What’s up with all that violence?

I don’t want to kill digital people all the time

Let’s be honest, there’s way too much violence in media products these days. I’m definitely not one to blame movies, video games or music for people turning into psychos, but the amount of violence that dominates the different media is just outrageous. Somewhere along the line we lost the balance.

In my line of work I am constantly confronted with video games and I’m sad to say that all commercial hits are primarily you killing of some people, aliens or zombies. While I’m not in principle against video games where you have to kill people, aliens or zombies, I am against video games that monetize killing just because it sells. It’s just sad when you pick up a video game and realize that the very core of the game is violence.

I mean, I understand that a war game asks for bullets, corpses and grenades. I understand that a horror game involves shooting at zombies. I even understand that Grand Theft Auto allows you to beat up prostitutes. But do we really want to be forced to torture someone? Do we really want every game to involve shooting other people? Does a game need to have fighting in order to be fun?

Maybe I’m being nostalgic, but these days Nintendo is becoming more attractive and cool for me each day. I love how they always follow their own line and don’t buy into the violence hype. My quiet hope is that they somehow turn the Wii U in a success. Or at least that they forever stay the same. In the unbalanced world of violence, they are one of the last protectors of pure innocent fun.