Speaker 1: Hey, what's gucci? Everybody? This is if you want to
Speaker 1: wait here for nerdif ascent and sitting across from me,
Speaker 1: as always, it's my co host, Danny Fernandez. M I
Speaker 1: love that you time that perfectly with taking a sip.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know you can tell because you can
Speaker 1: hear your like and you're like held it up to
Speaker 1: your lips and my co host takes sip. Yeah. That's
Speaker 1: how you get podcasters when you know that when the
Speaker 1: time you have to lacroise, not even one, you have
Speaker 1: one and then another. Here's the thing, though, they're sparkling,
Speaker 1: and if you hold them up too close to the mic,
Speaker 1: it's going to be like the snap crackle pot. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's why I drink off Mike, you know, and then
Speaker 1: swing back over here. What we need is more sponsors,
Speaker 1: I feel, because all we do talk about the food
Speaker 1: that we're eating and the protein shakes that we're drinking. Well, no,
Speaker 1: don't worry, they'll be rolling in soon enough. Once they
Speaker 1: still want our condoms. What happened with that? We do
Speaker 1: we ever? Do we get? We weren't? We can up it.
Speaker 1: We can up our spice factor. Yeah okay, yeah, Today
Speaker 1: on the show, Yeah, we're tackling something that was really
Speaker 1: important to Iffie and I that I think since we
Speaker 1: started this podcast, we really wanted to tackle, but wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that we heavily researched it so that
Speaker 1: we could cover our bases because I feel like you
Speaker 1: and I are on the same page as far as
Speaker 1: this discussion, but we want to make sure that we're
Speaker 1: having an open discussion. Well, it's funny because I have
Speaker 1: a long history. I've actually wrote two separate essays about
Speaker 1: this topic because in high school when I had to write,
Speaker 1: when they would give you, like, you know, a informational
Speaker 1: essay about something you care about. I've always been a
Speaker 1: big video game gamer, and I wrote two different essays
Speaker 1: about this. So and it's funny because seeing it now,
Speaker 1: seeing it thin, it's really just the same argument that
Speaker 1: keeps get improven, disproven, and then they keep kind of
Speaker 1: circling back to it so much so that and we'll
Speaker 1: get into this later. Some some people who normally wouldn't
Speaker 1: agree with us, has condemned this being used as a scapegoat. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I guess we should say the title. I don't think
Speaker 1: we said it. We're talking about violence in video games. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about violence in video games. That's so fascinating
Speaker 1: if you because you know something that's really close to
Speaker 1: me that I did a research paper on in college
Speaker 1: was about porn. And that's so funny because if you
Speaker 1: follow me, you know that I which maybe we'll be
Speaker 1: able to tackle. I don't know what it all we're
Speaker 1: allowed to tackle with our ratings, uh and our sponsors
Speaker 1: on here, but um, I'm pro porn. I'm sex positive,
Speaker 1: and so I wrote a paper on that, and then
Speaker 1: I've definitely tweeted about it at now being in my
Speaker 1: thirties and actually had some cow State students hit me
Speaker 1: up about it, asking me to come on and speak
Speaker 1: as a woman that is pro porn. But same thing,
Speaker 1: a lot of the same arguments are still there as well.
Speaker 1: So anyways, we both have a past with writing research
Speaker 1: papers on some of these topics that are apparently ruining
Speaker 1: our children. Yeah, so if you why don't you talk
Speaker 1: to us about like the history of when this kind
Speaker 1: of got started. Yeah, So the scapegoating video games, and
Speaker 1: it goes as far back as the seventies, and it
Speaker 1: starts with a seventies game called Death Race. But that
Speaker 1: really is just more so just the kind of overall
Speaker 1: social panic about violent video games, and that's kind of
Speaker 1: where we'll start. But I think the most significant kind
Speaker 1: of outrage came with Mortal Kombat, because what happened after
Speaker 1: the release of Mortal Kombat kind of change gaming forever
Speaker 1: because it led to the creation of the s r B,
Speaker 1: which is the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which is something
Speaker 1: that kind of started when they figured that, all right,
Speaker 1: people are gonna want their bad games. It was kind
Speaker 1: of a fight back and forth, and really it starts
Speaker 1: with Moral Kombat. The arcade fighting game was the first
Speaker 1: title to receive a mature rating, and along with Night Trap,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about a little more because that one
Speaker 1: is very interesting, was responsible for the chain of events
Speaker 1: that led to the establishment of the s r B.
Speaker 1: U S Senator Joseph Lieberman came across Mortal Kombat almost
Speaker 1: by happenstance, but he instantly recognized what he called quote unquote,
Speaker 1: incredibly violent content. Yeah, so his quote was, we're talking
Speaker 1: about video games that glorified violence and teach children to
Speaker 1: enjoy inflicting the most gruesome forms of cruelty imaginable um
Speaker 1: And that is what led to the game industry, founding
Speaker 1: the E s r B to regulate its own content. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and at first, you know, before all that, Sega tried
Speaker 1: implementing its own voluntary rating system. It was called the
Speaker 1: Video Game Rating Council, and it would largely rate games
Speaker 1: released for its own consoles, and Mortal Kombat Night Trap
Speaker 1: were rated M thirteen and M seventeen on Sega scale, respectively.
Speaker 1: During the hearings, Howard Lincoln and Bill White, the chairman
Speaker 1: of Nintendo and Sega's US divisions, respectively attacked each other's
Speaker 1: stance on like the objective content and video games, and
Speaker 1: Lincoln condemned Sega for even releasing Night Trap and felt
Speaker 1: it simply has no place in our society. Now, let's
Speaker 1: talk about night Trap, because Night Trap is very funny
Speaker 1: because looking back on it now everyone's so confused. But
Speaker 1: night night Trap was this game that used full motion video,
Speaker 1: the shortened version is FMV, and it was a game
Speaker 1: where you were controlled You had cameras during this kind
Speaker 1: of like slumber party, and all these girls were getting
Speaker 1: like captured and attacked, but you can set traps to
Speaker 1: stop the attackers. And like there's one scene where he's
Speaker 1: like in a towel, like you know, just your typical
Speaker 1: TV towel, it's like over your breast and everything. But
Speaker 1: they just were so blown away. They just felt it
Speaker 1: was too sexual and and too violent. If I do
Speaker 1: want to say, the thing that strikes me the most
Speaker 1: about that end of that sentence was that it has
Speaker 1: no what was the quote? It has no place in society. Oh,
Speaker 1: simply has no place in our society. This is something
Speaker 1: that we will see again and again as far as
Speaker 1: the argument against video games that no one seems to
Speaker 1: be addressing to television and film that it appears these
Speaker 1: arguments continue that it is okay for movies to be
Speaker 1: extremely violent, but when video games do it, they're not.
