Welcome to State of Play, a new editorial column from Pixelated Geek. In State of Play, we’ll be dealing with major issues in the gaming community, and we’ll be reaching out to our community for feedback and interaction. Our goal with State of Play is to create a respectful, professional, and insightful dialogue within a group of serious interested parties. Games are serious business, not just the largest moving part of the entertainment economy, but a form of expression where emotionally impactful stories are told throughout communities that grow and bond, and they’re an important educational tool. We take games seriously here, and the goal of this article is to seriously analyze the serious business of gaming.
A massive misconception has been spread among the world’s more fortunate countries that we live in an age of violence and brutality. Invariably, our news media and politicians lay the blame for this condition squarely at the feet of popular entertainment media. But the assertion that violence in our media (be it movies, TV, video games, or music) is responsible for the violence in our culture is one of the most tired and intellectually lazy pieces of politically-motivated propaganda present in modern society.