The Great Separation

Amazon Bans Gang Rape Video Game.

After the fact - When did perversion become common place and marketable?

I saw this article over the weekend. It makes me ill to know that someone out there thinks it would be loads of fun to simulate gang raping a woman, virtual or not.

Here's the article link:

Rapelay virtual rape game banned by Amazon 

In Rapelay, gamers direct a character to sexually assault a mother and her two young daughters at an underground station, before raping any of a selection female characters.

The game was intended for release just in Japan, but was on offer to British buyers through Amazon Marketplace, the section of the online store's website open to third-party sellers.

But Amazon has now withdrawn the game after complaints from users, deeming it to be inappropriate. "We determined that we did not want to be selling this particular item," a spokeswoman said.

Frankly I am shocked that it took complaints from users of Amazon for them to find this material "inappropriate."

Not only is it inappropriate, but it's detestable and frankly I think it could be argued that it's a harm upon society.

God does not want us to dwell upon such things let alone act them out in our house again and again with a video game so that we become numb to such a horrible act.

It saddens me to think about what kind of society we are becoming.

Guitar Hero Game Spurs Christian Guitar Praise Game.

Pic'n the strings - Wired has a post about a game coming out for the Mac and Pc in the same vein as the popular Guitar Hero game but it uses Christian artists like Jennifer Knapp.

It's called Guitar Praise: Solid Rock.

What's interesting to me is not that such a game is out for the Christian market, after all that market is huge, but the post on wired is very sarcastic and snarky toward Christians.

If you read some of the comments you will find similar feelings.

Follow the link on the page to the blog BoingBoing where the news of the Guitar Praise game hit first and this quote stuck out to me:

I used to be a Christian. Born of atheist parents, I stumbled upon this on my own. But there was a day my faith disintegrated: it was when I realized that the exact same sensation of God's love that I felt at Christian gatherings was absolutely indistinguishable from the adrenaline rush and sense of cultural belonging that I felt at a rock concert.

Makes my spirit ache. I think this reaction is one of the problems I have with big concerts, particularly those that have altar calls. Too many in our culture live based upon their emotions, the recent so-called "revival" in Lakeland, FL, is one example. The church for the most part has failed to teach and instruct.

You might want to read some of the comments on BoingBoing page as well.

Some of the views about Christians that are expressed are saddening and troubling to me.

Video Game Mayhem, Violence, and Barbarism.

Garbage in, Garbage puked out over all society. - The video game industry and those excited about huge profits in the finance industry are all agog over the latest installment of "Grand Theft Auto IV".

Having once worked in the retail side of the video game industry for more years then I care to remember, I have long since proclaimed the dangers and depths of depravity that the industry is delving into which are impacting our society.

Matthew Cullinan Hoffman has a notable commentary over at LifeSiteNews.com that is worth reading, particularly if your a parent with video game playing kids.

The debut of "Grand Theft Auto IV", a highly-realistic video game in which players "win" by committing violent criminal acts, is notable for several reasons, but most importantly because of what it says about a society that is engaged in an orgy of self-destruction, and cannot even recognize what is happening.

The Grand Theft Auto series makes the player into a criminal who wins points by stealing cars, assassinating rivals, killing police, running over pedestrians, and even murdering a prostitute with a baseball bat rather than paying her. It is, in short, a game that glorifies brutal criminality and enables players to fantasize their participation in mind-numbing barbarism.

Hoffman notes how one video game player waiting in line to get a copy reacted to the big release day of the game. The gamer stabbed a passer-by. You can read about that episode on the Telegraph.

Not to be out done by Londoners, I suppose, another punk in San Diego attacked store clerks on the big release day of the game. Mercury News has that story.

What does the Scripture offer as advice when it comes to our entertainment choices? Here's a good verse worth looking into:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.” (Php 4:8 NIV)

The Great Separation continues.

Parent Alert: Graphic Sex in Mass Effect Video Game.

Garbage in = Garbage out - For you parents out there who are actually concerned with whom your children hang out, with what they read, and with what they play, check this out.

Evan Moore reports on CNSNews.com about the new XBox360 game, Mass Effect (emphasis mine):

As part of that story, the playable character can become romantically involved with a woman, if playing as the default male character; a man, if playing as a woman; and an alien that looks and talks like a woman, for any play-through. This storyline culminates in a cutscene in which the characters copulate in full digital nudity.

Parents, be good parents and monitor what your kids are playing. Computers and video games really should be set up in family areas like the living room.

[hat tip: evanoff at topix]

Miniature Golf Day.

Mini-What? - It continues to surprise me just what we will make into a holiday.

I just eyeballed my Google Calendar and low-n-behold it's Miniature Golf day. That's just odd to me.

