It’s not always easy to predict which video games are going to upset people. 

One of the games that debuted at last week’s E3 was Sony and Titan Studios’ upcoming PSN title Fat Princess, a cartoony, capture-the-flag game in which the object is to rescue your princess from the enemy’s dungeon.  The hook is that the enemy is plumping up your princess with cake, making her more and more difficult to haul back.

It’s cute.  It’s colorful.  It’s surprisingly bloody. And, from many reports, it’s a lot of fun. But, according to Joystiq, at least two feminist bloggers have taken issue with the fat part of Fat Princess.

Shakesville’s Melissa McEwan says in an open letter to Sony:

[Fat Princess]  looks and sounds just adorable—but the only thing I can't figure out is why anyone would want to rescue a fat princess in the first place, since everyone knows that fat girls are unlovable human garbage at whom any sensible bloke would sooner hurl invective than cast a longing glance... I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes.

Meanwhile, Feminist Gamers’ Mighty Ponygirl offers her take:

Honestly, the “core game mechanics” are brilliant, and if I didn’t care one whit about the objectification of women or fat-bashing, I would think this was the best thing since… well, Team Fortress 2…

 

Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry.

 

Oh, but that’s not as “cute” as cake and fat chicks. Right.

For his part, Titan Studios' art director, James Green, said in an email to Joystiq:

Does it make it better or worse that the concept artist (who designed the look, characters, everything) is a girl?

-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen prefers ice cream...
 

Is New York's video game law necessary?

Is it constitutional?

Dr. Michael Rich, Director of the Center for Media and Child Health at Harvard Medical School, and Adam Thierer, Senior Fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation in Washington, D.C., squared off on the Bloomberg network to debate the merits of the New York law signed last night by Gov. David Paterson.

Thierer believes the law is unnecessary and will be struck down as unconstitutional. Dr. Rich worries about the training abilities of games in relation to violence and wants social science injected into the game rating process.

GP: We agree that the New York law is unnecessary. However, if the video game industry doesn't challenge it - and it's not at all clear that they will - then there will be no finding that it is unconstitutional.

So, why wouldn't the game biz challenge the law?

Because it has no effect on their bottom line. The content ratings and parental controls mandated by the law are already in place. While the industry might argue that the state is compelling this sort of speech, it's an argument that exists in a somewhat theoretical realm. In practice, the industry is already meeting the requirements. Game publishers and retailers would rather do business than argue the finer points of constitutional law. Moreover, for the game biz there's a political downside to fighting this part of the law. Doing so would be tantamount to saying, "Yes, we have ratings and parental controls, but we might want to take them away someday." Such a position would not be comforting to parents and would provide ammunition to critics. 

The law's mandated advisory council on video game violence enjoys First Amendment rights of its own. People, government bureaucrats included, are free to study and discuss whatever they like. Besides, the video game publishers and retailers will occupy two of the 16 seats on the advisory council.

As to Dr. Rich, while he may have desire to include social science in game ratings, that is not part of the New York law. The statute gives New York no power whatsoever over the ESRB rating process.

And, we note, the announcer gets it completely wrong in his opening when he says that the law includes "tough fines for retailers who sell adult games to kids." There's nothing like that in the legislation.

Adam Thierer lays out his position in detail at the Technology Liberation Front.

The "medicinal" use of video games is growing, according to the Associated Press.

The AP details research done by Carmen Russoniello of East Carolina University, who is attempting to measure whether sickle cell anemia patients can manage pain and stress by playing video games. Russoniello tod the AP:

Ten years ago, they would have laughed me out of that place. But there's an acceptance of things. (Video games) aren't panaceas but they have their place and we need to find where that place is.... The kicker was the EEG; we found brain waves that were consistent with improved mood. That gets people's attention. They can't say anymore, 'That's nice, but how do you know?

Gail Nichols, 48, who suffers from severe depression, said she has been self-medicating with video games for years:

If I get stressed out, my service dog is there with me. I'll pull (the game) out of her pack and between her being there with me and sitting there playing the game I won't be so nervous about people around me. I would hope the medical community will add this to their bag of tricks.

