So like a week ago I mentioned that GMicek had done an interview with LTC Grossman about the gaming industry. He finally posted the first part of the interview, so check it out at http://diyg.com/archive/index.php?mesid=313.
Yay! Hehehe. Anyway, he was actually a really nice guy and knew more about games than I thought he would. When he introduced me to some of the people there he said “This is Greg, we met on the internet.” Hahaha, whooo, funny stuff.
Anyway, the second part of the interview will be up later this week. The best part(IMHO) is where he refers to Henry Jenkins as a prostitute.
Hey, when you get both parts posted, remind me here or in email. I’ll link to it. (I’d do it now, but our readers are pretty fussy about short article links, etc. =/ )
Where did you meet him GM?
Thanks! It’s definately appreciated :) And I can see where your readers are coming from, I’m picky in the same way.
I started emailing him in early March of this year. I sent him about 20 questions which he never answered, but he said that he appreciated the fact that I read his books before I sent the questions. I just kept emailing him every couple weeks to say ‘whats up’ and he would usually respond with a few comments. This past August he was in town for an all day training class for the California Board Of Prison Terms where he talked about officer survival. He was nice about getting me in eventhough I had no place being there. Afterwards we went to some club/diner and talked for a couple hours about various stuff, it was pretty cool, hehe.
Good job.
I briefly tried to interview him for a Gamecenter story on Violence in Gaming but didn’t have time to woo him. He probably figured that I wasn’t likely to cast him in a favorable light–I actually was keeping an open mind, but he was probably right-- anyway, I didn’t pursue because there wasn’t time. Besides, his opinion is well documented, so I just used his on the record comments. What I wanted to do was get him to respond to some counter-opinions I’d gathered and get some more lively rebuttal for the article. The really hard part for me was finding someone who agreed with him! Someone knowledgable, I mean.
That’s a good interview, btw, and a nice bit of journalism there, getting to know him.
He makes a good point that the justifications used to keep regulation of games from happening would never fly for pornography, or R-rated movies. However, Europe has virtually no ratings on such (hardcore porn on televison, whee), and they seem to deal just fine.
Just out of curiosity, why is that the best part? Is Henry Jenkins some corporate shill or something?
OTOH, many European countries won’t sell video games with graphic depictions of blood/gore in them. You have to download an illicit patch from the dev to add sparkling red gibs back into them. There are alot of things that the Europeans have right, I think. This is probably one of them, meaning the whole kind of violence vs. other taboos prioritizing.
True, but isn’t it just Germany and the UK with those restrictions?
Just out of curiosity, why is that the best part? Is Henry Jenkins some corporate shill or something?[/quote]
I believe he may be referring to this man.
:shock:
I’ve got to figure out the alt shortcuts to the tags better.
Ok, am I losing my mind or did the board eat my post and a few others in this thread? I know I submitted it because Bub responded to it. I used the search for my posts link on the first page and it doesn’t show up there either.
– Xaroc
Yawn
Just out of curiosity, why is that the best part? Is Henry Jenkins some corporate shill or something?[/quote]
Some would say that. He’s always been a big advocate of videogames, among other things.
Out of curiosity, why does anyone care about words spoken by Grossman?
Why care about Grossman? Because agree or disagree with him, he is a power in the struggle over legislation and access to video games. He is not just some insane Jeremiah wailing from the rooftops, but an intelligent man who plays games but sees something wrong with the industry. He may not be the most adept scholar of media influence, mind control or what kids are thinking, but “killology” is a great buzzword.
Why care? Because he looks like he knows what he’s talking about.
Nice interview, BTW.
Troy
This thread kind of bypassed my consciousness until now, like so many things, and I just read the interview. Good stuff, by and large. To my own surprise, I agree with Grossman’s point – there is a significant part of the PC games industry producing disgustingly violent shooters that are rather obviously aimed at immature teens, and they are damaing the image of the gaming industry as a whole. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to create stricter age restrictions for these games.
I’m not a certified killogist, but maybe I can get some use out of my, uh, gameology (?) certification (??).
LtC Grossman raises some valid points, and if the industry is unwilling to police itself, someone is going to try and regulate content through legislation. Of course, if games are a child’s sole source of moral direction, then something else is seriously wrong. It’s too bad you can’t legislate that parents raise their children in a responsible manner. :roll:
As for Henry Jenkins, I kind of feel sorry for him. As far as I can tell, he was sort of railroaded into becoming an industry advocate as a mechanism to defend his chosen line of research. My guess is that he’d rather do research instead of interviews.
- Alan
The amusing irony is that Congress has no authority to regulate content of either movies or games; this is why all the ratings systems are self-imposed. They’re just PR dodges.
So, technically, if the industry stonewalls there’s no downside.
Posted the second half of the Grossman interview. Yay. http://diygames.com/news/index.php?mesid=345&time=1035948133&sid=5392.TpwSSiG