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Ah ha, I see…It´s time for yet another “Let´s attack Gamers and violent video games” piece. Well, sadly enough, that´s the case (yet again). As Cracked and Josh Sargent (Senior editor at Cracked) just dropped a video called “5 Ways Gamers Are Holding Back The Games They Love” on Youtube earlier today, and right off the bat I have to admit that I´ve never heard of Cracked before. So when I clicked the video, I wasn´t quite sure what I should expect (I´ve been told that Cracked has attacked Gamers and Gaming in the past. I had no idea about that though) Well, done and said. So I´m going to walk you through each part of the video and give you my thoughts on Cracked´s video.

5 things gamers must admit to themselves

I (and other Gamers) don´t have to admit anything. As we buy and enjoy the games that we want to, and if Cracked don´t like that, then too bad for them.

top five selling game is about killing people

It´s simple. People buy the games that they enjoy the most, and action and contact sport games just happen to be what people enjoy. As it´s all about having fun and getting some entertainment kicks.

Before I do that though, I would like to point out that I have no beef with Cracked nor Josh Sargent (as in “I have not had any fights or disputes with them in the past”). In other words, I will not take a swing at them. Nope, I will simply give an honest opinion on their video. So here we go!

“The level of violence is smearing banana paste on your chest and calling yourself the king of France insane”

The first thing which I noticed with the video was that it´s very agenda driven (it´s almost like Anita Sarkeesian had made the video…), and it´s full of cherry picking moments (not to mention that the whole video feels like on big “rageclick” production). Simply put, the video just states a lot of things but there are zero to null facts nor evidence to back any of it up.

Here´s a free pro-tip for the Cracked crew. It´s not a good idea to use Jonathan McIntosh as a reference when it comes to anti-video game violence. Because his even worse than Jack Thompson (McIntosh literally spends all his time attacking violent video games).

people got angry at josh for his statement about violent games

Gee, jolly gosh. I wonder why all those people got so mad at Jonathan McIntosh? *deep sarcasm*.

I mean, just take the fact that Cracked presented the whole video with the narrative “video game violence is bad, and it must be stopped!“…Well, I don´t know about you, but isn´t it much better if people kill each other in games, than having people kill each other for real? Furthermore, main-stream media and sites like Cracked love to try to connect school shootings, violent crimes and whatnot to violent video games (it´s been done plenty of times in the past). However, that link has been proven to be wrong time after time again. My point would be that if you really wanted to kill someone, then you will do it no matter if you play games or not. So even if the whole world banned violent video games all together, there would still be violent crimes (I bet that crimes of that kind would rise even, due to the fact that people won´t be able to take out their stress in the world of games anymore. Well, at least not as much as they used to).

“The anger thing probably isn´t a coincidence”

Then we got the anger part, and I actually laughed so hard at that particular part. Because Gamers are very competitive people, as we hate to lose. I mean, Gamers are basically programmed to win, and we tend to be very protective of our hobby since it´s been under attack since the dawn of Gaming. Even so, Cracked still wonder why Gamers get angry when see tons of articles in the likes of Gamasutra´s “Gamers’ don’t have to be your audience. Gamers’ are over” article, or Cracked´s own “5 Ways Gamers are holding back the games they love” video. Hell, “some” people still don´t get or understand why #GamerGate got born (that part is still a mystery to me, as it´s quite obvious that Gamers are fed up with lies, corruption, censorship, political correctness and opinion policing).

Cracked and Josh Sargent made a mistake when they brought Arthur Chu on the matter of “anger”, because Chu is well-known for his anger-management problems (oh the irony).

In all fairness, most of those movies contain violence on one level or another. So I can´t say that it was a good idea for Cracked to use them in-order to prove their point (top-selling non violent movies Vs top-selling violent video games).

I would also like to point out that Cracked lied when they said that #GamerGate = A harassment campaign, because the harassment part has already been proven to be false several times over in the past. As for the “Gamers are angry most of the time” part. It´s like I stated earlier, we are very competitive and protective of our hobby as it´s constantly under attack (and so are Gamers).

“We don´t actually care about story”

This part isn´t true at all, because it´s a matter of taste and what kind of games that you chose to pick up and play. Sure, John Carmack once said “Story in a game is like story in a porn movie… Its not that important …” (quoted in David Kushner, Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture Chapter 8, p. 120.). However, Carmack dropped that statement on the matter of Doom and FPS games in general. So I can agree with Carmack on that, but I still see a good story in FPS games as a huge plus.