Speaker 1: And so you know, a lot of the argument I
Speaker 1: feel like is and I'm going to watch this, but
Speaker 1: a lot of the argument I feel like is that
Speaker 1: as an art form, which which I think a lot
Speaker 1: of video game developers, especially early on, would consider a
Speaker 1: lot of what they do as art, that is an
Speaker 1: expression of art, is an expression of creativity, that they
Speaker 1: are regulated much more heavier and blamed essentially for a
Speaker 1: lot of things in a way that television film is not.
Speaker 1: That's so true and I think it is. It comes
Speaker 1: from the same place. Uh A lot of times this
Speaker 1: kind of like shocked, you know, reaction comes from is
Speaker 1: whereas the assumption that video games are for kids. But
Speaker 1: on this y s A, the Entertainment Software Association, they
Speaker 1: have like a great PDF that gives you, like the
Speaker 1: essential facts about games and video about games and violence,
Speaker 1: and we will be including these in the footnotes. But
Speaker 1: the average game player ages thirty five and the average
Speaker 1: game buyer ages thirties. Who can buy games, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean granted, yeah, people have their parents, but adults
Speaker 1: with disposable income, like you said, I mean, most of
Speaker 1: our friends are gamers. I'm now watching this night Trap,
Speaker 1: which is so weird because you are essentially rescue. It's
Speaker 1: not anything I would feel that's too too different from
Speaker 1: a Superhero scenario where you're rescuing a damsel in distress
Speaker 1: um which I saw with a lot of these that
Speaker 1: were I mean grand cheese in a nightgown. But I
Speaker 1: mean other than that, which I've seen hundreds of times
Speaker 1: in film at least. I mean, if we're talking Jason,
Speaker 1: you're seeing full on boobies. So yeah, it is this
Speaker 1: double standard, and I think it does come from the
Speaker 1: assumption that this is for kids. And it's interesting too
Speaker 1: because we're going to notice a flip when we come
Speaker 1: close to our generation in the approach. And this because
Speaker 1: this is very much coming from the place of trying
Speaker 1: to protect our kids from seeing these things. Nowadays, it's
Speaker 1: more so being blamed. It's it's less it's less of
Speaker 1: like our kids shouldn't see this. It's because our kids
Speaker 1: are doing this and not guns. It's it's a scapegoat
Speaker 1: for the most truest sense of the word. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: did want to read um this amazing quote from James
Speaker 1: Ivory at Virginia Tech where he said racial prejudice about
Speaker 1: violence lead us to seek external explanations when white kids
Speaker 1: commit crimes. So therefore, if an African American youth commits
Speaker 1: a horrific act of violence, it is because he is
Speaker 1: full of rage or hatred. But when a nice end
Speaker 1: quote white kid shoots up at school, he must have
Speaker 1: been brainwashed or under the corrupting influence of something outside himself,
Speaker 1: something like video games. Yeah, that's wild. We don't see
Speaker 1: that argument in the media the way that it is
Speaker 1: perpetuated continuously. With the recent shootings that we and going
Speaker 1: back all the way to the nineties, and speaking of
Speaker 1: the nineties, Sega's rating system basically did not please Lieberman
Speaker 1: and he did not believe these systems were sufficient as
Speaker 1: a because it seems like everyone was kind of taking
Speaker 1: Sega's route and trying to start making their own age
Speaker 1: based rating system. Lieberman wasn't feeling it, and in Februar
Speaker 1: threatened to propose a creation of a federal commission for
Speaker 1: regulating and rating games. So with the threat of federal regulations,
Speaker 1: a group of major video game developers and publishers, including
Speaker 1: Acclaim Entertainment and Electronic Arts e A this is before
Speaker 1: We've grown to hate them, along with Nintendo and Sega,
Speaker 1: formed a political trade group known as the Interactive Digital
Speaker 1: Software Association in April, with a goal to create a
Speaker 1: self regulatory framework for assessing and rating video games in
Speaker 1: and While SEGA kind of tried to get people on
Speaker 1: the side of their VRC rating system, Nintendo representatives objected
Speaker 1: to the idea because they didn't want to associate themselves
Speaker 1: with the work of the main competitor. Because even though
Speaker 1: this is all political, business is still business. So instead,
Speaker 1: a vendor neutral rating system known as the Entertainment Software
Speaker 1: Rating Board e s RB was developed in the formation
Speaker 1: of the s RB was officially announced to Congress on
Speaker 1: July and it was officially launched in September sixteenth, and
Speaker 1: its system consisted of five of age based ratings, which
Speaker 1: we're very familiar with early childhood gets, two adults renamed
Speaker 1: everyone in and teen, mature, and adults only. Now something
Speaker 1: about adults only, which, because some people may not be aware,
Speaker 1: most gamers usually are. Actually nowadays, I'm not so sure
Speaker 1: because adults only basically is a death sentence for your game.
Speaker 1: You got rated, And what that means is that vendors
Speaker 1: will not carry your game, but you can still purchase
Speaker 1: it online. So that's that's the tricky thing. Feel like,
Speaker 1: that's the same with movies as well. Yeah, you won't
Speaker 1: be able to see it in mini theaters, right yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: So the debate actually over brutality and bloodshed in video
Speaker 1: games goes all the way back to the seventies. If
Speaker 1: we were going to take it all the way back
Speaker 1: with an arcade game called Death Race, yeah, which that
Speaker 1: drew a lot of public outrage, um, because it allowed
Speaker 1: players to run over enemies for points. Now we have
Speaker 1: grand theft auto and other things. But yeah, that was
Speaker 1: it was happening all the way back in the seventies.
Speaker 1: It's really fascinating to me because in a lot of
Speaker 1: the research that we scoured through when going over this
Speaker 1: topic was fascinating. What's known as the Goldilocks effect. Do
Speaker 1: you know what that is? Iffy? So essentially, it's where
Speaker 1: every generation thinks that the next generation is more wild
Speaker 1: or violent than when they grew up. So the generation
Speaker 1: before us, people often think is too conservative, they didn't understand,
Speaker 1: they don't understand our art and our music. Uh, And
Speaker 1: then the generation in front of us is seen as
Speaker 1: being more wild, too violent, to sexually promiscuous. When you
Speaker 1: look back at the sixties and seventies and it's like,
Speaker 1: really though, you know, because they had games like that,
Speaker 1: they had very sexually promiscuous times and I feel like,
Speaker 1: but that's essentially the name of that effect is when
Speaker 1: you think or your parents generation thinks that their generation
Speaker 1: was the best, and it's these new up and coming
Speaker 1: generations that are promoting this. Yeah, but it but it
Speaker 1: just always finds a way to because I think it
Speaker 1: all started with just kind of like the idea of
Speaker 1: what may happen, especially with death races, and what I
Speaker 1: was going to say about death races, it's funny because
Speaker 1: you can feel its effect because one of the main
Speaker 1: things said about Grand Theft Auto is that you got
Speaker 1: points for running people over, which isn't true, and Grand
Speaker 1: Theft Auto true. Yeah, you can get money from people,
Speaker 1: but you're not being scored on it. But I think
Speaker 1: that's carry over from the description of death rays because
Speaker 1: I remember my parents saying things like that, but that's
Speaker 1: not true. But let's fast forward almost six years later,
Speaker 1: so we're in let's go into which we're very familiar.
