Creative vice-president of Rockstar Games, Dan Houser, has spoken out about the criticism the company has received for games with violent content.
Houser told the New York Times he thought critics of the gaming industry skewed the way people perceive games. "Certainly, he said, "it’s frustrating when people don’t wish to understand what you do and don’t wish to learn.
“Anyone who plays any of our games and wishes to criticise it, having played it, experienced it and thought about it, they are of course welcome to do that. But when large numbers of people criticise something and haven’t even done it, it’s very frustrating. There’s a large amount of the population that lives in relative ignorance and only hears scary stories about what we do,” he added.
Beyond criticising the critics, Houser did grant the interview on the premise that he be asked about upcoming release, The Warriors. He claims it to be a fighting game for people who have been driven away from hard-core fighting games by “15-year-old idiot savants with incredibly good hand-eye co-ordination.”
People get turned off of games, he said because “repeated failures aren’t appealing to them - because that’s what the rest of their life is like. People aren’t playing a game because they want to fail, and we need to understand that.”
While Houser went on to claim that games will become an accepted part of culture in what he called, “a function of time” it is interesting to note that Governor Schwarzenegger once played a villain named Houser in the ultra gory Total Recall.
It all comes down to personal responsibility. I do think that violent video games can have an affect on a person, it’s extremely poor thinking to point to them as the sole instigator of tragedies like Columbine.
I’ve seen enough of the GTA series that if I had kids right now, they would probably not be allowed to play it. This of course would depend on the kid and how they responded to such stimuli. I was a bit disturbed when one of the people I worked with has a 3 or 4-year old that plays GTA3.
Looking back on myself as a teen, the logical thinking–among other things like maturity–simply weren’t there. Given that case, I do think it’s the parents discretion to give the final say on what their kid will play. Rockstar is a business designed to make money. If people aren’t buying something, they won’t put it out. If you don’t want your kid to play a certain game, don’t let them have it (to the best of your ability—I know if there’s a loophole, it’ll be found as I’ve done it).
I don’t think people have to play something or allow it in their home if they disagree with it. I think that simply because you disagree with something shouldn’t automatically mean banning it. My views may change as kids come into the picture, but I will keep tabs on things. If I don’t like something, I just don’t get it or avoid it. Raising hell over something you don’t like is giving it free advertising.
Let’s ban violent movies while we’re at it. Kids could watch them and get ideas. After that, we’ll burn any books with potentially violent content. Who knows what kind of evil might be lurking behind the cover? And after that, we’ll ban forks, because a kid might injure themselves on its excessively pronged surface.
Signed,
[COLOR=“DarkRed”]CONCERNED PARENTS AND POLITICIANS for BANNING EVERYTHING
(instead of taking responsibility for raising our own children)
