Friday the 13th: The Game: Gore Virtual

Hi gamers, today is a great day for movie lovers and horror games as it opens a great game played in the mythical horror movie Friday the 13th, the official game based on the popular Jason Voorhees franchise in turn Part of the story written in 1980 by the American screenwriter Victor Miller takes up the old debate about violence in videogames. The controversy opens the way: criminal and demented violence in video games. Is it justified? Is there a moral limit?

The game was a success since before his birth. Not surprisingly, it came from a successful Kickstarter, among the 120 projects with the best results on the platform.

With V of violence

'Friday the 13th' was born under the name 'Slasher Vol. 1: Summer Camp'. That is, it was meant to be a tribute to a particular genre, slasher, and all those tapes that were born in the late 70's and early 80's. But Sean S. Cunningham, as producer of the game, saw its true potential: The virtual mask of Jason Voorhees.

Harry Manfredini himself, author of the soundtrack of the original film, has composed the OST of the video game itself.

The physical copy will be distributed with some notes on the famous Pamela Tapes, while the creature's parents, Tom Savini and Ronnie Hobbs, are really proud of what they have achieved.

In short: behind this project there is enthusiasm, love for the original material and ideas well taken.

For example, the multiplayer will be asymmetrical: in a round, a player embodies the famous assassin and uses his strength and extrasensory abilities to slaughter the rest, and that rest are the poor teenagers trying to escape, changing the battery to the car, Calling the police or crossing the lake.

In addition, there will be a campaign for a player, in which rather than survive we must give free rein to the bloodthirsty

Friend, it's just games.

However, from its first steps, video games have been dragging the controversy as the inseparable tail of a dress.

From the nth Call of Duty to the popular Rockstar Manhunt 2 slasher, which was not even rated in the UK, being censored its commercialization.

Under the old Aeschylus motto 'Violence Usually Breeds Violence', developers before and now have faced censorship governments and special measures, most often applied to the Australian and German markets.

Whenever a controversy about video games and violence appears, it is worth remembering the old gag The violence inherent in the system of 'The Knights of the Square Table' (Monty Python): violence is in the eyes of the beholder.

Should there be any containment plan, a moral limit? Of course there is an ethical code, an international law. In Europe there is the PEGI code, marked in five age ranges, with eight annexes to describe specific content and applied in 26 countries. And this code marks a differential debate.

Assuming responsibilities

It's not a 'tell me what you play and I'll tell you what you can complain about'. Let's take a historical example: in 1993, US Senator Joe Lieberman led a committee of the US Senate, which asked to regulate the video game industry.

A year earlier, Midway had released a game designed by Ed Boon and John Tobias, a quirk that wanted to be their own 'Street Fighter'. It was called 'Mortal Kombat' and proved to be a success.

Do you know why Lieberman made that decision? Because Bill Andresen's youngest son, Sen. Lieberman's former chief of staff, asked his father to buy the game. And he accepted without consulting the content. When the fatality images arrived at the senator, this took immediate action. But let us not forget this: a child, however playful and intellectually prepared it may seem, is still a child.

The ultimate responsibility lies only with the parents or legal guardians. They are the ones who choose to avoid doctrines, legal controls, discovering works as you meet them, or establishing dynamic barriers.

In any case, knowing what a child plays or stops playing does indeed comprise a number of moral responsibilities.

Scientifically amoral

But, returning to the original question, no, videogames do not trigger violence within a natural frame of action.

Without going any further, researcher Christopher J. Ferguson, of the University of Stetson (Florida) published in his' Does media violence predict societal violence? It depends on what you look at when 'a pretty interesting chart.

Taking as a framework of study from 1920 to 2005, he found that, as time goes on, there are more productions with violent crimes, in movies, comics, and video games. Following the same methodology studied the index of adolescent criminology in the USA. And the graph was reversed.

Similarly, nearly a decade ago, after several years of studying behavior and questioning more than 1,200 children in the final years of Primary School, Harvard University researchers Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson turned their research into the book Grand Theft Childhood . In it they determined that violent games do not make people into killers. Not even remotely.

On the contrary, artificial violence is a catalyst and an object to unite tastes, whatever age you have, coinciding with the opinion of editor Matthew S. Eastin in his' Encyclopedia of Media Violence ',' Music provides a place In which adolescents may have a sense of belonging.

It is impossible to determine what is amoral within the framework of video games. A rape yes and no murder? In both cases, it assaults the health and integrity of the other character. The important thing is to determine under what terms, in the framework where it is found: is it simply propaganda, as in the politicized case of 'Hatred' and its alleged linkage with the Polish ultra-right, or does it not send any message within its range of action? We could go even deeper: to what extent can the message of a work, if any, be deformed or disguised?

Hatred begets hatred

The media have done a disservice to the general image of the video game through defamation or convenient yellowing.

In Spain we have a great history, popularized there in 2000 after the multiple homicide carried out by José Rabadán Pardo, when he was still 16 years old. The katana killer changed everything.

The blame was then on a role play, in that particular of the JRPG 'Final Fantasy VIII', although it can be of 'Dead Rising 2', of 'Counter Strike', or undetermined, simply under the wedge of violence , 'Liked violent video games where the player had to shoot others to earn points'. An association that more than inform tends to paranoia and popular psychosis.

A fiction too realistic

'Friday the 13th' was born in a time where video games are much more realistic than when 'Mortal Kombat' or 'Manhunt' were published. And thanks to these graphic standards can evoke a much more intense emotional turmoil. To censure him would be quite capricious, since his censorship would be commercial, not intellectual.

Should we, then, as Hassan-i Sabbah, a mythical leader of the ancient Assassin sect - the one who inspired the 'Assassin's Creed' - say that 'nothing is true, everything is permissible'? These were his last words, prophetic. In art there is no canon, but liberated dreams.

There is no perfect association, since we depend on many environmental factors, how we see ourselves inside the nucleus of the home and within the different social institutions with which we interact. In addition, we would add our biological and genetic inheritance. And yet, we would only have a partial approach: it is impossible to determine the percentage of crime. Much less its influence on the end user / client.

At this point you can barely sketch a conclusion that never fails: if you do not like it, do not buy it.