In a recent column for Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King decried HB 1423, a pending bill in the Massachusetts state legislature, which would outright ban the sale of "violent video games" to minors -- effectively circumventing the ESRB ratings system altogether. King, who knows a thing or two about violence, dissects the bill as eloquently as you'd expect, saying that politicians use pop culture as a "whipping boy," to illicit a passionate response from fans of the beleaguered medium, and to ignore "the elephants in the living room." Wait, you mean the popularity of violent video games isn't the biggest crisis facing the country? Get out of town!
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(Page 1) Reader Comments
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Here's just some of the stories he's written that aren't horror in nature:
The Body (Stand By Me)
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption
The Green Mile
Apt Pupil
The Dead Zone (I could go either way regarding this one)
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...I blame it on the keyboard.
But he's pro-gamers not anti. It helps to read first lest you make a complete r-tard of yourself.
let me fix that for you
*twat
He's the singular version of one of the earliest Ancient Greek practitioners of medicine?
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And that being said... this is all Rockstar's fault. They pushed it over the edge with that stupid Manhunt 2. I hate all of their games with a passion. They need to be shot in the face. >=(
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Or, we could be progressive about this and realize the violence in games, even the extreme situations like Manhunt or GTA, are mere drops in the bucket compared to other media and we could actually applaud a company for pushing the line closer to equal standards. But we really don't want that, do we? Because if that line is pushed by companies like Sony Santa Monica, Rockstar, or Monolith Productions, politicians would be forced to quit thinking of gaming exclusively as kids toys and who knows WHAT that could lead to? I mean, suddenly we'd be forced into dealing with the real reasons behind crime rates, the economy collapsing, and the ever widened gap between the rich and the poor. We'd actually have to make positive changes to our society.... that'd be awful.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you are looking for an example of "irony", then look no further.
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Everybody should go and read that right now.
French slang stole the term "gamer" from English and it uses the masculine form "un" by default. "Une" is feminine and is only used to define females: it can't be used as a blanket term in the French language.
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I'm also surprised by this. Doesn't the man still do most of his writing with a pad of paper or a typewriter?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_After_Sunset
But you liked Cell?!? Dude, my father, the ultimate King fan, handed me back my copy and simply said "Well that was just an unfocused mess."
I don't know... I'll do a king book every once in a while but I think I left him behind in high school. Then again, I don't read too many horror books nowadays anyway. I mean, I try, but then I get pissed off at bad decisions or missed potential.
I mean, take Dean Koontz's Lightning for example (SPOILER ALERT). The evil Nazi doctor dies halfway through the book, the lead villian, dead. But this was a time traveling story and I was truly disappointed that, instead of the stalker doctor for the rest of the book, we get a generic SS squad. The lead villian went from being a sadistic stalker with a sense of righteous retribution for the betrayal to a group of four SS goosesteppers who's thought was essentially "Hitler say stomp, we stomp." This was a disappointment considering, with the time travel aspect, the doctor could have STILL been the lead villian.
Anytime I read horror novels like that nowadays, I always seem to go through those same motions. Science thriller doesn't annoy me anywhere near as much.
King's easily my favorite author though so I'm probably not the best critic. I started at 12 with The Shining and have hit up just about every word he published. Damn shame that I haven't been able to commit myself to finishing the Dark Tower series, still got the last three to go.
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1. No other media faces this kind of pressure. Take, for example, films. Movies chop content to get their R-Rating. This would make the film NC-17. Now, games chop content to get the M rating, because this would make them AO. This content gets put back into films as the Unrated DVD version which many stores gladly sell. But they absolutely refuse to sell Adults Only rated games. Likewise, I can hand a child a $10 bill and let him go to borders and buy his copy of American Psycho in paperback which features, among other depravities, having sex with a severed head. Not a finger would be raised in protest.
2. These bills often act outside of ESRB ratings. They use vague terms like "violence" and "realistic" to coin what would and would not be inappropriate. In this way, they can attack any game they want and there would be no preventative measures the industry could take to avoid outright bans in stores. Make no mistake, between stocking a game that could cause them controversy and appearing pious, stores will take the latter. Just look at the Manhunt 2 fallout for evidence. Even channels dedicated to gaming were quick to fold on that one.
3. These bills are often put in place as a violence prevention measure based upon the idea that violent games make people violent. This is impossible to prove and every attempt to bring correlation could not prove causation. So essentially these bills are being drafted under a lie. The communities are being told blatant lies to back support on bills that would hinder and disrupt free speech and an industry which is bringing billions in jobs inside the US. Essentially they'll tax the taxes from the jobs and sales and readily accept this industry as a source of income, meanwhile spitting in their face the entire time.
4. Money spent writing these laws and eventually wasted defending them could be put to better use in programs that could attack the source of the crimes they are trying to blame on gaming. In other words, my own home state of Illinois pulled money (over a million)out of public health and school boards to foot the bill for Blag's big old battle against the game industry. Because the law drafters are never held personally accountable for these actions, they continue to waste away public money just for the votes from soccer moms.
The secondary problem, and maybe the most serious for the game industry, is the fact that a bill like this would effectively turn the M rating into another AO rating (assuming the government allows the industry to continue to self-regulate).
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;-)
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Were I you, I'd quit while i was very much behind. But that's just a suggestion, feel free to continue being an asshat...
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Cell is being adapted into a movie, isn't it? Let's see one of his other books or movies adapted... Couldn't The Mist be retold from the perspective of the military and have an action game influenced?
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Actually, i think rap is cause people hate when rappers say words like gun, and bitch but its ok when places like very public retailer like wal-mart can sell guns. Oh yeah, and nobody never has says the word bitch or even curse in that matter. RIGHT!!!
Anyway, I get tired of people thinking that video games is reason why everything is bad in the world. Like its the reason why the US/Iraq are in war and etc. Its not the developers fault that underage kids are buying their games. Its the retailer and the parents fault. Thats what the ESRB is for. Just like rating system for movies. People need take responisbility for their own actions and stop blaming other enities. PEACE!
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Awesome.