Squid of Man

Any of you watch the Today Show? No? Didn't think so.

So you probably missed this cracker of a story this morning. With the release of Bully drawing a little nearer, it looks like it's been unable to escape the same kind of controversy the game has faced overseas.

On this morning's show, an illustrious panel including a wealthy private school boy (ie toffee-sucking cunt) and a blathering old school counsellor waxed on about how the game should be banned.

It's not their opinions that are the point here. They're welcome to them: I admit, while the game does not focus on bullying, there is violence in the game, and you do whack the shit out of schoolkids.

What's worrying is that Channel 9 saw the need to run a poll asking, "should violent video games be banned". Not, "should THIS game be banned", but all violent games. And the results were...well, predictable.

But that was not the end of their idiocy. No, they then almost straight away cut to a story about a video game being released by the Navy as part of a recruitment drive! And they loved it! Because it was by the Navy! It's not cool to depict schoolyard violence, but it's OK to sign people up to cruise around blasting Indonesian fishermen! They're only Asians, after all!

I'm not going to go into some tirade about the maturity of the medium, the vilification of gaming or even the knee-jerk conservatism of Channel 9 producers and its sizeable audience. There are plenty of other people who have already written about those topics to death, and they do a much better job of it than I can.

I just think that it's reflection on the awareness and ignorance of the Australian public is really, really sad.