Speaker 1: If you're not, was one of our I don't want
Speaker 1: to say first, but I definitely know our generations. One
Speaker 1: of our earliest memories of a mass shooting, which was
Speaker 1: Columbine UH. Two teenagers killed twelve of their p is
Speaker 1: and a teacher at Columbine HI. And it was widely
Speaker 1: reported that they played the shooter game Doom. And that
Speaker 1: was and they were so right away just already scapegoating that,
Speaker 1: not the fact that they were able to get access
Speaker 1: to so many weapons to bring to school, but it
Speaker 1: was the game that did it. It wasn't you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was one of the most prominent times that I
Speaker 1: feel like a video game was blamed for a mass shooting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well it was funny too, because just like I was
Speaker 1: saying about Death Race being just kind of carry over,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know about Doom. What was said around,
Speaker 1: you know, with my parents and and and the people
Speaker 1: I spoke to, was that it was counter Strike. Counter
Speaker 1: Strike was what made and that we specifically weren't able
Speaker 1: to play counter Strike in my high school because of that.
Speaker 1: So it's so funny that's just any game with guns
Speaker 1: and shooting, that's what's training us. But that's really not
Speaker 1: the case. Yeah. Actually, after Columbine, the number of published
Speaker 1: research articles examining video games increased nearly three sent so
Speaker 1: less than a month after the shooting. The former House
Speaker 1: Speaker Republican New Gingrich said that Hollywood and computerized games
Speaker 1: have undermined the core values of civility. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: one little sidebar I want to do while we talk
Speaker 1: about this, because I feel like when you hear us
Speaker 1: have this conversation, a lot of people may be thinking, like,
Speaker 1: oh man, yeah, the Republicans are trying to like use
Speaker 1: a scapegoat. They're trying to do this. But actually back
Speaker 1: when our man's Lieberman, he was actually a Democrat. Joseph
Speaker 1: Lieberman was a Democrat, And we're gonna see some familiar
Speaker 1: names that kind of held the charge against this because
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton asked the federal government to look into weather
Speaker 1: media companies, including video game industries, were marketing violent content
Speaker 1: to young people. So it wasn't just a Republican thing.
Speaker 1: All the politicians were on board on this, like panic
Speaker 1: of like video games making people violent, that was it
Speaker 1: was a panic. Yeah, Actually a U. S. Senator Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act that was in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five. That actually didn't pass, So Clinton's
Speaker 1: bill never made it out of the committee, and in
Speaker 1: eleven the United States Supreme Court ruled that all such
Speaker 1: legislation was unconstitutional and that research evidence could not support
Speaker 1: claims that it was necessary. The court declared that video
Speaker 1: games are art and that if they are sometimes violent,
Speaker 1: this is no different from literature film or even fairy tales.
Speaker 1: That is what I think is one of the most
Speaker 1: what we were talking about earlier, one of the most
Speaker 1: fascinating aspects of this is that we are so set
Speaker 1: on restricting, censoring, and blaming video games for the violence
Speaker 1: as opposed to other media forms that are equally if
Speaker 1: not more violent. That ruling was Brown Versus Entertainment Merchants Association,
Speaker 1: which considered whether regulation of violent games was constitutional, and
Speaker 1: they actually referred to several decades of accumulated research in
Speaker 1: the court. The Supreme Court said these studies have been
Speaker 1: rejected by every court to consider them, and with good reason,
Speaker 1: going on to discuss how little such studies told us
Speaker 1: about the real world. Yeah. Actually, the late Justice anton Uh,
Speaker 1: late Justice antonin Scalia, who is a typically right leaning justice,
Speaker 1: said that video games deserve the First Amendment protection and
Speaker 1: he also cast out on the idea that violent games
Speaker 1: would cause real world acts of aggression. And like Danny said,
Speaker 1: it was through all of the decades of research, because
Speaker 1: we have been researching it and it has been coming
Speaker 1: back false that this is not this does not result
Speaker 1: in violence. Yet we still somehow keep bringing it up
Speaker 1: even though there's fact after fact. So maybe this is
Speaker 1: one of the like earlier kind of forms of where
Speaker 1: facts are given and just you need something to place
Speaker 1: the blame. Yeah, I wanted to bring up one more report,
Speaker 1: which was by the American psychological association. But the A
Speaker 1: p A. And they said, and I felt like this
Speaker 1: is really kind of what narrows it down, and and
Speaker 1: how yeah, I feel like this is what really narrows
Speaker 1: it down. Is no single risk factor consistently, consistently leads
Speaker 1: a person to act aggressively or violently, their report said. Rather,
Speaker 1: it is the accumulation of risk factors that tends to
Speaker 1: lead to aggressive or violent behavior. The research like access
Speaker 1: to guns, masculinity, right, the research tribute here demonstrates the
Speaker 1: violent video game use is just one such factor. So
Speaker 1: if you were to look at some of these because
Speaker 1: they have said, well, these school shooters played this video game,
Speaker 1: but they're not looking at all of the other risk
Speaker 1: factors and all of the other factors that might have
Speaker 1: led them to commit the crimes that they did. Instead,
Speaker 1: they need something to blame it on, and that thing
Speaker 1: is video games. And we actually have lots of studies.
Speaker 1: And also we want to talk about the most recent
Speaker 1: use of skategoating here, but we'll just get into that
Speaker 1: after the break, all right, and welcome back to Artificent.
Speaker 1: We are talking about violence and video games, going down
Speaker 1: the history of it, talking about all the studies that
Speaker 1: strike down. Whatsever just so much info just disproving this,
Speaker 1: but we have it here all in one place for you.
Speaker 1: But Danny wanted to wanted to say something up top. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that a p a uh study that we were talking about.
