How much longer do you think video games will be a scapegoat for everything?

[Andrew Giarrusso]

So I just read this: http://kotaku.com/breaking-down-the-absurd-anatomy-of-a-video-game-scare-487437560

And I was utterly disgusted. Not at the article, mind you, but the person the article was about. Katie. And all her guests. Now, I try my best to be a loving guy, and not to judge based on opinion, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Jim Steyer says allowing teens to play violent video games was like letting them drink alcohol or smoke, but last I checked, I was just playing Tomb Raider a few hours ago and I do not seem to have Video Game Poisoning or dying of Arrow-to-the-head induced lung cancer. I say that, in an optimistic view, games will be a mainstream scapegoat for 8 more years, and in a pessimistic view, 12. What are your thoughts?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

It depends on a couple of things. The first is how long it takes for another new thing to come out that young people love but nobody else understands. The other, like so many other issues in the world today, is when exactly the baby boomers will either die out or otherwise relinquish control of the world to generations that weren't born and raised back when segregation was a thing.

Note that I'm not saying I want the baby boomers to die out. It would be nice of them to step down and let their descendants take over, though. They already squeezed out their own children's generation (Gen X), and they're well on their way to keeping Gen Y/the early Millenials from ever having any real power, too.

 

[Pink Gregory]

If it's a convenient scapegoat that can't make rebuttals because the accusing party has made up it's mind; then forever.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

It'll stop when people stop being stupid. So yeah, this'll keep carrying on indefinitely.

 

[LetalisK]

Until the next technological advance in entertainment is developed and it will be the millenials doing the blaming.

 

[Hades]

Untill everyone over 40 kicks the bucket? Or maybe untill the gaming industry gets a corrupt American lobby to withhold funding from stupid politicians.

Nice articall, thanks for posting it.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Videogames are getting the blame for this now because they're the current big thing with the younger generation which the adults don't get.

Not so long ago movies on VHS were the scapegoat (anyone else old enough to remember "video nasties"?) And of course D&D and tabletop games got a lot of stick for being "satanic"

Heck, before that comic books were seen as evil.

Basically when the current generation of gamers get old enough to be in most of the positions of power in society, we'll stop pinning everything bad on games. Either that or something new will come along and we'll say it's corrupting our kids!

 

[Zhukov]

Give it another fifteen years.

That might sound like a lot, but bear in mind this has been happening at least since the Columbine massacre and shows no signs of slowing down. If anything, it's gotten more frequent in recent years.

 

[Killer_tom]

Like everyone else says I would give it until this current generation, the ones that understand video games, take over the world. Which will either mean the end of the world or the end of the stupid.

 

[purplecactus]

To be honest, I kind of think it'll stay like this for maybe twenty, twenty five years. By that time my generation (early twenties now) will be at the tail end of middle age and gaming will have probably become a far more integrated, understood part of society. Can I be optimistic and say maybe even comparable to films? That'd be pretty good, I reckon.

Of course, by that point there will be a new evil out there corrupting our children and grandchildren, and so the process will repeat itself.

The root of it appears to be a combination of ignorance and stupidity, a lethal combination to say the least. So going by that, all this scapegoat business will end when that gets solved. Which, taking a realistic view, will be never.

 

[Zanderinfal]

For me, I think it will take until there are more gaming politicians, and that will take a long time. It could be a very, very long time. We wont know for sure until it begins to happen more often.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Untill everyone over 40 kicks the bucket?

Hey, I have a 46 year old mate who plays a fuck ton of XboX, his favorite game is Shadows of the Damned.

Anyway, I think it'll when these people are willing to sit down and play Thomas Was Alone. When that day comes; there will be no more war.

 

[___________________]

Video games, music, films, TV shows. You name it. It will never end. But really, if any of the BS they throw at them were true I'd be a psychotic, homicidal, village pillaging, women raping, warlord of doom 7:the return of the afterburners from hell! kind of guy (I'm not, by the way). And lots of other people too. The trick is for them to realise not everyone reacts in the same way to similar events in life. Not everyone is gonna start playing games compulsively or shoot anyone because they took their copy of a game. However, they do know that, but that doesn't sell crap shows. No money, no go. So unless we start living without money, which would make more sense if you really think about it, it will never ever end mate. Well, maybe if non-gamers all suddenly kicked the bucket.

 

[an874]

Untill everyone over 40 kicks the bucket?

Hey, I have a 46 year old mate who plays a fuck ton of XboX, his favorite game is Shadows of the Damned.

Anyway, I think it'll when these people are willing to sit down and play Thomas Was Alone. When that day comes; there will be no more war.

More power to your friend but Hades more or less has the right answer, it's an age thing (although I would have said 50, even then knowing there's a rare exception here and there). The fact is said older generation didn't hear much about games until long past the point in one's life when a person is accepting of the world changing (it happens to everyone, and speaking at the ripe age of 23 I'm sure it'll happen to me) and those people still run the world today.

 

[PanYue]

Until people stop doing crazy shit and are found out to have some kind of gaming machine in their household.

i.e. Never.

 

[NightmareExpress]

People can't accept that society has some pretty fucked up notions.
People can't accept that society is sometimes blatantly wrong and holds the wrong principles.
People find it easier to point their fingers at the symptoms rather than the cause.
People can't accept responsibility.

That's why, in short.
Scapegoats in general will continue as long as the above continues.
The underlying issue isn't with games, movies, books, film, hobbies or what have you.
It's something deeper that requires more or less a societal reform to correct.
But alas, we're lazy so let us deem a few people crazy and damn whatever it is they enjoy.