Attorney General Michael Atkinson on Video Games

This article was posted recently on Game Poltics' website. If you don't know already, Michael Atkinson is the South Australian Attorney General.

This article caught my attention since I'm interested in how Australia is doing with it's video game rating laws. It's been a pretty hot debate in recent months. Atkinson's quote from the article:

I accept that 98%, 99% of gamers will tell the difference between fantasy and reality, but the 1% to 2% could go on to be motivated by these games to commit horrible acts of violence.

You don’t need to be playing a game in which you impale, decapitate and dismember people.

That last sentence really irks me. The same thing can be applied to movies. The folks over at Treat Us Like Adults make a good point on this subject. Just thought I'd mention it too.



- Leslie

Washington is in our near future.

Not Washington D.C., Washington state! We have contacted Valve and have a trip planned to their Headquarters in the works for summer 2010. This trip will be the basis for our senior project: a case study of Valve as a corporation. Can't wait to get started.


- Leslie

An Introduction

This will hopefully be the first post of many. It is August 16th, 2009 and school for us is starting in a little over a week. Soon we will be re-immersed into the world of textbooks, projects and lectures.

As Sociology students, we are required to fulfill a capstone requirement in order to graduate. This requirement takes the form of a Senior Project. Usually these projects are more traditional. Research studies on human behavior, political climates, inequality etc. They could also be unconventional, such as making a short film.

We chose to create this blog.

As gamers, we felt that school was slowly eating away at more and more of our free time. Because of this, it became much more difficult to enjoy one of our favorite hobbies: Video Games.

As a compromise, we are hoping that by combining Sociological theory and gaming culture, we can finally merge our two passions together.

By applying traditional sociological theory to economic, social, political and business aspects of gaming, we hope we can provide a fresh perspective of one of the world's most popular hobbies.


- Leslie