Political Platforms being taken to video games?

[Consciouscitizen18]

Battlefield is one of the most popular video games on the market, and their newest production Battlefield: Hardline seems to have a ridiculous political agenda. The "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsgen flag is seen in the enemy compound and I watched the 12 minute trailer and a man with the Gadsgen flag on his back is strangled. There is also a set up in which a white man ambushes and captures a Mexican for $250,000. The article says that there is a more specific group of people who are the enemy and that this isn't meant to attack Tea Partiers...but perception is reality. Out of the millions of kids 16 and under that will play this, the portrayal of Tea Party members as racist anti-government terrorists who want to kill minorities is something that will be taken away from this from the looks of the trailer. I guess we'll find out when the game comes out what the real plot and story line is.
Gamescom: Shoot Racist Tea Partiers in ?Battlefield Hardline?

 

[MisterChester]

Who cares? It's a video game.

 

[Consciouscitizen18]

Who cares? It's a video game.

Really...? Batman was just a movie, but that didn't stop James Holmes from shooting up a movie theatre as the Joker. Slenderman was just a video game, but that didn't stop two 12 year olds from stabbing a girl to death in honor of "Slenderman". Try to think deeper than just "it's a video game".

 

[Draco]

Are you telling me that mass media would steep so low as to villainize an oft caricaturized political group? Say it ain’t so!

Now look, I won’t go the “It’s just a game route.” That’s rubbish, games are a medium and they ought to be seen a curious parallel to books and film; it is a way of communicating, of telling a story, and it just happens to be a whole lot more active than passive. (Unless it’s the beginning of Final Fantasy 7; two minutes of game play for every ten minutes of reading..) You won’t find me using that excuse, even if it does have some merit. (Just because it shouldn’t, doesn’t mean it doesn’t. So long as people view it as a curiosity or something to occupy the kids, it’ll be an excuse whenever something cuts a bit too deep for comfort.)

So, the way I look at it involves the following:

1) Controversy makes money. It has you talking about it; when it releases, more people will be talking about it; and then people are going to want to see what the fuss is about. (Important for Battlefield, which can’t manage the success of Call of Duty, which pulled the same trick [See Modern Warfare 2 Mission “No Russian”]).

2) If there is a radical militarized group, that is the flag most likely to be seen on the premises. It’s the go-to flag for the anti-authority folks, after all; and, add to that, the Progressives just don’t really have that kind of thing going on. I mean, it just doesn’t seem to be a thing. Look at Occupy Wall Street and then look at the Clive Bundy folk; OWS was often crushed by overwhelming (and unjustified) police force, whereas the Bundy folk were given a surprisingly wide berth.

As a result, that flag is going to get used, but I’m hoping it might also bring up a conversation about the militarization of the police. Yeah, it came up this week with all the trouble in Missouri, but it’s been going on way too long and will fall out of the public’s eye in a month. (I’m probably having one of those overly optimistic moments, though.)

Most of all, though, the error you’re making isn’t looking to deeply into a game; it’s looking too deeply into the likes of Call of Duty and its wannabe competitors. (Even though Battlefield 3 was far superior to Modern Warfare 3, and even though it should be easy to crush Call of Duty with a game with actual, you know, plot and some manner of realism [or at least not involve dual wielding a couple of 12 gauge sawed off shotguns; and inhabiting a world where a winning strategy is to jump up and down while in a fire fight because ???] it is run by EA, a company so awfully run that it can destroy the likes of Sim City, Mass Effect, and Command and Conquer yet feels compelled to continue taking creators over and ruining the fun of gamers the world around. Not that I’m sore or anything. Or a gamer. ..but I digress.)

I wouldn't really worry that much about in the end.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Really...? Batman was just a movie, but that didn't stop James Holmes from shooting up a movie theatre as the Joker. Slenderman was just a video game, but that didn't stop two 12 year olds from stabbing a girl to death in honor of "Slenderman". Try to think deeper than just "it's a video game".

Yes, because those folks were otherwise happy and well adjusted people who would not have injured anyone had they not been exposed to a movie/video game. One would assume the literally millions of people who were exposed to the same movies and video games who did not shoot up theaters or stab people to death may call into question the validity of blaming media exposure for the behavior, but that's not particularly interesting.

Where you similarly concerned with video games that were similarly protraying rogue cops, rogue service members, corrupt intelligence agencies, etc? Or the days when almost EVERY bad guy who wasn't from outer space was almost certain to be Russian?

 

[BiscuitNaBasket]

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas ruined my childhood.

 

[BogWalker]

So books, television, and music have never had any effect on politics? Video games are a form of media like any other. Just a different form.

 

[MisterChester]

Really...? Batman was just a movie, but that didn't stop James Holmes from shooting up a movie theatre as the Joker. Slenderman was just a video game, but that didn't stop two 12 year olds from stabbing a girl to death in honor of "Slenderman". Try to think deeper than just "it's a video game".

There will always be bad apples doing stuff like that in honor of some medium. Blaming the artist for the crimes of people that have seen their work is like blaming gun manufacturers for murders that involved their firearms.

