So this is based on something I read about a few weeks back, but apparently there was a dog fighting game in App form for those cell phone things, that got dropped from the stores (well duh). But of course, it raises a bunch of questions about what is appropriate and what is free speech.
Here’s the rub. I grew up with the Pokemans and never thought twice about capturing my Abra and forcing it to fight other little creatures for fun and profit. Should I try that in the real world, I’d be arrested and become a finalist for the cover of the next Madden game. Then a game that comes out, (essentially Pokemon, but with dogs) and is shunned for its audacity and crass. So it makes me wonder… just where is the line? Is adding a few antenna to your favorite animals and/or giving it a cutesy name enough to justify itself as acceptable for children? Does giving them powers and magic abilities remove them enough from reality that it becomes ok?
I don’t know! I can’t seem to answer that. All I know is the game with dogs fighting just feels wrong (and, obviously doing it in real life is just messed up), but the cartoonishness of the Pokemans is innocent feeling enough to be ok. Why is this? Is it just because we grew up with that? Or are they really just two different things? Or heck, is it just a cultural thing that we (U.S.) aren’t used to? And why are these questions not in poll form?
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Pixels aren’t real. I don’t know much, read: anything, about the game. If it is just a dolled up dice roll, I don’t see the point. If some strategy is involved and people enjoy the combat system then it could develop some fans who probably like it for more than its title.
This becomes a funnier question when you look at human interest type things.
Is hurting animals ok? No. One game and people freak.
Is hurting people ok? No. Yet we have piles of games that generally involve the wholesale slaughter of other humans.
In the movies, debri falls from the sky: a human running in terror is crushed by a falling billboard and the audience accepts it. A piece of masonry falls onto a dog, and the audience reacts with cries of sorrow.
Our culture is so very skewed.
Don’t like a game, don’t play it. Don’t let your kids play it either.
Sidenote: the power of friendship made it totally ok to pit pokémon against eachother. So long as you loved it, you were fine.
I think you hit the nail on the head though… “don’t let your kids play it either” pretty much sums up the best way to deal with games like that.
Heh, you do make an interesting point there with the human getting hurt vs the animal… you’d think the ideal would give the same reaction for both… hmm… what’s that say about us then?
Sidenote: that and nobody ever got really hurt… they’d just faint and go back into the pokeball to get healed; good as new! I wonder what kind of effect it would have if your pokemon actually became injured or died, unable to be revived. would that change how the game is received by children and adults?
How often has humanity gone on a genocide against household pets?
How often has humanity gone to war and killed eachother?
Considering most of our recorded history consists of war, power struggle, assassinations, murders, genocides, and many technological advances to do what we’ve been doing, but bigger and more efficient it probably isn’t much of a surprise that we don’t react as much to the deaths of our own.
Does telling someone who is supposed to be a good friend that part of the deal is that he must put himself in harms way; but it’s fine because he’ll heal up fine.
When you look at it, the show preaches friendship and loyalty.
When you put your critical specs on, whose loyalty? How do these creatures benefit? Is this frienship one sided? Self betterment is a fine aspiration, but is battle prowess the only outlet?
If death was brought into the equation, it would no longer be a children’s show. The human experience and how we deal with death is a very complex concept that sevenish year olds might not be able to handle yet. They would have a rough life to start pondering its end. This is more or less the point of goldfish and hamsters: an introduction to basic empathy of another soul’s needs and when there is nothing there but a body.
*sigh* Niv, your cynicism is showing again.
Where?!
Everywhere.
Funny that you, Coffin, bring up a topic like this on the very same day I feel even more like a cynical barstud than normal.
hmm… do roaches count as a household pet anywhere? XD
so, am I to understand you won’t go fight to the death so I can get a gym badge? lol! yeah, it does seem a bit off. Like, they spend all their time inside a ball thing and the only time they see the light is when they’re in mortal danger. Seems odd.
Or at least a good 80s childrens show! heh, some of that early stuff was dark. especially the movies. sigh… poor poor goldfish. why did they have to give those out at carnivals?
mwahahahha! it’s what I do! >)
Weird, I swear I tried to reply to my first, oh well.
That is the super fun thing about kids: any overt or subtle meanings go right over their heads. *whoosh*
Those old cartoons are so violent, and some today too. They and older Disney was SO rasict as well. You know that black man on some Elmer fudd thing? And the Indians in Peter Pan? They didn’t even look like humans.
Other,
I was farely sure that Pokemons were fighting till they faint until I heard that in one episode of the cartoon (blame it, blame I say!) one poke almost crushed the other to death (A pincer thing against oh I dunno, a cocoon or sth). Now that was the borderline. Death and serious injuries are NOT OK as they are too easily translated into real lives. I mean, I doubt someone will actually stab another guy just for fun or (oh for..) because he ‘thought he has another life’, but the fact is such images increase one’s suffering/death tolerance. Again, not ok.
