Very interesting.
Well, I suppose I'd best chuck in a few quids worth of thoughts. I warn you all, this will be a rambly post of my own. First off, I noticed the word's 'here's mah rant', so I was expecting the rest of the post to be about how everything sucks because games get blamed for acts of particularly nasty violence, but in fact there's a good few points in there.
Misconceptions
First off, you're right about how Videogames are portrayed by a lot of people. A lot of people would categorise our beloved games as belonging in a toy shop, but the sheer thought of plonking a copy of GTA in a toy shop makes my head implode. Most gamers nowadays are not ten years old. They're more like mid 20's to 30's. In fact, it's all those speccy geeks that hid in their rooms and played their Commodore 64, (myself included in that, naturally) but older and with jobs and money and stuff. It seems no one seems to have noticed, except the gamers and the developers. It's true the perception of games needs to change. I'm not a 'games are art' type, more of a 'games are my escape' kind of person.
I prefer to stray less from 'Games are like Art' and nearer to the 'Games are like Books and Movies' school of thought, because I get lost in a game much as I get lost in a good book. Non gamer people in general need to realise that just as there are Books and Films for Young Uns and Books and Films for Grown Ups, there are Games for Kids and Games for Adults. Hell, we even put age tags on them. You don't see that on a Steven King.
Girl Gamers
Female Gamers? They Rock. You've probably met a load of them but you would never know. Online, they tend to stay quiet in CoD4 Deathmatches. Why? Because although us guys have to deal with squeaky 12 year olds on 18 rated games (Which makes my blood boil), Swearing, racial slurs, homophobia and so on, Girl gamers have to put up with idiots who ask if they can see their breasts. Or if they'd consider doing something sexual to them. Plus! They get to be told they suck and shouldn't be playing games because of their gender. A hardcore gamer friend of mine will probably be nodding her head at that sentence, and probably pointing at a list of 300 reasons why it sucks to be a Girl Gamer. Top of the list I'm sure is 'Men'.
However, I don't see this as being permanent. Working in a shop that sold Nintendo DS's, I'd say 70% of all those purchased were by Girls. Nintendo are doing their bit for girl gamers by advertising their stuff to folks who aren't normally earmarked as gamers. I mean, they have Patrick Stewart of all people playing a DS in one of their ads. How Cool is That??? The Wii is being similarly advertised. A shrewd marketing move, but to me it's a sign of the demise of the image of all gamers as being socially redundant teens in dark rooms.
Going Online
There are many problems with the Online Community. I'm in the interesting position of being a Christian gamer, and a lot of stuff yelled over the mic irritates me. You're right, we should stand up against the idiots, but if we reported everyone that annoyed us, would that make us any better? I believe this issue is not easily solved. After all, the people that tell me that I'm a C@*%£$^?@£$ M*@#?£$%&=@%& have as much right to say that as I do to tell them that Jesus loves them. Another part of the problem- some developers give us a raw deal on this sort of thing when it comes to an online experience. I feel some examples coming on. I'm going to use PS3 examples, since I've no idea about the 360 Online experience. Resistance Fall of Man has a good system for it's voice comms. There are several different voice 'teams' to pick from. So if you don't like what you hear, pick another voice team. Idiots gone, you and you're pals can natter to your hearts content. CoD4 on the other hand, gave you no such option. Open Comms, all the time. It made my ears bleed, and I'm glad they put a 'Mute Player' patch on the thing.
Another way around it is allowing lobbies and rooms with an opening comment. As a clan we'd make a room open to all, but with a comment saying that we would'nt tolerate bad behaviour and you'd be kicked if you acted like an idiot. Of course, we weren't scumbags about it, 'cos well, people swear when frustrated and being sniped for the 46th time is annoying. But if a player crossed the line... *kick* out you go. We never had trouble filling our lobbies with like minded gamers, fun times had by all.
GTA
Well.. it does kinda deserve the attention. There have been tons of violent games before now, some more crazily violent that GTA. Creatures 2: Torture Trouble and Barbarian on the C64 come to mind. Heck, Castle Wolfenstien. Anyone else think that Rockstar are milking the hype to drive sales? Bad publicity is still publicity.
I think I'm done now.
