Saturday, March 20, 2010

Atkinsons in the 80's

While gamers here in Australia have issues with politicians using violent videogames as a scapegoat for societies ills (that's right boat people - you've got the night off!) and while anyone with a passing interest in the whole 'R18+ rating for games' affair will have more than a passing interest in tonight's SA election, it's interesting to look at how they dealt with it (some 16 years ago) in America when video games like Mortal Kombat and Night Trap went from the gaming press to the tabloid headlines with their salacious and graphic violence.

1UP's Ray Barnholt went and reviewed C-SPAN (think A-PAC) footage of the US Senate hearings on Video Game violence.

Check it out - Things I Learned From the 1993 Game Violence Senate Hearing - it's an interesting read - particularly for the way that Nintendo aggressively clung to the notion that video games were only for kids, a philosophy that almost brought them undone for the two succeeding generations.

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