To boldly go...

I try, I really try to be unaffected by the most idiotic things that people say. Even publicly.

So there is this psychiatrist, and basically says that video games make people to involuntary woohoo. Now, excuse me for saying that even in the most extreme cases (like RapeLay and Stockholm: An Exploration of True Love), those games will not set people without the inclination towards "bad behavior" to it any more than anything else would.

The quote in question:
"Video games have increasingly, and more brazenly, connected sex and violence in images, actions and words. This has the psychological impact of doubling the excitement, stimulation and incitement to copycat acts. The increase in rapes can be attributed, in large part, to the playing out of such scenes in video games."

Now, forgive me for not having a degree in psychiatry, but there are a couple of things awry with this quote. Most notably the "rise in rapes" but I'll let that slide for a moment. In my (apparently not very humble) opinion, she fails to take a few important things into account. Games have not really connected sex and violence any more than, say, movies, books, theater or any other medium.

But, I hear the annoying politicians say, games are an interactive medium, and therefore completely different.

Excuuuuuuse me princess, but that's more or less the same excuse we used for radio shows (ohmygodyoucanhearthem), then movies (ohmygodyoucanseethem) and now videogames (ohmygodyoucanmovethem).

Of course this is probably all just a thinly veiled ploy to get attention towards herself, and I'm falling for it, naturally. But it does give me an excuse to get some points accross.

• Games can actually get rid of built up tension (be it violent or erotic), therefore lowering acts in real life.
• Censureship and/or protecting too much what people see, will not protect against those who wish to do it anyway. And you can't say 'it gave them the idea', as you can get the idea of rape from a dog pouncing on another. And we do not have enough hoses to prevent that all over the world.
• Yes! Violence, rape and a lot of other things are "bad", that's why people want them in stories, movies and videogames. So no one has to get hurt.
• If you don't enjoy something, don't watch it. Same reason I prefer Mythbusters over politics.

/rant

I can't really say much about the games yet, as I haven't tried them. RapeLay seems decent in graphics and interactivity and Stockholm seems, while fairly linear, intruiging in concept.