GP: Children's hospitals have long recognized the value of video games in making their young patients more comfortable. Penny Arcade's Child's Play Charity and the Get Well Gamers Foundation have supported such efforts for years.

The House of Commons yesterday debated the merits of requiring game developers to ensure that their software won't cause players to experience epileptic seizures, reports Spong.

The issue was raised by Conservative John Penrose after a constituent's son experienced what is known as photosensitive epilepsy (PSE) while playing Ubisoft's Rayman Raving Rabbids. Penrose argued:

A couple of games-makers, notably Ubisoft, with which I have been in contact, have decided voluntarily and admirably to apply the sort of screening that I am suggesting to their games... and I hope that many other games manufacturers will follow their example. 

The point is that some games manufacturers may decide to do that, but there is a huge number of games-makers and manufacturers throughout the world. Some are large and responsible, such as Ubisoft, but as in any industry, there is a large number of manufacturers who are relatively tiny, and although some may be responsible, we cannot be sure.

Minister for Culture, Media and Sport Margaret Hodge, however, seemed to favor pursuing a voluntary compliance approach rather than a statutory one:

If I am unsuccessful in extending voluntary agreement for a voluntary code of conduct or if we find that it is insufficient, we can always return to the matter at a later stage.

I would like to take the issue away from today's debate and meet with ELSPA ... to see what progress can be made on a voluntary code of conduct.

Did you catch Tobacco Free Florida's terrific Halo-like video? GamePolitics covered it earlier this week.

Now, GameCouch has the 411 on how it all came together in an interview with adman Jason Piroth, who wrote the script:

It started with a discussion of what’s relevant to the 11-17 demographic today... Given the explosion in the gaming market that has accompanied the recent release of games like Halo III, Bioshock, etc...  using a format similar... seemed appropriate...

 

Making the “game” a familiar form of first-person shooter was absolutely intentional, but we were careful from the outset not to make it look too much like any one game in particular...

 

We’ve had inquiries as to where people can buy the game... and ample evidence of people truly embracing the spot’s message and declaring that they will think twice about smoking as a result...

 

This video is a product of Tobacco Free Florida...

Via: GamerTag Radio

Sunday's Boston Globe offers a fascinating interview with Oregon psychiatrist - and GamePolitics reader - Dr. Jerald Block, who specializes in treating online game addiction.

Block believes that "Internet Addiction" should be recognized as an official diagnosis.

From the story:

[Block] believes that psychiatry needs to do a lot of catching up in order to understand why people get stuck in games like Warcraft. One problem: Most therapists have no idea what a "guild" is or what it means to hit Level 60. Because of this language barrier, many gamers wind up begging for help in online support groups rather than seeking out mental health professionals.

Interestingly, Block said that addicted gamers feel worse about their habit than those addicted to pornography:

BLOCK: ...the computer gamers tend to be harder to treat. People feel a lot of shame around computer games. Whereas, it's socially acceptable to have a porn problem.

IDEAS: You can't be serious. You mean your clients are more ashamed of ...

BLOCK: ...playing World of Warcraft than looking at porn. Yes.

IDEAS: Why?

BLOCK: As a society we understand that porn is something people do, and you can see a psychiatrist and get treated for it. But gaming is hard to describe to anyone else. So these people can't explain their situation to friends. In fact, it's hard to give you an example of what my clients talk about, because gaming is enormously complicated.

Block has also studied the relationship between violent games and school shootings, but believes the issue is complex and enmeshed in the shooters' "relationship" with their PCs:

With these shooters, their last act was to turn against their own computers. As a psychiatrist, I think that's relevant.

 

Recently, GamePolitics reported that Ubisoft would be releasing a smoking cessation game for its handheld DS system.

That news did not escape the notice of the Penny Arcade crew. Hit the link for the full comic.

GP: Thanks to GP correspondent Colin "Jabrwock" McInnes for the heads-up.

Gamers should give their eyes a break, according to the Minnesota Optometric Association.

The group, representing 500 eye docs from the Gopher State has issued a press release suggesting that gamers, whether using consoles, handhelds, or PCs, take frequent breaks from the onscreen action.

