Artifact #2 Biased Opinions

Hey everyone, this is my 2nd artifact for what will eventually be my final paper in my Media Comm class. This week I've chosen to look at opinions that are purely based off of personal bias that relate to video games in the media, and what better place to look than Fox News?!

*quick side note: I plan on doing more research on other biased sources, I know there are plenty out there as I've read a lot of them, but for the sake of this post I'm going to focus on this one article.

Description: Fox News recently published an article on a new video game that is to be released soon called Bulletstorm. The game is made by the developers at Epic, the same team who did the popular Gears of War series. The game is a futuristic shooter where you take the responsibility of basically gunning down waves of enemies over and over. The selling point of this game is that that you "kill with style" which boils down to you shooting an enemy in particular spots of their body, or killing them with some sort of environmental object, or killing multiple enemies in a certain way. Doing those gets rewards the player with more points with which they use to upgrade their character. 

I won't go too much into it, but for those interested here's a few links with info on the game:

http://www.bulletstorm.com/ (main page)

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-story-bulletstorm/708537 (short video on story and characters)

*Language warning for both links.

Getting to the actual article, which first of all is labeled, "Is Bulletstorm the Worst Video Game in the World?". This should hint at what themes the article is going to convey. A basic summary of the article boils down to this:

Bulletstorm is an incredibly violent game in which players are rewarded for killing enemies in increasingly violent ways. These "skill shots" are very graphically violent and are named after explicit sexual acts. For example the Skill Shot "Topless" means cutting a player in half while "Gang Bang" is killing multiple enemies at once. Considering children as young as 9 years old play this game, its an abomination.

Then they bring in Dr. Jerry Weichman, a clinical psychologist at the Hoag Neurosciences Institute in Southern California, who says, "“Violent video games like Bulletstorm have the potential to send the message that violence and insults with sexual innuendos are the way to handle disputes and problems,”, and who goes on to explain that sexual scenes and innuendos in video games can be directly attributed to the increase in the counts of rape.

The article goes to offer suggestions on how to save younger audiences from this game, mainly through a law that may be passed in California that penalizes store clerks who sell mature rated games, like Bulletstorm, to minors.

Analysis: As with most of the Fox news articles relating to video games, this one follows a formula. First: They attempt to scare you with their explanation of this new video game that is going to be released and why it's so bad. Bias #1

Second: They will bring in an "expert" or a concerned parent to explain why this game should not be sold ever to anyone. Bias #2

Third: They talk about the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) ratings and how they simply are not working as they should be. Bias #3

Fourth: They offer a solution to violent or suggestive video games being sold. Bias #4

Fifth: They speak on how the video game companies defend their idea. Bias #5

Sixth: Lastly they go over why the companies are wrong for defending their idea, and offer a warning to people who do, or a few quotes from people in the gaming field. Bias #6

You can mix some of those steps around but you get the point, they have generally the same thing to say about any violent or controversial game.

Interpretation: There is a definite pattern to how Fox approaches violent or controversial games and Bulletstorm is no different. By talking about all the violence and sexual themes in the game first, the writer is trying to scare you into being convinced that their opinion is right from the get go, and therefore you will be more inclined to agree with them through the article. It's not until after they explain the violence, sexual themes, and bring in the "expert" who speaks on how violence and sexual themes in games are attributed to increase in rape (don't even get me started on that), that they talk about the video game rating system. They do this, again, so that you are more inclined to be sided with them by the time they get to why and how the gaming companies and community defend themselves. Then pointing out that Epic, the developer of the game, and Microsoft, the maker of the Xbox 360, declined to comment on the matter makes them seem like the bad guys. So purely by use of scare tactics and very little proven factual material, Fox News is able to shove their bias against video games right in people's faces without most of them realizing it.

Evaluation: The ESRB was put into place before I can remember, considering most every game I remember getting had that little letter on the box that said what age group this game was made for. I believe that this system is a valid approach towards marketing games for particular audiences, but clearly Fox News doesn't. They say that children as young as 9 will be playing this game, first of all, how do they know this? They don't cite where they got this information anywhere, but that's besides the point. Considering BulletstormNew's comments towards this game have a negative bias to them. Not once is a nice thing said about the game, by Fox News anyway, and they only speak about the violence and sexual themes in the game.

I'd like to point a few things out: The game has not been released yet so all of what they are reporting on is done from an outsiders standpoint. Which also relates to how they never mentioned that THEY HAD EVER PLAYED THE GAME. How are you supposed to report on something with such bias and knowledge if you have no or very little knowledge it yourself?

Articles with such a strong negative bias such as this really anger and sadden me especially since most of them are about video games. If the media would slow down a second and really get their facts straight they would see that there are numerous things that the video game developers and community are doing to make sure that games are being put in the right hands. The article ends off with two quotes from Hal Levy with the National Youth Rights Association which are clearly meant to be viewed with the negative connotation you developed as you read this article. It starts with Fox saying that those who don't see Bulletstorm as a problem are praising it; which I can see the venom dripping off the lips of the journalist who wrote this article.

Hal Levy says, "One thing that tends to be ignored is that if Bulletstorm consisted solely of beating people up, it wouldn't be fun to play. It's been praised for encouraging innovative thinking. Bulletstorm involves developing new moves and dispatching of enemies creatively. Plenty of emotionally unstable adults will play the game they'll be fine."

Notice too how Levy says that the "adults" who play the game will be fine, he doesn't say children because children are not allowed to buy the game! A quote that makes sense? Who would have thought?!

Again, as with most negative biases of games in the media, the solution can be traced very simply back to the parents of the kids that play these games. If they children cannot buy the games themselves, it is up to the parents to conclude that their child is allowed to play this game, go to the store, and buy it for them. If the parent does not want the child playing the game, then don't buy it for them. Simple! And if the parents don't care enough to notice what it is their kids are actually playing, then there are more serious issues going on.  Most parents need to think of it this way; compare the ESRB rating system to the movie rating system. You wouldn't allow your 9 year old child to go to a rated R movie right? Then in that same mindset a 9 year old child shouldn't be playing a rated M game. Both rated R movies and Mature games are supposed to be viewed/played by people ages 17 and older, and the other rating systems correspond on about every level as well.

In conclusion, news media are heavily biased, the news media primarily view video games with a negative bias, news media need to do more research before they publish a story (or at least let us know they put the time in to research information), and parents should be more aware of their children and what they are doing/watching/playing etc. 

Article Links:

Fox News Bulletstorm Article: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/08/bulletstorm-worst-game-kids/#content

ESRB Rating System: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

MPAA Rating System: http://www.mpaa.org/ratings/what-each-rating-means