Response to The Video Game Lightning Rod Study

To begin, I did not really care for the premise of this study. I found the hypotheses to be missing the proper goal. What should have been the overall question was how the media tends to portray new cultural items as negative. This is a major and consistent problem for popular journalism in general. “If it bleeds, it leads,” has been the hallmark of major media from the beginning. Papers need to sell, and good news doesn’t. It would be virtually impossible for any new cultural development to get a fair shake.

I think a more productive study would be the divide between the wealthy and the less so. This is usually what dictates public perception. Being that major corporations own most media outlets, it seems that it would prove in the corporations best interest to undermine any new development in popular culture until they can find a way to monetize it. Now that those corporations have appropriated the gaming industry, the ball gets passed to politicians who have not yet been able to appropriate video games to their benefit.

I did appreciate the research done on the gender dynamics of video games. This is a very important topic in the gaming community. As I discussed in my prior article, I find the gender division and hostilities towards women in the gaming community to be a reflection of society in general. It seems rather obvious that this kind of conflict would rear its head once you see the research this study provides. The patriarchy of society is slowly being dismantled and the culture of video games is just one of many aspects of our culture that will suffer its ramifications.

In the end, I feel this study was a bit off the mark. From the jump I think any study attempted concerning popular culture and technology should always follow the money. If those in control can not find a way to appropriate an aspect of popular culture then they will first try to dismantle it through the media, secondly they will try to appropriate financially, and when these two aspects fail, they will try to dismantle it politically or legally. All of these these will always be fought first in the media and if that is not a consideration when conducting a study of this nature, then your initial premise is flawed.