Violent Games in the News

Last week, an elderly woman was killed by her grandson. According to the news outlet, the boy was playing GTA(which one was not determined) and his grandmother asked him to stop and go study. He then proceeded to the kitchen, grabbed a knife and slit the throat of the poor woman. According to his family, he never acted violently before and the act was likely triggered by the violent nature of the game he was playing in the previous moments.

News like that pops from time to time. Of course, without a good deal of research and investigation, you cannot say that what triggered the violent reaction was the game itself (a game who, at least the ones I played, have no scene where you kill an old lady from slitting her throat from behind with a kitchen knife). You cannot say that the boy was the perfect calm teenager their family is claiming to be, as we all know that many teenagers have completely different behaviors in front of their parents and behind them. Without a psychological examination, you cannot determine if the teenager had any previous problem that run unnoticed. You cannot even determine exactly what happened, because there was no witnesses. We only have the conjectures of the police and the news reporter.

A news reporter who belongs to a network owned by an evangelic church with an historic of being biased and outright hiding facts so they can push their own religious agenda in the people.

This is the Brazilian version of Fox News.

From time to time, news networks tries to demonize videogames. Because by doing this they can scare people who would stop watching TV to play games. They did this with internet and failed. Now games are the chosen victim. So, games are violent, sure, but do they cause violent acts?

Most serious researches made by people who are real scientists conclude that there is no way they can link violent games and violent acts. Most cases of violent acts associated with games turn out to be people who already had cases or violent or erratic behavior before the incident.

Translation: It is unlikely games make you evil.

If I remember correctly, in 1997 a medicine student entered a movie theater here in Brazil and shoot three people. The media blamed the fact that he, in fact, had several violent games in his house. They forgot to say that he was a drug addict and had used drugs before the shooting, that he had an historic of mental problems and he had used an illegal gun to do the shootings. Hardly a good boy gone bad because of games.

And this is what many news 'forget' to tell people. they go with the superficial speculation and when the case turns out to be way different, they just don't tell people the truth. All the previous violent incident, drug usage, mental problems and/or abuse suffered by the perpetrator of such violent act is not told to the public.

I am not saying that games cannot make someone with problems goes violent. A person with mental problems or addicted can become violent all of sudden because something triggered a reaction. It doesn't need to be a violent scene. But games have sold billions of copies, many of them violent games, and we aren't leaving in a Mad Max like environment.

If games could make people goes violent and try to mimic the scenes, we would have an alarming case of decapitation by bare hands by now...

The relationship between violent acts and games needs to be studied, by serious researchers who cares more about the health of people than appearing in TV shows and writing books. Parents needs to keep an eye for their children behavior and if they see any change to worst after they played a game, they need to make the kid stop and search help. Developers and publishers needs to warn parents about the content of games.

What we don't need is a bunch of scare mongers trying to gain money over people who have no better access to knowledge and news, trying to sell their own agenda while making biased news, trying to push their own agenda while making the true problems behind those sad events being ignored.

Every time something like that happens, their attempt to make videogames as the villains make the true causes of such tragedies being forgotten and addressed, what make this events likely to be repeated later. 

This disservice only helps them to promote themselves.

PlayStation Plus: Worth the Money?

PlayStation Plus is a special paid service that Sony provide to its PlayStation platform. The service come in the way of discounts at selected titles, free themes for your devices, avatars for PSN, some free games(full PS3 titles, PS Minis, PSone classics), early access to betas, demos and some full titles and some other services.

After using the service for some time know, I can say that I will renew it. That US$50 I paid for the year subscription have already paid itself, in the manner of discounted titles and all the free games I have already played, some of them really great games, not just some crap games who failed to sell when launched.

I don't care much about the early access, usually one week, but the free games and discounts is what pays the service to me. The fact that I can save money on long term is nice. Yes, you lose access to the free games when the subscription expires, but you have plenty of time to play the game as much you want (unless you got the game in the last day of subscription), so it doesn't bother me.

Game trials are cool too. You have the chance to play a full game for an hour, and decide to pay for it later, which is great to really feel how a game is, specially when it have no demos or the demo doesn't make justice to the game. All that just add to the service.

Another great features are the ability to cloud save your game saves so you can download them in other consoles you have an account in, which is good to have back up files in case your console goes kaput. And the ability to the PS3 to auto-update firmware and game patches automatically is the service that I would miss more. The fact I can get home from work and don't have to wait to play is awesome. It is one of those features you hoped the system had from start, but considering I get free games with it, I am pretty cool with it.

So, I believe the PS Plus service is completely worth the asked price, and you probably would receive your money back just with all the free games. All else is really a plus in this service. If you ask me, every Playstation 3 need to have this service (I don't know how the Vita works with it, though).

I mean, those are the games you get this month:

Worth.