But perhaps even more odd is the fact that I've never played miniature golf.

How weird is that?

Video Game Violence Plumbs the Depths of Depravity.

Where's the Reset button? - I was reading a video game magazine the other day. Why? Well, I used to be part of that business and culture. So I like to dip back in every-so-often and see where things are. Every time I do check back in, I'm stunned by the depth of depravity to which game designers and players are lowering themselves.

The article that stunned me this time detailed a game in development titled "Prototype" and the article featured a large number of photos and descriptions of the plot.

It's your basic fair plot-wise - your character awakes and doesn't know who he/she is and must find out. This particular character has the ability to absorb the people and other creatures he kills/murderers thereby taking on their memories, form, and powers.

The thing that really disturbed me was the openness of one of the creators of the game with their desires to do really bad things in the game. Here's the quote that jumped out of the article from GameInformer:

We have the freedom with this property to do what we want and have the character be as bad as we want him to be.... It's good to have a setup where you can do very bad things, and make them fantastic, but have them justified within the setting. We asked ourselves: 'What do people want to do in a game?' We're creating a character that does what players want to do, and creating a structure and a framework around that which works.

The article goes on to describe how the player gets powers and knowledge through a "vicious throttling" of a "defenseless foe" - a foe which is a "business man" walking down the street. The player's character then absorbs the "civilian" into his body and then turns upon another "pedestrian" running in fear and "literally splits him in two."

The article shows some rather gruesome and bloody pictures of characters split in two by the player.

Bullets Fired, Life Lost, All for Sony Playstation.

There is no reset button. - SFGate.com has what looks like yet another example of video game violence finding it's way into the real world.

Jim Herron Zamora reports:

The incident began, Dyer said, when four men went to Brooks' apartment and got into a confrontation with him over a Sony PlayStation console shortly after 11 p.m. Monday. All five men involved live in the University Village apartment complex.

"The suspect and the victims were acquainted," Dyer said. "There was some type of verbal disturbance that occurred over a PlayStation. (Brooks) displayed a firearm, fired at these three individuals and shot them."

These men are - and were as one is now dead - between 19 and 22 years of age. A piece of irony is that the man who fired on the others is a criminology major.

I wonder how long it will take, how many lives it will cost, before companies and legislatures realize the inherent danger in systems that lower God given inhibitions to harm others.

Video games aren't the only culprit of course. Popular media from music to movies glorifies violence against others. For the past thirty odd years we've lived in a culture where if a woman doesn't want the life growing within her she can freely cut that child out and call him/her a tumor. The message is that life is cheap.

Video games though hold a power that the other mediums don't. It's interaction. Where the player acts out the violence, reacting to situations that numb the player over time to violence. The military uses similar means to remove the inhibition to kill another human being from soldiers. But the military knows that this conditioning requires boundaries and establishes among other things command structures that soldiers do not cross. Such boundaries do not exist in video games.

Life isn't cheap.

It came at a greater cost than any of us fully realize.

The Great Separation continues.

Related:

Paganism, Pornography, and Violence: Video Game Reality.
Update of X-Box Murder/Mutilations.
Teen Kills Toddler for Playing With His Playstation 2.
"Manhunt" Video Game Player Acts Out Virtual Kill on Real Person.
New Zealand Bans Computer Game.
Is this Kind of Realism Useful in a Video Game? Shellshock: Nam '67.
6 Murdered over $150 X-Box Video Game System.

Paganism, Pornography, and Violence: Video Game Reality.

Where fantasy births real nightmares. - I am not someone come lately to the video game market place. In the 90's I spent nine years working in a retail game shop. I spent far too much time playing video games then. And today I still play video games on occasion, though I limit my time considerably. My time spent in this market place has taught me a thing or two about the game companies and the people who play the games.

There is a wide variety of people who play and design the games, many creative and intelligent and socially stable. But there is, like in other areas of culture, sub-groups of people who are a huge driving force because of their passion and even need for video games. In many ways these people are addicted much like the drug addict.

The horror here is that the addiction is a mental one not stimulated by outside drugs but by the immersion into a false realm that increases one's self-centeredness and reshapes one's concept of reality.

Social misfits, introverts, and anti-social individuals become extreme in their behaviors over time. They get trapped in a cycle of wanting the next great game because, like a drug addict or a porn addict, the previous game has grown dull. Even worse, a new more extreme game must be played to give them a mental high.

I've stated it before, as have others, video game violence is a special breed of monster when compared to the violence one views on TV or even reads in print. The danger in video games is that they are interactive. The one putting the axe blade in the cranium of the on-screen character is the player. This type of interactive violence will eventually desensitize the player to acts of violence and increase aggression.

Consider the X-Box murders here in Florida I posted about some time ago.

