Despite the mainstream media's tendency to scapegoat video games as a cause of senseless violence, we should remember that not all mainstream talking heads feel the same way about our hobby.Take Rush Limbaugh, who on his radio show yesterday took calls theorizing on the motivation behind the recent Virgina Tech killings. One caller, Mark from Centreville, Va., tried to lay the blame at gaming's doorstep. "I will guarantee you, I'll bet my last dollar in my pocket, that this shooter will be found to have been a compulsive video gamer," he said.
Rush was quick to jump in, pointing out that even if the shooter played games, "not every video gamer goes out and murders 33 people on the college campus though. There's more to this than that." Limbaugh granted that playing games "may desensitize people, but it doesn't turn everybody into mass murderers."
Limbaugh later went on to compare video game censorship to gun control. "How many millions of people play video games, and how many millions of people have guns? If you start blaming the video games, you may as well demand video game control because it's the same thing when you start trying to blame guns for this. You have here a sick individual, an evil individual who committed a random act. But if you want to start blaming the video games, this guy was this or that, well, then you've gotta maybe talk about banning them because that's the same tack that's taken with guns. You got one guy who used a gun, that's it."
So remember, the next time you're griping about mainstream media coverage of games, that said coverage is not a monolithic force with only one point of view.
[Thanks Jonathan]












(Page 1) Reader Comments
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Let's not scrape the bottom of the barrel in our search for moral support here.
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100% correct....except maybe the analogy to gun control..
...the last time I picked up a video game and tried to *shoot* somebody with it, nothing happened. Hmmm.... why is that? Maybe it wasn't loaded? Do you think that if I had tried to use, say, a GUN(!)...the result might have been different??? eh, Rush?
No, video games don't kill people...but guns...do? Maybe?
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BTW, that picture is like...uncanny valley or something. Creeps me out.
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...uuuuuh. No he didn't.
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Has nothing to do with uncanny valley. Normally, portrait lighting is a three light approach. Brightest up front with a fill light at a 45-60 degree angle from that and a backlight to keep the edges of the subject from becoming too black. This portrait seems to have taken the complete polar opposite approach. What they;ve done is is two strongest lights are backlaighting towards the rear of the subject and the weakest light is taking the role of the filler lamp. It looks off because there is no discernable single light source and it dramatically sidesteps the background image(almost making it look like he's facing north and the set is both rising and setting at the same time).
... it's sad how much shit you have to learn when you want to do 3D computer animation. Would you believe I even had to be a cameraman for a local news station for 15 total hours for a course?
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Also, for those of you saying Rush is not part of the Mainstream Media... He likes to characterize other news outlets (that he disagrees with) as "The Mainstream Media," but that doesn't mean he's separate from it. He's got a huge audience (20 million?), and everyone knows who he is. He may not be universally liked, but I'd call him pretty mainstream.
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Sarcasm... look it up.
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The only and single purpose of a gun is to harm somebody (no matter if it's agression or self defense).
The purpose of a game is to have fun, tell stories and, sometimes, make you think about something (which might be controvertial).
Guns are NOT a cultural creation, they are killing tools.
And while you cannot blame weapons for this guy actions, you can certainly understand that if, instead of guns, he would have only access to a knife, the body count won't be the same. At all.
At some point, in the future, i'm really eager to see what will happen in the USA when the first "nuclear gun" will be available on every corner shop... Maybe this will settle the debate in a fast, definitive and efficient way.
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....
....
.... wow...
(Once in a lifetime event, that)
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As a retoucher I can tell you that the picture is also HEAVILY retouched, which makes him look artificial and 'plastic'. It's so heavy handed it almost looks more like a painting or illustration than a photograph.
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On a side note, constitutional right or not, you need a stronger check then ticking a "no I'm not fucking mental" box on a form to get a gun. I don't care where you are from.
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Yeah. I could totally detect the sacasm in your words. They dripped.
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Anywho, Rush is still an idiot. He really didn't say anything intelligent in his rant, as usual. He just said that not "everybody" who plays a game goes on a killing spree. That is a pretty basic observation. Let's delay our "Rush is a Genius" chant for now.
Someone earlier brought up a good point that coorelation does not automatically mean causation. Stats show drug using kids get worse grades than non drug users. OMG Marijuanna ftl! Then you look at the fact that those kids got bad grades before using and you wonder, "maybe kids who hate school are more likely to use."
Same with games, sort of. If I were a violent sociopath, I think violent games would be a perfect hobby. I'm killin stuff, sort of, while being challenged and entertained. The bonus, I don't need any friends to do it and don't have to be around people.
Why wouldn't violent people prefer violent games, TV, hobbies, etc? Perhaps the coorelation is more an effect of the individual's taste than any kind of a trigger that made them the way they are.
If you want to get all criminal profily n shiz, the all time absolute most common factor amongst serial and mass murderers is that they tortured animals when they were young. I used to blow up frogs with bottle rockets, so what yourself ;)
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Um, who says this? So Maureen Dowd isn't part of the mainstream media? Last time I checked, her paychecks still said "New York Times" on them. The same applies to Rush. You just delude yourself that your political opinions are out of the mainstream, and that Rush is some guy on the fringes, speaking truth to power.
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Out here in Los Angeles, Dr. Phil was on the local news via a teleconference feed very shortly after the shootings took place. And he was very quick to jump onto the "Videogames are bad" bandwagon. No evidence that the kid even played games. No evidence of ANYTHING about the kid. Immediately, it's video games at fault.
How in the HELL does Dr. Phil have "Dr." in front of his name? It's pure propaganda on his part; he quite obviously has an inherent bias against video games and displays of violence. Yet -- nothing about the individual in question, how he was raised, how he reacted to things as he grew up, etc., etc. Nope, none of that. It's the games.
Even if Rush is the only airwave mogul to say "It wasn't the videogames", it's nice that at least someone on the air gets it.
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Respect++
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Someone pinch me. I know I must be dead or dying.
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And a lot of people are missing the entire point of what he said. he was using guns as an example of saying that it is an imposition on our freedoms (whether or not you agree with the right to own a firearm). His underlying point was also that millions of people own guns, yet we dont have millions of deaths.
I think one of my other friends had a good example:
Access to cars increases the probability of car crashes. Access to hamburgers increases the probability of obesity. Access to shoes increases the probability of swampfoot.
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And for the record, Limbaugh has NEVER looked like that, that photo is a combination of his addiction to perscription meds and Photoshop.
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You have as much chance keeping a gun from a motivated criminal as you do keeping a DRM Free copy of Casino Royal off of the internet.
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Yeah, I totally agree. Rush is definitely not the MSM. That's why Joystiq would have to go to him as a source for logic, am I right?
@copa
Bottom of the barrel, huh? Just because the man made a mistake in his life doesn't mean that he can't make good points about things. And if you listen to his broadcasts during the time when he had an addiction to painkillers (after surgery), he never once passed judgment on those with a similar problem, knowing that he would be seen as a hypocrite. When the oxycotin story came out, he admitted his mistake and got help. This is far different from the situation on the Left where no wrong-doing ever happens, even in the context of drunk-driving leading to manslaughter (Ted Kennedy), rape and extra-marital affairs (Bill Clinton), lying under oath about said affairs (Bill Clinton), being a member of the KKK (Robert Byrd), or being a complete hypocrite when it comes to the environment (Al Gore). Who should we be listening to on the Left?
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...Except that even if every president for the next 20 years wanted video games banned, it would NEVER HAPPEN. So stop with the F.U.D.
NEXT...
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Nope.
DustyPhoenix.
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