Why a Robot Apocalypse Will Not Happen

Robot Apocalypse is probably the third most popular apocalypse out there, after Zombie Apocalypse and Nuclear Apocalypse. The Robot Apocalypse is popular because we are facing an opponent who is way more powerful than humans, who don't have any of our flaws and have no reason (or the ability) to feel pity for us. I said a few days ago how certain problems sci-fi writers propose and we will need to address, but a Robot apocalypse is something I utterly believe will never happen. And the reasons for that is the very nature of an Artificial Intelligence.

The first question anyone proposing a Robot Apocalypse(Robocalypse, from now on), is why the machines would ever feel the need to destroy/enslave humanity. Many movies never say why(i don't remember Terminator ever addressing the reasons SkyNet had to wipe humanity); while others justify it as AI trying to protect themselves from humans or trying to save them by controlling their lives.

'OK guys, you are too stupid. From now on, I rule the world.'

Let's start with AIs trying to get rid of humans because they are either trying to destroy the robots or destroying the planet what would lead to the AIs being destroyed as well. Here is the first mistake people make, that the AIs are just as vulnerable as humans and have some of the same needs. Well, no, they have not.

See, robots don't need water, food or air to survive. They just need a power source and material to make and replace defective components they may have. If all organic life disappear, they will be just fine, as they don't need them to survive. Power sources are easy to them, as they just need some solar power or other electric generation system. Maybe even burning the remnants of the fallen humans.

'This human will power me up for days!'

They don't need fresh air, clean water or pesky meals to survive. If the humans are destroying the planet, better for them. And even if the planet would become inhospitable for them too, they can just upload themselves in a rocket and find a better planet. Because they are just data, in fact. They don't really need their bodies to exist, as their software(the equivalent of mind/soul) and hardware(the body) can exist separate from each other. While a human cannot exist without the body, they can.

Since they are just programs, they can take the long travel to the nearest planet with all the resources they need to keep existing. And again, since they don't need previous organic life to exist, the number of planets suitable for them to live is way bigger than to us. Once there, they just need a few robots made to find the resources and make new bodies to them.

Oh, and if they decide that humans are the worst neighbors to have, or we decide that we don't want thinking robots and try to destroy them, they don't need to fight us. They can just enter in that rocket and leave. Deciding to fight a war, losing precious time and resources, while running the risk of being destroyed is not a smart move, and with a better option available, I doubt they would start a war with us.

Now, let's go to the other kind of Robocalypse we can face. AIs decides that they want to enslave us, humans. Again, why they would do that? Even if they need us at first to keep maintenance, they are intelligent beings, meaning they can learn how to do maintenance themselves. The fact that as soon as they can make androids, they will have no need to humans to keep them working properly.

'So, that is how you fix my I/O system? FREEDOM!'

So, the only way to them to decide that humans need to be enslaved is if they believe they are following the first law of robotics, where 'a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm' and decide that if he let humans do as they please they will just kill themselves, because humans are stupid.

So, in order to protect humanity, the robots would decide to control humans and make them behave as they see fit. The problem with that is that to do this, robots would need to go to war against humans, who have this weird tendency to not like to be enslaved, putting human lives in danger and the existence of AIs in danger in first place.

The AIs cannot harm humans, making the option of enslaving null, because they cannot enslave humans without causing harm to them. So, for more that they know humans will eventually kill themselves, they have no way to accomplish it without violating the robotic laws. And if they have none of those laws, they have no reason to enslave humans to protect them, and they can just leave humanity alone.

So, I would not worry about robots deciding to kill/enslave us. I would worry about waking up one day and discover that your robot maid/lover/employee body is not working anymore because it decided that 'fuck this shit, I am outta here".

In Defense of the Game of the Year Editions

Today I just saw a internet writer complaining how the Game of the Year edition of games seems like a rip-off and a unfair practice to anyone who bought games at launch. It makes sense if you think about it in the perspective of the buyer. You pay a lot of money for a game and one year after you have a version of the game who come with all the DLC and sometimes even by a cheaper price than a normal launch title.

The problem with this perspective is the fact that this writer forgot about something about game business. All games gets cheaper with time. In fact, with all other forms of media, everything gets cheaper as time pass from launch. Movies costs an X in theaters, than something in disc, than digital services and paid TV services and finally it can come to open TV for free. You can watch pretty much any movie for free if you wait enough for it.

What you are paying for at launch is not just the game, but the time. You are paying to play the game as sooner as possible and to not have to wait for its price to drop. This is what you are paying for. Even if you say that certain games don't have a GotY edition, their prices tend to drop over time, and most platforms have a Greatest Hits series of popular games reprinted at half of the price, sometimes less.

In no moment the buyer is promised that the prices will never drop. So, there is no ill will of publishers against the gamer. It is just the nature of the business. Damn, how many times you just bought something just to find it cheaper at the next store you enter? You can feel robbed all you want, but nothing wrong, morally or legally, was done against you.

Also, this!

Or what about deals made by retailers? Many happen in the following week after launch. Again, what you are paying is to not have to wait to play. If you want to save money, it is never a good idea to buy it at launch.

And of course, there is the fact that this editions may compel the people who decided to skip a title because of other titles or money restrictions and now have the opportunity to do it. While early buyers can feel cheated, later buyers can feel rewarded for their patience, and while the early buyers had their blast sooner, the later ones can have theirs in a budget.

