Politicians call for Modern Warfare 3 censure Four MPs have tabled a motion calling of Parliament to express "deep concern" about how videogame Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 allows players to "engage in gratuitous acts of violence against members of the public". The MPs are Keith Vaz (Labour, Leicester East), Bob Russell (Lib Dem, Colchester), Sir Alan Meale (Lab, …
Parents simply pass them on to their kids. "it's a game, innit?" or "it's only a cartoon".
You don't need a licence to have children, but you should have to pass some sort of "I'm not a compete moron who only has kids for the benefit money it gives me" test.
My nephew plays these games and he has been since he was 8. It annoys the tits off me.
You might be on to something there! Given the number of overblown teenagers on X-box Live, he might be trying to remove the competition.
Fuck these people. I've been beating the shit out of digital representations of real things since I was what, 4? No murders, no assaults, no arrest, not even a parking ticket, because I can tell the difference between pixels and people.
"remarkable resemblance to the tragic events of 7 July 2005"
Hold up - the 7/7 bombings involved an SAS team in a pick-up truck chasing a train being used by Russian Ultranationalists to transport chemical weapons in to the West End? I was under the impression that it was suicide bombers....
Really though, this is no more "engaging in gratuitous acts of violence against members of the public" than reading a Tom Clancy novel, where there's all sorts of baddies being very naughty indeed. Depicting acts of terrorism is fine if it's a novel but a big no-no in a game?
Usual tosh from our wonderful politicians.
"there is increasing evidence of a link between perpetrators of violent crime and violent video games users" - umm, no there's not, only a possible link that says persons predisposed to violent crime quite possibly endulge in violent video game use. No causality.
Seriously, many studies have shown that computer game violence does not begot real life violence. If anything without a outlet in a virtual world the insidents of real life voilence increases.
Also how can `the people` take them seriously when they say ""engage in gratuitous acts of violence against members of the public"." when banks have and still do that to the public. What next convicted criminals allowed back into the house of Lords £300 a day expense club despite them having a conviction of expense fraud.
There are more actual event that need addressing and not freedom of choice of those who are not hurting anybody in real life. If your a MP then stop focusing on games in virtual worlds when the real world needs your attention.
Wish these Bloody politico's would just Fu%& off and find something more usefull to do...
How about the economy ?....the large numbers of un-employed.... high fuel costs..... high cost of living.....
No... they focus on a video game.... Tossers
"there is increasing evidence of a link between perpetrators of violent crime and violent video games users"
You mean like a "correlation". Gosh. Blow me. Who'd've thunk it?
It wouldn't be surprising if people who enjoy committing acts of violence in the real world also get off on doing it in a virtual one. The converse needn't be true. Quite the opposite, in fact, since perhaps the enjoyable thing about cyber violence is that no-one gets hurt so you can stick Keith Vaz masks on all the bad guys and beat seven bells out of them without offending your personal moral code.
But maybe you want to get all Minority Report and start tracking down those who purchase such games. Well, here's another "link" for you: Every society that has attempted to legislate what goes on in adults' heads has been a really crap place to live.
If God had intended us to poke around in each other's minds, he wouldn't have sealed them in a bony box.
Actually, these games are more like training us to kill Russians - Vaz will thank us when the red tide sweeps across Europe! He'll eat his words I tell ye, eat his words!
Anyway, I also think we should get the RSPCA to put pressure on the government, I can't tell you how many wolves I've killed in Temeria this week. Also dragons, but I don't know whether that falls under the group's remit...
They obviously haven't bothered to watch that Tube scene then (there being no chance they would actually play it).
In a rare moment of self-censure by Infinity Ward, IIRC there's not a single civilian in the firing line throughout the whole chapter - either on the train, or in the tube station.
In fact, rather than the 7th July bombings (I detest the 'say 7/7 so it sounds like 9/11' shite), the basic blowing up Parliament plot-line is a bit over 400 years old with the tube-bomb angle added in more recently by V (for Vendetta).
AC for iconic reasons.
The world, all the plants, animals and people on it a cruel. Lions eat zebras, Orcas harry mink whales untill exhaustion then drag them under the surface to drown, sharks eat stuff...etc...etc. People die, there is disease and there are terrorists...etc...etc. This game is not aimed at children - it is certified 18 just like a film and cannot be sold to anyone under that age. Equally in 5-10 years this game will look like a cartoon. Remember the fuss about those old mortal combat games because the showed some blood splattering? It looks so shit now even a two yr old would laugh at it while playing with his iPad.
