Jill Valentine: only 23 and yet ex-Delta Force AND Master of Unlocking
Video games fans tend to roll their eyes whenever there is an academic study by experts on video games, because the results of said studies tend to either be overly general or stupefingly obvious.
The problem is that most experts have little experience or understanding of video games and so only focus on the surface issues concerning video games. That is how an academic can observe that violent children play video games, and then conclude that video games must cause violence in children as a result. The problem is why theories like that is suffer from a massive lack of perspective. For instance, that theory fails to consider the fact that lots of children play video without demonstrating violent tendency, or if the observed children were showing violent tendencies before they started playing video games.
This is incredibly irresponsible of these academic experts, because even if that don't understand the medium they are trying to analyze they shouldn't treat it any differently then any other medium out there. Hell, if they actually took a moment to look at video games objectively, then they would discover modern video games aren't that different then movies. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find an article where a respected anthropologist said that Resident Evil 5 is not racist.
In case you are unfamiliar with the game or more specifically, the controversy surrounding it, then let me explain. The game is the latest in the Resident Evil series of games, which put you in control of series of badly equipped, yet seemingly overqualified, young men and women fighting off a zombie apocalypse whilst exposing a conspiracy in one of the most badly managed evil cooperations in the history of mankind. The latest installment takes the zombie killing to Africa, which understandable meaning instead of all the zombies looking vaguely Caucasian they now look African. Which brings us to the controversy concerning the game that can be summarized as follows: the game is racist because the game features a white guy running around and shooting a lot black guys.
That is why the article in question is so refreshing, because while it's pretty clear the anthropologist doesn't play video game he is still able to see the game for what it is. I won't go into all the details (I'd basically be quoting the article wholesale if I did), but I do recommend reading at least these highlights.
It's good to know that there are some people who will consider the serious merits of video games, even if they are more likely to be ignored since people prefer controversy.
The problem is that most experts have little experience or understanding of video games and so only focus on the surface issues concerning video games. That is how an academic can observe that violent children play video games, and then conclude that video games must cause violence in children as a result. The problem is why theories like that is suffer from a massive lack of perspective. For instance, that theory fails to consider the fact that lots of children play video without demonstrating violent tendency, or if the observed children were showing violent tendencies before they started playing video games.
This is incredibly irresponsible of these academic experts, because even if that don't understand the medium they are trying to analyze they shouldn't treat it any differently then any other medium out there. Hell, if they actually took a moment to look at video games objectively, then they would discover modern video games aren't that different then movies. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find an article where a respected anthropologist said that Resident Evil 5 is not racist.
In case you are unfamiliar with the game or more specifically, the controversy surrounding it, then let me explain. The game is the latest in the Resident Evil series of games, which put you in control of series of badly equipped, yet seemingly overqualified, young men and women fighting off a zombie apocalypse whilst exposing a conspiracy in one of the most badly managed evil cooperations in the history of mankind. The latest installment takes the zombie killing to Africa, which understandable meaning instead of all the zombies looking vaguely Caucasian they now look African. Which brings us to the controversy concerning the game that can be summarized as follows: the game is racist because the game features a white guy running around and shooting a lot black guys.
That is why the article in question is so refreshing, because while it's pretty clear the anthropologist doesn't play video game he is still able to see the game for what it is. I won't go into all the details (I'd basically be quoting the article wholesale if I did), but I do recommend reading at least these highlights.
It's good to know that there are some people who will consider the serious merits of video games, even if they are more likely to be ignored since people prefer controversy.