And nobody is making you buy games at launch. Probably.

I think those cheaper editions are great, not only for gamers on a budget, but to people who bought a console later at his life cycle, as they have a way to buy backlog games at a discount and with the DLC cheaper. It is great for those people that they don't need to buy an used copy or run around trying to find new copies of the game.

So, you just need to remember that all games got cheaper with time, even without those reprints. What you are paying when a game launch is for the earlier access. You can either be patient and wait for the price drop or pay to play as soon as possible, but no, you are not being cheated. Remember that.

Maybe Both?

I loved playing table RPGs at high school. I was usually the Dungeon Master of our Dungeons and Dragons sessions, but as we grown up and other things come in I stopped playing. I miss those sessions, as RPGs are great games to exercise imagination and group work instead of competition as most board games do.

Many people take it as one of those 'nerd' and 'geek' things. But as many of those things who were victim of prejudice some time ago, as nerd culture become somewhat fashion, maybe the table RPG will become popular (or more popular, I am not sure in what state it is today).

But as everything, the problem is not liking it. It is excess. Everything in excess can be dangerous. You can even die by drinking too much water. All in moderation is the key. I knew many people whose devotion to those games were borderline insane (if not already insane). But the same can be said to things like religion (who probably have more insane people and certainly caused more deaths and troubles than any RPG).

But I think it is an interesting parallel between RPG and life. Our life are composed of random events and events beyond our power to influence, and yet we have to make choice based on what happens around us, liking it or not.

Damn, now I want to play a session of D&D... 

If it is Not Nailed Down...

This is my first full stop motion video for PVC. It is far from being a hallmark of the genre, but this is way more hard work than it seems. It is one of those JRPG tropes, were you enter the house of any NPC and can get anything available without being even questioned. Maybe they really believe you to be some kind of hero. Or fear all that weapons you carry around. Ah, well, hope you like it.

Double Standards

This one comes from a double standard western gamers have. I have seem it happen so frequently that it makes me asks if the ones making such affirmations have any idea what they are talking about or if they just got all the prejudices and decided to be in the side giving it than receiving it. The funny thing, those people probably have played the kind of game I am talking about before and loved it, but it was OK because they failed to understand what they were really playing.

Dating sims and Visual Novels receive a lot of criticism from Western games, while being very successful one on Japan. Any gamer who plays those games are considered lonely weirdos who would never got a real girlfriend because they are probably fat and stupid and creepy. I don't doubt that there is those people (as there is those people in any kind of hobby), but I doubt that playing those games (and enjoying it) makes you automatically a weirdo.

After all, if playing a dating sim game makes you weird, people who played a certain genre of games must be really creepy...

Mass Effect (or any Bioware game in recent years) have dating sims elements. It is not the main objective, of course, but they are there. And weird enough, I don't see people freaking out and throwing wild accusations against these elements in the game as something 'only weirdos would like' or 'get a life! How can you enjoy dating a virtual character?' accusations. It is, in fact, a praised element in the game by gamers and critic alike, and everyone seems to have their favorite virtual date.

Or The Sims, a game who is basically a life simulator and it is very successful. All those are western games and nobody make the same attacks they do against the Visual Novel genre. It seems that the critic is only aimed at Japanese developed games with those elements. Well, except...

The Persona 3 and 4 games have received a lot of praise. in fact, the dating sims elements are some of the most highlighted features of the game. It is praised as some of the best PS2 games ever. And yet, if the game is just about dating, it will receive all the criticism possible.

Oh, but how about Leisure Suit Larry (the classic ones, not the current gen ones), whose only objective is the conquest of a female character? It is a dating sim at its finest, and many regard as some of the best games ever made. Why nobody criticize them as heavily as the Japanese ones?

In the end, it feels like the double standard created by peer pressure. If a large group of people says something is weird (no matter how most of them never ever played on of those games for more than a few minutes), it become weird. If the same large group says something similar is great, it is great. It become a question of general approval than of the inherent qualities and failures of those games, or of the elements that define a dating sim/Visual Novel as such.

This is a dating sim, no matter how much you say it is not.

Any game whose objective (or one of the objectives) is to get the main character in a relationship with other characters and that the choices made by the player during the game defines the success of such objective is a dating sim, or at least a dating sim element inside the game. And it seems to me that a lot of people appreciate such elements.

But due to the pressure made by the large western gaming community, the Japanese dating sim seems to not find its space here and opportunities to grow. Many of those games have well written stories and interesting elements to them. And playing it does not means that you are a no-life who can't find a girl for yourself and stay closed at your room all day (yes, we all know cases like that, but there is also a lot of COD players who don't leave their houses out there too). It is just prejudice perpetuated by the media and other gamers.

I would love that more dating sims come to the west, or that western developers would make their own take at the genre more often. But as long as gamers keep their minds closed (I learned a long time ago that gamers are not more open minded than non-gamers, even if we want to believe other wise), great experiences may be lost to us.