Who cares...
    Nov 23, 2005 4:09pm PST
  • #18
    Refresh Thread
    By: carbonite x
    Reply
    Thats like that last lawsuit i read about, except this young chinese kid jumped out a 24 story building window and killed himself and his parents assumed to blame the game he played, addiction to WoW the mmo, yet you gotta ask yourself, wheres the self-control? I've played video games for over 10 years now and I've played every GTA, yet i dont have the nerve to kill myself or go out and kill other people just because the game can do it, its a video game! , its suppose to take you out of reality into its genre for your entertainment, even some games have warning labels, read em yourself, but i think we all know the gaming industry cannot be harmed, to much profit, its all mental, and if anyone wants to blame video games for crime in the real life, your mentally ill!
    Nov 23, 2005 3:36pm PST
  • #8
    Refresh Thread
    By: yourname00 x
    Reply
    Its just a video game, that's often our excuse and I'm afraid in this case I think they can use it too. I think TV has a duty to be somewhat careful how they represent different racial groups, religions and peoples sexuality etc but I think its stretching it a bit if they have to be careful how they represent demo graphs (killer gamers this week killer soccer moms next week).

    OK so it does sound like a crappy story. But I think games misrepresent groups a lot worse than TV does now. I think games will have to mature on that issue if they want to be taken serious as mainstream entertainment/artform.
    Nov 23, 2005 3:12pm PST