Terrorism, Games, and Racist Remarks
Posted 2012-11-30 - Archived under: racism, rant, Spelfunderingar, videogames - Reply
Some time ago the Swedish blog Spelfunderingar wrote a comment on the racism of blaiming violence on videogames. I read it then and wanted to comment on it, but never got around to it until now. The post is in Swedish, but I feel it might be interesting to a wider audience. You may of course try to translate it if you wish.
The article does not talk about whether games are bad or not, but instead about the fact that it is an argument, and only in certain situations. We (you might read ‘the media’) often blame video games for violent acts. But this argument is usually only there if the act is performed by white people originating in the western world (as we in the Scandinavian countries are mostly white and in the western world).
In the example Spelfunderingar mentions the terrorist act at Utöya in Norway. The first thing that happened was people started to blaim extremist Muslim organisations, but quite soon it became obvious that the terrorist was white, blue eyed, right-wing and with roots in Norway. This is when the debate turned towards video games. Gratefully people did not buy into that and it died off quite quickly, but it still went there!
Similar things have been seen in many situations (I can think of school shootings in both Finland and USA for example). The thing is, the debate is never there when the terrorist is immigrant or a foreigner! Of course it would be absurd to blaim Al-Quaida on Grand Theft Auto, or Halo for the Bush administration, but when you look at smaller attacks with a few or a single attacker this difference is there. White guys kill because of video games, Muslims kill because they are terrorists.
Somehow this relates to us wanting to understand what is close to us, why someone, kind of like us, do something so horrible; and that is a natural thing to do. But if the tone of your skin is enough for us to switch explanation, then there is something wrong; both with the explanation and with the society around it!
Both me and the original source write with a Swedish viewpoint. Is this the same elsewhere? The world is a big place, this seems to fit for Europe and northern America. But what about the rest? Is there someone who knows?
Pyramids 2 Pancakes
Posted 2011-11-22 - Archived under: design, feminism, gender equality, new economy, organisation, rant, social innovation - Reply
I don’t really have the time right now to write a full post, but this is good and I want to spread it, so here’s a short, and not that well thought through rant: It’s about the new economy, the role of design and the consumer as producer. But, even though she doesn’t really say it directly, it’s also about feminism and the overthrowing of an old system that gave power to the people already in power. Looking at feminism from that perspective turns it into more than gender equality. uit’s about equal power, it’s about ‘we are the 99%’. And yes, I may be putting more words in there than she would admit or agree upon. I’ll just put a quote here, hope you’ll take 15 minutes to watch it, and decide for yourselves :
Josephine Green talks about the change of age from one way of thinking, of being and of doing in the world to another and the challenges in the 21st century. She explores social innovation, the decentralization and distribution of creativity and capacity through the system and stimulates thinking and insights around the future of innovation and design.
If you’re more interested check: Pyramids 2 Pancakes (I haven’t really had the time to read through it myself yet)
On Game Education, and Getting a Job as a Game Developer – thoughts from the Swedish Game Conference
Posted 2011-10-07 - Archived under: computer game industry, conference, design educations, education, game design, industry, rant - Reply
Just returned from Swedish Game Conference in Skövde, a two day event connected to the Game Incubator Network. It’s a incubator for new companies in the game industry (meaning the computer game industry). Mostly aimed at industry, but with some really interesting discussions on connection between industry and academia. The questions revolved around the role of academia and what the industry want. Are you in an education? Are you holding an education or are you a recruiter? I would very much like to hear your side of the story! Reply here, on twitter or facebook if you have something to add! But first, lets summarize the thoughts from the conference:
This is really an old subject, the academic education system doesn’t seem to satisfy the needs of the gaming industry. Very few of the students in game design educations actually ends up working in that industry. it’s not that they are unemployed, but rather they find work in other areas. The reasons fort this are many, some of them mentioned in presentations and panels, by both academia and industry are:
- Economical – the game industry doesn’t pay that well, and when you can get a substantially larger salary in more classic IT-industry this is quite attractive. As mentioned today, people in game industry go onto it for the passion.
- Distrust in academia – A lot of game companies are started as ‘my basement’-companies by people with passion, and even if they are bigger now it may be hard to go from that to value of academic education.
- Knowledge – the Academic educations doesn’t teach the right things.This sees to be especially true when it comes to programming. The industry wants C++ programmers more than anything else, this is usually not the chosen language of programming educations.
- Unspecialized – Many game design educations try to educate game designers with a broad view of games, instead of specialists. There’s a big difference between a programmer and a graphic artist, instead of trying to teach all it’s better to focus on one thing and get really good at that.
These are all good points, but I believe some things has been missed, some thing was simplified, and some things just plain wrong! Let me add my thoughts to the list, and take into account that this is far more of a rant than an actually well researched issue:
- I believe the economical reason above is about a lot more than economy. The passion mentioned is not only about love of games, it’s also about giving up on a lot of other stuff. Looking at working conditions the game industry is actually a quite unattractive working environment. Many companies demand unpayed overtime, scheduling crunch time at periods with work more or less 24h/day for periods. I’m not saying it’s like this everywhere, and from what I’ve seen it’s better now than some years ago. But with this attitude still a part of the industry it’s hard to work if you have other interests outside of your work. A lot of people going into the business leave in a couple of years (I’ve heard an average working time of 6 years for a programmer, but don’t have any sources on that) simply because they value other things: friends, family, a nice vacation.
- The distrust in academia may be deserved. Academia teach people that they know better, and even if that’s true, better is not always the best way. Following the form of the company may be better. From some of the talks I feel there’s also a misunderstanding in what research is. The talked about that they use academic papers, but usually about ten year old papers building upon them and going in other directions. This I see a lot, and i believe there’s nothing wrong with it! This is not about research going in the wrong direction, it’s about research being ahead. The things done in research environment’s isn’t directly applicable on today’s technology, if it was it would be engineering, not research. Research is looking ahead, creating the new, and in ten years from now the same people will find the greatest papers and implement them, probably in a bit different direction.
- And, finally, the knowledge and unspecialization (yes, it’s a word!): There’s a connection. It may be true the industry wants specialists, but academic education is not only for industry, it’s also for the students. A lot of people don’t end up in the game design field, but they do end up in jobs, and often in jobs they like. In these jobs they need more than a specialist education. Also, a large part of gaming industry is small companies, of course the big ones want specialists, but there’s a much bigger chance of becoming a web page or mobile app developer in a company with five employees, and then you really need your broad education! After a four year university education you should not end up a code-monkey, or at least you should not be educated to become one. You should have a bigger understanding, you are by then well educated in researching and solving problems, even if they’re outside of your main field. Even if that’s your way into the industry you should have an understanding that will help you in the bigger picture . And, by that, we’re back on distrust in academia. But maybe it’s not really about distrust, maybe it’s more of a misunderstanding of it’s purpose.
And, as I said before: Add your comments and show your view! I’ll especially like to hear about the passion – work time conflict. Does it still exist? Have you felt it? How do you deal with it? Also I’d like to hear a bit of your views on the importance of extra, out of school, projets during your education!
