Video game are worse then porn?!

The well known (somewhat in genre specific terms) porn actor Ron Jeremy recently claimed that “video games has much bigger negative influence on kids”. This happened during a session called Great Porn Debate on the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas.

It’s a funny take coming from someone being in an industry that is equally accused of demoralizing the youth. Now, I don’t know how many that actually take this claim seriously, coming from a man that has appeared in over 2000 porn films? What is worst is that outbursts like this gets media coverage, who can resist this? Obviously not me!

The appeal of military games

When reading J. Glenn Gray’s fascinating book “The Warriors”, about his experience as officer and sociologist participating in WWII, it strikes me how some of the mechanisms of real war that he describe can be translated to military video games. In one chapter Gray describes the enduring appeal of battle of consisting of comradeship and the fascination of destruction.

Gray write on the latter subject: “Some scenes of battle, much like storms over the ocean or sunset on the desert or the night sky seen through a telescope, are able to overawe the single individual and hold him in a spell. He is lost in their majesty. His ego temporarily deserts him, and he is absorbed into what he sees. An awareness of power that far surpasses his limited imagination transports him into a state of mind unknown in his everyday experience.”

Stormchasing – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Even before the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare the game proved to contain bits that well could feed those belonging to the “wargames-educate-killers”. Most explosive were of course when the video of the mission “no russians” were spread over Internet. The buzz of this violent game had started. When Activision made sure the video were removed this buzz became even the louder, all until the game were launched.

Screenshot from the No Russians mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

If you want peace play war

This site is about war, in fact it is about playing war. The site aims to discuss what it means in cultural, social and historiographical terms, when we play computer mediated war games.