Speaker 1: The American Psychological Association. So they had actually looked at
Speaker 1: four meta analysis that reviewed more than a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty research reports published before two thousand and nine, and
Speaker 1: then of the ones published between two thousand nine, and
Speaker 1: they looked at a hundred and seventy are articles to
Speaker 1: come up with their research. And again it said, while
Speaker 1: there's some variation among the individual studies, a strong and
Speaker 1: consistent general pattern has emerged from many years of research
Speaker 1: that provides confidence in our general conclusions. As with most
Speaker 1: areas of science, and the picture presented by this research
Speaker 1: is more complex than it usually include in news coverage
Speaker 1: and other information prepared for the general public. So that's
Speaker 1: another sector of it, is what the media decides to
Speaker 1: latch on what is shown is like they played video
Speaker 1: games or they played violent video games, which they're not
Speaker 1: looking at the full picture. Yeah, well, because that's such
Speaker 1: as simple. Yeah, of course, they played video games, because
Speaker 1: everyone their age plays video games that isn't you know, shocking,
Speaker 1: And it's funny because you would think after you know,
Speaker 1: that huge study and even Scalia kind of like shutting
Speaker 1: it down, it would end. But most recently Trump went
Speaker 1: ahead and set that video games, the video games, the movies,
Speaker 1: the Internact, the stuff is so violent. He went ahead
Speaker 1: and set that, and it kind of re ignited this
Speaker 1: dead argument because at this point it is officially dead.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's reached as it's not. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's alive, but it's you're beating a dead horse. That
Speaker 1: is is not true. It is like it's having that
Speaker 1: Behrenstein bears argument. We've already proved. We already proved to
Speaker 1: you that the name was what it was. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I need to tell you. Something did you see
Speaker 1: on the White House YouTube channel, which if you didn't know,
Speaker 1: the White House has a YouTube channel, they have something.
Speaker 1: They have a video up that's titled violence in Video Games.
Speaker 1: It has um over a million views. Uh if he,
Speaker 1: I will show it to you. It is literally there's
Speaker 1: no introduction to it. It is just the most not
Speaker 1: the most, but it is just violent. Excerpts taken from
Speaker 1: video games of people like hitting each other with hatches
Speaker 1: or or shooting someone in there some pretty prolific scenes
Speaker 1: and video games because these are some games I've played
Speaker 1: and it and they're really it is funny. They got
Speaker 1: Dead by Daylight, which is a horror game where you
Speaker 1: play a slasher. It really is like but there's no introduction.
Speaker 1: There's literally nothing that that introduces this this video. It
Speaker 1: just is on their YouTube page with clips of violent
Speaker 1: you know, violent particular points in videos, and they're taking
Speaker 1: old games. They took the extremely controversial No Russian and
Speaker 1: it was the scene where you're you literally go and
Speaker 1: do a mass shooting like that is the scene in
Speaker 1: the context of the story, it makes sense and actually,
Speaker 1: as the player, you do have the option to not
Speaker 1: shoot anyone. You actually get an achievement if you do
Speaker 1: that whole episode and shoot no one here that whole Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. One of the comments that has over two
Speaker 1: thousand likes says, I mean, some of those clips you
Speaker 1: showed are unplayable cut scenes, So shouldn't you therefore be
Speaker 1: making the same argument against movies and television. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's the same thing. And I do want to
Speaker 1: point out that the first half of that video no
Speaker 1: one was using guns. It was all just access growing guns,
Speaker 1: like it was no real Like I think two people
Speaker 1: got shot and the rest were with other weapons other
Speaker 1: than guns. So you're just taking somebody else. Somebody else said,
Speaker 1: I play a lot of fantasy games and for that
Speaker 1: reason and planning to tame and write a dragon. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to necessarily make fun of people who
Speaker 1: are concerned about violence and video games, but I do
Speaker 1: want to say it is dangerous. It is dangerous that
Speaker 1: when we have went through the proper means and the courts,
Speaker 1: your own justice, the one who is on the side
Speaker 1: of the Republicans has it doesn't agree with you, and
Speaker 1: you go and you post that like that is that
Speaker 1: is dangerous? It is on the White House. On the
Speaker 1: White House, Yeah, channel I agree, and with no explanation.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's another Like it's irresponsible, is exactly
Speaker 1: what it is. It's irresponsible, and it's denying all the
Speaker 1: work that everyone has done and all the facts that
Speaker 1: are out there that proves this is just not true.
Speaker 1: I do want to play this clip from the Daily
Speaker 1: Zeite guys, because I feel like, you know, they have
Speaker 1: a fun way. Daily Zeite guys another show on the
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works Network. We're gonna have to bleep a
Speaker 1: lot of it because they are some potty mouse. You know,
Speaker 1: when I'm on there, I never cuss. I don't cuss
Speaker 1: in my whole life. But yeah, this is kind of
Speaker 1: I feel like instead of kind of repeating what has
Speaker 1: happened and what is said during the recent shootings, would
Speaker 1: be good to just kind of give you you all
Speaker 1: just a clip and you know, if you don't already
Speaker 1: listen to the Daily zeite guys, hopefully this will make
Speaker 1: you want to go peep those guys out. You know,
Speaker 1: me and Danny have both been on it talking point.
Speaker 1: It seemed like on all the Sunday shows because the
Speaker 1: n r A had to get all their people out
Speaker 1: to start spending this recent shooting to be anything but
Speaker 1: the guns. Uh, seemed to be mostly video games and movies.
Speaker 1: Now was like the I guess scapegoat tojour and Riddling, Yes,
Speaker 1: so I guess the first. Yeah, Ali North, who is
Speaker 1: the new n r A president and o G gun
Speaker 1: smuggler of America. He went on Fox and Yeah blamed
Speaker 1: Riddling in a bunch of us. Check out this explanation
Speaker 1: we're trying, like the Dickens, to treat the symptom without
Speaker 1: treating the disease. And the disease in this case isn't
Speaker 1: the Second Amendment. The disease is youngsters who are steeped
Speaker 1: in a culture of violence. Uh, they've been drugged in
Speaker 1: many cases. Nearly all of these perpetrators are male and
Speaker 1: their young teenagers in most cases, and they've come through
Speaker 1: a culture where violence is commonplace. All we need to
Speaker 1: do is turn on the TV, go to a movie.
Speaker 1: If you look at what has happened to the young people,
Speaker 1: many of these young boys have been on riddling since
Speaker 1: they were in kindergarten. Uh, that's such a hard left on.
Speaker 1: Like it's like he even started like making a good
Speaker 1: point of like all these young shooters are male, all
Speaker 1: these young that there could be a discussion about what
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity is and things like that, right, But then
Speaker 1: it turns into a ribbylin. Yeah, so like they at
Speaker 1: this point. And I think hearing that also lets you
Speaker 1: know that it really isn't video games. It really isn't.
Speaker 1: What it really comes down to is anything but smarter
Speaker 1: gun control laws. Like that's what and it's so funny
Speaker 1: because no one. I feel like a few people, a
Speaker 1: few French people might have said ban all guns, but
Speaker 1: no one is saying ban all guns. What we're saying
Speaker 1: is make it harder to get these killing machines. If
Speaker 1: he did you see that in our research, there was
Speaker 1: a study they actually looked at where there are actually
Speaker 1: countries that play more video games than we do, more
Speaker 1: violent video games than we do, and and they have
Speaker 1: less murder rates than we do. Oh yeah. As as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, that clip that they played later
Speaker 1: in the Reporter follows up with, well, video games of
Speaker 1: worldwide and we're the only country with this mini mass
Speaker 1: shootings and you know, he does whatever, But but it's true.
