Video Games Don’t Kill People, Guns Do!

Since the tragedy in Connecticut, a lot of people are crying that we should do something, and I think we should do something too.  But since reports have come out that the person responsible for this tragedy enjoyed playing hours of Call of Duty in his basement, they are blaming video game culture for this.  That would be a mistake.  Study after study has shown that society has grown less violent since video games have grown in popularity.

I would point to Japan and South Korea, two countries that play a lot more video games than we do in America.  They also have strict gun laws in both countries, and significantly lower levels of violent crime than America too.

Another reason to not blame video games: The blame video game talk is coming from the NRA, or from its supporters.  Why?  Gun manufacturers, who the NRA represents, blame video games for declining sales of guns.  Just like mp3s are killing record stores, Kindle is killing bookstores, Netflix is killing video stores, free amateur porn is killing the porn industry, apparently video games are killing the gun industry.

The first four kind of make me sad. The last just makes me happy.

This week NRA President Wayne LaPierre gave a speech about their take on the Connecticut shooting.  The most obvious take on the speech is that they blame everybody but guns and gun culture on this tragedy.  They want armed guards at all schools in America, even though there were armed guards at Columbine, and Virginia Tech, and Fort Hood, and yet mass shootings happened there.  Guns in the schools is not the answer.

I will tell you my take on this: The NRA is promoting fear and hatred, as are most pro NRA politicians, and pro gun commentators in the media.  Why? Because fear and hatred leads to more gun sales.

The thing is, I was raised in Arizona, in a pro gun society.  Most gun owners are not fear and hatred types, they enjoy shooting, target practice, and legally approved hunting.  Most are very responsible, keeping guns locked in safes.  Some are not, and they are the problem.  I want to see a license and registration system set up to separate the responsible ones from the non responsible ones.  Many responsible gun owners would appreciate such a system in place, too.  The gun lobby, and its media spokespeople would not, because it would cut into new gun sales.  Fear and hatred increases sales, that is why they promote it.

Video games have reduced the interest in shooting, and target practice and hunting as recreational activities.  The people still interested already have the guns they need.  Hence the real reason the gun lobbyists hate video games.

An Introduction to Guild Wars 2



What’s an MMO?


What’s an RPG?



Creating a Character







The First Mission





Cool Stuff to Do





More Information



Book Review: “Ready Player One”

ready player1So far I have only done one book review on this blog.  I read more than that of course, I just stick to talking about books that echo the themes of this blog.  The novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline does just that.

Ready Player One is one of the latest young adult dystopian books, though not as sick and twisted as the highly overrated Hunger Games.  It is set in the 2040’s when gas is so scarce that everyone abandons the suburbs for the big cities, but the cities don’t have room.  Oklahoma City comes up with the idea to build high rise trailer parks.  The books protagonist 17 year old Wade lives in the laundry room of a double wide, occupied by his aunt, her latest boyfriend, and two other families.

But Wade spends most of his time hiding in an abandoned van in a junk yard which he powers with a bicycle powered generator.  He jacks into a 3D Virtual World called OASIS, which thanks to technology allowing thousands of players to play in an area lag free, OASIS has become the 3D internet.  Wade attends a virtual high school, getting a better education than he would in an overcrowded school he lives in.

You can probably understand why I like this book so much.  The world is very similar to Snow Crash in that there are two worlds, a dystopian stink hole called the real world, and a utopian paradise everyone prefers to live in.  Ready Player One has a distinct advantage over Snow Crash, however, 20 years of hindsight.  Many of the conceptual ideas of the “Metaverse” in Snow Crash seem rather dumb with today’s technology.  OASIS, on the other hand, seems plausible if you take today’s technology and project it forward three decades.

A major theme of the book is the difference between the online world and the real world.  Our avatar personification vs. who we really are; Living in a fantasy world vs. dealing with the real world.  I have delved deeper than the novel has on these topics, but the novel does a good job dealing with them.

The central plot involves the creator of OASIS, a game designer turned multibillionaire  who upon his death wills nearly the entirety of his estate, including control of OASIS to whoever can solve the hidden puzzle he left behind hidden somewhere in the OASIS world.

With such a huge prize everyone goes out looking for it, but the puzzle is so well hidden, that 5 years go by before anyone manages to discover the beginning of the puzzle (which has 6 parts, 3 keys and 3 gates).  The person who discovers it is Wade.

I have mentioned a couple of times how different the world will get once energy starts to get scarce, and how gaming will become a welcome escape from that reality.  Here is a book that echoes that theme in a very entertaining way.

There is another interesting part I have yet to mention.  It seems that the mad gaming designer grew up during the 1980’s, and is obsessed with the books, games, comics, music and movies of that decade.  Solving the central puzzle requires expert knowledge of this material, and the players dedicated to solving the puzzle have to become experts on the 1980’s pop culture.  Lots of this novel is filled with references to  the ’80s.  Being someone who grew up in the 80’s as well, I got all the references and knew all the songs referenced in the novel.

This unfortunately may be the biggest negative of the book, there is too much 80’s references which are likely to get lost on kids who grew up in later decades.  Since this is a “young adult” novel aimed at teen audiences, I’m not sure how well it will go over with the target audience.  But it did go over well with me.  Ernest Cline created an “official soundtrack” here if you want to hear many of the songs referenced in the novel.  You might also want to familiarize yourself with the movies WarGames, Ladyhawke, Blade Runner, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail if you don’t already know them (If you don’t then shame on you, they are classics).  There are major references to the games Pac Man, Tempest, Joust, Adventure, Black Tiger, Dungeons of Daggorath and Zork, too.

Since this book seems like it was written specifically for me, I ran through it in a few days time.  General audiences may not be as well versed in these subjects as I am, though the author does spend a lot of time explaining things for the general reader’s benefit (mostly unnecessary in my case).

The book is currently available hard copy and e-book via links at the Official Site, paperback and cheaper e-books coming in June.

Reality Is Broken: A Book Review








I know what some of you are thinking.  Is the happiness you get playing in virtual worlds just virtual happiness? frivolous, fleeting and temporary?  No, not according positive psychologists.  Dan Gilbert himself (see Happiness 101) says there is no discernible difference between synthesized happiness and real happiness.








Is it true?









