Politician Asks Game Makers to End Real-Life Gun Licensing

[Norithics]

Ugh. I don't even like guns, but even I know this is a total canard. If people in the government would do the hard work of bringing good jobs, economic security and improved availability of mental health care to the people, we wouldn't have to worry about this crap in the first place. :|

 

[PatrickXD]

I like this on two levels. The first is a creative one. If this becomes not legislation, but simply rule of thumb, then we get to see shiny new guns, not just more pixels to render the same gun again and again. Good stuff, I am a massive fan of cool new guns in games and I am tired of M16's.
On another level, this guy is actually pretty ballsy. He doesn't like the fact that we have licensed guns in games and, despite the fact that there's no evidence that it will actually have an affect on violence, openly objects to it. Good. For. You.
Certainly, licensed guns do no good for anyone. As I pointed out in the first paragraph I, at least, find them boring. So we have this guy here, off-handedly doing something that will spark creativity, in the midst of attempting to enact something that he deems to be morally correct. I have mad props for this situation.

 

[MCerberus]

"research has shown little connection between the virtual gun violence depicted in your games and the actual gun violence that claims the lives of 33 Americans every single day,"
"I write to you today to request your cooperation in ending the nefarious relationship between videogame makers and gun makers,"

Seriously?
SERIOUSLY?

'games don't cause violence, but censor yourself anyway, because you're evil'

 

[Alexander Competitor]

Personally I don't give a shit if I indirectly support the arms industry, and I concur with everyone else, this guy is clearly talking out his ass. He even acknowledges it in the same breath, and I feel the need to point out that he probably wouldn't be bitching if it was a kel-tec PF-9 or some such other pistol that is far more regularly used in crime than rifles. by a factor of like, 20.

 

[Seydaman]

No. I always downloaded those mods that renamed the guns in S.T.A.L.K.E.R to their real world counterpart. Feels more sensible than playing with the "This is obviously an m4 but it's now an E-381 mark 2 herpy derpy doo!"

 

[Evil Smurf]

If the Ameican governments did something about the gun industry, they might get somewhere. It took one horrific mass shooting for Australia to do this, America never will D: At least rap is not being blamed anymore.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

He should love Saints Row then. Dildo bats and dubsteps guns will never incite violence!

If someone had an actual dubstep gun though, and used it anywhere near me, I'd kill them slowly.

 

[Glaice]

So how exactly does this harm the children if you use real life firearm brands in a video game? Same applies with vehicles and aircraft.

 

[LordMonty]

This is a neutral act from the neutral planet of WTF? It may help? I guess?

Kind of misses the point that fake guns in a game probally give people out lets that hopefully avoids bad stuff in real life and well games don't kill people guns do, but being english I don't really understand or get involved with the US issues with guns but I live in plymouth(the city the mayflower launched from) pretty big and I cannot remeber the last time someone was shot and killed in the city, 10+ years? yea people get stabbed and beaten up but thats generally less leathal and people can think twice about it while in progress, unlike a gun. Just my thoughts and perspective.

But the news that EA is now making up gun names, which is going to be fun in Battlefield 4 they better be good I want the Badger9000 as a gun name kk.

 

[Frostbyte666]

Yeah this is retarded, I have a question for him. If it's bad to depict real guns in games why hasn't he called for this in films, tv series, freaking documentaries, maybe textbook descriptions. No he doesn't get to cherry pick where you can and can't depict realistic firearms and if you can or can't licence them. Maybe he should focus more on said firearms in real life then make-believe land, or does he have certain psychological difficulties differentiating between fantasy and reality. Ok rant over I really must stop coming to these forums just before I go to sleep.

 

[SilkySkyKitten]

Sharkey nonetheless made a point of noting that Sandy Hook mass murderer Adam Lanza was an "active" Call of Duty player and that the Bushmaster rifle he used appears in the game.

And here is where I can clearly see this guy hasn't done his research. Adam Lanza used a Bushmaster-licensed version of the AR-15. There has never been a Bushmaster-licensed AR-15 in any of the CoD games. There have been plenty of AR-15 variants in CoD games, and the ACR in Modern Warfare 2 was based on the version produced when Bushmaster owned the liscense to the design. However, none of the AR-15's used in CoD have been Bushmasters, and the ACR isn't an AR-15 variant.

If this guy bothered to do his research, he'd be able to see this clear as day. However, instead he decides to talk out of his ass and try to connect a mass murderer with video games for the umpteenth time. =/

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

So guns in games are bad. Guns in real life is fine. Yeah, this makes zero sense. Firing a gun in a game is different to firing a real gun. Also how many people are playing Cod looking at the gun to ensure it looks exactly like the gun its modeled on? Kids can use a stick as a gun and play cowboys and indians. I some how think some people lose the plot when it comes to guns in games because i dont think anyone has been killed by a gaming gun.