Personally I like my politians to be educated, informed and have some bottle to handle difficult situations and make difficult descisions. If they can't handle a game that a) gives you the option to turn off the nasty bits, and b) is played and enjoyed by millions....just fuck off!
Mans an arse.
Hes tried this before. He tried to show a link between a murder and Manhunt. unfortuantly the only person with a copy of the game was the victim. and the police laughed at his attempts to link them.
have a dig around about his numerous conflicts of intrest. there are many. not only that but he is bad at them, and keeps getting caught.
"...a remarkable resemblance to the tragic events of 7 July 2005"
I wasn't in any of the bombed underground trains, but I'm reasonably certain that they weren't being followed by a jeep full of machine gun toting soldiers & I doubt it derailed, slid sideways 90 degrees & didn't flip over 3 times.
Not sure if serious or trolling...
Nothing to see here folks, normal service is resuming at the House of Commons, once again people who have no idea what on earth they are talking about are trying to get something canned simply because they have a personal problem with it.
Are these really the type of people we want running our county?
It never stops, first it was any music that wasnt classical, then the silver screen, then music came around again in the3 form of blues/jazz/rap etc and lets not forget how skateboards were all some sort of commie plot in the 70s/80s and of course now we have music. videos & computer games taking the blame.
You know just once I'd like these politicians to get confronted after saying stupid things like 'video games make you violent' with the peer reviewed evidence that shows there is no evidence whatsoever to show that playing violent video games can actually turn you into a violent person or increase a persons level of violence.
PS - ElReg, I want the hand grenade icon back pretty please with a cherry on top :)
i knew this game would cause controversies and it has replicating 7/7 is wrong but still activision gets away with it. for me i didnt buy it and i wont be buying it for me its ruined cod and rightly so ever since mw2 came out its been going down hill filled with bugs small maps camping little noobs hiding in corners and nothing new added. why should i pay 30 odd quid to play cod online when i can play on the psn for free anyway. i left cod after the disaster black ops caused not so much controversies but more of the online side sucked because it kept freezing my console lagging online constently i was getten kicked out of the lobby all the time. and before anyone asks no my connection was fine im on upto 20meg and its unlimited and runs fine on other games so clearly its cod thats the problem. as for mw3 they can ban it for all i care they should of banned it before it got released.
Mr Vaz MP understands how research works. His early day motion on homeopathy (29 June 2010 for those who are interested), for example, notes that “there is overwhelming anecdotal evidence that homeopathy is effective”. As Lionel Hutz might say “hearsay and anecdotes are kinds of evidence”. As such simply writing “there is increasing evidence of a link between perpetrators of violent crime and violent video games users” is just an extension of the same principle.
PS – don’t mention the Hindujas (sp?), Salman Rushdie, that poor woman at the Met, or…well, just go and read some Private Eye…
express "deep concern" about how videogame Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 allows players to "engage in gratuitous acts of violence against members of the public" -
Err, no it doesn't. The 'members of the public' in games are not real. In fact if instead of playing computer games we all went outside then we would have much more opportunity to engage in gratuitous acts of violence against members of the public.
But then when do people like vaz worry about real, tangiable things?
Violent computer gaming ruined my life.
After years of Hack and Nethack gaming as a kid and then student, I met a really, really annoying person at a party. So annoying in fact that at some point I litterally attempted to kill her. The only way I knew of. Worst mistake of my life. I lost my freedom, my -relative- wealth, my lifestyle, everything.
Don't play violent games, kids: you'll end up like me. Married, and with kids.
s**t again
If video games make people violent, then I should be dressing in a rubber suit and gasmask, making myself an oversized flamethrower and go round setting fire to random people in case they are spies*
Or like sneaking around towns dressed in some dark brotherhood robes and stabbing targets and getting paid for it.**
Lets face it, if parents are buying 18 rated games, then giving them to little Johnny, its the parents that are at fault !
