Mammon-Machine

I wrote Video Game Morality Play because I was sick of games that, much like the news channels that accuses them of causing the violence that they give lavish attention to every minute of the day, wanted to blame players of games for violence. This is not the same as blaming games for violence.

Game: “You pulled the trigger. You are holding the gun.”

You: “You gave me the gun. You ordered me to pull the trigger.”

Don’t hate the player, hate the game. If the game, or your commanding officer, or your country, or whoever asks you to do something and tells you it’s the right thing to do, the only thing to do, and then gets mad at you for doing it, there is a problem. Gitmo and Abu Ghraib do not happen because of a few bad apples. They happen because of a culture that justifies lies about torture in everything from video games to blockbuster films. Or rather, they happen because these lies are believed by the people who make blockbuster games and films. Where does this snake end and where does it begin? I don’t know the answer to the latter, but I’m pretty sure the answer to the former is “when we stop feeding it.”