Speaker 1: You're very right. Video games are accessible everywhere. There are
Speaker 1: countries like I know, the two that that I have
Speaker 1: more video game play than than us in violent video
Speaker 1: games as well is Japan and South Korea, and they
Speaker 1: are actually lower than we are in homicide. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's that's what I was gonna say, like just to
Speaker 1: take a dip back into the e sports hat for
Speaker 1: all my people who listen to those episodes. Just like
Speaker 1: we said on that episode, those countries kind of dominate
Speaker 1: the sports circuit because of their culture of accepting video
Speaker 1: game The reason, you know, North American sports team have
Speaker 1: such a hard times because it's just now being known
Speaker 1: that you can actually be a uh E sports athlete,
Speaker 1: that you can actually make money for this. You know,
Speaker 1: our parents weren't letting us play games willy nilly. But
Speaker 1: you do have these countries like Japan and South Korea
Speaker 1: that has embraced that culture and actually has has been
Speaker 1: pushing forward in strides in the sports. And yeah, they're
Speaker 1: not having the same issues. It's more and more apparent
Speaker 1: that it's being used as scapegoating and like we said,
Speaker 1: it isn't necessarily it's also but I think this is
Speaker 1: a heavily high stakes issue and debate for people that
Speaker 1: are just like, oh, well, it's just a rating thing. No,
Speaker 1: this actually influences court decisions about what kinds of media
Speaker 1: is censored and regulated, as well as it's led to
Speaker 1: people being sentenced to jail. You know, it can it
Speaker 1: can affect people's livelihoods. Based on the testimony of video
Speaker 1: game scholars, if they think that your game is the
Speaker 1: reason why a kid killed somebody, if they can properly
Speaker 1: blame you for it, that's terrifying. And the fact that
Speaker 1: the White House has a video up on their YouTube
Speaker 1: channel saying this is violence and video games. This is
Speaker 1: why your kids are shooting up people. That is terrifying.
Speaker 1: That has real world life effects, and especially for game developers. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just we can go through so many as you heard,
Speaker 1: there's like hundreds of of research done and we can
Speaker 1: go through just so much, but we'll just pop into
Speaker 1: something like there's one on Silence Daily that was from
Speaker 1: March eight of two thousand seventeen showing that violent video
Speaker 1: games found not to affect empathy. Study finds no link
Speaker 1: between long term playing of violent video games and changes
Speaker 1: in empathetic neural responses. So even when we jack into
Speaker 1: the brain and really kind of see what it's doing,
Speaker 1: we find that it does not have an effect. And
Speaker 1: actually it was Danny saying it, or it might have
Speaker 1: been in in this episode of the Daily Zeitgeys where
Speaker 1: they mentioned that they actually found that it helps that
Speaker 1: when you're when you're violent and you play violent video games,
Speaker 1: you're putting your outlet in the video games and not
Speaker 1: into the real world. That was actually something that was
Speaker 1: addressed because of the two Columbine shooters. Um, this is
Speaker 1: from the Fair Observer. So in the wake of the
Speaker 1: twelve murdered students, one murdered teacher in twenty one injured
Speaker 1: at Columbine, they heavily blamed Doom because the two were
Speaker 1: fans of that game in violent video games in general.
Speaker 1: The truth was that in the years before the Columbine massacre,
Speaker 1: the perpetrators were less violent in their outward behavior in
Speaker 1: writing when they were allowed to express their rages in
Speaker 1: video games. Only after they were cut off from that
Speaker 1: outlet did they start planning the school attack. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is just going on with their their article. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: have known this from watching the news. However, the media
Speaker 1: was more widely circulating the theories of moral crusader lawyer
Speaker 1: Jack Thompson, who was suing video game makers for liability
Speaker 1: in the depths of three people in the Heath High
Speaker 1: School shooting, which was another shooting that took place. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't want to just do the studies that prove
Speaker 1: our point. I also want to tackle studies that go
Speaker 1: against us, and we can point out why they're wrong
Speaker 1: as well. For example, this Sage study says that violent
Speaker 1: video games are turning gamers into deadly shooters, and it
Speaker 1: was due to a research um that they've done where
Speaker 1: they tested one and fifty one college students by having
Speaker 1: them played different types of violent and non violent video games,
Speaker 1: including games with human targets and which players are rewarded
Speaker 1: for hitting the targets heads. After playing the game for
Speaker 1: only twenty minutes, participants shot sixing bullets from a realistic
Speaker 1: gun at a life size human shape mannequin. Participants who
Speaker 1: played a violent shooting game using a pistol shaped controller
Speaker 1: hit the mannequin thirty three more than other participants did,
Speaker 1: and hit the mannequins had nineties nine percent more often.
Speaker 1: This is a good study, but it's also very tricky
Speaker 1: because the fact that you are a better shooter does
Speaker 1: not mean that you will go out and shoot. That
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the claim that video games
Speaker 1: themselves are going out and causing people to shoot. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you play video games, you will be a better
Speaker 1: shooter because video games built hand eye coordination, simple as that,
Speaker 1: and you know, yeah, you'll learn that headshots are better
Speaker 1: just from playing video games. But it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where like this doesn't have to do with the
Speaker 1: case that you're making. Yeah, yeah, that's actually a lot
Speaker 1: of these I feel like where they lack standardization, they
Speaker 1: lack measures of aggression. I feel like with some of
Speaker 1: these aggression ones. So a lot of the research studies
Speaker 1: that we were looking into didn't really have good means
Speaker 1: of calculating aggression, if that makes sense. It's like grabbing
Speaker 1: random people, having them play for twenty minutes and then
Speaker 1: asking them questions. But no, I see what you mean
Speaker 1: where and even like even the subjects that they tackle
Speaker 1: are tricky, like this study from the University of Buffalo.
Speaker 1: Violent video games eventually use their ability to produce guilt
Speaker 1: and gamers and basically uh A new University at Buffalo
Speaker 1: led studies suggest that more responses produced by the initial
Speaker 1: exposure to a video game decreases as experience with the
Speaker 1: game develops, and the findings prove provide the first experimental
Speaker 1: evidence that repeatedly playing the same violent game reduces emotional
Speaker 1: responses like guilt. But it says not only to the
Speaker 1: original game, but to other violent video games as well.
Speaker 1: But that would make sense because you know, it's a game.
Speaker 1: The it's it's the same thing where if you were
Speaker 1: to watch if you were to watch a one of
Speaker 1: those maze games where you know that it will show
Speaker 1: like the Exorcist face and all that stuff, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna stop being scary because you know it's coming.