It´s always easy to state a lot of things, but it means nothing if you can´t back it up with facts and evidence.

Nevertheless, I would not agree with Carmack if he thought the same about other game genres (which I highly doubt that he does, as he loves RPG games like D&D). For example, games such as “To The Moon”, “Planescape Torment”, “Alan Wake”, “Chrono Trigger” and Grim Fandango (to name a few) would be really bad without a good story and interesting dialogs (there are plenty of story rich games to be found on Steam).

The Fallout universe has never EVER been about just violence (dialogs, exploring, dark humor, building, character development, trading gear, colorful characters and an interesting story is what makes Fallout to Fallout).

Yes, the Mass Effect 3 ending wasn´t exactly the best of endings…

So I do not agree with Cracked on this subject either, because I have actually felt the right opposite to their “We don´t actually care about story” claim. As it seems as Gamers want better, deeper and more well written stories in their games.

“We don´t actually care if games are art or not”

I highly doubt that most Gamers are spending their time trying to prove that the game (s) which they are currently playing are art. So it´s more a matter of “Oh how nice! This game is like a beautiful art piece, sweet!”, then it is “Oh darn…This game is very fun to play, but it´s not art at all…Well, I guess that I have to stop playing this game right away”. In other words, it´s just a pleasant bonus if the game (s) in question are art (I find “Okami” to be a very art-like game, and I like that feature a whole lot. However, it the actual gameplay that got me hooked to the game. Nevertheless, it´s the combo of the two that makes the game great).

Video game violence has existed for as long as games and Gaming have existed. However, it´s much more real nowadays, and it comes in many different shapes and types. For example, there exists violence in Minecraft and The Sims, but it´s more of the cartoony kind.

“Video games are not relaxing”

*Deep sigh* This has to be THE most stupid thing that Cracked stated in their video…In the matter of fact, do you want to hear a true story? I actually made it through high school and college thanks to Nathan McCree´s music score for Tomb Raider 1-3. Why? Because the music was so relaxing to listen to that I could study much easier and get better grades (I still remember that one time when I told McCree about it on Twitter). Furthermore, there are plenty of relaxing games on the market (just the PC market alone has a lot to offer on that front).

There are plenty of games that are relaxing (Stardew Valley, Abzu, Cave Story, Proteus, The Witness or The Journey, to name a few).

Personally, I get my relaxation kicks from a lot of different games and genres. For example, Project Brutality and Brutal Doom 64 kills my stress with ease, while games such as “Sam and Max”, “The Journey” and “Simon the sorcerer” brings me both laughter and relaxation. Sure, there does indeed exist games that will raise your stress levels quite a bit (games like that have always existed though, like “Constructor“, for example). However, it´s up to each and everyone to make up his or her mind if that´s the kind of game that you would like to play at the moment (that´s why I let Mr. Simon review “Overcooked” instead of me, as I already got more than enough stress in my life as it is).

So, all in all, I have to say that Cracked fumbled a lot with the ball in their video. As they failed to nail down any of their own statements and arguments (the lack of facts and evidence is most likely the reason why Cracked´s video got so many dislikes on Youtube). I also love the part when Josh Sargent said “I don´t want to be called a Gamer, because Gamer = Dick“(or something very similar). I mean, come on…It´s like I would say something stupid like “I love NHL and Chicago Blackhawks, but I don´t like when people call me a hockey fan, because hockey fans = riot starters”.

My point would be that Cracked seems to love to cherry pick and generalize Gaming and Gamers a whole lot. In all honesty, the video felt like a Anita Sarkeesian and Jonathan McIntosh production (I´m just surprised that they didn´t toss in some white guilt and sexism into the mix as well).

And with that said, what´s your take on this matter? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!

Sources and resources:
Arthur Chu made threats against #GGinDC?
What does Feminist Frequency want?
Cracked
A take on the regressive journalists and their constant attack on Gaming and Gamers
Why do social justice warriors, and feminists, bother about games they don’t intend to buy? An analysis
Jonathan Blow and a handful of journalists blames the Orlando mass shooting on violent video games
Germany´s minister of interior blames violent video games for the Munich attack?
Green Day states that they are worried about violent video games?
Violence in video games? This tired old argument