I doubt anyone expects conservative pundit Glenn Beck to say anything particularly insightful about games, judging by the ignorant comments he’s made about the industry in the past. But listening to him talk about Watch Dogs is kind of funny, since he’s convinced it will teach kids how to hack into his iPad.
To be fair, Watch Dog’s entire shtick romanticises the coolness of hacking. But it definitely doesn’t teach you anything concrete on how to hack, just like a first-person shooter isn’t really capable of teaching you how to shoot a gun in real life. Not that that stops Beck from linking real-world violence to video games at the start of this clip.
The entire thing has a ton of classic “video game scare piece” elements, meaning it ties complicated real-world tragedies/issues to video games because that’s the easy thing to do. There is no mention of how issues of security and privacy are big right now, post-Snowden and NSA leaks — so of course it was a matter of times before games tried to tackle the subject. If anything, games almost feel late to it all!
“What are we thinking? We’re inviting this into our home,” he fearmongers, right before comparing video games to crack cocaine. Sigh!
You can see him talk about Watch Dogs specifically around the 3:58 mark, if you’re short on time.
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