Speaker 1: And the same thing with the video games. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, that's how people get good at video
Speaker 1: games because the initial shock and scare of someone popping
Speaker 1: out at you at corners and stuff is affecting your
Speaker 1: ability to be accurate. But that doesn't necessarily means this
Speaker 1: research does not jump off from the page, but it's
Speaker 1: it's tricking the sense where it just gives people who
Speaker 1: want to try and make this point just enough to
Speaker 1: try and make an argument out of it, where it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: if I play Mortal Kombat and I get served up
Speaker 1: in that and I start expecting scorpions like get over here, chain,
Speaker 1: I may also be able to start expecting how dukins
Speaker 1: in Street Fighter. You're living on the same platform. You're
Speaker 1: not jumping off into real life. And it's it's these
Speaker 1: types of research that kind of give them fuel even
Speaker 1: though they're not really saying something, Yeah, I do want
Speaker 1: to go back to that huge a p A study
Speaker 1: because I do want to point out they said, just
Speaker 1: to make sure that we're covering all of our sides.
Speaker 1: They did say that violent video gameplay is linked to
Speaker 1: increased aggression and players, but insufficient evidence exists about whether
Speaker 1: the link extends to criminal violence or delinquency. So they
Speaker 1: did say that it could possibly lead to a rest
Speaker 1: of behavior and like you were saying, a decrease in
Speaker 1: sensitivity to aggression, but that doesn't correlate to criminal violence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it even says it right there in the report, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, it seems like it will. We keep dancing
Speaker 1: in this circle where people are just doing these studies
Speaker 1: and being and getting close but finding there's no links.
Speaker 1: So I think from here on out, y'all doing these
Speaker 1: uh these studies, try and find the link. Stop doing
Speaker 1: these half baked ones. I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 1: say your research has half bake. Well. The thing too,
Speaker 1: is that they would have to if they would also
Speaker 1: have to follow these players for a large period of time,
Speaker 1: So it's not just these twenty minute little sessions or
Speaker 1: or studies. That that's a huge problem with this is
Speaker 1: that it's not heavily these studies are, so they make
Speaker 1: it so difficult to standardize these tests. I feel like
Speaker 1: and truly, if that's what they're trying to test for,
Speaker 1: they're making it very difficult and poor like these are
Speaker 1: poorly research studies, I feel like as far as the
Speaker 1: for those that are trying to link video games and violence, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just can't have somebody sit down in a room
Speaker 1: for a few minutes and try and apply that to
Speaker 1: someone's whole life. I definitely get that. But uh, well,
Speaker 1: we'll lighten up a bit and we'll talk about some
Speaker 1: fun Well they're not necessarily fun, but they are banned
Speaker 1: video games, and some of those reasons are understandable in
Speaker 1: some kind of crazy but you'll get that right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, Hey, I hope you enjoyed those messages because
Speaker 1: now we're back for a little more nerdificent and we've
Speaker 1: been talking about violence and video games. We've broken down
Speaker 1: the studies, the skategoating, and we've kind of just been
Speaker 1: real spicy this whole episode. So we wanted to, you know,
Speaker 1: touch on something lighter. But this is not lighter, if
Speaker 1: I mean this is this first one isn't lighter, but
Speaker 1: it get it eases out. But we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: some band video games, and this isn't just in the US.
Speaker 1: These are banned you know, all different places, um, and
Speaker 1: some of them you'll know why, and some of them
Speaker 1: you won't. The first game up is called rape Lay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This actually came from geek dot com and they and
Speaker 1: I just want to say, just read what they said,
Speaker 1: because it's perfect. Many of the games on this list
Speaker 1: were banned simply because of cultural misunderstandings. But you can't
Speaker 1: say that for rape Lay. The insanely controversial game developed
Speaker 1: by Japanese studio Illusion, was released in two thousand six
Speaker 1: and almost immediately kicked off a firestorm of bad emotions.
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard of it, rape Lay puts you
Speaker 1: in the shoes of a sexual predator and tasked you
Speaker 1: with stalking and having sex with a mother and her
Speaker 1: two daughters by force. Needless to say, this is incredibly
Speaker 1: screwed up and not cool. Rape Lay was banned in
Speaker 1: multiple countries after release. It's illegal to sell in Argentina, Indonesia,
Speaker 1: and New Zealand. Here in the States, it received an
Speaker 1: adults only eating, which meant that most retailers would not
Speaker 1: stock it. But you can still get it online. And
Speaker 1: this is where I want to talk about the other side.
Speaker 1: Of this, and we'll even get to this more. We
Speaker 1: do argue for artistic expression, and we do argue that,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to stop trying to escapegoat video games,
Speaker 1: but when you have games like these, it does make
Speaker 1: it a lot harder. I don't, yeah, because I don't
Speaker 1: like this game. I don't see the purpose of it.
Speaker 1: I don't see anything fun about it. I don't It's
Speaker 1: wild and I did want um yes, so I uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult to even have an excuse for this.
Speaker 1: What I wanted to say is not necessarily as on
Speaker 1: the nose as rape Lay. But the other game that
Speaker 1: I was talking with you about right before we started
Speaker 1: was that Detroit. Yes one, you know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: Detroit Become Human. Yeah. So Detroit Become Human, which is
Speaker 1: out on PlayStation and you can watch the trailer for it,
Speaker 1: which is disturbing. So you are essentially playing an android
Speaker 1: woman who is placed in the house of a violent abuser.
Speaker 1: It is very triggering for anyone that has experienced domestic abuse.
Speaker 1: You watch a dad essentially beat and kill his daughter
Speaker 1: and you are given the option of stepping in. It's violent,
Speaker 1: and it's violent towards a young child, a young girl,
Speaker 1: and and I feel like we already see so much
Speaker 1: of violence towards women in media um that I would
Speaker 1: say this is not necessary. I do want to bring
Speaker 1: up what the creator of the game said with this.
