According to a new study by the University of Michigan violent media such as video games and movies, can have a detrimental effect on people of all ages. The study reviews more than 50 years of research on the exposure to violence in television, movies, video games and the Internet.
Although they haven’t been around that long, video games are one of the biggest concerns of the study because most of them contain violence of some sort. “Children are spending an increasingly large amount of time playing video games, most of which contain violence. Video game units are now present in 83 percent of homes with children,” said L. Rowell Huesmann, senior research scientist at the U-M Institute for Social Research.
Huesmann went as far as to say that the effect of violent games, movies and TV shows is second only to the negative effects of smoking cigarettes: “Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well-known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer,”
“Our lives are saturated by the mass media, and for better or worse, violent media are having a particularly detrimental effect on the well-being of children. As with many other public health threats, not every child who is exposed to this threat will acquire the affliction of violent behavior. But that does not diminish the need to address the threat — as a society and as parents by trying to control children’s exposure to violent media to the extent that we can.”
All I can say is: I hope Jack Thompson doesn’t hear about this!
January 9th, 2008
Posted by
Spooky |
News |
no comments
Richard Garriott, the man behind the sci-fi MMORPG Tabula Rasa, said that inviting a high number of beta testers when the game was still very unpolished, really hurt their creation in the end.
Speaking about the game’s marketing, Garriott actually said: “I actually think the biggest mistake was made not by the marketing department, but by the development team. We invited too many people into the beta when the game was still too broken.”
The producers went as far as to say that, in the end, they had to contact those beta testers and inform them Tabula Rasa is not broken anymore, and that they should come back and try it: “We’ve had to go out and develop free programs to invite those people back for free before they go buy it. So the beta process, which we used to think of as a QA process, is really a marketing process”
Personally I haven’t tried Tabula Rasa yet, but I hear it’s a pretty decent MMORPG, after all Garriott knows what he’s doing, he’s not exactly new to the game.
January 9th, 2008
Posted by
Spooky |
MMORPG, News, PC |
no comments
Although sales figures haven’t yet been revealed by MTV officials, it seems their rhythm based games is virtually flying off the shelves.
“It’s fantastic. Downloads are going great, Rockband.com is going great with people logging on and downloading stuff from there. It’s got a lot of legs, we’re in it for the long term.” said Mika Saimi, head of digital at MTV.
MTV Networks CEO, Judy McGrath also said Harmonix Studios have already began work on another music-themed video game for MTV.
January 9th, 2008
Posted by
Spooky |
News, Simulators |
no comments
Although it did not want to comment on the recent internet speculations regarding a specific date, Google has announced that it is indeed working on ways to advertise in video-games.
“We think this rich environment is a perfect medium to deliver relevant, targeted advertising that ultimately benefits the user, the video game publisher and the advertiser,” the internet colossus said in a written response to an AFP query.
Google has started to expand in various business areas in recent years, investing in newspapers, radio, smartphones and now video-games. It bought in-game advertising firm, AdScape for $23 million in February this year.
The internet giant has declared it is now testing the best-approach for video-games advertising, a move that will surely prove profitable, as many popular brands will jump at the opportunity to get their name and logo on a billboard in a shooter or in a racing game.
More money for Google, they’re going to buy the world eventually you know…(sigh).
January 9th, 2008
Posted by
Spooky |
News |
no comments
At a recent financial briefing, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated the Japanese manufacturer will not launch a new gaming system until the market demands it.
“As we continue our research and study for new hardware, when we will be able to launch a new kind of hardware will actually depend on when we can change entertainment completely, and so have a strong impact on people around the world. There will certainly be a time when we have to say that we have done everything possible with the current machine, that we can never propose anything new. We long for a new weapon whenever we cry that we cannot fight anymore with the current weapons. But today’s situation is such that we are not desperate for any new weapons at all.:
“Also, since Nintendo’s hardware engineers and software creators are always communicating closely, only when both teams agree that it is time to challenge the market with new hardware that we will launch it. So, it is not a correct observation that we are having any trouble deciding on the launch timing of the next hardware.”
He went on to deny rumblings that new ideas for DS were running low. “We are not suffering from the shortage of new ideas for DS. I heard that some of the attendees to our October 10th conference were expecting to hear about a new portable machine announcement, but we never had that kind of notion in the first place,”
January 9th, 2008
Posted by
Spooky |
News |
one comment