MOA head Dr. G. John Lach commented:

Be sure there isn't glare on the screen. Gamers need to sit directly in front of the screen instead of at an angle. The screen should be below eye level, not above it, yet most people have their screens at the wrong level. Taking a frequent break is really important. The best thing to do is get up, and focus on as far-away object as possible. Try to follow the ten-ten rule: for every ten minutes of gaming, take a break of ten seconds.
 

The advice is intended to help gamers avoid Computer Vision Syndrome. Symptoms of CVS include eye irritation, dry eyes, headaches, pain in the eyes or surrounding facial muscles, squinting, excessive blinking, increased sensitivity to light and difficulty focusing.

 

ParticipACTION is a Canadian nonprofit which encourages exercise and receives government support.

The organization has released a video suggesting that too much video game play and not enough exercise may lead to adverse health consequences.

Via: gax online

Ubisoft has announced that it will release a handheld video game designed to help users kick the cigarette habit.

Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking is scheduled for November release on the Nintendo DS. The game  is based on the smoking cessation program of the same name, which currently features books, DVDs and clinics. According to an Ubisoft press release, over 10 million people have already availed themselves of the Carr method. Ubisoft exec Christian Salomon commented:

Ubisoft’s creative team has worked hard to deliver a game that successfully communicates Allen Carr’s Easyway method via play. The player experiences a truly interactive engagement with the game through which he or she learns that it can actually be enjoyable to quit smoking.

Robin Hayley, managing director of Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking, added:

There was an amazing synergy between Allen Carr’s Easyway team and Ubisoft as we worked on this project. Our experts worked hand in hand with the Ubisoft team to create an entertaining and illuminating game that delivers Allen Carr’s Easyway method in a new, dynamic and highly effective way.

 

A researcher at England's University of Essex says that there is little evidence to suggest that video games are harmful. Patrick Kierkegaard, writing in the current International Journal of Liability and Scientific Enquiry, adds that, in his view, games do not lead to aggression.

He also suggests that previous studies linking games and aggression are biased.

As reported by Science Daily:

Kierkegaard explains... there is no obvious link between real-world violence statistics and the advent of video games. If anything, the effect seems to be the exact opposite and one might argue that video game usage has reduced real violence.

As others have done, Kierkegaard cites declines in US juvenile crime at the same time that video game sales are increasing:

Violent crime, particularly among the young, has decreased dramatically since the early 1990s. With millions of sales of violent games, the world should be seeing an epidemic of violence. Instead, violence has declined.

 

Kierkegaard said that the inherent bias found in many studies indicates a need for more details research on video games and their effects on youthful players.

The New Yorker serves up a video which details how THQ's hit strategy game Full Spectrum Warrior was modified to help Iraq War veterans deal with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD).

The video accompanies an six-page article by Sue Halpern in the May 19th issue. Halpern also narrates the video. From the article:

Most P.T.S.D. therapies that we’ve seen don’t seem to be working, so what’s the harm in dedicating some money to R. & D. that might prove valuable?” Paul Rieckhoff, the executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said last November.

In January, his group issued a lengthy report called “Mental Health Injuries: The Invisible Wounds of War,” which cited research suggesting that “multiple tours and inadequate time at home between deployments increase rates of combat stress by 50%.”

Rieckhoff went on, “I’m not someone who responds to sitting with some guy, talking about my whole life. I’m going to go in and talk to some dude who doesn’t understand my shit and talk about my mom? I’m the worst of that kind of guy. So V.R. therapy, maybe it will work. We’re a video-game generation. It’s what we grew up on. So maybe we’ll respond to it.”

More than 300 people will attend the Games For Health Conference. The event opens tomorrow in Baltimore.

From the GFH press release:

The conference will explore the intersection of next-generation game technologies and health issues... attendees will participate in over 60 sessions provided by an international array of 75 speakers, cutting across a wide range of activities in health and health care.

Topics include exergaming, physical therapy, disease management, health behavior change, biofeedback, epidemiology, training, cognitive exercise, nutrition and health education.

Presenters include Dr. Richard Satava; Starlight Foundation; HopeLab; Realtime Associates; Virtual Heroes; XRtainment Zone; Archimage; Dr. Mark Baldwin of MindHabits; Electric Owl Studios; Noah Falstein of The Inspiracy; and Games for Health
co-founder Ben Sawyer.

