Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – After playing a violent video game, young men are more likely to think it’s OK to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol, raising the possibility that exposure to violent media could negatively affect health-related behavior.

Really. Are these people serious? It seems that “researchers” will go to any lengths to demonize video games. And whoa, look at the “evidence” compiled by the study:

1. Playing the violent game boosted young men’s blood pressures…
2. … young men who had played the violent game were less cooperative and more competitive in completing an assigned task with another person …
3. … more likely to have permissive attitudes toward alcohol and marijuana use …

Ok, so playing video games raises your blood pressure. I took a brisk walk to the doctor the other day and that raised my blood pressure. Do we then assume that any activity that raises a person’s blood pressure is evil? Since when did elevated blood pressure have anything at all to do with a person’s intent to behave in a violent manner? A lot of things can raise a person’s blood pressure: watching the evening news, sex, winning the lottery, riding a bike, playing poker, a fatty diet, etc.Perhaps the government should track people who take medication to lower their blood pressure… surely they are a legion of terrorists and murders in waiting.Video games are exciting, like many other things in life. If they weren’t then we wouldn’t play them. Exciting things tend to increase your heart rate, which in turn will raise your blood pressure. I really wish that “researchers” would stop using the body’s natural response to exciting stimulus as some sort of proof that video games are evil.

On to the “less cooperative and more competitive” statement. Again, a lot of things can put a person into this state. Games are by their very nature a competitive event. When doing these studies why don’t researchers do side-by-side tests of other competitive activities such as sprinting, playing golf, bowling, or even playing chess? I would imagine that after such activities we’d see the same results. Video games are doing nothing different than other competitive activities, yet they are painted black because… can we say “political agenda”?

Finally, “permissive attitudes toward alcohol and marijuana use” as a result of playing video games. How on earth did we get here? If this isn’t a clear example of intent to demonize video games by any means, I don’t know what is.

It used to be that music was the culprit, causing kids to smoke pot, drink, and then commit mass suicide. Then it was violent “gangster” movies. Now, somehow, a parent’s worst fear, that their child might do drugs and drink, is being manifested by the latest entertainment bad boy: video games.

It seems all too convenient to me.There is a pattern here. A machine is at work to turn video games into a scapegoat for all of society’s problems. Aren’t there enough real problems in the world already? But then, maybe that’s the point: We live in a time of make believe news and make believe threats. While real atrocities are committed in the real world, politicians and the media focus on fictional issues, hoping that you will be overwhelmed and unconcerned. Which you probably are.

It’s enough to make you want to smoke pot and get drunk.

And so it is, after 10 weeks of hair pulling, floor pacing, and cat rubbing (what? it helps me think!), I am at once and finally finished with writing the first draft of the Oz script. Wrapped in a red ribbon it is sent flying through The Internet to land on the desks of anxious (or so I hope) producers in Hollyweird. Have I succeeded? Will they like it? Are there enough “blow shit up” scenes? Only time will tell…

Already thoughts of a “Red” movie are bouncing in my skull.

Meanwhile, I pack my bags and flee to Thailand! Flee I say!

Expect pictures and stories when I return. Don’t burn the house down while I’m gone!

I keep reading all these articles in various print and online game magazines where writers lament the continued lack of “realistic” AI in current and future game titles. It seems that next-gen consoles favor graphics pipeline over architecture that might help to improve AI. So the bitch-fest will continue. Regardless of hardware setup on this or the next cycle, players will complain because hardware won’t be able to do what human opponents do so well: go outside the box, do intelligently unexpected things, and think semi-strategically. Right?

Ok, so… what if EA (for example) started putting “EA AI!” stickers on some of their games. Tell players that in order for the advanced AI to work it has to connect with some master server to “download new strategies” or whatever (you get normal AI otherwise)… And guess what? This new AI *really* kicks major ass. It acts like a human opponent, does unexpected things, even seems to taunt and convey emotion in its actions. Awesome! People talk about it. Want more of it. EA licenses it to other publishers, whatever…

And the man behind the curtain: 1000s of kids in China sitting at “dungeon master” consoles controlling the game environment, AI states, and other game variables. Once the news gets out of how it works people will probably want even more of it! If nothing else it creates a serious amount of media coverage. “Star” dungeon masters get created. People pay a premium to “go up against the best”, etc, etc.

Yeah, all this has to be built into the games beforehand, but I’d imagine that these hooks would be a lot easier (and cheaper) to implement than actual AI code to match the complexity and variability from the human “AI machines”. We all know that “kids in China” are happy to sit at computers day & night to mine MMOs for money. Why not have them do something useful: provide AI horsepower for our single player games?!