 

[RJ 17]

Sharkey nonetheless made a point of noting that Sandy Hook mass murderer Adam Lanza was an "active" Call of Duty player and that the Bushmaster rifle he used appears in the game.

I wonder if he also mentioned the fact "To be fair, Lanza was a deeply disturbed individual with psychotic mental issues that even his own mother was aware and fearful of."

Look, I honestly wouldn't care if they went back to making up gun names like Goldeneye 64 did back in the day. In a shooter: "A gun by any other name kills just as effectively." It's just the hints of hypocrisy in the letter (which the article points out in the last paragraph) that I have an issue with.

 

[Sidmen]

If the Ameican governments did something about the gun industry, they might get somewhere. It took one horrific mass shooting for Australia to do this, America never will D: At least rap is not being blamed anymore.

Lots of complicated issues involved here. The biggest and most glaring one is that our Constitution (the thing our Government is supposedly based on) straight-up says "people are allowed to own and use guns". Murders, mass murders, and even massacres do nothing to change this fact.

Of course, our TV channels seem to have a stiffy about the gun issue. They don't, for example, show non-stop coverage of, say, drunk drivers murdering people. A quick fact: guns were used to kill 8,306 people in 2010; drunk drivers killed 10,228.

 

[Makabriel]

I know this will annoy a majority of the FPSers I know. They love these games because of their knowledge of the guns in them. A lot of them are ex military or gun enthusiasts. Listening them talk guns is like listening to my other friends talk programming code..

At least I can understand one of them.

 

[iniudan]

Thats roughly the same as giving a person a sweater so they dont get cold... in the desert...

You do know that a hot desert can get freezing at night, has there is nothing to hold the heat from going elsewhere and some are cold climate, like Gobi Desert for example.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

From the Speaker's page:

A report published in June by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and The Gun Truth Project detailed how deals between video game companies and weapons manufacturers often lead to promotional campaigns enticing players to purchase weapons featured in the games they have just played.

I'm not sure how "often" it actually happens; I'm only aware of the deal EA signed with McMillan and Magpul that it canned last year. But that's obviously the nail the Speaker has chosen to hammer.

See, the problem with this "report" is that it doesn't actually tell you anything. By their logic, Coke shouldn't be allowed to buy ad space on TV because it often leads to promotional campaigns enticing viewers to purchase sodas features during TV shows that they have just watched. Guns are not inherently bad. There is nothing wrong with someone using a gun in a video game and then wanting to go down to the local shooting gallery to try it out for real.

Bethesda might as well be banned from including the item "Purified Water" in their games, because every time I play Fallout my desire to pour myself a nice cold glass of water skyrockets. This clearly needs to be stopped, because otherwise I might decide to use that water to drown someone.

 

[Racecarlock]

While at the same time we're putting armed guards in schools because Second Amendment.

Wait what

https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&site=webhp&source=hp&q=%22Armed+Guards%22+%22Schools%22

 

[frizzlebyte]

From the Speaker's page:

A report published in June by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and The Gun Truth Project detailed how deals between video game companies and weapons manufacturers often lead to promotional campaigns enticing players to purchase weapons featured in the games they have just played.

I'm not sure how "often" it actually happens; I'm only aware of the deal EA signed with McMillan and Magpul that it canned last year. But that's obviously the nail the Speaker has chosen to hammer.

Here's an NYT article on the practice. [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/business/real-and-virtual-firearms-nurture-marketing-link.html?pagewanted=1&hp&_r=0] I'm sure it happens quite a bit, actually, but then I tend to be a marketing cynic. I mean, if you've got a product you want to sell, licence its likeness for use in a million different entertainment IPs. That's what the car-makers do; it'd be a little naive, IMO, to think that gun-makers aren't all up in that pie, as well.

 

[Lunar Templar]

That's right kids: Publishers have to pay to licenses to be allowed to depict real world guns in games. That money goes to the arms industry. Which means that every time you buy a game that depicts real world guns in it: Some of your money is spent on making real weapons. You help the arms industry! (And some of you, whilst doing that unwittingly, will be on the Internet demanding gun control. lol cosmic irony!)

This kinda deserves a repost cause there's a good point there.

So less money going to the arms industry = less guns being made (in theory) = less people getting shoot = a good thing.

course, it'd help if I knew how much money these gun company's where pulling for these licenses.