Representatives from /gamer and Common Sense Media debated Modern Warfare 2‘s controversial terrorist mission on Fox & Friends this morning, with what has unfortunately become the typical result.
This morning on the talk show Fox & Friends, the hosts discussed Modern Warfare 2 with Jon Christensen from /gamer and Jim Steyer, Founder of Common Sense Media, an advocacy group for family-safe media. The tag from Fox before the commercial was, “Modern Warfare 2, a game that lets you play as a terrorist. Is the game going too far? We’re going to have a fair and balanced debate to find out.” The discourse predictably leaned toward inflammatory statements regarding violence and videogames.
Steyer started off by claiming that his personal opinion is unquestionable evidence by saying, “There’s no doubt there’s a link between violent video games and kids.” Apparently, Steyer has not seen any studies or scholarly assessments which refute the link between violence and videogames.
The hosts then attempted to draw the gamer representative, Christensen, into a trap regarding the mission where you play as a terrorist. The gambit worked. “You’re not actually a terrorist. You’re a CIA undercover agent,” he starts off explaining before unfortunately getting lost in the details. “You are infiltrating a terrorist organization and the game specifically says, when you go into, uh when you work with this terrorist organization. You are um… [pause] You are a a a uh a a a CIA operative. [laughs] I’m sorry,” he apologized. Couldn’t the gaming community have gotten a more verbose spokesperson? *Raises hand*
The segment ends with a stern reminder that parents must be responsible when purchasing games for their children. This, at least, is something that I can get behind. The only way a small kid could play an adult game is if a parent were to purchase it and leave it around the house. The same is true of pornography, but you don’t hear about Fox News clamoring for the ban of all porno, do you?
In fact, they’re using it to attract viewers.
Update: Added YouTube video of the segment. It is just as awkward as you thought.
Source: Kotaku
Published: Nov 12, 2009 09:18 pm