The ‘cultural’ option in your poll does not hold water - the fact that e.g bulls are slaughtered in a corrida due to tradition does in no way mean it’s all right to do so. Fight a bear barehanded (kinda makes sense) if you’re into such entertainment!
/rant :] Have a nice day
G-damn it! FAIRLY! It was to be FAIRLY! (.net oh what your are doing with me these days..)
oh jeeze… I remember that episode now! is that bad?
I mention cultural as a means to describe people who have see no issue in animals fighting one another. This can be in another country or even within one of our own. The thing about culture, is that we can’t relate to everything in it. It’s a separate view; a way things have always been done… That’s not to say we would see it as wrong, and maybe we’re right, but they wouldn’t see it that way, it would be just fine and normal. So I could see some instances where it’s viewed as ok in another country (*cough* bull fighting *cough*) but really it’s just abuse (to me anyways).
I congratulate you on your faith in humanity that people won’t stab each other for fun. Sure wish I could believe it.
Primero enero
Segundo frebrero
Tres de marzo
Quatro abril
Cinco de mayo
Seis de junio
Siete de julio
SAN FERMÍN!
Running of the bulls festival tune. It is now stuck in my head.
yeah, the reply button works like 50/50 sometimes… or it just eats your posts, er, mine anyways. sigh…
And don’t even get me started on how incredibly racist those early disney/looney tunes cartoons were. it’s amazing (horrifying?) how bad they were with it.
well, we should probably frame his statement with “no sane person would stab another person just for fun”.
me and my little brother ( well, little…, he is 16 but you get what i mean), have been disscussing and making comments and jokes on how pokemon, ( oh, i remember when i liked pokemon and i was none of the few guys at primary school without a gameboy and only two card decks, lol), where enslaved and forced to fight each other untill one got knocked out, yet, when ash spoke to them, they considered him a friend ( i bet spartacus hugged cesar the same way pokemon hugged their trainers), and now i realize that, despite not having blood or deaths, pokemon isnt good for children due to it showing some alien things beating each other just for entretainment, and we arent better than the spectators of the coliseum for playing mortal combat or watching final destination, even if the characters are actors and pixels.
by the way, why do you say that the indians in peter pan are a racist thing to introduce in a film? sure, they were stereotypes but that film always made smile when i was five. im actually more concerned on how peter pan is all happy and cheery yet he cuts a man´s hand and feeds it vto a crocodile just for fun.
on a side note, i dont care about sharks, elephants, whales, or any other wild animal that cant be truly befriended or exploited, BUT IF ANYONE LAYS A FINGER ON A CANINE ( or a hyena, naturalists and biologists keep saying they arent canines, but they look like dogs and thats good enough for me), THEY WILL HAVE TO MESS WITH ME!!!!
heh, man, them toons were dark I tells ya!
and my trigger is turtles… nobody better mess with my little green buddies!
I say that because they don’t really look like people. Considering the attention to detail given to the features of the children and pretty most of the white characters and juxtaposing them to the barbarically acting redskins, it certainly was not intended to cast a good light on them or their culture. It was done in the fifties, don’t be surprised; Africans Americans weren’t considered truly people with equal rights until a decade later, and weren’t treated so by the populace until another decade or so after; even today you will find people that assert they aren’t human.
They may look and hunt similar to canines, they are phylogenetically more like felines in mating, child rearing, scent marking, and defecating habits, as well as DNA similarities, are more like felines.
If you tried to breed a hyena and a wolf, assuming they don’t fight; a hyena has 40 chromosomes and a canine has 78, the most likely scenario entails the sperm not being recognized by the proteins on the egg, if it does take and the zygote starts developing, it will probably self terminate because it might lack very significant DNA coding strands to produce the necessary proteins to actually make an organism. On the extremely off chance the fetus grows to term and is born, and is able to survive, it still won’t be able to make gametes to reproduce. Those organs, even if they mature will not be able to produce any ova or sperm. This means no viable offspring could be produced by the union of wolf and hyena which separates them as species.
Yes, I am a biology nut, and have OCD. People who botch up biology get science spewed at them.
I like your attitude for the protection of species though. If only every one could care.
“more like felines” x2
Thank you Redunant Captain of Redundecy!
THIS is why I hate technology! -Point out the irony in that statement and I might break your arm >.< — Isnt it bad enough people struggle to stop REAL dog fights without someone making it into a virtual game…?! Cell phones and the internet influnece kids and teenagers most and things like that just arent right… When I was younger I did play Pokemon, but as a kid I NEVER related a Eve to a fox, or a ponyta to a horse. Though I dont think violent games make people violent, I think certain age groups shouldnt be exposed to certain stuff though.. And certainly not something thats suppose to be against the law.
My finishing rant, screw freedom of speech, the word freedom has had a new meaning for a VERY long time.
