EA’s Karma Comes Back from Fox News

Fox News has been in the game industry news this week due to carrying a story citing a doctor who is quoted as  saying:

“If a younger kid experiences Bulletstorm’s explicit language and violence, the damage could be significant,” Dr. Jerry Weichman, a clinical psychologist at the Hoag Neurosciences Institute in Southern California, told FoxNews.com. “Violent video games like Bulletstorm have the potential to send the message that violence and insults with sexual innuendos are the way to handle disputes and problems,” Weichman said.

It doesn’t help any that all last year video games were attacked continually with one study result after another. Iowa State Study parallels video game play and desensitization and violence. Playing video games can cause the players to become desensitized to real life violence,  Last year a review of 130 different studies on the correlations of game play and violence concluded that video games have a role in desensitizing players to violence.

It is possible to find a half dozen studies to prove just about any point on any topic though. So who do you believe?

The culture of male dominance in the video games industry has continued unchecked. Immune to criticism from female game journalists, developers, publishers and marketing designers have all unanimously left out women consumers. 2K Games took over a Stripclub in Vegas, and held their latest Press function in a champagne room.

The industry on the whole, with some rare exceptions has done everything it can to alienate women from every aspect of gaming. Beginning with not encouraging girls to study science and technology, then to not hiring women for jobs in gaming. By making girls feel left out of games when they are young, they are not going to be as interested in creating them when they get older.

On a day like this when video game publisher EA is under-fire for Bulletstorm from Fox News calling it “the worst game in the world”. Far be it for me to agree with Fox about anything however, I am unlikely to come to EA’s defense. Wouldn’t it be helpful for the voice of a knowledgeable female game geek to set out the the facts? Instead I think back to all the times that they have sexualized their marketing campaigns. I remember when they promoted a game called Dante’s Inferno, Electronic Arts decided to hold a competition at Comic-Con, where male patrons were encouraged to “commit acts of lust” with so-called “booth babes”, for a chance to win “a sinful night with two hot girls.

I’m not going to point to any of the studies that show the positive aspects of video games. The fact that it makes faster brain activity, training, and decision making. Video gamers use more brain space, have faster eye and hand co-ordination and video games decrease stress and help with recovery and arthritis.

I won’t point out that the ESRB rating of M for Mature means that the game should never, ever be played by anyone under age. It is up to parents in the home to make certain that they don’t buy M games for kids. Or say that it is a parent’s responsibility to ensure that their kids do not get a hold of movies, books, or video games that are not intended for children.

EA is going to have to get themselves out of this one.