Speaker 1: It makes sense to me because with this one, this
Speaker 1: is something that is like the crux of video games
Speaker 1: because basically they the daughter just doesn't The daughter dies
Speaker 1: if you don't step in. So it's giving you the choice,
Speaker 1: and I think just naturally as a game, like without
Speaker 1: even knowing that, I don't think a lot of people
Speaker 1: would have found out because we often step in as
Speaker 1: the heroes and video games. But it is one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's like this being the clip that
Speaker 1: you show it does like it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's like context is key and when you when
Speaker 1: you just have this clip to show around, it gives
Speaker 1: the other side just to be like look at this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: beating up a little girl and watching her be murdered. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is coming from Detroit's development chief, David Cage
Speaker 1: had this to say, I try to tell a story
Speaker 1: that matters to me that I find moving, interesting and exciting,
Speaker 1: and my role as creator is to maybe deliver something
Speaker 1: that people don't expect. Would I be doing my job
Speaker 1: as a creator if I was making the game you
Speaker 1: want me to make. I don't think so. I'm creating
Speaker 1: something that I find moving and meaningful. And I think
Speaker 1: people should see the scene, play the game, and see
Speaker 1: it in context to really understand it. The rule I
Speaker 1: give myself is to never glorify violence, to never do
Speaker 1: anything gratuitous. It has to have a purpose, have a meaning,
Speaker 1: and create something that is hopefully meaningful for people. What
Speaker 1: I see in this as someone who has lived through
Speaker 1: domestic abuse, I can understand that it could possibly be
Speaker 1: therapeutic in a way that you're allowed to step in
Speaker 1: and save someone when you might not have been able
Speaker 1: to step in for yourself, or you might not have
Speaker 1: been able to step in if you watched your mom
Speaker 1: bib or you watched like I can understand that argument
Speaker 1: of this game, that that it wasn't just like, oh,
Speaker 1: watch this little girl be murder, but it gives you
Speaker 1: the opportunity to be a hero in times when you
Speaker 1: might not have been able to in your real life.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's what video games are a
Speaker 1: lot of. And I feel like, yeah, that's That's what
Speaker 1: it comes down to. There's like the level of like,
Speaker 1: sometimes you gotta give that context. I mean, I can
Speaker 1: understand someone just watching this and being like, what the
Speaker 1: heck you know, but I to go back to rape lay,
Speaker 1: which was not the same because in when you are
Speaker 1: put in the shoes of the that is your task
Speaker 1: is to rape these women, which is disgusting. In the
Speaker 1: Detroit one, it is you're actually task was saving the
Speaker 1: young girl. Ya um. And granted is difficult to watch
Speaker 1: that being itself being a trigger, but that's not the
Speaker 1: goal is not to harm her. I will say too,
Speaker 1: and this and we'll move to the next one after
Speaker 1: that because it gets just a little worse. Um. You
Speaker 1: said that these were fun, and it gets fun after
Speaker 1: these because I want I started off wanting like, you know,
Speaker 1: banning at work and we're like, yeah, that should have
Speaker 1: been banned to like, oh, this is ridiculous. But there
Speaker 1: is something as someone who plays a lot of video games,
Speaker 1: there is something where you do get to step in
Speaker 1: in situations like that that really feels good because you
Speaker 1: do like the games have a way of just tugging
Speaker 1: on you in a way and making it feel so
Speaker 1: real that when like, I feel like living in this
Speaker 1: current world where, like, you know, bad people may not
Speaker 1: necessarily be paying for their stuff that they're doing. At
Speaker 1: least in video games they give us that chance. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the next one we have up is Custers Revenge.
Speaker 1: So for nearly as long as there have been video games,
Speaker 1: people have been trying to make them into porn. One
Speaker 1: of the most notorious smutty games of all time is
Speaker 1: Custers Revenge, which hit Atari two. It was produced by
Speaker 1: Canoga Park developer Mystique, who themselves were a subsidiary of
Speaker 1: an adult movie company. So the game cast the player
Speaker 1: as a horny General Custer with a pixelated boner who
Speaker 1: had to walk across the screen through a hail of
Speaker 1: arrows to pork a Native American woman tied to a pole.
Speaker 1: Yeah geez, if it had just been him with a
Speaker 1: pixelated boner, not bad, yeah, but also just a Native
Speaker 1: American woman specifically, yes, and especially specifically being tied to
Speaker 1: the Chinno side of right Native Americans. So just just
Speaker 1: bad on of Native American women. Yeah. Like, Basically several
Speaker 1: cities floated laws to like prohibit the game sale, but
Speaker 1: only one did, which was Oklahoma City and Oklahoma actually
Speaker 1: passed a measure in making sales of custod Revenge illegal
Speaker 1: within city limits. And yeah, that's and that's what. It's
Speaker 1: just historically bad and tasteless and gross. And that was
Speaker 1: in This was in the eighties, you know, like like
Speaker 1: I think to just go back to your Goldilocks kind
Speaker 1: of statement, this idea that you know, oh yeah, that
Speaker 1: the games are worse now. Yeah, it's like, no, they
Speaker 1: just didn't have the technology to look as good as
Speaker 1: it does now, but the same ideal was there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we'll move on to more fun ones, which is uh,
Speaker 1: mass Effect. Mass Effect, which some people are like what,
Speaker 1: because that is a beloved game and franchise that has
Speaker 1: done successful what Banded? What huh? So mass Effect? You
Speaker 1: play a customizable hero and they could be male or
Speaker 1: fee now, and you can romance different people on your ship,
Speaker 1: on your crew. And this was one of those games
Speaker 1: where like, yeah, you were able to romance you know,
Speaker 1: same sex, which is really cool and dope, and people
Speaker 1: loved it for it. Not Singapore, Uh, Singapore banded And
Speaker 1: actually it was originally because the game didn't have a
Speaker 1: proper video game rating system and it made it harder
Speaker 1: to judge, but um the band resulted in backlash, and
Speaker 1: officials used the country's movie rating system instead, dubbing a
Speaker 1: mass effect an M eighteen and lifting the ban only
Speaker 1: a few days after settling it. So it's just one
Speaker 1: of those things where it was really bad but then
Speaker 1: it turns out to be kind of uh, just a
Speaker 1: just a whole wacky back and forth. God. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: going in the another direction of just banning all violent
Speaker 1: video games, so Venezuela in two thousand nine leveled a
Speaker 1: ban on all violent video games and toys, an attempt
Speaker 1: to curb the nations rising crime rates. Under the band,
Speaker 1: selling violent games within the country could lead to a
Speaker 1: three to five year prison sentence. Meanwhile, selling a real
Speaker 1: gun to a real minor cannet a sentence as short
Speaker 1: as one year. Yeah. So so it just shows you,
Speaker 1: just once again, it Venezuela was hit by the same page.