And politicians only ever come out with this crap in order to splash their names across the daily wail to make it look like they either care or doing something when in fact they are really a bunch of ineffective useless twats
Boris
*Team fortress 2
** Oblivion
After all, the magazine stand in the tube station features an entirely US-ian selection of subjects, such as swamp fishing, bullets and baseball, so they clearly don't have a clue about the UK anyway. Considering also the Hollywood movie style fleet action engaging in the rivers around New York at cutlass range (and the Russian submarine with completely unenclosed and non-counterrotating screws, which would be as noisy as hell), I'd say the game has a strong argument of not being based in realism anyway.
There is the odd civilian here and there (including the underground station near the aforementioned magazine stand), but always accompanied by shouts from the AI warning you of their presence, and presumably (I haven't tried this out, as I'm not a psychotic killer...) a mission failed if you shot them.
After we all spend a few hours playing Trauma Centre we offer them all free healthcare.
After all if FPS's turn you into a killer Trauma Centre must turn you into a surgeon. They should have no apprehention about us cutting through their gizzards. If we get stuck we can always use the healing touch to slow things down.
And if for some reason things go wrong.... Can someone pass me Ace Attourney?
18-rated "games" ARE for kids. Why would an adult want an 18-rated game? If I want gratuitious violence - which I don't! - I can watch a movie; if I want pornography, I can watch a porn video.
I don't think violent games make people violent, but I do think they have a negative effect on people, particularly when they stop being games and become WAR SIMULATORS, in which all the creativity and imagination is removed. You have flight simulators - well, MW3 is a war simulator, depicting the ugliness of war in all its bloody "glory".
In the 1980s, people looked forward to going down the arcade - it was exciting and fun! It provided escapism. These kind of "games" are about the ugliness of life. And that's all many kids - and adults! - get these days - a constant bombardment of ugliness.
Maybe if the corporate-owned and corporate-controlled media showed people the reality of war, the suffering in Iraq and Afghanistan, people would be less enthusiastic about war SIMULATORS. I find it surreal that as we send people off to kill, die, and destroy, for politicians and for corporate profit, we get excited about playing a simulation of what others are really living through right at this moment. Many soldiers who went to Iraq have committed suicide; others have had their limbs and genitals amputated. Soldiers who returned from the Falklands war didn't want people cheering and celebrating their return, treating them as if they had won a gold medal at the Olympics - because they hadn't! - they had, instead, experiended a horror.
More concerning is the war propaganda surrounding these WAR SIMULATORS. The blurb tells us that there's a "commie threat", and the implication is that when "we", the West, invade other nations, it's for the right reasons, that war is ALWAYS the first and only solution, that 100s of 1000s of civilians aren't also killed or maimed - directly or indirectly (and often deliberately) - in these wars, and that once "we're" through bombing, the countries are free and can prosper.
Cambodia features in one war simulator. Instead of adults acting like children, perhaps they should watch serious documentaries made for GROWN-UPS, rather than 18-rated war simulators made for children.
Go to johnpilger(dot)c om, click "Video", then click on "Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia" - the kind of documentary that's not made anymore.
It's strange how if you re-enacted high-profile murders - say a game in which you play Myra Hindley - it would be considered - at the very least! - insensitive to the victims, but re-enacting real wars, that's perfectly acceptable - who cares about the victims (mostly innocent civilians) - or the truth!
"18-rated "games" ARE for kids. Why would an adult want an 18-rated game? If I want gratuitious violence - which I don't! - I can watch a movie; if I want pornography, I can watch a porn video."
Well you are free to do whatever you want, but why are your choices the only valid ones?
If I want gratutitous violence, then maybe i find a game more interactive than a movie. A bit like sex with a real person rather than porn.
Once you start a post basically saying that everyone should think the same way as you, do you think anyone is going to give a damn about what the rest of your post says?
And by the way, capitalizing WAR SIMULATOR doesn't make people hide behind the sofa either.
Everyone I play MW3 with is also in the military (all 3 branches) - if it was a war simulator (capitals omitted due to not being a retard) then surely they would all being having PTSD attacks because it's so real! (It is a simulator, apparently).
If we're thinking of the poor children, which game inspired them all to go rioting and steal crap from JD sports and Currys then? Oh wait, must have been GTA the RIOT SIMULATOR (mind the caps!)..the classic scapegoat... or it could just be they're all idiots who should be banned from breeding!
Anyway back to the waste of oxygen, attention seeking MPs - did any of these have anything decent to say in the debate about fuel costs the other day, I doubt it! The sooner we get rid of these self-serving muppets the better!
</rant>
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
