crackerwax

It would appear that the original post on Black Looks has caused a great deal of controversy, with several people posting nasty racist and hateful comments on the site. For what it’s worth the Blog author’s automatic assumption that these people are in any way indicative of gamers at large is misguided and at worse inflammatory.

These people do not speak for me, nor do they speak for anyone I know. However it would be worth pointing out that many of the comments posted against the follow up article are coherent and well written. Some of course are not, welcome to the world of free speech.

As much as I dislike what has been said by both sides of this argument, I still defend the right of Black Looks to post misguided comments about games as much as I would defend another’s right to post their foul worded disagreement. I agree with neither but hold fast in my belief in freedom of speech.

However I would like to point out the fact that the author clearly has a motivation unrelated to gaming and its perceived dangers and is possibly more in tune with the demonisation of people based on race or affiliation. Ironically this is the exact same thing they accuse the creators of Resident Evil 5 of.

To suggest that Resident Evil 5 will cause gamers to attempt to re-enact scenes from the game, presumably by moving to the as yet unspecified country the game is set in and shooting black people, is offensive. I would no more want to shoot someone after playing any ’shooting game’ as much as I would want to ride a motor bike off the edge of a cliff after playing Motor Storm.

To try and suggest that all gamers are borderline psychopaths with deep seated racist tendencies just waiting for the right game to set them off on an orgy of destruction is ludicrous.

I suggest we all wait until 2009 (that’s right, it’s not even out until 2009) before we make our judgements on how racist this game is.

Oh, and in true Columbo fashion, just one more thing. These games are not for children, who exactly said they were?