The Wii Not As Innocent As It Seems?
From this week's Escapist, an article that I don't agree with - the Wii's control scheme makes violent games 'more sinister'? The ESRB should take control schemes into account? Violence via Wii-mote is more damaging than violence via PS3 controller?
Replace a gun with a hammer or a sword, and the actions the player must use to control the onscreen action are even more tangibly violent in nature. Suddenly, the Wii's propensity to make players more animated takes on a much more sinister connotation.
I'm a little tired of the 'Oh, but it's OK for stable people to play this way, BUT' argument - frankly, the world is full of crazy people and if we ran around in fear of what ideas some whackjob might get into their head, we'd be in hysterics over lots of stuff indeed. The author is right, and the industry needs to be cognizant of critics (and some criticisms do indeed have value). But there are a number of pundits who could find connections between games and violent real world acts even if we were only playing Tetris and Katamari (the plaintive mooing of cows as I rolled them up really made me want to go slaughter some animals, let me tell you).
I'm sure someone will hop right on doing a study regarding virtual violence of the Wii type, but until then, it seems indictments of Nintendo's plans and labeling the Wii-mote a vehicle for potentially sinister acts is jumping the gun just a wii bit.
via kotaku