Or the Serial Killer video Game, 'Manhunt', where a player acted out a "virtual kill" on a live person. The teenager killed another teen by stabbing and then beating him to death with a hammer.

Then there's also this item I posted about: Teen Kills Toddler for Playing With His Playstation 2.

Yesterday an article headlined on the Drudge Report grabbed my attention. It concerns a popular game on the Playstation3 titled, "god of war II." This game contains nudity and is so violent that it earned a rating marking it inappropriate for anyone under 18.

The article is reported by Glen Owen and Rhodri Phillips for the Daily Mail: Slaughter: Horror at Sony's depraved promotion stunt with decapitated goat.

What is horrible is how this game was recently promoted in Europe. In a display of degenerate Paganism a goat was freshly slaughtered, it's bleeding decapitated head hanging by tendrils on a table while women paraded around topless.

If that is not bad enough, guests were invited to eat offal from the stomach of the goat. What this says to me, to use a cliche, is that the inmates are now truly running the asylum. And that I think is very dangerous.

Sony ran a spread on this debauchery in their gaming magazine.

Sony of Europe is of course back tracking now saying that they do not condone the slaughter of this animal for the purpose of promotion, but it's not really the slaughter of the animal that is the problem here. It's the reveling in the slaughter. It's this mindset that is psychologically troubling about this industry.

If you are a parent or someone who buys video games for others, I suggest you read the Daily Mail article and the other posts I've mentioned.

It's past time to be wary of what you're teens and young children are playing. Pick up a video game magazine. What you find there should shock you.

Related:

Update of X-Box Murder/Mutilations.
Teen Kills Toddler for Playing With His Playstation 2.
"Manhunt" Video Game Player Acts Out Virtual Kill on Real Person.
New Zealand Bans Computer Game.
Is this Kind of Realism Useful in a Video Game? Shellshock: Nam '67.
6 Murdered over $150 X-Box Video Game System.

Update of X-Box Murder/Mutilations.

What masters you? - This is an update on a post of mine from 2004.08.09, titled: 6 Murdered over $150 X-Box Video Game System.

Almost two years ago some people snuck into an empty house and the granddaughter of the people who owned the house had them evicted. Here's what I originally wrote giving the gist of the story:

The story is that the 22-year-old victim found some of the killers living in her grandparent's vacant home and had them kicked out. Apparently the X-Box and clothes of the ringleader, Troy Victorino, were left behind and boxed up by the victim while he was in jail after being arrested on a battery charge on July 29.

When Troy got out of jail he and three teens went looking for the woman, Erin Belanger, and murdered her and five others using baseball bats and knives.

Mike Branom's AP reported then:

An ex-convict who blamed a young woman for taking his video game system and clothes recruited three teenagers to stab and beat her and five others to death, investigators said Sunday.

The 22-year-old woman was singled out for an attack so vicious that even dental records were useless in trying to identify her. Some of the victims were attacked in their sleep, according to authorities.

Today, BayNews9 is reporting:

The three men accused of beating six people to death inside a Deltona home in 2004 over an X-box video game were found guilty of most of the counts against them Tuesday, including first-degree murder.

The jurors reached their verdict against ringleader Troy Victorino, 29, Michael Salas , 20, and Jerone Hunter, also 20, after two days of deliberation in St. Augustine, where the trial was held.

The other person, Robert Cannon, charged in the murders apparently plead guilty originally and was to testify against the other three, but once he got on the stand he recounted his guilt and refused to testify. So he's probably going to go through a separate trial if the judge throws out his original plea.

Now, I am not saying that video game playing is bad. But there are some serious problems in the realm of video games that lower man's inhibitions for violence. Do yourself a favor if you're a parent or youth leader and pick up several months worth of a video game magazine like Game Informer and you will get an education in the violence and sex present in video games today. More importantly you may discover how sex and violence are being linked.

This medium is worse than the television and movies because of the interactive elements.

Get wise to it.

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Related TGS Posts:

Teen Kills Toddler for Playing With His Playstation 2.
"Manhunt" Video Game Player Acts Out Virtual Kill on Real Person.
New Zealand Bans Computer Game.
Is this Kind of Realism Useful in a Video Game? Shellshock: Nam '67.
6 Murdered over $150 X-Box Video Game System.

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Technorati tags: Xbox, Murder, Crime, Video Games, Movies, Television, Violence.

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I've Discovered Sudoku Puzzles!

Cool Bean Counting! - Okay so maybe I didn't discover Sudoku, maybe it was the Japanese. But mercy I'm addicted. I spotted it last Thursday in the paper while reading the best part of the paper, the comics. I got hooked.

And you know what, there's a great website for this puzzle too: Sudoku Shack.