Video Games Are Like Rock Music And… Dungeons And Dragons?

4 responses to “Video Games Are Like Rock Music And… Dungeons And Dragons?”

1. 

   Andy

   February 4, 2011 at 8:33 am

   I guess he’s referring to the fact that, in the past, it was D&D that was the scapegoat for violent children.
   20 seconds of this video sums it up:
   

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   1. 

      thistler

      February 4, 2011 at 9:39 am

      I remember when D&D was blamed for youth suicides, players getting all upset when their character died. My parents promptly did a bit of book-burning in the back yard and my brother watched as all his books and die got burned. And THEN he went off the rails because he had no outlet. Parents can be dicks sometimes.

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2. 

   Adam Ruch

   February 4, 2011 at 9:26 am

   I don’t understand the skepticism in this article. Is Brian trying to say that videogames are more like Elvis than D&D? Cause they’re not… In fact, many -many- videogames are just D&D on a computer (even the ones not called D&D). Are we to distance ourselves from D&D because its ‘geeky’ and videogames aren’t? What? I don’t get it.

   If Blezinski is saying that D&D are a marginalised past-time which is looked down upon by the mainstream and elites of society, then he’s dead on. Videogames are that way too for the most part. Especially his. What I’m a little confused about for him is … does he think that’s a bad thing? He’s quoted elsewhere as saying he feels his job in life is to make games and game design ‘cool’ which is why he gets around in Italian sports cars and behaves a bit like a movie star. Thing is, the more ‘cool’ games become, and the more mainstream, the less interested people like me will be in them. I’ll look down on (and already do at times) really mainstream games like CoD and Gears the same way I do to American football or UFC type sports.

   By the way the link to the original source returns 404.

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   1. 

      Bort

      February 4, 2011 at 1:03 pm

      No, he’s saying that in the same way Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll were hailed as products of the devil, the fact that there still exists a minor moral panic around video games and violence is a sign of flattery to him. It’s a cheap sentiment but he’s kind of right.

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