 

[jamil]

Could it be that the game maker is just giving people what they want? What public school indoctrinated teener prick wouldn't want to kill a bunch of "teabaggers"?

 

[ZombieApocolypse]

I blame the simpsons

 

[MisterChester]

Could it be that the game maker is just giving people what they want? What public school indoctrinated teener prick wouldn't want to kill a bunch of "teabaggers"?

Maybe. Would the reaction be any different if it was a group that had a confederate flag instead of the Gadsden flag?

 

[hoosierdoc]

I blame the simpsons

 

[Consciouscitizen18]

Maybe. Would the reaction be any different if it was a group that had a confederate flag instead of the Gadsden flag?

Just seems like it doesn't compare because the Tea Party is a minority and modern political opposition to the Left Wing and the Confederacy isn't really relevant at all at this point in history. And maybe kids won't think anything of it who knows? I will say that children in Germany were the main target of Nazification as they are the most impressionable. Children in America are being made to think a certain way through thinks like, I don't know, Common Core and Liberal Universities, that God does not belong in society or that Unions make life better. Battlefield 4 creator Alan Kertz is also a big time liberal. He does have the Constitutional right to make the video game and the buyers will decide if it's successful or not.

 

[gravitas73]

They've been making video games about killing Muslim terrorists for years I guess they needed a new demographic to vilify.

While I do not blame any video game for any real crimes committed after playing them, I do think you cannot say that a game like this is of no consequence.

If you let kids kill Americans in video games they will think that sometimes it is necessary to kill Americans. That doesn't mean that they will do it, just that when someone else does it, like the government, they will turn a blind eye and ignore it.

 

[Consciouscitizen18]

They've been making video games about killing Muslim terrorists for years I guess they needed a new demographic to vilify.

While I do not blame any video game for any real crimes committed after playing them, I do think you cannot say that a game like this is of no consequence.

If you let kids kill Americans in video games they will think that sometimes it is necessary to kill Americans. That doesn't mean that they will do it, just that when someone else does it, like the government, they will turn a blind eye and ignore it.

I definitely agree, while it might or might not have an agenda, it will desensitize children to the killing of Americans and it would be just as wrong if the video game targeted Democrats as well.

 

[ryknoll3]

Democrats don't think that messaging in video games is useless. During the 2008 elections, the Obama campaign bought ads for dynamic placement in video games.

 

[ModernGunner]

Media has an influence on some and not others. That's pretty well established and it's used daily. Typically, it's called 'advertising'.

And there's a difference between portraying / promoting killing an 'opposing side' that's trying to kill you, and doing so in promotion of killing someone / group that simply disagrees with you. Unfortunately, that's something the liberal mindset has never been able to comprehend, and apparently cannot comprehend.

It's ironic that liberal media like video games, movies, and television readily market and portray bloody violence as 'okay', yet vigorously advocate the banning of firearms for lawful citizens. Hollywood has made a huge barge of money portraying bloody violence in film, yet would deny the average citizen the right even to defend them self.

The hypocrisy is beyond outrageous, but they forbid 'questioning' that hypocrisy. Hence, Diane Feinstein holding a carry permit for years while demanding the 'regular citizen' not be allowed the same right.

Why? Because they, liberal-loons who see themselves as 'elite' and above reproach, believe that who should be 'allowed' to perpetrate violence, and whom it's perpetrated upon, is the sole province of the liberal-loon.

Of course, their 'superior intellect' tells them they're powerless to stop the truly violent 'class' of people in the world. And, as we've noticed, refuse to do virtually anything about the criminal less that same criminal perpetrate that bloody violence upon the liberal-loon. So, they 'pamper' the criminal to the extent possible as being 'misunderstood' and an 'unfortunate' in order to win 'favor and support' from the criminal while appearing 'tough on crime'.

Ya don't think the criminal is gonna vote for any 'hard-core conservative' that's REALLY tough on crime, do ya? Is it any wonder, then, that EVERY major population center, every high crime center is run by liberal-loon democRATS that ALSO propagate the most restrictive gun control and personal rights limitations for the law-abiding citizen?

Hey, afterall, if the criminal is 'allowed' (ignored) to perpetrate their crimes on the 'Average Joe', then the criminals won't be perpetrating those crimes on the liberal-loons, eh? The criminal can't be in two places at once, ya know. Sort of the 'fastest gazelle' theory of crime control.

 

[avboiler11]

We're not reading a bit much into a video game, in which precious little of the actual plot has been divulged (its about a cop framed following a "meth bust gone bad"), based on a few snippets of game play...are we?

Folks, keep your powder dry and your butt un-hurt until something comes along that is truly worthy of it - until then, your poutrage isn't much different than that of leftists.

 

[jamil]

We're not reading a bit much into a video game, in which precious little of the actual plot has been divulged (its about a cop framed following a "meth bust gone bad"), based on a few snippets of game play...are we?

Folks, keep your powder dry and your butt un-hurt until something comes along that is truly worthy of it - until then, your poutrage isn't much different than that of leftists.

yeah, but we can still have fun with it, right?

 

[Vigilant]

I blame the simpsons

Naw, it was Bevis and Butthead's Frog Baseball that led to the decline of the modern civilization!