Massively^™

I'm going to hijack my own column this week to cover a topic that I believe is worth spending some space on - Age of Conan and the buzz of negative media attention it has been getting. Age of Conan's controversy spans almost all aspects of the game, from fatalities, to nudity, to even such odd things like race selection.

Now, I've written a few of these articles. I enjoy controversy as the next person and I'm always interested in seeing the opposite viewpoint. It wasn't until I started getting some very, very nice hate mail in my inbox that I began to wonder if anyone understood my own viewpoint on the matter. So, this column is dedicated to other people's opinions, my opinions, controversies and, of course, Age of Conan.

'Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent', wrote Isaac Asimov, and to a certain extent, that's true. But in an industry that caters to these primal impulses -- and thriving off of them, as well -- is there room for the non-violent path? Certainly, the violent response is more fun than talking it out, at least in an urge overkill kind of way, but surely that's just a matter of implementation.

If we truly want to simulate any sort of real-life experience in our games, the full range of social interactions ought to have a place, including politics. And it's one thing to try to reason with an AI, but if you can create a lasting peace with another human player, you have something to be proud of. But is it necessary, or would diplomacy in a combat-oriented game merely detract from the experience?

Middlesex University has released their finding on a study conducted to explore the effects of game violence on players. At the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference in Dublin, the study claims that playing WoW actually helps players relax, rather than fuels anger or violent tendencies.

"There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger but this did very much depend on personality type," said researcher Jane Barnett, though the referring article does not elucidate what those types might be. However, with a sample size of 292 World of Warcraft players between the ages of 12 and 83, out of the millions of subscribers the game can boast, this would hardly seem to be a properly-evaluated submission. But it's little steps like these that help abolish long-held assumptions and biases, so we're all for it. Science, FTW!

Russian news outlet Russia Today is reporting that a clash between two Russian clans bled into the real world, and led to the brutal beating and murder of a young man from Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia. The two clans, Coo-clocks and Platanium, were reportedly engaged in a bitter in-game struggle that developed to the point where the two groups agreed to go toe-to-toe. The victim's sister was quoted as saying, "I think they have confused the game and reality. And after we buried him on December 31, they continued to threaten us"

It's not clear from Russia Today's account exactly what game the two groups were playing, though they did include a Lineage 2 screenshot. Regardless, it seems clear from the details we have that any link between the violent acts and the games that the two groups were playing is circumstantial at best. That the two groups agreed ahead of time to engage in a fight away from the game speaks to their character. Game or no, these young men were bound to get themselves into trouble. It's unfortunate that their conflict led to the death of a young man, but blame in this case doesn't have anywhere to go but to the participants.

[Via PCWorld]

Filefront's Gaming Today is reporting on a story that recently appeared on Madison, Wisconsin's WISC-TV. It looks as though video games are once again bearing the brunt of society's ills. This time state Senator Jon Erpenbach wants to add an extra sales tax to electronics and video games. Why? You wouldn't guess the answer even if I gave you 1,000 tries and a page full of hints.

Senator Erpenbach thinks the money raised from such a [absurd] tax will help cover costs to move some 30,000 (you read that right) 17-year-olds, who are currently treated as adults when convicted of non-violent crimes, back into the juvenile system. Excuse me? Why are video games being targeted for this exactly? Erpenbach says the tax isn't to dissuade gamers though. His reasoning? "The idea being that this is kind of a kids-kids thing, in other words, if we're going to do this for kids maybe this would be a good way to go about it."

And this guy is state Senator? I'm getting increasingly angry at what amounts to blind shots in the dark aimed at the video game industry. I hope you are too. Sooner or later we're going to have to fight back against the stupidity running rampant through this country as people try to lay blame on someone or something other than themselves. For the whole illogical blow by blow, check out the entire report on Gaming Today.

According to the Beijing News, a teenager was recently hospitalized by another, who set him on fire with gasoline, claiming later to have 'transformed into a Fire Mage' a la World of Warcraft. The author of the referring article has it right: had this occurred in America, Blizzard would have been sued by the victim's parents. Apparently the legal mechanisms for doing this are not (yet) in place in China, so this did not occur.

This is an old, old topic, but since it's come up, I'll throw my 2 cp in. I've always thought it odd that whenever something like this occurs (which is all too frequently), parents and the media are so quick to demonize videogames, yet this behavior has been around since the dawn of mankind itself. Violence in movies is so much more pervasive and visceral than anything you could possibly see in a game, yet movie scenes are very rarely cited as the source of antisocial behavior.