Look guys, there are more gamers now than ever before. Things are going to change with time, it's simply that with our current lifespans generations pass slowly. Also we are now "leapfrogging" generations. Basically there are only so many jobs (and less and less with automation) and the people holding those jobs are able to work them for a lot longer than they used to. This means that those jobs aren't availible when their kids come of age.
The thing is that gaming technology and the internet stuff primarily got going for "The Lost Generation" also known as "Generation X". Basically we're a group of lazy game-playing morons to the media because as sociologists knew before we were even born, we (as a group) never had a chance. The Baby Boomers are STILL pretty much running things and in the job force when they should have been retired. Anger, laziness, violence, angst, all of these things "characterize" Gen X (and did so before we were even out there) because the world really was against us.
"Generation Y" in comparison is going to be growing up right around the time the Baby Boomer bigwigs step down and people from the younger generation will be able to actually step up into the majority of those decent jobs. It won't be until you see this, and enough 50-60 something Gen-X and Gen-Y children in the goverment until you see major changes in attitudes and such.
Jack Thomson is an older guy, and so are the people that listen to him. What he's saying is reasonable *IF* one was to totally discount sociological predictions, and such. Games aren't responsible for a proliferation of lazy, basement dwelling losers, or violence and anger. "Society" is and there was little that could be done about it. There was no actual desicians made. To be a successful Generation Xer requires you to be pretty bloody exceptional, a lot of those jobs for normal and sub-normal people that were decently
livable are either disappearing due to automation, or still held in many cases by Boomers. Heck even when it comes to low-end jobs (hahaha that 35 year old Gen Xer works at Mcdonalds as a cashier!) you have Senior Citizens being doped up with medication and heading back into the work force.
So yeah, I'm depressed, I play video games to keep myself occupied, and I generally hate just about everyone. I have problems beyond the sociological ones (being disabled, which I won't go into), but after 10 years of working before becoming disabled I had pretty much gone nowhere, and neither had most people I knew who were around my age.
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I'll also be honest in saying that you seem to see more about anti-video game predjudice from gamers as it gives them a feeling of being some kind of oppressed, but heroic, minority without any of the real risk or disadvantage. It's "cool" to be disliked by everyone, except of course for all the people you know and hang out with.
Frankly I see Jack Thomson getting a platform mostly because gamers give him one for that reason.
It reminds me of what happened with paper and pencil RPGs during the 1980s. It was a problem for a while, mostly because EGG shot off his mouth in a most unwise fashion during a police investigation. But even after it died out, you had gamers going overboard about the dumbest little mentions simply to try and recapture the excitement, even long after things died and gamers were simply seen as huge nerds rather than anything dangerous.
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As far as game content goes, I think there needs to be more sex and ultra-violence in games, I see games as being more in danger from sweeping moral enforcement that is targeting everything from comics, to TV, to movies, than anything else.
Really the biggest blow to gaming recently was when Rockstar backed down over the "Hot Coffee" thing and consented to seeing "Manhunt 2" censored. This was closely followed by Bethesda going on their little feargasm over fan-made nudity patches for Oblivion.
Such issues are the REAL danger as they are preventing the growth of gaming in the direction of entertainment for adults, and every victory on any front makes it that much easier for people to censor/pressure stuff on other fronts.
Jack Thomson is like the loonie fringe of what is a dangerous movement, but the people you need to be watching are not guys like him (who is a target for gamers) but more contreversial figures like Hillary Clinton who was heavily involved in the whole "Hot Coffee" thing.
Go into a gaming forum and badmouth Jack Thomson and there won't be a problem, but badmouth Hillary and it can rapidly become a whole differant hill of beans, and her name is actually attached to something that succeeded. Jack Thomson is mostly known as a crackpot who has tried the ridiculous and failed.
>>>----Therumancer--->
