Offtopic: Arbitrary Attacks on Videogames Annoy Me

Peter Hitchens wheeled out a predictable attack on videogames - namely Grand Theft Auto 4 - in the print edition of the Daily Mail today. His tortured logic spilled onto his weblog, so I left him the following reply:

"Could it possibly be bad for a child or a teenager to spend long hours impersonating a violent car thief?" (Hitchens)

Could it possibly be bad for you to write a "won't somebody think of the children" missive to whip up the usual sensationalist panic about videogames while (predictably) failing to mention the product in question is clearly labeled 18 for adults?

Rather than decry the game, perhaps it might make more sense to attack gamestores that happily sell products aimed at an older market to kids. Perhaps it might be better to attack the parents that thoughtlessly hurl products aimed at an older market at their children.

Unless, of course, you're *also* going to blame the collapse of Western civilization on every single activity aimed at someone over 18 along with the horrors of GTA4?

The gaming market has grown and aged with the products. I've played games for 25 years, and I don't particularly fancy playing "super happy hooray for everything" anymore.

Thanks for trying to limit my choice of personal pursuits via the agenda you're pushing without even bothering to try the product in question.

If you *had* actually tried the game, you wouldn't be writing it off as a senseless, lawless gunfest with no consequences, morals or anything approaching depth beyond "kill everything in sight".

It's mature, its intelligent, its - shock horror - actually very grown up, and at least one major videogame site said of this game in its review that the more realistic and serious nature of the lead character meant that they were actually *less* inclined to go on a gun rampage, because it "didn't feel like something the character would do".

To impress upon a player that sense of depth with regards a fictional character jumping around on a screen is pretty impressive. To do such a thing when it could be argued the basic mechanic of the title is to shoot people, even more so.

But of course, you're too busy wheeling out assumptions and blanket statements.

He never published the comment. Funny, that...