Speaker 1: Reminds me of the tide Pods. How quickly we jumped
Speaker 1: on banning and regulating tide pots, but not on other
Speaker 1: things that that killed children. Got you. We do have
Speaker 1: one other game, which is a really awful, tasteless, horrible
Speaker 1: pos That's what I'm allowed to say. On here which
Speaker 1: is called Active Shooter um and if you I don't
Speaker 1: know if you saw this game, but it is a
Speaker 1: shooting simulation game in a school and it hasn't dropped yet,
Speaker 1: but it is dropping, I believe June six on Steam, which,
Speaker 1: if you don't know Steam, that is a platform where
Speaker 1: you can pay essentially to play video games. I think
Speaker 1: it's like it's basically the PC gaming marketing place. Yes,
Speaker 1: so it's um the game, the game coming out will
Speaker 1: be between five to ten dollars and you are a
Speaker 1: school shooter. Yeah. This is the thing I find with
Speaker 1: marketplace for Steam because the Steam marketplace allows a lot
Speaker 1: of indie developers to try and make new games because
Speaker 1: you know, it's a little easier to you know, upload
Speaker 1: the file, sell it and instead of you know, paying
Speaker 1: for distribution and things that really only major Triple A
Speaker 1: companies could do. What also happens, though, is you get
Speaker 1: trolley games like this that pop up and we're just
Speaker 1: left to deal with it. But the community is really
Speaker 1: good at itself at at kind of regulating because they
Speaker 1: have their own rating system within it. And there's no
Speaker 1: doubt in my mind that this is just gonna just
Speaker 1: be thumbs down to that's what I feel like. This
Speaker 1: is exactly a trolling game. Um. The game was developed
Speaker 1: by Revived Games and published by a Russian company called
Speaker 1: Acid and Yeah, they plan to sell it between five
Speaker 1: to ten dollars on the Steam platform because of the outrage,
Speaker 1: which also involved the parents of the Parkland victims, which
Speaker 1: the fact that they have to even see this crap
Speaker 1: is upsetting itself. But the outrage from this game, like
Speaker 1: the amount of people condoning it, has already been pretty widespread,
Speaker 1: to the point where Acid the company said the intense
Speaker 1: criticism of the game has made them reconsider whether to
Speaker 1: publish it with the option allowing gamers to assume the
Speaker 1: role of the shooter. Um. This isn't quote. I have
Speaker 1: wrote to Valve regarding this game and I'm waiting for
Speaker 1: a reply. After receiving such high amount of critics and hate,
Speaker 1: I will more likely remove the shooters role in this
Speaker 1: game by the release, unless if it can be kept
Speaker 1: as it is right now. That was the developers response. Man, well,
Speaker 1: they also had I wanted to say one thing they
Speaker 1: had on the on the game Steam page and includes
Speaker 1: this statement, Please do not take any of this seriously.
Speaker 1: This is only meant to be a simulation and nothing else.
Speaker 1: If you feel like hurting someone or people around you,
Speaker 1: please seek help from local psychiatrists or dial uh. And
Speaker 1: they also said a disclaimer on the preview of the game,
Speaker 1: saying its content is not recommended for children. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: that that just seems like it's just one of those
Speaker 1: They knew what they were doing. They they wanted the
Speaker 1: shock value. They felt that that might propel it's game,
Speaker 1: They might get them a few bucks, and in the end,
Speaker 1: it's actually probably going to screw them. That was a
Speaker 1: dumb move, and I think that they're learning how dumb
Speaker 1: it was right now. Um, but you know, we're getting
Speaker 1: towards the end. So let's just in this like we
Speaker 1: in most things. What do you think the future of
Speaker 1: this discussion will be. I honestly just see it getting
Speaker 1: worse because I don't think that we are willing to
Speaker 1: reflect on the things that are causing these shootings and
Speaker 1: gun violence. I think it's much easier to blame video games,
Speaker 1: and to blame video games when millions upon millions of
Speaker 1: people play them and have no violent tendencies. It is
Speaker 1: also the argument that I would say I also have
Speaker 1: with porn as well, that so many of us can
Speaker 1: watch porn and can watch consensual porn, and can can
Speaker 1: partake in our sexual life consentually fantasies and things like that,
Speaker 1: and know that there is a difference, and to blame
Speaker 1: these forms of media instead of actually reflecting on the
Speaker 1: issues that we have in this country with access to
Speaker 1: guns and gun violence in general, because it's easier for
Speaker 1: us to blame video games, That to me is something
Speaker 1: that I will I think we will continue to see. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: indeedy Yeah, I feel the same way. I feel like
Speaker 1: with the evolution of video games leading to VR, I
Speaker 1: feel like just people's distance from it, but seeing it
Speaker 1: from the outside is only going to make the argument
Speaker 1: just a little easier. When they're like they're in the simulation,
Speaker 1: they're stimulating shooting, of course they're going to be more violent.
Speaker 1: So you know, all we gotta do is keep fighting
Speaker 1: them with facts and then I hope they land And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, at the end of this episode,
Speaker 1: I feel like, no matter how you feel about guns,
Speaker 1: no matter what you feel the solution is to gun violence,
Speaker 1: you can at least after hearing this episode. No it's
Speaker 1: not video games and well that's all. That's all. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's all you really need to know. You know, it
Speaker 1: was really difficult when we said that we were going
Speaker 1: to tackle this because I had so much hesitation that
Speaker 1: no matter what, my inbox is going to be filled
Speaker 1: with people who don't agree. And so what I would
Speaker 1: just encourage you is to be respectful. I would say,
Speaker 1: I feel it's a really heated topic. And I feel
Speaker 1: like if he and I, we're here to listen, but
Speaker 1: we're not here to take your abuse. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: by now you're a must all right now you don't
Speaker 1: want no smoke with me? So I mean same, I
Speaker 1: feel like same. Um, my followers are really great in
Speaker 1: dragging people, but um, I'm here to listen in a
Speaker 1: respectful way. I'm not here to take your abuse because
Speaker 1: you're an anonymous person online that has no picture, and
Speaker 1: because I do if you don't got a picture, that's
Speaker 1: the first requirement for me to even talk to you.
Speaker 1: If you if you got that little bird or whatever
Speaker 1: and white, it's a great egg. Yeah we should touch
Speaker 1: on this again. If he I definitely. I don't know
Speaker 1: if we're allowed to do a porn one. I am
Speaker 1: going to push on some platform. Here at how stuff
Speaker 1: works to do a porn episode, because I feel like
Speaker 1: it's also something that gets blamed so heavily um for
Speaker 1: crimes and corrupting people, when many of us that watch
Speaker 1: it are perfectly normal people because we get to get off,
Speaker 1: we are happier people because of it. But that is
Speaker 1: my that is my two cents. All right, where can
Speaker 1: people find you? Danny? I'm at you can't find me
Speaker 1: this week? I'm at ms Danny Fernandez's M S d
Speaker 1: A N I F E r n A N d
Speaker 1: e Z. And yeah, I look forward to your respectful descent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, and I'm if you I F y in
Speaker 1: w A d I d w E on Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 1: Make sure you follow Nerdifficent on Instagram, Twitter, and follow
Speaker 1: us on Facebook as well. Five star review if you're
Speaker 1: loving it, uh, and you know you don't drop us
Speaker 1: a review. Shout at us, tell us what what what
Speaker 1: you'd like us to talk about. We've been getting lots
Speaker 1: of suggestion and we're going to throw that right into
Speaker 1: the pot of things to dive into. Definitely want to
Speaker 1: give a shout out towards the end of this episode
Speaker 1: to our researcher Christopher hassiotis yeah, who went through so much, yeah,
Speaker 1: so much research. He also did research for quite quite
Speaker 1: a few other episodes. Let me let me give him
Speaker 1: the shout out Eve's jet for coat Christopher hassiotis, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for that research work. Let's give a
Speaker 1: shout out to Zachary McKeever in the booth. Uh. Sorry
Speaker 1: for blowing your ears out, I yelled a really loud
Speaker 1: sup producer, Hannah hold it down from here and thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Stay nerdy, y'all.