So, if this is good for our psychology, then we should shortly see video games called Blow Up the Banks and War Zone on Wall Street to keep the public docile? Do violent video games make going to war easier to sell like the old argument about violent TV causing violent kids? Or do we humans just enjoy blowing shit and people up? So many crappy, government-financed studies to start writing….
The story of the dictator’s demise is already being transformed into a video game by Kuma Games, the company that also brought us a gamified version of Osama bin Laden’s capture and death. Kotaku reports that the game will be ready to play as early as this Tuesday.
Media theorist Alexander Galloway has suggested that forms of configuration such as those found in video games “express processes in [broader] culture that are large, unknown, dangerous, and painful.” If Galloway is right, then Kuma Games’ immediate impulse to create a video game about Qaddafi’s capture may be more than just a marketing ploy (though it is that as well). The desire to translate events like Qaddafi’s and bin Laden’s deaths into video games is also part of what we might call algorithmic sorting: the cultural attempt to simplify complex historical and social issues into patterns that we can recognize and make sense of.
Having played Postal and Postal 2 (and looking forward to Postal 3), I vote “just plain fun”.
“Join the US military and travel the world, meet new people in distant lands, then kill them and blow their shit up.” – Should be a US military recruitment poster.
Unofficially it is.
Further clarification of the sort of mental masturbation sought by some gamers.
If they ever accidentally enlisted in military service, no doubt they would end up “flying” drones from a nice safe room in Virginia – instead of getting their designer sneakers dirty someplace like Afghanistan.
Blow Up The Banks… Are You Nuts!?!?!
They definitely don’t want to put the meme out there…
In fact, if you want to get surreptitious financing for enough to retire on, go and show them a working prototype and tell them that if they don’t want this released, it’ll cost them a day’s profits. Just one measly day’s profit.
Then find somewhere without extradition and jet your as there!
Self proclaimed “mature” adults like to say they can always distinguish between reality and make-believe. That’s good and mostly true. Problem is, some can’t and make the evening news.
Although that’s rare, I worry about the long, slow dose of violence that we are exposed to every day (if the media is a big part of your life). Sadly, the effect is magnified and more potent when administered to our youth.
In all cases, the accumulative effect I believe dulls the senses, and makes us less humane and tolerant of one another.
So, am I glad Qaadafi is dead? Yep.
Do I want to see a game about it? Nope.
Agreed.
There’s a fine line being crossed there, but I’m not articulate enough to point it out.
The Qadaffi death game should include the option of shoving a knife up his ass, just to be historically correct.
Oh yes, and the sound track must include Hillary laughing like a hyena and declaring, “We came, we saw, he died.”
How many more points do you get for just letting him bleed out?
Do you gain points by driving a hand crank auger into his medulla oblongata as his body flexes wildly?
Does your score soar if you put potassium permanganate in his ear and drop in some glycerine, thus setting off a fire?
Do you win the game by surrounding his junk with C4, then touching it off from 50 feet away?
Can I get a copy for my seven-year-old?
Did you know that he was locally known as a visionary, andbrought immense amounts of water to his people?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PYxxSblD9eM&feature=related