The Games for Health Project was founded in 2004 and supports community, knowledge and business development efforts to employ game tech in order to improve health and health care. The conference press release describes the Games for Health Project as:

...produced by the Serious Games Initiative, a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars effort that applies cutting-edge games and game technologies to a range of public and private policy, leadership and management issues...

As a kickoff to the GFH Conference, a special news briefing for bloggers will be held at 1PM Eastern on Thursday:

Last week we were treated to Jack Thompson's view of Grand Theft Auto IV on the Glenn Beck program.

This evening we'll hear what should be quite a different perspective as Drs. Cheryl Olson and Lawrence Kutner, authors of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games will appear on Beck's show.

(CNN Headline News, 7PM & 9PM).

Kids shouldn't play Grand Theft Auto IV, says Knoxville, TN child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. John Robertson, and almost everyone would agree.

But Robertson can't fathom why adults would want to play the ultra-popular crime adventure, either. In an interview with Knoxville's WVLT-8, Robertson said:

There's a line between we think about something and then we plan to do it and we act upon that. And that line gets more and more blurred, is what's happening.

Yes, [games like GTA IV] are for mature audiences. But why would adults even be playing them? I have no idea. You get rewarded for going to the prostitute. You get more health benefits, and then if you steal her money, beat her up and steal her money, you get more.

Just going to church on Sundays isn't going to necessarily negate hours and hours of raping, pillaging, and murdering. [In playing Superman, Batman, and G.I. Joe] there was morality. There was a sense of justice. There was a sense of right and wrong in that. [GTA IV has] totally flipped that.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has issued a statement critical of the opportunites for virtual drunk driving in GTA IV:

Each year nearly 13,500 people die in drunk driving crashes and another half a million are injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes. This is why MADD is extremely disappointed by the decision of the manufacturers of the game Grand Theft Auto IV to include a game module where players have to drive drunk.

Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 percent preventable. MADD is calling on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to reclassify Grand Theft Auto IV as an Adults Only game, a step up from the current rating of Mature and for the manufacturer to consider a stop in distribution – if not out of responsibility to society then out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.

The Boston Herald looks at Second Skin, a documentary film about gamers who play massively multiplayer online games like Everquest and World of Warcraft:

New York filmmaker Peter Schieffelin Brauer discovered the games also are saturated with love, addiction, deceit and personal redemption...

The poster boy for video-game addiction is Dan, an unemployed lost soul from Philadelphia who admits to playing the equivalent of 170 days of “EverQuest” ...Dan enters a 12-step rehab program based on Alcoholics Anonymous. One step involves the dramatic shattering of game CDs into a fishbowl...

But “Second Skin” is not “Scared Straight” for gamers. Much of the film celebrates virtual romances that survive the transition from 3-D graphics to human flesh. MMORPG couples, the movie asserts, “fall in love from the inside out,” and physical appearances aren’t the predominant reason for attraction.

I'll cop to an innate mistrust of most things corporate, but when a company does something this cool, honor must be paid.

So, my heart is warmed by a Macworld report that Microsoft will distribute hundreds of Xbox 360 game kiosks to US children's hospitals:

The first hospitals to receive the kiosks are Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center of Seattle and the Children’s Hospital of Orange County in California...

The kiosks are set up with a variety of Y-rated TV programs, G-rated movies, and games rated E and E10+ by the ESRB. They come with headsets and Xbox Live Vision Cameras, and have been configured to communicate with other kiosks over a dedicated Xbox Live network designed specifically for this purpose...

Microsoft is partnering on the kiosk program with the Companions in Courage Foundation, a nonprofit that builds interactive playrooms in hospitals.

When we speak of positive uses of game tech, it doesn't get much better than Nothing But Nets, an online game offered by the United Nations in order to highlight the need for mosquito netting in Africa.

After all, World Malaria Day is April 25th.

In Nothing But Nets the player steers a motorcycle and delivers mosquito bed netting to needy villagers. As games go, it's not state of the art, but it does drive home the need to combat mosquito-borne illnesses with proper netting.

There are also opportunities for the player to sign up as a donor or a fundraiser, but these are not required to play.

Via: Kotaku