I guess it’s well enough if people can live out and/or work our their weird fantasies in virtual world than in the real one. I mean, sure we all like going into GTA SanAn and shoot up the place, but I doubt too many of us would. and who knows, maybe some of the people that would, wont cause they got it out of their systems? hmm… or used it as training then do it with more skill… hmmm……..
freedom is a strange word… and you’re right though. I was kind of taken aside when the newsy people use the word freedom 20 times in one sentence, and how we should protect it… while saying how video games are bad and we should all get probed by airport security every 5 minutes in the sentence after. but whatever, that’s another debate for another day.
concerning technology, i miss videotapes and cassettes.
technology is going too fast for me and im 18 years old! &%·&& consumism.
and freedom is a lie. even if you lived in the wild you still would be bound by the laws of phisycs and your bodily needs. true freedom is the lacks of limits, even intelectual and mental ones.
lol! well, in my day you had to swap out floppy disks cause the computers had no hard drive! up hill both ways! in the snow! but yeah, I get what you mean. even all the download stuff now… I miss going into blockbuster or bestbuy and actually holding a cd or tape box and looking it over. I fear one day they’ll just do away with the whole thing and you’ll have to Netflix or iTunes all of your movies/shows/music and no physical version would exist. >\
also… absolute freedom is like utopia, an unattainable perfect ideal. sure, you could have it if you were the only person alive, but because we are a communal species, we have to think about the rights of others too. we can get close though, and one of those things we can all share is the right to free speech… though I think if you really picked it apart, there are a few things in there too that can go beyond just “bad taste” and into the “infringing upon the rights of others”. so yeah, that’ll be one of those battles that won’t be won in any of our lifetimes…
i believe both games are stupid, but i suppose pokemon might make kids think that this is clearly not real, as opposed to dog fighting, which is a clear reference to well, dog fighting in real life.
very true sir/madam. I remember growing up with the pokemans and never thinking twice about it. basically, when you get down to the nuts and bolts of the game, the creatures are just stat vessels you level up and pit against other stat vessels. they could have been anything really… a soda can or mythological creature, but the transformation of animals into cutesy cartoonish figures does help obscure how we feel about them. I mean, if they remade pokemon with their real life counter parts, I don’t think the game would have the same innocent feel… and would probably be insta-banned in most countries.
we really should associate fictional characters a litle bit more with real people, cuz if a child that blows up the head of a woman in, say, fallout 3, will that child know the difference between the game characters and a real life woman that always bothers it?
it depends… see, they’ve done a lot of studies, (and sure, they need probably another good 50yrs to get more data) and so far, the results are this:
- if kids are very young, like, below the ESRB, then they are more likely to develop a kind of tolerance or desensitization to violence.
- however, if kids play the appropriate games for their ages, the violent games will (statistically speaking) NOT cause the same effects.
so yes, if you have a 2 yr old blowing up people in fallout, then they’re going to be at high risk for that type of violent and/or apathetic behavior. is it the game’s fault? NO!!! the game is made for the appropriate age, where the person has already had a chance to learn and develop a sense of right and wrong. but who’s fault is it then? I’ll give you 1 guess… it starts with a “P” and ends with “arents”.
so yeah, you’re right. if you give violent or immoral games to kids too young, it’ll increase the risk of bad behavior later on. I think the fact they’re cutesy “animals” makes it easier to separate for kids… but if they replaced the pokemans with pokepeoples, I doubt they’d have the same effect.
but I guess what we need is more testing! who’d like to volunteer up some kids to see if pokepeoples makes serial killers? sigh… and that’s why there’s little research on the subject. >\
Seriously, this is something I thought about back when I was playing the various games like pokemon. I’m against pitting animal against animal or any form of animal exploitation and/or cruelty on general principal and yet we have games on our various systems, on various “pet” sites and what not that make it “okay” to do something that most any animal lover would be mortified doing in real life.
Yes, they Are pixels but the fact remains that there’s still this uneasy feeling hiding behind the rationale that if you’re okay with it in a “game” what does that say about you when it’s not?
[mild dark chuckle] But then I’m one of those people that if I’m watching a movie and every last person is wiped out, I’m okay with it but you damned well better have every animal out of harm’s way.
Oddly I am pro hunting though… I would go into a full explanation of the whys and the how-comes but I won’t bore you with it other than to say that if the hunting is done Responsibly and with Respect to the animals and environment, it can actually help make the ecosystem Stronger and more in Balance.
And before you ask, no we do not get a group rate… But only because Me, Myself and I have a hard time agreeing on where to go in the first place. ;}
heh, it is odd how we’re ok with mass destruction of humans, but animals it gets us outraged.
and true, even though their pixels… just imagine if the show ReBoot was right! the pixels are alive!! XD
hmm, it’s not strange at all. granted, I wouldn’t want to be the one doing the hunting, it’s kind of a necessity in some places (like in FL, gotta control populations of the gators so they don’t overpopulate and deplete all the foods… basically… it’s a balance thing)