<shrugs>
There probably is a decent issue to be made of the way games are rated and sold, not to mention parental responsibility... but they aren't the stuff of interesting headlines.
Equally of course there are serious issues with violent crime (which ironically the drug dealer setting highlights quite nicely) which people worry about, but again, there are more sensationalist headlines to be had from moral panic than addressing issues.
I do suspect that the "Kill Haitians" thing lacked a bit of taste, class and sense on being included. But then, I have a few old-fashioned notions in me too.
If the issue is just with saying "Kill the Haitians!" rather than with the actual killing, then I fully agree that the dialog should be changed to "I say, old fellow, I'm having an intractable disagreement with those Haitian coves. What say we give them a taste of our Brit- American spunk?"- Metus amatores matrum compescit, non clementia.[ Parent ]
You might be a bit overly-sensitive, eh?
I don't care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. --W.S. Burroughs[ Parent ]
As for "sense" well... I think that they may think all the brouhaha is simply positive publicity. I think that by making a statement that look racist they make it harder for themselves. I look at the statement and imagine a different minority instead of Haitians (a minority I belong to sort of, for instance) and it's hard not to be sensitive about it. Thus it does seem to be a hostage to a certain kind of campaign. I think that may get in the way of the profits at some points. The game's content would have ensured it plenty of sensational publicity anyway...
<shrugs> marketing is not an exact science, this is a hunch that they overegged the pudding, that's all...[ Parent ]
But not if the victim's being Haitian is appealed to as motive and/or justification for killing them. Which is the point.
It's one thing to kill a specific Haitian guy because he flirted with your girlfriend. It is another to kill random Haitians because they are immigrants perceived to be in general criminals, and whose victimization is widely tolerated by USian institutions and culture.
And before you say "it's a game, no actual Haitians have been physically harmed", my complaint is that the game feeds off the cultural environment that tolerates such victimization. The game creators did not create this cultural environment, but they are exploiting it to their advantage. Which I think is inmoral.
--em[ Parent ]
I think Haitians are a special case.
You could have toyed with me a bit longer. The adrenaline would've marinated my flesh.
And all of this is independent of any fact about you personally.
That said, yes, I know that we're all capable of senseless violence.
I wouldn't proffer a single incident to *prove* my point, but I saw enough really incredulous acts of violence to convince me that the general populace needs some serious therapy.
I chalk it up to cultural differences.
I think it deserves that classification simply on the merits of that fact.
Desperate times make desperate men.
Here's the deal:
There are a handful of people living there, who could buy you and I several times over. I'm talking filthy rich.
They didn't even have the decency to earn their millions by being good Capitalists, they did it by being corrupt Mo-Fo's.
I'm talking about squeezing every last fucking nickel of graft, that was there to be had.
I'm probably the last guy around here to advocate State Socialism, but if any place on the planet needs it, it's Haiti.
That entire island really chaps my ass.
Except that the taboos about sex and authority that rock n' roll stepped on are ones that are more sensible to defy than taboos on violence that video games step on. "Fornication is fun" is much more of a healthy idea than "violence is fun".
