10 more things that we can blame videogaming for

Any tabloid writers reading? Looking for more things you can pin on videogaming? We’ve got some suggestions for you…

By Simon Brew | November 25, 2009 | | 0

It seems that we’re in the silly season for pinning the blame on videogames at the moment. The latest is that videogames depict scenes that show war crimes, which I’ve had a rant about here. But if we’re looking to make games the scapegoats for everything in the world, then how about some ideas such as these?1. Dogshit in public spaces

Games such as Tony Hawk’s have you skating around wonderfully kept parks and open spaces and the kids of today now think that happens just BY magic. As such, Tony Hawk’s is teaching them to have no respect, to callously ride around having fun without stopping to think about cleaning up said spaces for everyone else. Such diligent care for the environment was, no doubt, a top priority for the generation who run the tabloid press, seeing as they keep banging on at us about it. And at no point in the Tony Hawk’s games is the player encouraged to deal with their basic civil responsibilities. The shits.

Suggested emotive tabloid headline: ‘Videogames make the world smell’

2. Global warming Have you ever seen how many explosions there are in videogames? This is clearly teaching our youngsters to burn things, and in turn, make the world hot. Which is how they like it, as a result. Why won’t irresponsible game developers include levels in their games where people are encouraged to turn down the heating in their homes? Games treat such important matters in such a blasé fashion, and that’s where the kids get it from. It’s nothing to do with the excesses of humankind pumping bilge into the atmosphere for decades. According to a major new study from Skegness Polytechnic, it’s The Sims that are to blame. A research team has thus far spent seven months playing the game non-stop, and not once has it found the slightest evidence of the thermostat being twiddled. We should be grateful for these brave researchers for finding out such crucial information. Give them all bonuses. They are heroes.

Suggested emotive tabloid headline: ‘Global Pwning’

3. George W Bush Him! Bush Junior! Too much time on the old Nintendo as a nipper, that one. And because games taught him that he was good in charge of things, given that he managed to get to level three of Super Mario Bros without the cheat mode on, he figured he could make a good fist of running the world too. Nintendo: George Bush is all your fault.

Suggested emotive tabloid headline: ‘Super Mario Fucks Up The World For Absolutely Everybody’

4. The Jonas Brothers Ever since games started coming shipped with microphones, we knew something like this would happen.

Suggested emotive tabloid headline: ‘Videogames cause worldwide concurrent gouging out of eardrums’

5. Child labour in third world countries Clearly the only place that large organisations in the world could have got the idea of outsourcing labour to the poorest parts of the world so that they can pay people a pittance and make huge profits is from computer games. We blame those resource management games that teach you that it’s profit at all costs. Who remembers Theme Park and the original Sim City? The seeds to our downfall are to be found right there, friends. Buying in soft drinks and selling them at big margins? Allowing parts of cities to fall into disrepair to save costs? Evil videogames are to blame. It’s obvious.

Suggested emotive tabloid headline: ‘Evil games leave millions penniless’

6. Swine flu

Think about it. How well have pigs been treated in the world of videogames? Remember Psycho Pigs UXB in the 80s, which featured the porkers going and basically blowing themselves up? And what about Hogs Of War? Here’s a quote from the press release of that game: “Let us not romanticise these battles though brave hogs. There will be slaughter and butchery. Your job will be to bring victory to your chosen nation, to save your own bacon and make a meal of your enemies. With victory comes great reward. So great in fact that your brave boars will be as happy as pigs in… well, you get the idea. With any luck, we’ll all be home in time for Christmas.”

Admit it, you’d have been tempted to invent a disease and infect all of humanity, too.

Suggested emotive tabloid headline: ‘Now videogames are wiping out mankind’

7. Brett Ratner directing X-Men 3 If Bryan Singer hadn’t got stuck on the last level of Halo, then the world could have been a very different place. That’s all we’re saying.

Suggested emotive tabloid headline: ‘The hidden damage that Xbox 360 has done to our world’

8. The failure of the TV show Dollhouse Because of the way that videogames depict women in such a degrading way (leaving aside the cast of Metroid, Resident Evil, Street Fighter… oh, you write the list), the executives at Fox figured that what the kids want these days is for women to basically dress up in skimpy outfits and spend half of their time as pseudo-prostitutes. Fox, thus, promptly sent a memo to Joss Whedon demanding that all the subtlety and innovative ideas of Dollhouse be stripped out, in exchange for sending Eliza Dushku to a hookers’ fancy dress party for half of the first series. The rest, friends, is history. And all, clearly, your fault.

Suggested emotive tabloid headline: ‘Dumbed down TV linked to videogame addiction *’* See also: all the latest on The X-Factor and Big Brother on pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 12, 13, 19

9. The credit crunch They wanted 55-fecking-quid for Modern Warfare 2. No wonder we’re all broke.

Suggested emotive tabloid headline: ‘New wave in street crime linked to rise in game costs’

10. The rise in fuel costs It’s alright all you gamers being happy clappy when a big new release comes along. There you all stand in the queue at a midnight opening, no doubt with some photographer from a tabloid looking to take a few photos to use in a right and proper context. But what happens when you all get your copy of Modern Warfare 2? You bastards. You all go home and play it, don’t you? Using up electricity without a care in the bloody world? Haven’t you got any bikes you can play on instead? Don’t you think of anyone other than yourself? Don’t you know that you’re diverting fuel resources away from I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here? Look at you. You just don’t care, do you?