[MUD-Dev] Violence

[Matt Mihaly]

> From: Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl>
> In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Thu 25 Oct, Matt Mihaly wrote:
 
>> That was in response to John Buehler's post which seemed to claim
>> that he wanted to reach "mainstream" gamers who aren't interested
>> in violence, which I think is a load of poppy-cock. Obviously
>> almost all current MUDs are dominated by violence and sex. Don't
>> see any reason that would change, which was my point.

> The fact that current games are dominated by violence has no
> bearing at all on what those 5 billion humans want who currently
> do not play games.  Even if you ignore the approximately 4.5
> billion people with no regular access to internat games you will
> find that of the entire population of both Europe and the USA (and
> no, I have not forgotten Japan, Australia or any number of other
> countries), hardly anybody is particularly interested in
> violence. Chat is so much more popular than games that there
> really is no comparison. Games are, by defini- tion, a contest,
> but that does not mean they must be about violence.  There are
> plenty of games that are non-violent contests.  And there are many
> popular activities that are not contests.  In fact, most of our
> activities are quite peaceful :)

*Boggle* Are you kidding me? Do you ever take in any popular
culture? Have you been to the movies that are popular? Have you
watched tv? Have you ever watched the single most popular sporting
event in the US, the Superbowl? Do you know how popular
well-promoted boxing fights are? How about professional wrestling? 
And this is not confined to the west. Hong Kong cinema, for
instance, is ridiculously violence-laden. Brutal muay thai
kickboxing is the national sport of Thailand. Torturing and then
killing bulls is not only a 'sport' in Mexico and Spain, but is
actually defended as cultural artistic expression (I don't
disagree). Hunting is popular in many countries across the
world. Rap music, the most popular in the States these days, is
laden with violence.

The popularity of violence in entertainment is as old as
civilization, and is no less popular today than it was 2000 years
ago. We've just moved from throwing Christians to the lions to
merely depicting it quite convincingly.

--matt

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